A Rebuttal to Kevin DeYoung's Non-Confrontational Christianity

History has never suffered a shortage of theologians who chose comfort over confrontation, accommodation over courage. In the courts of corrupt kings and the halls of dead and decaying empires, there were always those willing to drape cowardice in the language of wisdom, caution, and nuance.

They counseled silence when the prophets roared, advised passivity when the apostles bled, and urged reasonableness when Christ Himself wielded a whip in the temple. Their reward was security and respectability in the moment, but history remembers them as little more than footnotes in the chronicles of total failure—men who chose the safety of neutrality while evil triumphed.

In the days of the Reformation, when the gospel itself was at stake, there were those who advised Luther to temper his tone, to seek common ground, to avoid unnecessary offense. During the days of American chattel slavery, some preachers found it more prudent to preach about “heavenly things” while ignoring the hellish realities in their own backyard.

In 1930s Germany, there were plenty of pastors who thought it best to remain “above the fray,” to focus on "the big questions" of theology rather than the immediate horrors unfolding around them. They all had their reasons, their justifications, their carefully crafted rationalizations for why "now was not the time" to speak boldly.

But history does not absolve them, and neither will God.

The Gospel Coalition’s Kevin DeYoung would have made a fine court theologian in any number of these failing regimes throughout history. His latest attempt at pastoral guidance, an article published at Clearly Reformed titled Brothers, We Are Not Political Pundits, masquerading as wisdom, is nothing more than a feeble plea for pastors to disengage from the very battles they are called to fight.

In his article, he insists that pastors should not act as "pundits" but rather focus on "the big questions—the questions that the Bible means to address." A reasonable-sounding sentiment, until you realize the fine print—those "big questions" conveniently exclude the pressing moral crises of the day, the ones that demand an actual backbone and standing against them may end up costing you something.

DeYoung asks, "But Kevin, isn’t everything political?" and immediately hedges his answer, retreating into the comfortable ambiguity of "in a sense, yes."

That equivocation is the tell. DeYoung does not want to make a clear distinction between what is and isn’t the pastor’s role because he is more concerned with ensuring that he never offends the sensibilities of polite society.

He assures us that, yes, pastors should address abortion, transgenderism, race, and homosexuality (how generous!), but only in the abstract, as long as it doesn't resemble anything too controversial or timely.

Address the issues? Sure.

Address the people responsible for the issues? Absolutely not!

He warns that the pastor who "comments constantly on the things ‘everyone is talking about’ is almost assuredly not talking about the things the Bible is most interested in talking about." One wonders, then, what exactly the Bible is “interested in” if not calling out injustice, confronting rulers, exposing wolves, and equipping the saints to stand firm for the gospel in a hostile world.

Was Elijah wrong to mock the prophets of Baal because he engaged in "punditry"? Was John the Baptist meddling in things beyond his calling when he rebuked Herod? Should Christ have refrained from calling the Pharisees a brood of vipers to avoid looking like a poor man's version of The Daily Wire?

The sheer spinelessness of this framing is breathtaking.

DeYoung urges pastors not to "dilute their authority" by engaging in cultural commentary, claiming that they are "not equipped to comment on everything." The absurdity of this logic is obvious, the world is burning, and the shepherds of God’s people are being told to keep their hands off the hose.

The calling of the pastor is not to maintain some imaginary reputation of detached scholarliness but to wage ideological war against the very real spiritual forces at work in our culture. But DeYoung, ever the careful hand-wringer, prefers to "slow down, log off, read widely, get lost in some old books, give ourselves to months or years of reflection."

Meanwhile, evil marches on unopposed.