The Leavened Lump in Our Daily Bread
For those of us who grew up in conservative evangelicalism, Our Daily Bread booklets were a staple of our church experience. The little pamphlet-sized devotionals, distributed since 1956, had Bible verses and insightful articles on a wide array of Christian topics. I still have a stack of late 80’s and early 90’s booklets somewhere in storage.
Yet much like other staples of parachurch ministry (Awana and Cru come to mind), Our Daily Bread Ministries has been infiltrated by the theological fad du jour – that is, wokism. A supporter of Our Daily Bread Ministries recently provided a January 14th, 2025 letter to Conversations That Matter host Jon Harris, in which Our Daily Bread president Matt Lucas responds to concerns about the organization’s wokeness by assuming concerns have been limited to The Witness Foundation claiming Our Daily Bread’s Voices initiative was a sponsor for their uber-woke Joy and Justice Conference in 2024.
Lucas spent the first half of the letter attacking critics, claiming that “none of the podcast hosts have reached out to us for clarification” and that the controversy has been created through false accusations, “inflammatory posts, and misinformation.” He followed by claiming that Our Daily Bread “remains faithful and unwavering in [their] commitment to historic, biblical Christianity and its teaching on everything from believing in the infallibility of Scripture; that salvation is in Christ alone,” yet Lucas reiterated that the ministry believes that “diversity is to be celebrated and is a reflection of God’s image in humanity” and “God’s design for marriage and sex is between a man and a woman.”
Of course, the next logical question to any discerning Christian should be, what exactly do you mean by “diversity?” along with “Is God’s marital design exclusive, or merely the ideal?” Unfortunately for Our Daily Bread, they have already provided these answers, and they are not good.
Harris published a montage of Our Daily Bread video content, in which they promote the Marxist concepts of “racial trauma” (shout out to Kyle Howard), “microaggressions,” and the bat-guano insane concept of “epigenetics,” the idea that trauma experienced by a person can alter their genes and be passed to future generations genetically, making current generations of “marginalized” groups true victims of sins against their ancestors. Notorious race hustler Jemar Tisby makes an appearance, recalling the horrific trauma (“racism by a thousand cuts”) he experienced when his white classmates assumed he played sports or knew how to rap. Of course, Tisby was part of the totally not sponsored by Our Daily Bread Joy and Justice Conference.
The montage also featured Our Daily Bread videos pushing the MeToo idea that a woman in her 40s choosing to engage in sexual sin with a clergy member repeatedly is an innocent victim of abuse rather than a willing participant.
Lucas’s letter is a clear attempt to avoid an exodus of conservative (and likely older) support from their rank wokeness being exposed for all to see, and Our Daily Bread owes its supporters an actual defense for the cultural Marxism they are openly promoting with content like this:
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Perhaps they’ve been being paid to go Left by USAID like Christianity Today was. As Trump dries up the checks coming their way, perhaps they get religion again.
There is some detectable nagging vibe there, for sure. As a decades-long supporter of ODB who still thinks of it as RBC, going back to when their weekend TV show was perfect-looking people singing hymns in a perfect-looking park setting, I’ve tried to repress those kinds of thoughts. I was on alert for this year’s MLK Day episode but it did not MLK as it did a few years ago, narrated by the woman who sounds like Mrs. Jefferson. I shoted at the radio that day, “no!!! The appropriate Scripture for this day is Daniel 3, bow down to the golden idol that Nebuchadnezzar has made!”
And then there’s the obvious recent diversifying of the Discover The Word team. They’re good and knowledgeable and we agree on the statement-of-faith kinds of things as far as I can tell, they aren’t beatng me over the head with the DEI stick, so I blame myself and keep on giving. There were even times when I thought Haddon Robinson went too close to the edge of the modernist abyss.
And I always wonder “What does Mart think about all this? Is it his idea? Or is he reluctantly acquiescing?” And I think probably he probably favors it or otherwise he’d be retired and spending all his days fishing for fish, it but again I blame myself for those thoughts. And I keep the automatic monthly donation going.
Thanks for bringing up the topic because it does need to be brought up. And it merits close monitoring.