RSSEvangelical Liberals?
W.H. Chellis
Is it just me or is it 1927 all over again?
An interesting article about evangelicals embracing leftish causes. Not that I have any strong opinions about global warming or a problem with adoption but one doubts that these issues will be embraced with a conservative sentiment.
More fodder for the Hart theory. When will evangelicals discover Russell Kirk?
D Hart
May 9th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Biblical politics may be the problem here. The Bible has more to say about poverty, war, and hunger than it does about limited government, national defense, or free markets. So if all you do is read the Bible for political reflection, you end up liberal. A gross overstatement probably but it is what I think is going on with evangelicals right now.
sdesocio
May 9th, 2007 at 11:29 am
“So if all you do is read the Bible for political reflection, you end up liberal.” Is this a critique of the liberals or the conservatives?
W.H. Chellis
May 9th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Tell that to the theonomists!
W.H. Chellis
May 9th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Seriously, poverty, war, and hunger are issues that Christians and conservatives should also care about, no? The question is how we end up answer these problems. If we are firm about the doctrine of subsidiarity, if we engage with historic just war doctrines, if we reflect on property as a Divinely sanctioned “metaphysical right” we will come to different answer from the quasi-socialistic ones offered by early 20th Century social gospel main-ine types and early 21st Century social gospel evangelical types. We will also stand nearer to the concerns of historic catholicity (not just Romanism) and be able to embrace a Protestant critique of modernity (and its post-modern stepchildren).
stevez
May 9th, 2007 at 11:58 am
yes, D Hart, at least we know now that they are actually reading the bible they like to tote. next we should expect more push for a return to monarchies, yes?
the lens by which they interpret is still as skewed as it ever was (sorry, i can’t help but still lovingly chide you per your phrase “right now”! what’s that about nothing new under the sun?) their attempt at easing the high-octane politicization of religion in our time and place is admirable; but simply gathering all sides of the cultural table under the cultic one only makes me wonder which problem is worse and confirms that they STILL don’t get it…and never have. ouch.
zrim
Rusty O.
May 9th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
…”if all you do is read the Bible for political reflection, you end up liberal.” Yes! If we define liberal in the same way a libertarian might. Furthermore, if the church was doing its job with respect to poverty, war, and hunger we would put the feds out of business. The problem with Christian government is the government part. If the church was “liberal” in the contemporary sense of fighting war, poverty, and hunger she would be fulfilling a biblical role long forgotten. If she were “liberal” in her view of secular government, like Patrick Henry or Mises, the picture would be complete.
stevez
May 9th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
yeow, rusty. sounds like you might be the constituency karl was looking for.
unfortunately for mr. rove, i don’t think the church is the world’s hospital, police or orphanage. she simply was not ordained for such work; hers is much more simple and narrow and other worldly. it’s the role of the KoM to figure this stuff out and execute it.
i am not much for religiously veiled efforts to effect a republican ethic to limit government, especially at the expense of hoisting all the burden onto God’s Church. that ploy was way too transparent for this confessionalist!
zrim
W.H. Chellis
May 9th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
zrim… I appreciate your argument but calling it confessional is bunk. The Reformed confessions are clear in the duty of the magistrate includes defending Christendom. You can point to your reliance on the American alterations but that seems a little neo-confessional, no?
Rusty O.
May 9th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
..as you do unto the least of these so you do unto Me.
-simple, narrow and otherworldly.
I am also not much for “religiously veiled efforts to effect a republican ethic to limit government, especially at the expense of hoisting all the burden onto God’s Church.”
The business of God’s Church is to make men Christians. Government reflects man’s nature, so if his nature is changed government will be largely superfluous, just like it is in Heaven.
D Hart
May 10th, 2007 at 8:54 am
And what do we do in the meantime before heaven? Specifically, what does the church do with non-members, treat them like they are members? I don’t think Israel or the church had a biblical mandate to fix the poverty, hunger and war of the world. Taking care of Christian poor, hungry and combat is certainly fair game — it is deaconal. But the trouble that I find in so many who write about Christianity and politics is the inability to recognize that the Bible is for the church, not the world, and that the world and the church are at odds. Too many want to use the church and the Bible to fix the world’s problems.
