Perhaps someone could help me remember. Somewhere, somebody once said that who you run in circles with could potentially negatively affect your own morality. Oh wait, I know. It was the Bible.

Paul, writing to Corinth endorsed a popular proverb of his day: Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” (1 Corinthians 15:33) The idea is that who a believer chooses as company–particularly those who deny the truths about God–will ruin your own doctrinal thinking.

Yet, Evangelicals constantly do this. Despite the fact that the Scriptures repeatedly warn against yoking with unbelievers and that Christ has no accord with Belial (2 Corinthians 6), many Evangelicals believe that partnering together with the godless for some spiritual cause is noble–it is not.

Ed Litton does just this. A man who claims to believe the Scriptures despite his unrepentant serial plagiarism, seems to be given over to gospel-compromising causes. One being a movement rooted not in spiritual and biblical unity, but Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and Marxism. While it is often disguised as a noble movement, at its core, it denies the gospel and promotes a worldly unity devoid of the gospel.

Litton recently invited an apostate organization that consists of Catholic priests, United Methodist pro-homosexual pastors and pastrixes, charismatics, Anglicans, women pastors, you-name-it, from all over the area, to join his church in ecumenical prayer and worship for “racial reconciliation.” The group, known as The Pledge Group, “exists to shrink the racial divide in our own community and throughout the Body of Christ by establishing and fostering relationships across ethnic and denominational lines,” according to its website.

Here is a partial list of the leadership in this group:

And while the group claims that “The Gospel unites all races, socio-economic backgrounds and people, enabling reconciliation through genuine relationships with Christ and one another,” it’s safe to conclude that the vast majority of the leadership in this group have no idea what the gospel actually is.

This is the epitome of the social gospel–a false gospel that has replaced the true and powerful gospel of salvation in Christ alone.

This past weekend, Litton’s Redemption Church hosted this gathering. Members of his church stood, holding hands in prayer and unity. You can rest assured that there was no unity in Christ at this event–if the gospel were important to them, they wouldn’t be affirming apostates as brothers and sisters in Christ.

The reason this stuff is so deceptive is real and actual racism and racial division is certainly a formidable foe in our society and that promoting the end of racial tensions is certainly a noble cause. Yet, despite that, the lies behind the movement, the errors that are promoted, and the means to unity in this type of display is nothing more than virtue signaling and a true compromise of the gospel. What Christian doesn’t want unity? That’s attractive to Christians. But this kind of unity–which denies the supremacy of the true gospel–is evil and deceptive and works to break down biblical justification for division and being set apart.

We are not called to be united with the world, false teachers, false prophets, lady-pastors, Catholic priests, or anyone else who denies the gospel of Jesus Christ.