RSSAliens and Exiles
We have likely exhausted A Secular Faith so I will make a final post that returns to the theme of my first. I am concerned that Christian involvement in politics distracts believers from their true and ultimate home. When we become so concerned about moral decline or social disorder in the United States that American Christians are known more for being “conservative” politically than for the religious practices that define them as believers, then we have identified ourselves more as citizens than as aliens and exiles of this world.
This may sound too otherworldly for some and a betrayal of a Reformed world and life view, though I rarely seen the worldviewists interact with St. Peter’s counsel on the Christian’s immigrant status during this period of redemptive history. To keep this concern from becoming merely otherworldly Christians could throw much more energy into the politics of their churches than into the affairs of the United States. It is not as if the church has no need for reform.
In fact, I find it at least ironic if not worse that at the same time as the rise of the Religious Right, Protestant faith and practice in the United States has worsened dramatically. Before Ronald Reagan evangelicals used to care about inerrancy. Now the doctrine of Scripture is barely talked about. Conservatives Protestants used to know something about reverence in worship but during their affair with the residents of the White House they have given the world a form of worship that exhibits no fear of blasphemy (now, we only define idolatry as having a second helping of pie after dinner). And to make matters even worse, the Protestant doctrine of justification is in serious disarray when twenty-fine years ago conservative evangelicals knew the difference between the Council of Trent and justification by faith alone.
Of course, it would be poor social science to suggest that the politiciztion of evangelicalism is responsible for these religious woes. But it would be equally naive to think that the zeal for Christian politics in secular affairs is unrelated to the indifference for Christian faith and practice in the realm of the church.
If Christians really want to have an impact on this world, they may have to worry a lot more about the world to come.
W.H. Chellis
April 27th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
For all our disagreements throughout this discussion, I can wholeheartedly say “Amen” to your post.
I have not changed my mind about Christ’s reign over cultures and nations. Yet, I recognize the paradox that Christian cultures are not founded on Christian politics but Christian worship and heavenly-mindness.
Christopher Dawson teaches us that Medival Europe, Christendom, was in many ways the bi-product of those fabled monastic communities that had gathered together in the name of the “cult”. Christ declared, “seek first the Kingdom of God.” Christian cultures grow up and flourish when our focus is on Christ, Heaven, worshipping in purity, and loving our neighbor.
The Church preaching a pure gospel, and not political rallys and voter drives, is Christendom’s only hope.
GAS
April 30th, 2007 at 12:33 am
“Of course, it would be poor social science to suggest that the politiciztion of evangelicalism is responsible for these religious woes.”
D Hart,
With all due respect, and despite your qualification, your post “does not follow”.
I would submit that the woes of the Protestant faith has more to do with 1) Dispensationalism and Arminianism than the politicization of evangelicalism. With the fear of the imminent tribulation being preached in many Protestant Churches the natural reaction is to try to postpone the tribulation through governmental actions.
and
2)The post-modern neo-liberal movement in evangelical churches and its concomitant heresies is a distinct factor having little or nothing to do with the Religious Right or Christian involvement in politics.
The more interesting observation, it seems to me, is how Fundamentalism incorporated some aspects of Kuyperian worldviewism to carve an insular niche in a pluralistic society in anticipation of achieving political power. Kuypers model seemed to work in the opposite direction by using pluralism as a means to redeem culture.
D Hart
April 30th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I wonder if GAS has heard of Evangelicals and Catholics Together or is aware of the Kuyperian support for such cooperation. At the time of Reagan’s election such “ecumenicity” would have been unthinkable.
stevez
April 30th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
i wonder if such “ecumenicity” as ECT (on the non-RC side of the table) would have been due to more prejudice and tribalism than any rigorous theological basis. my sense is that it would have been indeed unthinkable, yes. but since the same folks who laud ECT now are the same ones i would have anticipated then as charging it to be “unthinkable,” it makes me seriously wonder what then was based upon. sort of the same idea as when a local evangelical university here recently took dancing off its instituionalized legalism list…if it was taboo then but isn’t now, what was then based on? furthermore, when shall the rest of the taboos fall, since, presumably they were also based upon the same faulty rationale–how much stock does one put into the standing taboos when an equal one has fallen? all this to ask, how can one trust what happened then when now seems so different? seems to me that what one may see in the phenomenon of ECT is, in point of fact, nothing to be surprised at, since the seeds of such things have always been a part of american evangelicalism…regardless of whatever seeming difference there is between what happened a few short years ago when ronny was king to today.
zrim
D Hart
May 1st, 2007 at 5:53 am
Steve has a point. Lots of visceral notions about Roman Catholicism fed evangelicalism’s disdain. Even so, the point was simply that before 1980 evangelicalism stood much more clearly for something religious, whether inerrancy or in Reformed circles for justification by faith alone. That is no longer true and I blame it in part on the Religious Right’s quest for power and I look at ECT as only one instance of the exchange of religious for political priorities.