stevez
May 10th, 2007 at 8:59 am
bill,
you know, i reflected a bit after that post and wondered if it might be a better thing and relevant here to have said, “…for this christian secularist.” how’s that? perhaps it takes some neo-confessionalism to combat the referenced neo-con’ism? however, i am not yet convinced just how much the forms demand a protection of “christendom” proper so much as the church…
rusty, i fear your eschateology is a bit over-realized for me. making men christians is far different from making their governments such. my hope lies in the age to come; the fulcrum is not fixed in this age but between this age and the one to come. meantime, we ought not rely on the supposed conversion the KoM to solve our this-worldly problems…if anything is left-of-center it is that.
i still say karl’s politics was absolutely genuis, though. pure brilliance. he knows american religion better than the religionists themselves. he tapped into their consistent conflating of the two kingdoms and made them feel good about it in the process, the end result being what some here have rightly called the makin gof “better republicans than christians.” great politics.
zrim
W.H. Chellis
May 10th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Darryl, agreed.
zrim, works for me.
Caleb Stegall
May 11th, 2007 at 8:07 am
The greatness of Paul lies in his quality as a statesman that enables him … to transpose the community of the perfect with Christ into an idea that took into account the practical problems of a community that did not at all consist of perfect saints. The Epistles of Paul present the momentous step from radical perfectionism to the compromise with the realities of the Christian community in its environment. From Hebrews the path could have led to a small community of saints; Paul opens the way to imperial expansion, the way to Rome. … [On Paul’s indifference to social problems] … The important passage in I Tim. 6 … admonishes the slave to be content with his position … but the very fact of the admonition proves that the community at Ephesus was already beset with problems that have troubled the later Christian era. There seem to have been Christian slaves who failed in the respect due their Christian masters because they were their “brethren.†… The situation is essentially the same as that of the revolting German peasants in the sixteenth century who, like the slaves of Ephesus, fell into the misunderstanding that the spiritual freedom of the renovated personality was a charter of social liberties. The transition from the idea of spiritual brotherhood to social revolt is the inevitable result of the tension between the invisible kingdom of Heaven and the all-too-visible order of the world in which it is embedded. Loyalty to the social status is thus made a Christian duty … because the social status belongs to “this world†and, therefore, should not be an object of overwhelming interest for the renovated Christian. … [The Christian’s posture towards the social status quo is not determined] by a rule that envisages a permanent establishment, but as a provisional arrangement that is necessitated by the coexistence of the invisible realm with the world until … the second coming of Christ. … Paul had found the essential compromises with the world … [which] had made the community compatible with any society into which Christianity would spread, influencing social relations only through the slowly transforming force of brotherly love.
Eric Voegelin, HPI, v. I, at 169-173
stevez
May 11th, 2007 at 10:12 am
rusty,
you say “..as you do unto the least of these so you do unto Me” to help your point.
but i wonder if a bit more conext may be in order…
Matthew 25:35-40
35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37″Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40″The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
seems the “least of these” are actually brethren. so it seems, like D Hart suggests, that the work to relieve suffering is actually more diaconal, which is to say, “narrow, simple and other worldly.”
steve
Rusty O.
May 11th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
You’re right that I misquoted the passage, but I didn’t misquote the passage you reproduced. The sheep are told they will inherit the kingdom because of their diaconal ministry which is vicariously rendered to Christ. Granted.
In verse 45, the wicked are told this:”I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
So, at the least, a failure to render mercy to “the least of these” is enough to condemn the wicked. I don’t see how the latter portion can be talking about Christians. The wicked don’t owe us anything.
I think the case against my comment is overstated. I’m all for the spirituality of the church. I’m against the social gospel and I’m against “Christian ethics”. I’m against all of Christianity as far as it is attempting ANYTHING without the church at the middle.
BUT, the Bible is not just for the church. And I think you guys agree with me at least in the application of the gospel to missions, correct? And if so, how do we go about extricating “the gospel” from the Bible? I’m not saying we can’t, in fact, we must. But we also preach the gospel in ways without words. Or, better yet, we preach the gospel in different manifestations of THE WORD- words in a tract, the word made flesh in communion, the word made flesh in bodily sacrifice, the word represented by a husband or father, etc. The Word is exclusively the church’s, but we have been commanded to share Him.
D Hart
May 12th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Rusty, let’s try this thought experiment. Say Hillary gets elected. She is a professing Christian and may actually be a church member somewhere. In her first State of the Union address she appeals to the Bible for all sorts of welfare policies and for withdrawing support for Israel. Would you then be tempted to assent to the proposition that the Bible is only for the church? Or would you look at each appeal to see if Hillary interpreted the Bible correctly?
