“Alarmist” has become the newest slur label given to conservative Christians who raise concerns about the current trajectory of the culture in general or churches in particular. The “alarmist” label goes like this: “Conservative Christian leaders are using false information to stoke fears for their own personal gain, either to sell books or mobilize voters.”
There are certainly cases in history where this label would be accurate. But is the alarmist label always correct when conservative Christians in America raise an alarm? The answer is categorically no!
Before the Obama administration, warnings of coming discrimination against Christians were often considered to be alarmist. But these predictions came true during President Obama’s second term when he pushed his agenda very powerfully against Christian individuals, businesses and institutions. The alarm was justified.
Liberals generally were unwilling to defend the religious freedom of the conservatives. Conservative Christians were justifiably alarmed because what was happening was, in fact, alarming.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts warned, “Hard questions arise when people of faith exercise religion in ways that may be seen to conflict with the new right to same-sex marriage — when, for example, a religious college provides married student housing only to opposite-sex married couples, or a religious adoption agency declines to place children with same-sex married couples?”
Was Roberts an alarmist? No. He was completely justified in raising the “alarm” because everything he warned about actually happened.
Some on the left accuse conservative Christians of false alarmism (unjustifiable alarm) for saying Christians are discriminated against. Since they advocate policies that are discriminatory toward conservative Christians, they have to have a way to diminish opposition. Conservative Christians now have to both defend their own religious freedom and explain why they are complaining about their loss of religious freedom. Perhaps their so-called “alarmism” was not so off-track after all.
The most recent accusations of false alarmism have been in response to Rod Dreher’s new book called The Benedict Option. Dreher’s book, “calls on American Christians to prepare for the coming Dark Age by embracing an ancient Christian way of life.” His ideas have been called the “White Christian Industrial Persecution Complex.” Dreher’s book is not primarily about persecution and loss of religious freedom. It ‘s mostly about defending the church from apostates and dealing with Western cultural shifts.
But the alarmism accusation is also, at times, associated with allegations of racism, an obsession with homosexuality and intensifying a sense of “living in a wasteland.”
Are Conservative Christians wrong simply because they are “alarmists?” No. There are legitimate reasons to be concerned about the future of our nation. Meteorologists weren’t sure exactly how bad the storm Stella would be. They advised Northeasterners to prepare for the worst. Can you blame them?
Bible prophecy declares that there will come a time of trouble such as never was, and that religious laws will be imposed on all the world removing religious liberty especially from those who keep all of God’s Ten Commandments. There are also dire predictions through prophetic symbols such as a black horse and a pale horse, etc. Warning people to separate from false religion coupled with predictions of punishment will likely be considered “alarmism.” Explaining the third angel’s message of Revelation 14 could bring up allegations of alarmism, especially with its predictions of national and universal Sunday laws.
“Heretofore those who presented the truths of the third angel’s message have often been regarded as mere alarmists. Their predictions that religious intolerance would gain control in the United States, that church and state would unite to persecute those who keep the commandments of God, have been pronounced groundless and absurd. It has been confidently declared that this land could never become other than what it has been—the defender of religious freedom. But as the question of enforcing Sunday observance is widely agitated, the event so long doubted and disbelieved is seen to be approaching, and the third message will produce an effect, which it could not have had before. The Great Controversy, pages 605 and 606.