The Evangelical crack-up
Monday October 29, 2007
I'm sure I'm the last one to come to commenting on the big "Evangelical Crack-Up" story David Kirkpatrick wrote in the Times magazine yesterday. I'm cross-posting this on "Crunchy Con" and "Casting Stones," Beliefnet's new political mash-up blog (have you...
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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Speaking as one of the "religious left," why is it so hard to understand that many of us do, indeed, manage our sex lives in accordance with what you might call "orthodox Christian teachings." Just because we don't shun those who have non-straight, non-marital sex, doesn't mean we don't uphold those principles for ourselves. But for Rod, it's more about enforcing your beliefs on others, than on how you live as an individual.
(I don't mean that as a personal attack, because we're not about that here at Crunchy Con central; it's just a clear observation of Rob's outlook that shines through his posts on morality.)
Connie, you always get incredibly worked up whenever I criticize liberals, as if that were some sort of low blow. Connie -- hello! -- I am a conservative. And on what planet do people who believe that sex is only moral inside traditional marriage "shun" those who don't believe that, or live that way? I'd have to live in a hole in the ground if that were the case. Traditional, orthodox Christian teaching holds up a particular sexual ethic as morally normative. Where you get this idea that small-o orthodox Christians don't talk to people who canoodle without benefit of the marital sacrament is peculiar.
Rod writes: "If the Democrats could bring themselves to be more open and welcoming to religious conservatives whose theological conservatism led them to be more embracing of traditionally Democratic positions on the economy, that could change."
That's the problem, as I see it. For a lot of evangelicals, "open and welcoming" is simply code for "unconditional surrender to our social agenda." There is simply too much evidence of evangelical leaders couching their agenda in terms of all-out war for me to believe that they would approach our party in the spirit of inclusiveness and compromise. (For example, I cannot picture James Dobson approaching Dem party leadership to discuss ideas on how to further reduce abortion levels; he just wants it to be criminalized. End of story.)
Evangelicals believe the GOP to be "open and welcoming," however, many are, very late in the game, discovering that all this time they feasted on little more than scraps from the table (i.e., ideas that no elected member of the GOP is truly going after, such as popular culture, abortion, etc.) It's my opinion that some evangelicals might jump ship to the Democratic Party, but too many have spent far too many years creating an air of rank toxicity around Democrats and liberalism that it has become just to wide a gulf to bridge in the short-term.
When evangelicals talk about their faith being under attack, my first inclination is to roll my eyes. However, when I think about it, they might have a point. Perhaps their faith, in some small way, is under attack, but I wonder if this is because their leadership worked so hard to marry their faith to a political party (or, more specifically, to a particular administration, which is even more pathetic and cheap)and adverse reaction is not so much from the tenants of their faith (which can and should be subject to scrutiny and criticism) but the fact that they sold out their most cherished beliefs to campaign advisors and talking suits.
I wish I was a sore winner, Rod, but I'm feeling, if anything, more alienated from mainstream politics than I was a few years ago. Liberals, scenting blood, are throwing overboard anything that might stop them from reaching victory. Now, I'm not a liberal, I'm a lefty, but that means we shared some views. Less and less as the religious right crumbles and it turns out that liberals are comfortable with some of its positions, so long as they don't get in the way of electoral politics. Liberals, it turns out, aren't opposed to American empire (surprise, right?), they're opposed to Republicans at the reins.
You've discovered the politics of the "Emergent Church" wing of Evangelicalism. Brian McLaren (on the Wallis blog) is the Big Chief among them.
My take at GetReligion, for those who might want to see it:
http://www.getreligion.org/?p=2812
Rod:
What is your objection to social justice? (At least as a description ...)
The democrats have already answered concerning their openness to social conservatives. The senate voted 53-41 to overturn a policy President Bush instituted on his first day in office in 2001 that protects taxpayers from funding international abortions. Voting with the pro-abortion majority was the phony "pro-life" democrat Bob Casey.
You can say all you want about republicans not supporting the pro-life cause but even the notorious pro-abort Rudy Guilani opposes overturning this policy because of pressures in his party. I always remember how Newt Gingrich described the republican party as a pro-life party with a pro-choice wing. If the democrats had a pro-life wing with any support at all, we might have a chance to overturn Roe, but they don't and it is clear from the Bobby Casey Jr example that there isn't one building.
