Pastor Lucas Miles of Indiana is challenging churches to avoid wokeness — and exploring the effects of progressivism on religion today.
This includes a pledge that pastors can take to promise to share only scripturally sound messages from the pulpit.
Pastor of Nfluence Church in Granger, Indiana, and the author of "Woke Jesus: The False Messiah Destroying Christianity," Miles said in an interview with Fox News Digital that his goal was "to write — if I can say this humbly — the definitive guide to understanding wokeism and its effects on the church, and what we can do about it."
Miles hosts the "Church and State" streaming video podcast, which won the 2023 Program of the Year award at the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) conference.
On his new book about understanding wokeism, he also said, "There's been a lot of work to expose wokeism in government and schools, but I don't think as many people are aware about how it’s affected the church."
Miles noted that among the "Christian left," there is a current phenomenon of "money going into and influence being applied to our theological training centers in America."
He added, "Our Christian universities are being influenced and pressured to, I think, to deviate from good orthodox Christian teaching and training."
He continued, "The church is a vessel. It is a ‘Noah's Ark,’ if you will, for every generation. We are able to be enclosed inside it, in safety, and protected throughout this life. There might be torrential downpours and there might be wind and waves all around us, but we're kept safe through it all."
The Christian church has to learn how to be that "stabilizing force" in the culture while "navigating all the craziness and the advancements around us," he said.
This doesn’t mean he is against progress, he said.
"I'm not somebody who sees an advancement in technology and goes instantly, ‘Well, that's the devil,’" he noted.
The question, he said, is, "What are the good and bad ways" to use it?
It is important to ask, "How can that go wrong, and how can we use it for good?" he noted.
Miles also said, "I think that [Christians] can be forward-thinking. I would say this: In terms of the goal of Christianity and the goal of progressives, there's some similarity."
Expanding on that thought, he said, "Progressives are progressing for progress’ sake. They are moving ahead no matter the cost."
He added, "But the problem is they don't have a destination in mind."
Miles said it is like "turning on like a fire hose" and "it's just spraying — and wherever it goes, it goes," which can sometimes "deviate" into some "very dangerous things."
He also said, "What we're seeing today with the trans movement is a great example of that."
Miles added, "With Christianity, we are for progress — but we're for progress in a very specific direction. The Bible says that we are to be conformed in the image of Christ."
He continued, "So our whole life in this journey is about progressing toward the destination of Christ himself."
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He also said, "I don't want to fall short; I want to be where he is and I want to become, as Ephesians [5:1] says, an imitator of God. Our goal is to be conformed into God’s image, and that is the progress that we are pushing for."
He said further, "As Christians, it's progress toward a destination. [And] without a destination, you can get lost very quickly."
Recently, Miles started the American Pastor Project. He's asking faith leaders to sign a statement pledging to use their pulpit to avoid wokeism and to preach the one true gospel of Jesus Christ.
The pledge states, among other imperatives, "We recognize God’s created order, in making male and female, determined by divine imprint, genetically encoded at conception and changeless."
It also states, "We affirm Christian marriage, defined by one man and one woman united by God in holy matrimony."
The pledge also signifies, "We believe that our identity in Christ isn’t based on ethnicity, skin color or socio-economic status, but faith in the name of Jesus, and his free gift of righteousness."
Miles said, "We're asking pastors to stand with us in signing this statement, which seems like a no-brainer."
He added, "However, I think there's some people that find it a challenge."
The second part of the statement, he noted, contains a "commitment to not promote or allow various forms of wokeism in your pulpit — whether that be globalism, critical race theory, Marxism, Socialism — all these sorts of things."
He also said, "We want to ask pastors to stand against this, including all the iterations of the LGBT and trans movement."
Noting that "a couple of hundred pastors" have signed the pledge already, Miles said they have sponsors coming on board to support the effort, too, as they develop it.
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The website also offers a locator, "so pastors can put their church on a map" and people seeking scripturally faithful services can find them, Miles said.
"Bring this to your pastor and say, 'Hey, have you heard about this? Would you be willing to sign this?’" he said.
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It's a great "litmus test" to determine ‘am I in a biblically-minded church, or not?" he added.
"It's about biblical priorities," Miles said.
The pledge can be viewed and signed at Americanpastorproject.org.