Rusty O.
May 13th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
If Hillary ran for office and surprised the nation by appealing to the Bible then she should abdicate her office for running dishonestly. If she runs for office and wins because she is a Christian who will appeal to the Bible for policies regarding welfare and Israel (that is her platform) then she would be dishonest for privatizing her faith once she is elected.
Given the latter scenario we would assume the church in the U.S. has experienced significant revival. We live in a democracy. The church can answer questions about politics when Hillary begs her for an audience. The Bible is solely the church’s in this way, and Hillary has no authority to wield it by herself. If she tries it will be disastrous.
So, I remain an ecclesiocentric, Kuyperian (with ample qualifications), trinitarian (with no qualifications), postmillenial, Christian Anarchist.
D Hart
May 13th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Who knew that Kuyperianism and anarchy went together?
W.H. Chellis
May 13th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Those are strange bedfellows.
Rusty O.
May 13th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
I think the criticisms expressed about Kuperianism on this blog are rich and necessary, overall. And “anarchy” in the Edenic or eschatalogical New Earth sort of way is something we can probably agree about. Postmillenialism is just a word to express my hope in the work of the Spirit- that someday he might bring us back to Eden.
Notice that theonomy wasn’t in my label. Bahnsen had two fatal errors in his theonomy thesis: The Bible can be applied like Justinian’s Legal Code, and you can establish theonomy without postmillenialism. The church can’t enter the public sphere as a tyrant might, with new code in hand. She enters the public sphere through humility and death. Not Christians, not Christianity, but the Church. And when she comes it’s an outreach, not a revolution.
stevez
May 14th, 2007 at 8:06 am
rusty,
i am still a bit confused about what happen what is happening before she comes. sounds like she is waiting with baited breath to effect that which the sarx longs for.
“The church can answer questions about politics when Hillary begs her for an audience.”
so, then, if only pressed hard enough the church is indeed has a political dimension, however latent until tapped for an opinion?
or do you perhaps mean to say that the answer would be shrugged shoulders? i would guess not, since you appeal to postmill’ism.
from my view, the world may beg all it wants but a “cold, mean” amill’ism (which is meant to be synonymous with a biblical eschateology) would in fact shrug its shoulders and hold out the gospel and brace herself for being rendered quite irrelevant.
stevez
Rusty O.
May 14th, 2007 at 10:17 am
“so, then, if only pressed hard enough the church is indeed has a political dimension, however latent until tapped for an opinion?”
We’re tyrants if not asked. If asked we’re tyrants for not answering. Furthermore, if asked, the Spirit has moved in the hearts of men, and they will flood our churches begging for grace.
“the world may beg all it wants but a “cold, mean†amill’ism (which is meant to be synonymous with a biblical eschateology) would in fact shrug its shoulders and hold out the gospel and brace herself for being rendered quite irrelevant.”
As long as she holds out the gospel. The fruit might surprise Kuperians and Christian Secularists alike.
stevez
May 14th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
“We’re tyrants if not asked. If asked we’re tyrants for not answering.”
just a question to get clear: is this a rendering of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”?
“Furthermore, if asked, the Spirit has moved in the hearts of men, and they will flood our churches begging for grace.”
so, if we are asked what to do about civil rights or darfur we should take this as the work of the Spirit preparing men’s hearts to receive grace and “flood our churches”? if that’s true, why has it never seemed to have happened?
also, what happens when our answers to temporal concerns conflict (and they certainly seem to when sampling even the most modest views on any given topic amongst christians)? where does the fact that God is not one of confusion figure in here?
steve
Rusty O.
May 14th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
I apologize for the confusion. I simply meant that if we’re not asked for our advice, if the Spirit hasn’t moved in the hearts of men, then the grace we offer will still be law to them. We will be viewed as tyrants for imposing our position instead of responding to a Spirit led demand for our counsel. I understand that this can’t be divorced from a very optimistic eschatology. The point is not how to get an ear from the world, but it is how to love and grow the church so that even fools and pagans are wooed by her grace and wisdom.
“when our answers to temporal concerns conflict” we fight and strive for unity instead of disowning our brothers and sisters in Christ. Water runs thicker than blood.
stevez
May 15th, 2007 at 9:20 am
ought we not fight and strive for unity (and orthodoxy’s necessary negative called separation) around cultic truth rather than cultural? i would rather own/disown someone when it comes to a doctrine of the atonment than over things where God has not spoken. what he thinks about that which is temporal and quite disputable is his. what would you say to a “radical intolerance for things cultic and a radical tolerance for things cultural”?
i am sure paul had the same quality and quantity of cultural issues in his day, but he is strangely silent on any of it.
zrim
Rusty O.
