By Davis Carlton
Tim Keller has decided to formally endorse the Great Replacement as a means of bringing about “revival” in American Christianity. Keller is by no means alone. Recently Joel Berry of the Babylon Bee suggested that “mass immigration could save this country” and that we could prevent them from becoming “a permanent underclass voting bloc” by simply “assimilating them.” Apparently this was not intended as satire. Keller argues that Christians must acknowledge and even embrace the demographic shift that can only accurately be described as white genocide in order to grow the American Christian church and stem the tide of secularism. Keller believes that the emerging nonwhite population of America could embrace a version of Christianity that is concerned with advocating for “social justice” as a main priority.
Keller begins his recently published article titled, American Christianity is Due For a Revival by noting the closure of American churches and the conversion of once sacred spaces into places of sin and degeneracy, using as an example the conversion of the 19th century Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion in New York City into a nightclub called The Limelight as an example. Keller mentions the emergence of those who identify as having no religion and asks, “Should we expect to see most church buildings in the country repurposed or torn down? Is it inevitable that we will become an ex-Christian society, or could the Church experience a renewal?”
Keller points out that most secularists are either indifferent to the decline of religiosity in America or actively cheering its demise to which Keller responds that he believes that “both attitudes are mistaken.” Keller then argues that “religion makes contributions to society that cannot be readily supplied by other sources.” Among the contributions made by “religion” is “cultural unity” based upon a set of “shared moral norms.” Keller argues for the benefit of “religion” in the abstract rather than Christianity because it is the true religion. Would Keller argue that America would be better off as an explicitly Christian country? No. Keller recently stated that he would “rather be in a democracy than in a state in which the government is officially Christian.” So Keller would rather live under principled pluralism in which Christians would be given a seat at the table of democracy than in a society that was actually aligned with Christian principles!
Christianity is in decline because pastors like Keller are more convinced of the truth and value of democracy, equality, tolerance, and inclusion than they are convinced of Christianity. Keller has no qualms about foisting these “values” upon society because he is convinced that they are objectively true, while Keller disavows any allegiance to a state that declares and lives by the principle that Jesus is Lord. It’s hard to imagine that Tim Keller doesn’t believe that America would be better if it was to become officially Christian, but he is by no means alone. The popularity of Keller and other celebrity pastors who prefer defeat to victory in the culture war demonstrates why Christianity in America is in decline. If America’s most popular spokesmen prefer democracy to Christianity, then it can be concluded that they don’t actually believe in Christianity.
But doesn’t Tim Keller hope for “revival” of American Christianity, or at least a resurgence of “religion” broadly defined, to counter the rise of secularism? You bet! Keller’s proposal for the revival of Christianity in America is to embrace the demographic replacement of white people and modern social justice in an effort to court 21st century America’s emerging non-white majority. Keller begins by noting, “growth can happen if the Church learns how to speak compellingly to non-Christian people. For a millennium, Western institutions instilled in most citizens Christian beliefs about morality and sex, God and sin, and an afterlife.” Keller continues by noting that this is no longer the case, meaning that “most evangelical churches can reach only the shrinking and aging enclaves of socially conservative people.”
This is the kind of pragmatism that defines the “church growth movement,” and it isn’t something that we would expect to find from a Presbyterian pastor who believes in Reformed theology. The reason that Western institutions nurtured Christian beliefs and moral practices is because Christian evangelists who converted Europe to the Gospel understood that conversion could leave no stone. No institution could exist as being merely neutral in respect to Christ. Consequently, the result of evangelization wasn’t merely the conversion of several individuals to Christianity but the conversion of whole nations, along with their traditions, customs, and institutions to Christianity. This is the very opposite of the approach advocated by modern pastors like Tim Keller. Western institutions are no longer compatible with Christianity due to apostasy, but instead of preaching repentance and insisting that we must return to the Christian morals of our forefathers, Keller actually embraces the morality of the modern apostate West!
Keller writes, “In our church in Manhattan, over the years, we learned to reach young secular progressives by adopting the way St. Paul told the good news to nonbelievers in his own day, as described in I Corinthians 1:22–24. He affirmed their best aspirations and longings, yet challenged the inadequate ways in which they were seeking to realize these hopes, and redirected them toward Jesus Christ.” I honestly wondered if Keller meant to reference 1 Corinthians 9:20-23 (unto the Jews, I became a Jew) because that would be a better fit for the argument that Keller is trying to make.
