One of the Great Nuancers

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

I’ve talked about Christian leaders who are great at nuancing. They tend to be subtle, crafty and cunning in their approach to Scripture and how they represent the Bible to their congregations, whether in person or in their books. Because of this, they often tend to downplay things that truly offend God by dressing certain things up as something they are not. I’ve mentioned Pastor J D Greear previously as one such individual who speaks with a nuanced tongue. His “yes” is not necessarily “yes” nor is his “no” necessarily “no.” It’s often qualified. When he said the Bible “whispers” about sexual sin, he was upset that everyone took his words at face value and didn’t come to him for further explanation. Why would anyone need to go to him for further explanation unless he was deliberately intent on attempting to deceive people? Why didn’t he simply stand behind what he stated without having to provide additional “insight” into his intended meaning?

The Scriptures are very clear on this. Jesus pointed out that people need to speak plainly so as not to hide or gloss over truth. God has taken pains to make things clear to us.

Yes, Jesus spoke in parables, but He did so for a specific purpose because He knew the religious leaders of the day were blind to the truth of Scripture. His use of parables did not allow them to see truth because they weren’t interested in seeing truth. Had He spoke plainly to them so that they could have clearly understood, but still continued to reject Him, they would have been even more accountable for their refusal to believe Him.

At the same time, Jesus did not mince words or use subterfuge to say one thing but mean another. He did not use subtlety, craftiness or cunning in His approach to people. He spoke the truth and let His words fall where they might. Many embraced Him because of the fact that He spoke truth because He was and remains Truth.

But there are too many leaders within Christendom who couch their words and teachings in subterfuge, attempting to trick people into embracing things the Scriptures do not teach. Those people have always been with us in the world as far back as the Old Testament. Since the birth of the Church in Acts 2, it has simply gotten worse with many of today’s pulpit keepers crafting their messages so as not to offend anyone and to reap the financial and physical rewards of it. They are often held in high esteem. Their books are best-sellers, and crowds pack into places wherever they speak because they want to hear the next best subtle teaching that will make listeners feel good about themselves.

Satan is probably the most intelligent being God ever created. What Christian would ever knowingly sit at his feet?? Yet, many seem to be doing just that today by heeding the words of those who deceptively parse God’s Word to mean something it doesn’t mean.

The Bible warns that teachers of His Word will have the greater judgment because of the way they guide people (James 3:1-12). It is something that many in today’s pulpits should greatly consider. I believe this also extends to the area of prophetic discourse in Scripture. The Bible takes up roughly 30% of space highlighting and discussing prophecy and the way it is so often cavalierly handled by people who allegorize it instead of receiving it in its most plain and ordinary sense could well make them guilty of changing the meaning of prophetic discourse in His word to suit themselves. We should all be concerned about that in our own study of God’s Word.

But at the risk of offending anyone (whom I may not have offended already), who might think that people like J D Greear or the late Tim Keller are/were bastions of doctrinal perfection (none of us are), the problems related to Keller alone are numerous. Yet, many continue to cling to his teachings as someone whom they believe was able to iterate the actual, though hidden meaning behind the Scriptural truth. Was Keller teaching the truth of Scripture in his books and sermons or was he guilty of nuancing things to death through craftiness and subtlety?

What I have found is that there are many pastors and leaders within mega churches who tend to be very adept in their subtlety and because their ability to nuance areas of Scripture that may sound good to great, people often tend to simply take what they say and go with it. It almost seems as though the ability to nuance is highly sought after by the speaker and those who listen to that speaker. The more nuanced, the more people are willing to embrace what is taught.

But nuancing is one excellent way to hide actual truth, by dressing it up as something it’s not. Off the top of my head, I can think of numerous leaders within Christendom who routinely nuance things. It makes them sound very intellectual and who doesn’t like to listen to an intellectual? Of course, Jesus was the most intelligent and intellectual of all, yet aside from the fact that He often presented truth in parabolic form, He also spoke plainly. I do not consider Jesus to be a nuancer. He was not cunning, crafty or subtle in His approach to people and most certainly not where God’s Word was concerned. He spoke the truth and only the truth. He didn’t soft soap it or cunningly attempt to hide the often brashness of God’s Word. He spoke truth and let the chips fall where they might.

