Voddie Baucham talks LGBT takeover of civil rights, 'manufactured' Christian nationalism
Pastor Voddie T. Baucham recently spoke to The Christian Post about his new book, It's Not Like Being Black: How Sexual Activists Hijacked the Civil Rights Movement, which was published last week and delves into what he described as the attempt by sexual activists to subvert the civil rights movement to promote immorality.
Baucham also warned that many American churches are going to have to "pay a price" for standing up for biblical sexual ethics during a time when the state is increasingly mandating against them.
Runaway train of social justice
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Baucham, whose book traces some of the key ideas and figures responsible for the LGBT movement, told CP that the idea for writing it had been percolating in his mind for more than 15 years. He especially remembers the media campaign that attempted in vain to convince California voters to legalize same-sex marriage by voting against Proposition 8 in 2008.
Though he now serves as dean of the School of Theology at African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia, Baucham is a Los Angeles native who was pastoring a church in Houston, Texas, at the time Proposition 8 was on the state ballot in California.
He recalled seeing a cover story from The Advocate at the time asserting that "Gay Is the New Black," and it used big bold letters to describe the push for gay marriage as "the last great civil rights struggle."
Baucham pushes back against such an assertion in his new book, which he noted was repeatedly rejected by publishers when he first proposed it more than 10 years ago. He notes it is the logical sequel to his bestselling 2021 book Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe.
While Fault Lines largely explored the neo-Marxist roots of the critical social justice movement as it relates to race, Baucham likened the entire movement to "a train with boxcars" that includes many other flashpoint cultural issues.
"The engine may be critical race theory and intersectionality, and the first boxcar that everybody wanted to jump on was that racial justice boxcar," he said. "But right behind it were all these other boxcars: climate justice, border justice, and then LGBTQ, all this other stuff. These boxcars are coming right along with it. So it just made sense to write this book following along after that one."
Remembering how even voters in California rejected same-sex marriage in 2008, Baucham went on to note that the cultural push for sexual immorality escalated exponentially during the Obama administration, culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that claimed a right to same-sex marriage exists in the 14th Amendment.
"After Obergefell, it's like we started going downhill at a rapid pace and picking up steam as things just got further and further out of control, in terms of sexual ethics," he said. "So all of those things really went into writing this book."
Rise of 'sexual minorities'
Baucham explained that the application of the neo-Marxist paradigm to sexuality and gender has led to the emergence of "sexual minorities," the symbol of which he noted can easily be seen in the ubiquitous Progress Pride flag.
The Progress Pride flag features the traditional rainbow design of the pride flag but also includes additional chevrons representing black, Latino and trans-identifying individuals, which Baucham said is a "smoking gun" that indicates the fundamentally political nature of the LGBTQ+ social justice movement.
"This is about that neo-Marxist, oppressor-oppressed paradigm," he said. "This is about the idea that there is no God, there are no absolute moral rights and wrongs. There's just a culture with hegemonic power. And in this culture, that's Christian morality."
"Hence the term 'sexual minorities' is just hitching the wagon to civil rights and critical social justice writ large," he explained.
The ultimate consequence of having "sexual minorities," Baucham warns, is the potential loss of religious freedom in the name of civil rights. He worries that the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns revealed that many churches don't have the backbone to stand up for themselves in the face of government overreach.
"COVID exposed a lot about our understanding of public theology; about our understanding of sphere sovereignty, or lack of understanding of sphere sovereignty," he said. "God gave us the sphere of the family, the sphere of the church, the sphere of the civil government, and COVID basically collapsed those spheres."
"And when COVID came, we saw that, theologically, for most Christians, those are all collapsed under the state," he continued. "And we believe that the state has preeminent unchecked unparalleled authority. And that's frightening. We seem to have lost not only the ability to appeal to Caesar, but we don't even believe that it's appropriate to do so."
Baucham expressed concern that as the government increasingly enforces conformity regarding sexual and gender ideology, many Christians "have shown a real lack of ability to discern sphere sovereignty, and a real lack of courage in terms of exercising and calling for proper sphere sovereignty, [and] I don't think it bodes well for what we're about to face."
'Manufactured crisis' of Christian nationalism
Baucham also touched on Christian nationalism, telling CP that he believes the crisis over the topic is "purely manufactured," evidence for which he says can be found in the fact that nobody can agree on its definition.
"People will ask me, 'What do you think about Christian nationalism, or where do you stand on Christian nationalism?' My first question is always, 'How are you defining the term?' And almost inevitably, I get a response that is unclear."
Noting how "white Christian nationalism" earns what he described as "a triple-word score" on the intersectionality scoring scale, Baucham believes the nebulous nature of the definition is intentional because it allows the label to be used as a "boogeyman."
