Steer Clear of Culture Wars, Lecrae Warns
While discussing Christians and civic involvement, Lecrae discussed the different approaches of Pharisees, Sadducees, and Zealots in the Bible—and how Jesus “critiques them all.” He also compared “empire logic, which is win at all costs,” to “kingdom logic, which is about faithfulness [and] fruit.”
Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies and to bless those who persecute us, Lecrae noted. “It makes us look crazy as the church when we’re jumping on the bandwagon of a culture war,” he said. “God has not called us to pick a team. He’s called us to be a community within the chaos that points people to a different way.”
Jesus is a culture maker, not a culture warrior, Lecrae added. “The Christian way is not to crush your enemies and to war against them. The Christian way is to invite, to welcome, to say, ‘Hey, we don’t agree, but let me show you a better way.’”
Both sides of the political aisle fall short in different ways, Lecrae said. “You cannot possible believe that your side of the aisle is the side that has the monopoly on what the truth of the Scriptures upholds,” he said. “Christians who engage in culture war run the risk of tarnishing the very truth of Jesus.”
Charlie Kirk became so divisive, Lecrae said, because people couldn’t “distinguish his Christian faith from his social commentary within a culture war.” The lesson for Americans, he added, is that “the left and the right are not where we hang our hat” as Christians. Lecrae urged the church to model unity, and he told Christians to pray, love, and serve.
About Kirk’s killing, Lecrae said, “I sincerely hate, condemn, and despise the fact that somebody would murder another human being for their difference of perspective. I think it’s demonic. It’s satanic. And I grieve for the family of Charlie Kirk. I do. I think it’s heinous.”
Kirk once saying that Lecrae “should never step foot in another church in America does not diminish his humanity,” said the musician, “and it does not invite me to take a side in a culture war. It encourages me to hold on to Jesus more and to say, you know what, even if we disagree, you are made in the image of God.”
If people sit down to have discussions, then we can hear each other’s perspectives, Lecrae said. “But if we’re…at each other’s throat over our differences, the empire’s winning. And Satan would love for the empire to win over [God’s] kingdom.”
