Scott Sauls, the Senior Pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, TN, and a prominent contributor to The Gospel Coalition has made headlines quite a bit in recent months as he’s expressed sympathy toward the Revoice “gay Christianity” movement and offered a sort of apologetic for it.

The foolishness that continues to spew from the mouths of these postmodern idolaters never ceases to amaze me. Sauls, an acolyte of Russell Moore, says that Christians who are truly followers of Jesus aren’t just too conservative for liberals, but also too liberal for conservatives:

The implication, of course, is that Jesus is some kind of middle ground between the right and the left—that He somehow serves as a bridge between those who hold to conservative principles and those who hold to progressive ideals.

Think about that for a minute. These guys try to redefine what conservatism is and then paint Jesus as someone who is against this straw man version of conservatism—things like slavery, for example. They try to argue that conservatism hasn’t always been biblical because conservatives tried to “conserve” things like slavery in the past—a completely false and debunked thesis.

The reality is that it’s always been the leftists on the wrong side of the issues—especially biblical issues—because the Scriptures are the absolute standard of conservatism. This is why we can say that people like David French and Scott Sauls and Russell Moore are all leftists—because they are far left of the biblical standard of conservatism and in reality, none of us live or act in accordance with the absolute standard.

Jesus and His Word, are not at the “center” of the theological, political, social, or moral spectrums. In fact, He isn’t even at the extreme right, He is the extreme right, and we all fall short of that. But to put this in the modern context, Sauls suggests that, well, Jesus might actually land somewhere between where conservative Christians and progressive (professing) Christians land on these issues and take a middle-ground approach to things like abortion, LGBTQ activism, and the redistribution of wealth (i.e. stealing from people with good work ethic to give to the sluggard).

In reality, though, Jesus is not woke. Jesus does not support abortion—he is not cool with people in His church having “differing opinions” on it. Jesus does not approve of the LGBTQ movement or call on Christians to stand up for LGBTQ rights like our former Southern Baptist president, JD Greear did. Jesus is not a socialist, a communist, or a Marxist—He does not chant “Black Lives Matter.” And Jesus does not support progressive ideologies cloaked in Christian garb, either. He absolutely repudiates all of this because this taking liberty with (i.e. liberalism) His standard of morality is an abomination to Him.

This isn’t about political parties, this is about ideology. We can fully acknowledge that the Republican party in America falls far short of the biblical standard of conservatism—that actually makes it left of the standard. And while both parties are left of the biblical standard, obviously some are further left and irredeemable. But, again, that’s not what this is about. As Christians, we don’t allow leftist religious hijackers like Sauls, David French, or Russell Moore to redefine who God is as though He’s some kind of central figure that everyone crawls to from every angle. No, we all crawl to Him from the same side—the side that deviates from His righteousness. And those who are close to Him are the conservatives and those who are far from him are the liberals.