May 15th, 2007 at 10:46 am
I agree with the thrust of your first paragraph. But I disagree that Paul is silent on culturally relative issues. The braiding of hair is cultural, no? But we’re on the same page principally if you maintain the “things where God has not spoken” standard.
Our fundamental disagreement is on the placing of the fulcrum of history. You say not yet, I say 2000 years ago. This assumption will bleed out into differing views of the kingdom, metaphysics, earth, etc.
Tolerance for things cultural and radical intolerance for things cultic lest we slide down the slippery slope of the Puritans, the Dutch Reformed, the Scottish Presbyterian, and others who failed to place tight boundaries on cult with the word and sacraments at center.
stevez
May 15th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
my point was more that paul had his darfur’s and abortion debates. yet not a peep about them.
yes, braiding hair is cultural. but i have always read the point to be larger than how a woman should wear her hair, namely don’t make a specticle of yourself and play by the rules of your time and place in order to gain a hearing (for the Gospel, that is, not a place at the cultural table). further, if we are to apply eternal categories to paul’s instructions on temporal matters (i.e. how men and women should wear their hair) then it should be true across time and place that head coverings are in order, no questions asked, right?
“You say not yet, I say 2000 years ago.”
mmmm, i say “already/not yet.” but, yes, you are correct on our essential disagreement. i make visible/invisible distinctions. it “was finished” 2000 years ago only if you read such to be spiritual and yet to be consummated materially.
zrim
Rusty O.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Perhaps behind or parallel to our eschatalogical debate is the issue of metaphysics you brought up.
You say, “it ‘was finished’ 2000 years ago only if you read such to be spiritual and yet to be consummated materially.”
Name two entities- since the incarnation- that are only spiritual vs. “material.” (two, because angels would be an answer I might grant)
Thanks for the interaction.
stevez
May 17th, 2007 at 9:54 am
rusty,
i am not so sure i follow your question. but i do believe that only God is spirit, but that would be true pre- and post-incarnation (so would angels), so maybe that doesn’t meet your criterion(?).
but i think we have gotten to that inevitable point where i can see our essential differences, which i suspected anyway.
you are welcome…and thanks.
zrim
Rusty O.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
The spiritual/material dichotomy is what I am challenging. I think it is more fundamental than eschatology.
D Hart
May 19th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
But Rusty, Paul makes the spiritual/material dichotomy all over the place. As does Calvin. His prayers are full of petitions asking that we not become too deeply attached to earthly and perishable things. That is key and it is also tough — to look at something as both good and perishable. But that is the way we are to hold the things of this life. To raise the stakes even more, this is the way we are to regard marriage. After all, it will pass away and our spouses won’t be ours in the new heavens and new earth. What does that do to “family values?”
stevez
May 21st, 2007 at 11:00 am
ok, ok, i am back.
yes, exactly.
i wonder if rusty presumes that a spiritual/material dichotomy is an auotmatically low view of the latter or presumes a nasty gnosticism? but perishable does not mean bad from my POV…not one iota. but do we really have to lend eternal value to that which is temporal in order to make the point? i think this to quite overstate it and over-correct for systems that would degrade that which was pronounced “very good.”
not all dichotomies seek to denigrate one class over another. many, like this one, actually seek to simply set them in perspective and right order. further, in this one, the stark edges drawn actually set up for a high view of material.
no, rusty, the raft upon which we float is good yet sinking. it’s not sinking because it is intrinsically evil but because it’s a got a hole in it–nothing too profound there. we won’t get to our destination unless we quietly slip on our lifejacket and attend to the good goings-on on the raft while at once also looking ahead. the raft needs, nor can it accept, redemption from the likes of us. that groaning will cease at the hands of Another.
zrim
Rusty O.
May 21st, 2007 at 3:53 pm
If we can agree that the spiritual/material dichotomy is temporal and is a problem solved by the resurrection, then I think you will see my direction.
The goal is heaven on earth. Paul distinguishes the spiritual from the material, and I don’t deny that spirit is different from matter. But the end isn’t spirituality without materiality, the end is resurrection- materiality redeemed. Spirit without matter is the definition of death to a man.
