The End of the “Third Way”
Respectability, NPR objectivity, and Libertarianism are illusions
Thirdway-ism rose in a world where Christianity was still respectable. Leaders saw the cultural Right growing shrill and the Left growing hostile. They longed for a witness above the fray.
Tim Keller gave the model. His strategy attracted professionals in cities like New York where overt culture‑war tones seemed to have failed and became the archetype of Third Way engagement. The appeal was real. The Third Way promised to keep the gospel central, resist ideological captivity, and win intellectual respect. It answered the desire for a faith that avoided both fundamentalist combativism and seeker‑sensitive compromise.
It offered winsome engagement, cultural credibility, gospel over ideology. For a time it seemed wise, but it found itself impotent and today it functions as surrender in the public sphere.
The strategy depended on culture granting us space, but that space no longer exists as it may once have.
In the early 2000s, America was in what
call the “neutral world.” Christianity was tolerated if not honored. Faith was viewed as a private good and often a public benefit.
Today the environment is the “negative world.” Christianity is not neutral but harmful. Biblical marriage is “bigotry.” Biblical sexuality is “violence.” Public prayer is “threat.” Teaching children Christian morality is called “abuse.”
Neutrality collapses in this world. A teacher refusing pronouns is fired. A baker declining a wedding cake is dragged into court. A father objecting at a school board is arrested. The ground shifted.
Many do not want to face what is happening and instead retreat into safe spaces and familiar commentators. Of course, NPR was never truly neutral. Its calm tone masked a bias that treated historic Christianity as suspect and rarely gave orthodox voices a fair hearing. Still, many Christians imagined they could imitate that posture — measured, respectable, and always above the fray. Others clung to Libertarian dreams, assuming the state could remain neutral while culture unraveled. Both illusions collapse. NPR respectability folds once the gospel itself is branded harmful. Libertarian neutrality ignores that rulers always legislate morality.
The Third Way often leans on libertarian ideals, hoping to avoid conflict by shrinking the state and maximizing individual freedom. But this approach is fundamentally unviable for Christians in a world that demands conviction.
Libertarianism exalts radical individualism, while Christianity roots liberty in community and responsibility.
Its “individualism” makes the Self an idol, denying true identity in relation to God and others.
By rejecting real categories of friend and enemy, it cannot confront opponents bent on domination.
A “leave me alone” posture offers no defense against cultural collapse.
It denies the God‑ordained role of rulers to guard faith, family, and order.
Abstract freedom ignores fallen human nature that requires restraint and moral law.
It prizes preference over the common good upheld in Christian tradition.
It is true as well that Fox News is no refuge for those who see through NPR and Libertarian myths, only to flee into partisan outrage. They mistake the theater of cable spin for conviction but it does not forms disciples. When Christians ground their witness in the same outrage machine, they exchange gospel depth for political theater. None of these paths preserve Christian witness. They only excuse abdication
The collapse of neutrality is clearest in the YRR movement, which began as the anti–seeker sensitive revival, and yet it became seeker sensitive in new clothes. The problem was the same: a high view of culture and a low view of Scripture’s public claims. Preachers skipped hard texts lest they sound fundamentalist. Politics, race, and justice questions went unanswered. The silence created a void. Professors filled it with critical theory. Activists filled it with social justice catechisms.
The façade cracked during Ferguson and George Floyd. Pastors felt pressure to prove relevance by repeating secular slogans. Churches fractured.
In the Southern Baptist Convention, this played out in public with leaders signaling solidarity with cultural ideologies, resisted grassroots calls for clarity on critical race theory, and villainizing convention messengers who spoke frankly on the topic. The result was paralysis. Endless nuance paraded as wisdom.
Third Way nuance offered silence where the moment demanded clarity.
Truth and Love United
The failure runs deeper than politics. Many leaders placed truth and love on opposite sides of a spectrum as though truth became the mark of conservatives and love became associated with the banner of progressives. Choose truth and you sound harsh. Choose love and you stay silent.
Scripture never makes that division. Ephesians commands us to speak TRUTH IN LOVE. Love without truth is sentimentality. Truth without love is brutality. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 did not exalt love against truth but against proud knowledge. Love sanctifies knowledge so it builds up. Truth can hurt and be loving. I am glad someone once told me I was a sinner and needed a savior. That hurts but after the injury came salvation.
To speak truth is to love. Silence is not love when neighbors race toward ruin. Imagine worrying about your tone as you tell someone that they need to get out of a burning building that is about to collapse! Smiles that affirm lies are not kindness but surrender. Strategies that privilege “love” at truth’s expense are not biblical love; they are cowardice.
Love without truth is impossible. Truth without love is cruelty.
The Warning of Coriolanus
Shakespeare illustrates the cost of neutrality. Coriolanus was Rome’s hardest soldier. He returned from battle undefeated yet scorned the idea of courting the people. He refused to flatter the mob, refused to show his scars as political theater. The tribunes stirred revolt. The crowd banished him. Rome suffered when her strongest protector was gone.
Refusal to wield political/cultural power did not save him. It doomed him.
The same is true for the church that clings to neutrality. Tribunes of our day know how to turn mobs into revolutions. Leaders who retreat under the banner of love or neutrality only invite destruction. For a sharper treatment of this parallel, see this essay on Coriolanus by
.Those who mistake politics for principle rather than power soon find themselves banished, broken, or dead.
The answer is not cruelty. It is courage. Christians are called to steward authority in the home, in the church, and in the state. Fathers cannot stand neutral in the face of threats to their families. Magistrates cannot stand neutral when lawlessness multiplies. Pastors cannot stand neutral when cultural lies invade the pulpit.
Politics is the family written large. Fathers who abdicate produce chaos. Households that lack order raise citizens who resist order. A nation that excuses abdication inherits decay.
This requires conviction joined to courage. Conviction without courage collapses when opposed. Winsomeness without backbone is flattery. Neutrality is not an option.
A Final Word on Relevance
Many Christians crave influence fearing truth will cost them credibility with educated neighbors or professional networks. They want a hearing in the marketplace of ideas. They imagine neutrality secures that place.
The world does not reward churches that trim their doctrine. It uses them for cover and then discards them. Theological compromise has never purchased cultural power. It has only produced irrelevance and will not be given lasting platforms. They will be given silence. Churches that hide in a false love are not sought out in the next crisis and risk not providing answers to those in search for truth.
History remembers who moved the ball down the field, not who offered commentary from the sidelines. Those who hope neutrality will keep them in the room will find themselves in the bleachers. If you will not choose a side, you will lose the influence you hope to keep. You will watch from the stands while men of conviction drive the ball forward.
The Third Way is no way at all.
No more illusions.