At this point one might argue that Keller is simply recognizing the direction that the country is headed and trying to do his best to preach the Gospel in the midst of the chaos of multiculturalism. While this might be true of some pastors who are clueless on the question of race, it simply cannot be said of Keller. Imagine a world in which secular white nationalists actually managed to turn the tide and force the white demographic decline to reverse. Would Keller make his peace with this new reality and take the approach of “unto the Nazis, I became a Nazi?” No. Keller affirms the “best aspirations and longings” of secular progressives because he actually fundamentally agrees with them on what a desirable society would look like. Keller has gone on record as saying that the Marxists were essentially right and good in their agenda, but were wrong in that they were materialistic and consequently “thought that defilement came from outside.”1
Keller’s sympathy for Marxism becomes abundantly clear as the article continues. Keller contends that American Christianity will “grow again if it learns how to unite justice and righteousness. I have heard African American pastors use this terminology to describe the historic ministry of the Black Church. By righteousness they meant that the Church has maintained its traditional beliefs in the authority of the Bible, morality, and sexuality. It calls individuals to be born again through faith in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. By justice, they meant that the Church has an activist stance against all forms of oppression.”
The distinction between justice and righteousness is entirely contrived to fit Keller’s anti-Christian Marxist agenda. The words are largely interchangeable and both could be and have been used to translate the Greek word dikaiosynē used for justice or righteousness. When Keller equates “justice” with leftist social justice, he is simply lying and hoping that Christians will start reading his manufactured definition into Biblical instances of the word justice. Keller would have us believe that when we read Amos 5:24 (“let justice roll down like waters,” a favorite of the “Rev.” King and David Platt) that this is in reference to some Marxist approved standard of “justice” that has something to do with fighting undefined “oppression.” The truth is that such a standard of “justice” that is distinct from righteousness has no Biblical support. Oppression is always used in reference to an injustice that is consistent with a violation of traditional morality, not some violation of post-modern standards of “equity” or “inclusion” or whatever other buzzword that Keller wants to use.
Keller tries to appear like a neutral critic of both liberal white mainline churches and “conservative” white evangelical churches. Keller states that the liberal mainline “stresses justice” while unfortunately denying essential Christian doctrines. Keller claims that the “Church at large” needs to combine righteousness with a Marxist conception of “justice,” “the way that the Black Church has” in order to “rebuild both credibility and relevance.” Keller states that a church that would embrace his paradigm “does not fit with the left on abortion and sexual ethics or with the right on race and justice.”
Can a genuine Christian actually believe this? Does Keller actually believe that mainline Protestant churches like the Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church U.S.A., the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or the American Baptist Convention actually understand and promote Biblical justice and oppose legitimate instances of oppression? Most of “the Black Church” has also abandoned any semblance of orthodoxy, and instead functions as an organization for black advocacy. Ironically this is something that Keller insists that white churches need to avoid when he suggests that secularists see the church as “merely another political power broker.”
It has been established beyond the shadow of a doubt that mainline Protestants and the Black Church, Inc. are ardent defenders of abortion on demand and all manner of sexual perversion. Keller suggests that the Left is wrong on these issues, but his framing demonstrates just how completely bankrupt Keller’s sense of morality has become. Keller lists abortion and “sexual ethics” alongside “race and justice” as the errors of the Right. This is particularly jarring when we consider the state of the contemporary Right and the current position of the Overton Window. The established “respectable” Right, which is what Keller is rejecting as wrong, offers only weak, limp-wristed whining about the “woke” agenda. Those considered on the “Far Right” like Ron DeSantis have at best managed to curb certain elements of anti-white critical race theory in Florida public schools, although even this approach can be criticized as unnecessarily colorblind and avoiding the ultimate issue of race, identity, and who actually holds power in the contemporary Western world.
Keller is confident that “the Church in the U.S. can grow again if it embraces the global and multiethnic character of Christianity.” Keller notes that the West is being subjected to mass migration but optimistically asserts that this influx is coming from “more religious parts of the world” and that “Immigrants bring their faith with them.” Again I find this reasoning astonishing coming from someone who is respected for his Christian witness. Even leaving aside any discussion of race, does Keller think the solution to secularism is generic religion? Undoubtedly those who spoiled ancient Israel were very “religious” in their devotion to their pagan gods and idols. Secularism itself has all the earmarks of religion, in that it is a worldview with its own understanding of the function of society and the role of morality. If Keller has made his peace with living in a “religious” society, why can’t he simply just accept secularism? Is the problem the absence of recognizable religious rituals or “worship spaces” (churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, etc.)?
