One of the primary ways Satan deceives people is to obfuscate the truth by mixing a little bit of it with lies. The Scriptures speak to us clearly and warn us to be on the lookout for people who, like Satan, would masquerade as truth-bearers (2 Corinthians 11:13-15) while subtly smuggling in destructive falsehoods meant to contaminate the gospel—and doing so while most people simply won’t notice (2 Peter 2:1, Matthew 7:15, etc).

And despite what the mainstream talking heads of Evangelicalism say, it isn’t those who are willing to fight for the truth and point out the error who are divisive. It is those who have propagated the falsehoods within the ranks of the Bride of Christ who are in danger of judgment for sowing discord.

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. —Romans 16:17

When taking a census of the Evangelical landscape, what we see on a mass scale is division. And while Evangelicals have always had their share of disagreements, important disagreements, there has been nothing so disruptive to the unity of the Church as the progressive movement we see today.

And that movement is the social justice movement—also known as the “woke church.”

Popularized by Evangelical figureheads like Tim Keller and Russell Moore—and their respective platforms like The Gospel Coalition and the Southern Baptist Convention—the social justice movement began making inroads into mainstream Evangelicalism and infecting otherwise solid churches, leaders, and pastors around a decade ago. Seminaries, like Southern Baptist seminaries, are now infected with the cancer of social justice that even those who claim to oppose are so damaged by it that it just appears normal to them.

And these men, like Russell Moore and Tim Keller, have popularized and cloaked in Christian garb such Marxist ideas as mass immigration and redistribution of wealth to the point that most Christians simply won’t notice the subversive poison inside the rhetoric. And many will swallow it whole without giving it a second thought; after all, it’s Christian-sounding so it must be true, right?

Well, that’s the problem. Just because something sounds Christian doesn’t mean that it is. So we’ll look at one popular example of how Marxism is being cloaked in Christian-sounding garb and expose it for what it really is.

Karen Swallow Prior, a Southeastern Seminary professor who we’ve written about multiple times, says she’s pro-life. In fact, she recently went to the far-left God-hating publication, The Washington Post to have an article written about just how pro-life she actually is. But last year, Swallow Prior went on a podcast at The Gospel Coalition to explain exactly what she means by being “pro-life.”

Personally, I have never shied away from being called anti-abortion because I am anti-abortion. But as the term pro-life gains traction and as the Culture Wars continued on into the decades and a new generation of Christians emerged who had been taught biblical worldview and had been taught to approach issues holistically, I think it’s really these younger Christians who have been questioning the inconsistency of our application, of this idea of being pro-life. And I applaud them because really to be pro-life is to be more than just against abortion. And if we’re talking about abortion, then we can use that term. But if we really want to consider ourselves to be pro-life, then I think we have to address all of the range of issues, from womb to tomb, that threaten the sanctity of human life.

For Evangelical leftists, like Swallow Prior, Moore, Keller, and others, being “pro-life” has a completely different meaning than just being against abortion—they have hijacked the term to infiltrate the Church with Marxism. I’ll explain.

A few years ago, prominent Southern Baptist pastor and author, Thabiti Anyabwile preached a chapel sermon at Southeastern Seminary—the same seminary Swallow Prior now teaches at. In that sermon, he explained exactly what he and his progressive movement mean when they use the term “pro-life.” Preaching on the passage from Proverbs 31:8-9, he preaches:

We learn [from this passage] a couple things about the role of government according to the Bible, don’t we? First, government should protect the rights of the people, especially the vulnerable and the poor. The highest leaders are meant by God to protect the lowest citizens. Powerful kings should advocate for weak people, notice not pervert the rights of the afflicted. Secondly, we should look for leaders, then, with the character that suggests that they would indeed protect the vulnerable in society.

He then went on to conclude that in order to be pro-life, one must embrace this Marxist ideology.

It’s only when we advocate for all who are destitute, when our pro-life vision is womb-to-tomb, that we really do join God in what he’s doing in the world.

So here, we have a clear picture of what these progressive Evangelicals are attempting to do by hijacking the term, “pro-life,” and using it to infiltrate the Church with destructive ideologies and cause division. To them, being pro-life doesn’t mean just being against abortion, it means supporting wealth redistribution to “oppressed” classes of people and holding these Marxist tenets on equal ground with anti-abortionism. It cheapens the pro-life movement and demotes the lives of unborn children to the Marxist standards of “equity.”

So the next time an Evangelical leftist—like Karen Swallow Prior, Tim Keller, Russell Moore, Beth Moore, Dwight McKissic, or anyone else that runs in circles with these people—tells you that they are unabashedly, unequivocally pro-life, you will know exactly what they mean and you don’t have to fall for their facade.