JD Greear, preaching at the chapel at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) today, went off on a tirade against conservatives who left his church over the past couple of years after he moved his church to embrace and accept leftism.

According to Greear, members who hold to a conservative political ideology but refuse to cave and tolerate progressive and liberal ideology have made politics an “idol.” Greear complained that these conservatives–with who he claims he shares most of his beliefs–left his church over “small” things that don’t matter.

“It used to be that most of the criticism I got came from Christians on the left who criticized our naive commitment to inerrancy or our supposed clinging to outdated sexual ethics,” Greear complained, “But what has been more surprising and hurt, even more, has been the criticism that started to come from our friends on the right. Those whose belief systems I share so much in common with, who couldn’t bear to have their political idols challenged.”

“2020 was a difficult year for many many reasons, but maybe for me as pastor and as SBC president, the most difficult for me revealed that a lot of people in our churches, their primary identity was political,” he continued.

Of course, this is patently absurd and false on its face. While there may be a small minority of political conservatives in our churches that identify more with their politics than they do with Christ, the vast majority of them recognized that not only can one’s political ideology not be separated from one’s theology, but to tolerate those who whose political liberalism led them to clear sin was in and of itself partaking in that sin. In other words, people left because JD Greear–and many of his clones in the Southern Baptist Convention–began leaving these churches when it became clear that these pastors were simply going to refuse to teach how to think biblically about all issues, including politics, out of an ungodly desire for “diversity” and “unity.”

He continued, “their primary identity was political. We know that because a lot of church people left their churches…because of some disagreement over a relatively small political disagreement.”

Again, Greear is obfuscating the facts here; to suggest that these disagreements were “relatively small” is dishonest, at best, and demonstrates Greear’s lack of submission to biblical authority. Jesus was clear; a bad tree doesn’t bear good fruit and a good tree doesn’t bear bad fruit. But what Greear’s church, and again, many others, demonstrated was that there were many, many bad trees within these ranks–and Greear refused to deal with them biblically. Instead, he taught things like it was okay to vote Democrat, despite the fact that their platform and every single candidate in the party stood solidly opposed to God.

In reality, for a Christian who claims Christ, it is NOT okay to vote for a Democrat. It is NOT okay to set sin issues aside. Greear said he was calling on the church to put gospel evangelism above all else — I would agree with that. But you cannot do that while overlooking sin. Supporting Democrat politics is sin — unrepentant sin — and those who engage in it should be placed under church discipline and ultimately excommunicated. It is NOT a secondary issue. You cannot be a Christian and support Democrat politics.

Let’s be clear: your political positions, activism, or support have no bearing on your salvation–zero. However, if you claim to be a Christian, transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit and bought by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Scriptures say that you will be given a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26) and you are being sanctified unto good works (Ephesians 2:10). So let me spell this out for you. This means you cannot be a Christian while supporting the slaughter of innocent children, gay rights, gay propaganda, “gay Christianity,” theft (redistribution of wealth), lawlessness (i.e. open borders), a complete and total lack of individual responsibility (i.e. nanny state welfare system, single-payer insurance, etc.), or the endless sweeping away of our right to worship God freely. If you support this godless ideology, or support candidates that do, don’t expect me to treat you as a fellow Christian.

In 2019, Greear preached a sermon on Romans 1 and concluded that God believes other sins — such as boasting — are more egregious than homosexuality. In 2021, it was revealed that his successor, Ed Litton, had been plagiarising all of his sermons and taught this same, unbiblical teaching. Greear has led his church right into the hands of the woke left–his church is now clearly defined not by the gospel, but by Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and biblical compromise. No conservatives left his church over minor political disagreements. Conservatives left his church because he tolerates and promotes sin, unbiblical thinking, and treats those who actually believe the Scriptures to be true as outcasts. It’s really that simple and him saying otherwise is a lie.

This diatribe starts at roughly the 34:00 minute mark.