Some might object that I am being unfair to Keller in that Keller stated that his goal is for the church to convert these religious newcomers. This is Keller’s stated goal, but if conversion is Keller’s true aim then why not just evangelize the secular white majority already residing here? Why view the massive influx of non-white immigrants as a possible “solution” to secularism? In strictly religious terms shouldn’t non-Christians settling in a country that has become non-Christian be considered a net neutral?
There is also Keller’s totally unrealistic optimism regarding the potential for the blessing of mass conversion during what is so obviously a divine judgment. Is mass uncontrolled migration of foreigners ever considered a positive development with the prospect of great blessing in the Bible? Consider the following passages and draw your own conclusion (all quotations from the English Standard Version):
“The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.” – Deuteronomy 28:43-44
“For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands. And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost.” – Ezra 9:2
“As soon as the people heard the law, they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent.” – Nehemiah 13:3
“Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace! Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners.” – Lamentations 5:1-2
“As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.” – Daniel 2:43
“They have dealt faithlessly with the LORD; for they have borne alien children…Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not; gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not.” – Hosea 5:7a, 7:8-9
“[A] mixed people (mongrel people, New International Version) shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of Philistia.” – Zechariah 9:6
More verses could also be mentioned, but this clearly establishes a consistent pattern. When Israel was flooded by foreigners that devoured their inheritance and politically dominated them it was always the result of a covenant curse or punishment and never a reward for faithfulness or the opportunity to spread the faith of the God of Israel to the heathen. Instead Israel was promised that they would one day be restored to their own homeland after being taken into captivity during which, “Their prince shall be one of themselves; their ruler shall come out from their midst” (Jeremiah 30:21). I am confident that Tim Keller is aware of all the scripture mentioned above, which naturally raises the question about why he thinks that embracing demographic replacement is a sound strategy for evangelism.
Keller uses pious platitudes about the need for prayer and generous compassion that are all well and good, but his expectations are wildly unrealistic and rooted in how many people merely self-identify as Christians, as opposed to analyzing the fruit of supposed conversions. The sad fact is that there is no reason to believe that we are on the brink of mass conversion to genuine Christianity because we are under divine judgment due to forsaking the God of our fathers. Keller imagines that we can curry favor with the newcomers by tearing down the memorials of our ancestors and erecting monuments in keeping with a more “inclusive” society. This undoubtedly includes standard leftist political goals like “reparations” for slavery and redistribution of wealth in order to correct generations of privilege that whites have enjoyed in their own homelands. After all, these have become mainstream positions on the left, which is the same left that Keller suggested was correct on the subject of race earlier in this very article.
Does Keller really think that we are on the brink of Christian revival in the apostate West, to be brought about by mass conversion of recently arrived immigrants? Or is he just shilling for the Left and attempting to cajole otherwise conservative Christians that accepting mass migration of non-whites and non-Christians is something that they must learn to accept? Simply asserting that we will convert the masses under the auspices of neo-Babelistic multiculturalism is naïve at best, dishonest at worst. As Andrew Isker points out in his response to Joel Berry, “You cannot even assimilate the children under your own roof! How on earth do you plan to ‘assimilate’ tens of millions of people who have illegally entered our country in order to get stolen loot?”
These are questions that Keller won’t touch with a ten foot pole. Keller’s faith has become such a fraud that Tucker Carlson has called him out for his silence on issues that should matter to Christians while always being outspoken to provide moral support for the Left. My suspicion, based upon what I’ve seen from Keller in the past, is that Keller isn’t so much concerned about a revival of Christianity in America as he is about convincing white Christians to accept their demographic replacement as a matter of his distorted “Gospel.” There is every reason to believe that Tim Keller is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and a hireling. Those are fighting words, but it’s undeniable that we have a very real fight on our hands that will be played out in the coming decades. Keller is attempting to placate those who hate Christianity and the civilizations that it has produced, but in the end Keller will discover that he has wound up on the wrong side of history.
1 Relevant section begins at about 16:30