He also blasted as "absolutely ridiculous" the definition Politico journalist Heidi Przybyla offered in February, when she said during an MSNBC panel that the ideology is marked by believing rights come from God.
"Anybody who passed civics, when faced with that definition, would say, 'Well, yeah, I guess I am a Christian nationalist.'"
Others, by contrast, tend to define it too narrowly, he said. Both schools, he thinks, are distracting from the real issues.
Baucham went on to note the irony that Zambia, where he now lives, is overwhelmingly black and still defines itself as "a Christian nation" under "the supremacy of God Almighty" in the preamble to its constitution.
"Here I am in an almost exclusively black country in sub-Saharan Africa that identifies itself with a preamble to its constitution as a Christian nation," he said, noting that when he brings up such a fact to those objecting to so-called white Christian nationalism, many of them try to "shrug it off" by suggesting that Zambia's case is different.
"I'm not buying it, I'm not falling for it," he said. "It's a distraction."
He added that when he is questioned about his position on Christian nationalism, he parries by replying that he is not "a pagan globalist."
"And if you're not a pagan globalist, then what are you?" he said. "And then they don't have an answer, right? They don't have an answer, which again exposes the fact that, in my opinion, this is manufactured. It's a manufactured crisis."
'Such were some of you'
Key to Baucham's book is a repudiation of the idea that so-called sexual orientation is immutable like race.
In the book's final chapter, titled "Such Were Some of You," Baucham offers examples of Christians who have repented of the LGBT lifestyle, such as Rosaria Butterfield and Christopher Yuan. Baucham notes, however, the unique difficulty of resisting sexual sins that receive special approbation in a culture that has made them an identity.
"Scriptures give us comfort in that regard," Baucham told CP regarding those who have felt compelled to repent of LGBT behavior. "Sanctification is an ongoing process. Romans Chapter 7 is in the Bible for a reason — 'O wretched man that I am!' Being a Christian is not the idea that we come to Christ, we repent of our sin, and then go and struggle no more. That's not Christianity."
Acknowledging that some sins such as drug and alcohol abuse can "get their hooks in deep" and require daily vigilance, Baucham pushed back against the idea that someone who is drawn to homosexuality has no chance of changing.
"What we don't do in the case of those other sins, is we don't say that the difficulty of living the life beyond or after them is evidence that they should just be embraced," he said. "And we make that argument with these sexual sins, because we've bought into the idea of sexual orientation as innate and immutable."
"Deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Me," Baucham continued, referencing the words of Christ in Matthew 16:24. "That's what we're dealing with here."
'We've seen this movie before'
During a recent sermon at Lamar Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, Baucham soberly laid out his belief based on Romans 1 that the pervasive sexual depravity of the prevailing culture is evidence of divine judgment, and that he cannot personally see a way out of its catastrophic consequences.
"We are living in a time, in an era when there are people who are desperately wicked, and in desperate need of repentance and faith, in desperate need of the Gospel. And we're being told that the wickedness is, in fact, the Gospel," Baucham said at the time.
Speaking to CP, Baucham echoed his sermon and said that while he will never lose faith in God's Kingdom, he takes a less optimistic view toward the apparent course of Western culture.
"I always have hope, because I belong to Christ," Baucham told CP. "The Kingdom of God is undefeated. And not only is the Kingdom of God undefeated, it's undefeatable. So, I'm not worried about that."
"However, when I start thinking about our culture, when I start thinking about our society, I'm a lot less hopeful in that regard, because we've seen this movie before," he continued. "We've seen it with all of the great civilizations in world history — how they were born, how they ascended to greatness, and then how they decayed internally, morally, and eventually met their demise."
"And it's terrible to come to the realization that we're on that trajectory. So from that standpoint, it's not very hopeful," he added. "And I believe that the only hope that we have is awakening and revival, some kind of supernatural spiritual intervention. Beyond that, we're toast."
'We're going to pay a price'
Despite the bleakness of the current cultural moment, Baucham told CP he hopes his new book will leave his Christian readers "equipped, encouraged and informed."
"Know what's happening, know how it happened, know where this came from, know the roots of it — don't just know what we're against, but know what we're for," he said, adding that he spends a large part of the book explaining the biblical picture of manhood, womanhood and the proper role of marriage.
Baucham also said that Christians need to be prepared to suffer for taking a stand on such contentious issues.
"We need to be informed about what our adversaries are doing; equipped with biblical truth and encouraged, because we're going to pay a price," he said. "Maybe we're already paying a price. There are people who've lost custody of their children over this, and the worst is yet to come. So we need to be encouraged and we need to be prepared to stand firm."
"We need to be prepared to again deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow Him. We need to be prepared to proclaim the Gospel, because it is our only hope. And it is the only hope of people who have gone so far astray. So I'm hoping that's what people take away from this."
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