Nuancers take the truth of Scripture and often start asking questions that they themselves will answer. Interestingly enough, Satan did the very same thing with Eve. Just as J D Greear has tried to tell us that God “whispers” about sexual sin, it gives him the opening to downplay sexual immorality, especially in the area of homosexuality/lesbianism. This eases people’s tensions and helps them feel as though they are “okay” the way they are, but they just need to not give into their sexual desires. Of course, living in the USA where homosexual marriage is now perfectly legal makes that very difficult. So what is a homosexual/lesbian to do?

Russell Moore and Tim Keller (and a host of others), in my opinion, use/used the same type of approach. In a book from 2013, editors Iain D. Campbell and William M. Schweitzer deal with Keller’s beliefs in their Engaging with Keller: Thinking Through the Theology of an Influential Evangelical. There are seven sections or chapters to the book and they are:

1. Keller on ‘Rebranding’ the Doctrine of Sin
2. Brimstone-Free Hell’: a new way of saying the same old thing about
   judgment and hell?
3. Losing the Dance: is the ‘divine dance’ a good explanation of the
   Trinity?
4. The Church’s Mission: sent to ‘do justice’ in the world?
5. Timothy Keller’s Hermeneutic: an example for the church to follow?
6. ‘Not Quite’ Theistic Evolution: does Keller bridge the gap between creation
   and evolution?
7. Looking for Communion in All the Wrong Places: Keller and the doctrine of
   the church

I’m still reading the book, so I can follow up with an overview of it later. Suffice it to say that there are areas where Keller goes seriously adrift and the first one that tends to set the others off the path is the “theistic evolution” he essentially embraced. He did not believe that Adam was a man specifically created by God. Adam was the result of theistic evolution. In essence, the late Tim Keller was calling God a liar. How a Christian thinks about the first three chapters of Genesis will cause him/her to likely go astray in other areas if they do not choose to see these chapters as literal.

The way Keller plays fast and loose with the area of sin by rebranding it reminds me of a professor I had in graduate school who stated “sin is brokenness.” The Bible says Kya lawlessness. But using “brokenness” makes people just feel sad. Realizing that God sees sin as “lawlessness” is something else entirely and should engender a bit of healthy fear. So my old professor soft soaped the heinous of sin, while God stated clearly what sin was to Him.

Another area in which Keller fell down, in my opinion, was in the area of social justice. He started hanging around people who were steeped in “liberation theology.”[1] Liberation Theology is something that turns the Scriptures on its head by focusing primarily on the plight of the poor, not the Gospel. It also lays blame for most social ills in society squarely on the shoulders of white people. The most positive thing they might say about a white person when/if referring to them as “racist” is that they aren’t aware of it or cannot help it as one of Keller’s black mentors did with him (according to information in the book).

In essence, proponents of Liberation Theology believe that Christians must work to create a sense of equal justice throughout the world, using the world of economics, politics, and other areas as well. Oh, while proponents would also say it’s about salvation, their actual emphasis is on two things: deleting so-called white privilege, for which they say is the root cause of all injustice, and elevating the poor. This means allowing and even encouraging people to illegally enter a country and providing financial aid for them as one example. DEI must be put in place because apparently, people of color cannot get ahead in society because of all the “white privilege.” I’m always amused at a white leftwing CEO who rails against the injustices that white privilege has allegedly created in society, but that same white leftwing CEO never steps down to allow a person of color to take his/her place. Amazing in its hypocrisy.

Those who embrace Liberation Theology often tend to place social justice on an equal footing with the Gospel or even in first place above the Gospel. Jesus always preached the Gospel, not social justice. All of this what those on the Left are attempting to do throughout society is a major distraction from fulfilling the actual Great Commission of Matthew 28.

Christians should certainly do what they can to help the poor, to reach out to those who are afflicted by helping to meet their needs whenever possible. But the most important thing every Christian must do is to preach the Gospel to the lost because that is what has eternal rewards, whether they are rich or poor. Everyone needs it.

My advice (even though no one asked), is to avoid nuancers at all costs. Ultimately they tend to water down the strength of God’s Word via their crafty nuancing, just as Satan did in the Garden of Eden. This is all built on Cultural Marxism (aka emotional virtue), which has a tendency to tug at people’s heart strings.

God wants His people to take Him and His Word seriously, as He meant it. Those who don’t do so, in my opinion, because they highly value the accolades and embrace of people rather than God.

[1] https://www.gotquestions.org/liberation-theology.html

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

Source: https://studygrowknowblog.com/2025/02/07/one-of-the-great-nuancers/