Stop me if you’ve heard this before: “If you [conservative Christians] do not surrender your antiquated beliefs [gay marriage violates God’s definition of ‘marriage,’ etc.], you are going to find yourselves on the wrong side of history.”
That statement is one of the left’s most oft utilized shaming tools, one they store inside their dialectical tool belts. It serves to silence opposition by asserting that in the future, history will lump conservatives who refuse to bow before the progressive agenda with the likes of Bull Connor and relegate their memory to the trash heap of human undesirables. It also asserts that there is a right side of history—that history is being propelled forward to a moral end game. Setting aside the fallacy of begging the question that exists within their propositional statement, it’s an assertion that contradicts the worldview of the very people who like to bludgeon conservative Christians with it.
For the left, objective and absolute morality is the purview of intolerant fundamentalists. In other words, your truth is not allowed to interfere with my truth. If that’s allowed, then your truth is privileged and I become a socially discriminated against identity group. For liberals, truth is a function of power. Within the worldview of the left, the concepts of “right” and “wrong” have no meaning; that would require the existence of a transcendent, absolute moral authority. History only recognizes “winners” and “losers.” Will to power, right?
Marx taught this. Saul Alinsky taught this. Pretty much every literature department on every college campus in America teaches this. For a leftist to claim that conservative Christians are going to find themselves on the wrong side of history is nonsensical. For conservative Christians, however, there is most definitely a right side of history and, importantly, a wrong side of history.
God created the world with an end game. An ethical and moral end game, at that. From the very beginning, God intended humans to enter His rest and enjoy and praise Him forever.
Bringing the reader to the end of God’s original creative activity, the author of Genesis relates how “on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done” (Genesis 2:2). By “resting,” the author wasn’t saying that God stopped His activities. We know from Hebrews 1:3 that the second person of the Trinity “upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Throughout the Psalms, and the rest of the Bible, it is revealed that God is at work throughout the universe and within history. Instead, “resting” refers to the fact that everything was at equilibrium; the universe was working the way God made it to work.
Through sin, humans broke God’s world, though. In His kindness, God promised to send a redeemer to crush the head of the serpent and reverse the curse. That redeemer was revealed when Jesus took on the form of human flesh, lived a life of perfect obedience to the will of the Father, died as punishment for the sins of those whom the Father has given the Son, and then was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. King Jesus now sits at the right hand of the Father. One day, King Jesus will return to judge those who refuse to submit their will to God and condemn them to eternal punishment in hell. Thankfully, those who have placed their faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus will be ushered into the new heaven and new earth; followers of King Jesus will finally and fully enter God’s eternal rest. History will conclude in eternal punishment for those who refuse to bow the knee before God and recognize His moral claims over all of creation.
Christians believe without equivocation that objective morality exists; there is a right side and a wrong side of history. Just as important, objective morality is revealed and defined by God; humans are called to submit to God’s morality, not the other way around. For progressives, however, their sacred concept of “will to power” undermines any assertions that conservative Christians (or anyone, for that matter) will find themselves on the wrong side of history. The worldview of progressives only recognizes winners and losers. Conservative Christians believe, preach, and live (hopefully) that the right side of history is God’s side.
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