Growing up, the Frog in the Kettle was a popular metaphorical warning to us as Christians.  The metaphor compared a frog being slowly boiled to death unaware to the sneaky advance of liberalism.  While I have never studied the biological reality of the science, as a metaphor it is powerful, sticking with you as a great illustration of the danger of not paying attention to small changes that become big changes.  I think there was plenty of truth in the metaphor that time has in some ways validated.  However, over the recent two decades, I have observed a parallel phenomenon that requires an update of the metaphor.

Imagine the frog sitting in the kettle, alert to the danger, keeping his eye squarely on the burning to make sure it is not turned on nor turned up.  So keenly aware of the legitimate danger that the burner control poses, he stays vigilantly fixated on making sure the burner is not turned up.  So much so that he does not notice when a little bit of ice was added to the pot.

With each passing day, a little more ice is added to the pot, but the frog is unaware.  No one told him there was a danger from gradual cooling, only from gradual warming, and he’s guarded himself against that with intensity.  

One day a friend of the frog noticed how much ice had been added to the pot.  Concerned that the frog was already colder than was healthy, the friend tried to adjust the burner to up the heat a little to return the water to normal temperature.  The frog was immediately on alert.  “Stay away from that burner!  How dare you!?!  You are obviously a liberal trying to tempt me into my destruction!!”

Thus the frog began to perceive any who tried to save him from the cold as agents of liberalism trying to cook him.  Former allies were labeled as enemies who had fallen victim to the creeping liberalism he’d been guarding himself against for decades.  Meanwhile, the ice increased.  Soon the frog was very cold, but he never knew he was losing his life to cold, all he knew was that he had avoided being cooked.

The Bible says that in the last days, because of the increase in lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold.  Among some of the staunchest warriors on the right and in church, there is not only a lack of compassion, but a stated distaste for compassion, gentleness, and love.  Any who advocates for warming things up a bit, showing love, compassion, or mercy are labeled as agents of liberalism, no matter their core theology, and fought as the enemy.  

I fear that many people who love Jesus and wanted to seek first His kingdom have guarded themselves well against drifting left but have been radicalized to the right, never having been warned that there is danger in both directions.  

Christian, has your heart grown cold, your love for your neighbor, for your enemy, (both commanded by Scripture) iced over?   Have you worked so hard to stay out of the left lane that you’re driving in the ditch? The warning to “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition” applies equally to all sides of the human political spectrum, & we must be careful that we don’t become blind to one side by fixating only on the other.

Let us not let our love grow cold, as did the Galatians.  We must not become licentious Romans or Legalistic Pharisees, but Disciples of Jesus, who came to seek and to save the lost.