The church’s job is ultimately about making heaven on earth. This is the intention of earth that Adam screwed up. And the second Adam is fixing that mistake one resurrected soul after another. I think I only differ from you guys in the way I approach spirit and matter.
D Hart
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:10 am
Rusty, the problem I have with your view of the resurrection is not its physicality but its simple resolution of the problem of forms. Here we want strong marriages and families. In heaven there won’t be marriages or families. So what are we to do in trying to establish heaven on earth.
Wait, there’s more. In heaven we will have glorified bodies. I assume that means we will still be individually male and female. And yet one of the points of being different sexes — procreation — will be gone. So here we have these physical bodies capable of reproduction and the equipment will be — to mix metaphors — put out to pasture.
I think the difference between us is the degree of continuity or discontinuity between this age and the age to come. This difference also bears on the way we regard continuity and discontinuity between Israel and the church. Eschatology matters.
stevez
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:35 am
rusty,
i have to admit, much of what you say seems good to me.
but then you seem, at least to me, to take a left turn at albequerque: “The church’s job is ultimately about making heaven on earth.” it is your meta-narrative that bothers me immensely.
heaven on earth is when we are gathered around word and sacrament as weak vessels and as the world buzzes around us (i am often remided of this in my little presby church-away-from-home when we take the elements: the front of the church has angled windows through which we can observe all sorts of buzzing creation, like cars and sun and wind and hitch-hikers. and as i contemplate the ridiculous notion that heaven on earth is this pathetic display i am reminded of how the flesh just doesn’t get it). and it is the flesh that wants it here and now. heaven on earth is about all sorts of glory-filled things. all that stuff i view as i take the elements is good stuff, but were i to tell it that heaven is happening on *this* side of the window pane it would, predictably, guffaw at me, just as i do to myself as i raise the bread and wine to my lips–it’s weird experience, indeed, to be at once a citizen of both kingdoms.
in this way, eschateology matters a great deal: is it here and now (a theology of glory) or later (a theology of the Cross)? and more to the point of your phrase above, at whose hands does it come…ours or heaven’s? yes, the second adam is making all things new “one soul at a time,” but it’s an already/not yet tension. it’s something already done but only seen with the eye of faith, to be consummated later. think of abraham narrative: it’s a heavenly promise to be waited patiently upon, not a task one to be taken up by human might.
yes, our approaches differ. but different from how you might see this difference, it makes all the difference.
zrim
Rusty O.
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:45 am
The marriage and family problem isn’t a problem, in my opinion. Strong marriages and families reflect the eschatalogical marriage and family as we understand our marriage to Christ and our adoption as the Father’s children. (…we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons…Rom.8:23) We experience a taste of heavenly marriage in our temporal marriages. It’s like communion. Communion is temporary, because it points to a greater communion in the future. So, we make heaven on earth by doing these things well. They are temporary because they are inadequate shadows, not because they will be dismissed for something totally different.
I don’t think we will have glorified bodies in Heaven, if you mean the place where we go when we die. Christ does have a glorified body, but my body will stay in the ground until the resurrection. Perhaps therein lies the rub. Heaven is temporary. Heaven prefigures the New Heavens and New Earth. Our bodies, complete with sexual capacity will be wholly resurrected, just like Christ’s. But again, this doesn’t happen at death. Sexual identity is not a result of the Fall.
Finally, the same concept of typology does bear on the relationship of Israel and the Church, but it always looks forward. Theonomist types tend to look backward in redemptive history for their view of politics, etc. It takes a great deal more maturity and ecclesiocentricity to look forward for a view of politics. Israel had a king because they were weak. They had hard laws because they were hard-hearted. Christ has saved us from these temporal crutches. His political revolution isn’t national or legislative, because those things are small and base. The gospel doesn’t change laws (or if it does, it’s secondary). It changes the very desires of men. This is ultimately the goal of contemporary politics, as well. Our politicians are after the hearts of men. If they could legislate heartfelt conformity they would. And so the gospel is their greatest threat.
This brings us back again to the psalms and weekly communion. The Lord’s service pounds at the gates of secularism each Sunday. We can deny that, but at some point our impact, especially if it is unintentional, unpolitical, and totally spiritual will bring Nero to our door. We can tell him our view of politics is spiritual, but that is the very thing he covets- access to the root of loyalty and desire- that is why death is the solution to political dissonance.
Rusty
By the way, thanks for listening. It’s a privilege of blogdom to have access to men of your caliber, and I don’t take it for granted!