stevez
May 1st, 2007 at 10:55 am
i would like to take your word for it, that these groups stood for something religious. i just get this gnawing sense that even if they did it was still quite minimalistic, wasn’t it? and how trustworthy was “then” even over minimalistic tenents when it only has taken a few short years for even those to fall captive to the sirens sounds of cultural/political/social/moral interests? i believe you said the other day that in your aseessment it has taken us 250 years to get to this point; if os, should we perhaps say that it has been somehow accelerated in the last 40, oi rthat it is a highly predictable phenomenon given that evnagelicalism has sown the seeds for 250 years. have they always been theologically driven? it is just hard for me to believe that we woke up one day and found the situation you do descibe. in other words, hasn’t it all been a long time coming “since whitefield landed”?
zrim
stevez
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:59 pm
darryl,
the politicization of the church is certainly a legit critique as you put forward in ASF. you know you have no argument with me there.
i wonder how much you would ascribe what you have called in the past as the “non-churchliness” of american evangelicalism to this phenomenon. that is, once you rip the gospel from its churchly moorings, is it not both predictable and inevitable that such social/moral/cultural/political concerns *have* to rush in and fill the void? it sems as though the unchurchly phenomenon has its roots in a theological view; if you adopt such cultic views you will eventaully end up basing yourself on cultural ones…because you gotta do something.
my point, to carry from what i said above (to your assertion that “evangelicals used to stand for something [religiously]“), is that it is hard for me to believe that “we” woke up one day 27 years ago and decided to become culturally driven as opposed to cultically. the religious right (or left, as one might conclude from Lost Soul) should not surprise anyone since the seeds were sown so long ago; it is predictable, yes? they may have stood for something cultically, but didn’t the 20th century liberals. some have said the RR has simply picked up where the left left off–the outlines are the same, just colored in differently.
and i just have to ask…”twenty-fine years ago conservative evangelicals knew the difference between the Council of Trent and justification by faith alone.” really? really, really? really, really, really? i would think, at best, they knew the right answer to any direct question posed about “works,” but i ownder if trent meant an up and coming republican star in their ranks (who fell a few years ago).
zrim
D Hart
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:45 am
Steve: where’s the love? Why all the tough questions? Have you been taking your meds?
Kidding, of course (I feel stupid explaining). All of the assumptions behind your questions are right, I think. What I was trying to note by contrasting evangelicalism before and after the Religious Right is that in the 1950s and 1960s evangelicals were strongly anti-Social Gospel. Robertson and Falwell both thought the church should stay out of politics and used the mainline churches’ pursuit of the public square as one sign of their liberal ways. So too, Graham and Henry were critical of the mainline for putting social reform ahead of proclaiming the gospel. But to express those sentiments today is to sound like you’ve just landed from Mars (and I’m not referring to the seminary).
So you’re mainly right that Trent vs. Heidelberg would have challenged evangelicals 3 decades ago. But I’m still standing by my point that evangelicalism was then, though an expression of pietism’s visible and activist piety, stood more than it does today for a relgious identity.
W.H. Chellis
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:23 am
I am glad to be an RP in this discussion. We represent and older piety (at our best moments) and are rooted in an older vision of cult and culture. Darryl and Steve are having a very American theological discussion. The RP’s are more historically representative of “ca”atholic and Reformed faith and praxis. Our vision of Christ honoring civil authority is not the product of a social gospel or liberalism but continuity with the confessional Reformed tradition. How about a little respect for our nobel defense of authentic Reformed tradition!
stevez
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:04 am
darryl,
you should know by now the love is neverending, and we only pres those we love the most. and don’t ask about meds this day…you don’t want to know. point well taken that they stood for something religiously more so then over against the liberal tradiiton. but…
i know this discussion has formally ended, but i am stilll intrigued by your use of falwell. pat and jerry thought we should stay out of politcs because the cultural status quo fit their particular worldviews, politics and cultural values. falwell is known for having thrown up a “spirituality of the church” smoke and mirrors when asked, for example, about civil rights in the 50s and 60s. why? because the status quo comported with his cultural views and such a pious view just looks good (because it is the right one). when the late 60s burst onto the scene it became another story altogether and the moral majority was born. the God-lever was pulled and the social gospel of the right came about. yes, they may have resisted the social gospel–but only because it was the wrong one, as it was characterized by leftiness. neither is immuine to social gospel. i contend that if they had really “stood for something” they would not have chosen to fight fire with fire but holy water. they may have stood for more technically speaking, but that ain’t saying much. and the true church continues to be washed over.
fundamentalism stood for something, but wasn’t it machen who said it sounded like another religion, and that we had all we needed in our confessional traditin to combat liberalism? so i concede your point with no problem that they stood for something religiously when compared to their evangelical cousins called liberals. i am just using your fuller and more nuanced arguments in places beyond ASF to say that’s like shooting ducks in a barrel. the subsuming shared activism, pietism and predominant non-churchliness make it easy for ex-liberal like thomas oden to say, “fundamentalists and liberals have more in common than either would want to admit.”
love and loyalty,
zrim
D Hart
May 6th, 2007 at 8:22 am
To Bill and Steve I wave two white handkerchiefs (and it’s not simply because of allergies).