Bobby Casey lied his butt off to diffuse the abortion issue and now he has cast his first vote regarding abortion to overturn one of the few victories the pro-life cause has won. All of the democrats running for president are pro-abortion.
Now, I will not vote for Rudy for president because I want to preserve the republican party as a pro-life party regardless of the political outcome but I know who the democrats are. I also hope my Catholic bishops are at least as hard on Rudy as they were on Kerry. Bobby Casey is the self-described example of a pro-life democrat yet he has a more pro-abortion policy than Guiliani. He is a liar but, of course, the media will portray him as having grown in office.
Evangelicals were not originally pro-life and they do tend to drift in the wind. If the marketing of mega-churches now requires them to "grow" on the abortion issue, it would be no surprise that they would drift back that way but if they move to supporting the pro-abortion democratic party, then they are indeed abandoning the cause of the unborn.
It's telling that the Republican Party machers can embrace a man like Rudy Giuliani, . . .but they keep a man like Mike Huckabee . . . at arm's length . . . Doesn't that indicate where the GOP's treasure is -- in particular, the treasure of the Evangelical power brokers?
This makes no sense. It is the Evangelical power brokers who are threatening a third party run if Rudy get the nomination. It is the rank and file Evangelicals that are apparently showing Rudy pretty heavy support.
"It is the rank and file Evangelicals that are apparently showing Rudy pretty heavy support."
That's because abortion is more important to the Conservative elite and pundit class than it is for the rank-and-file.
Anecdotal evidence: I'm an Evanglical Christian (more liberal than most, but historically orthodox in my theology and a political moderate). I have a close group of 10 fellow evangelicals, in 2004 only I and myself voted John Kerry--everyone else Bush. 2008, 9 out of the ten of us have said that we could potentially see ourselves voting Obama. We haven't necessarily changed our views on abortion or homosexuality, but (1) we've realized poverty is as serious a moral issue and (2) we've come to understand that the GOP is not very serious about abortion and (3) we've come to realize that no matter how much a political party will claim to represent our views- competence in government is not measured by the ability to spew certain talking points.
Not necessarily representative of evangelicalism in general, but certainly true among many evangelical circles I'm in contact with.
And Perkins is way off. Hybels and other mainstream evangelical ministers/theologians have not diverted from "evangelical orthodoxy" but only have expanded their understanding of what living faithfully to the scriptures looks like. It is precisely because of their "high view of scripture" that these evangelicals have come to take seriously issues of poverty, environment, and war and peace. I predict "liberal Chistianity" may fail to maintain a faithful "social justice" tradition because they fail to make a good case scripturally for their beliefs.
Rod, what do you mean when you say:
"don't look for the religious left to embrace . . . the idea that God expects individuals to live holy personal lives, including . . . abiding by orthodox Christian sexual teachings."
How are those teachings defined:
No premarital sex?
No divorce?
No sex with someone else once you are married?
No birth control?
No, uh, nonprocreative sexual acts?
If that's your list of orthodox teachings, what you really mean is Catholic teachings. And, since apparently 90% of people are not virgins on their wedding night, why exempt the Christian right?
Beyond personally following certain sexual "rules," what should a religious liberal Christian (or for that matter, any Christian) do about them? Yes, we understand forgiveness and repentance after marriage has been broken by divorce. Remarriage--not just for liberals!
No, religious liberals don't try to enact their beliefs on sexual teachings into law, and apparently even you don't believe in shunning. So what are we to do about those who behave differently? And why is sexual behavior different from the fasting discipline described in a different post? Obeying the Orthodox fasting rules is for developing personal discipline and spirituality; if I understand it correctly, you aren't supposed to insist that others follow them.
Yes, I get worked up when you criticize "liberals" for doing what "humans" and "conservatives" do in about equal measure. You throw out "liberal" as an epithet at most every act you don't like.
Connie, that's just a stupid and ill-informed thing to say. Are you not paying attention when I criticize my own side, which is often? And yes, Christian sexual teaching encompasses all the things you list, though contraception, while rejected by all Christians until the 20th century, is now accepted by most churches to some degree. Which is my way of saying that I wouldn't judge the orthodoxy of any non-Catholic by whether or not they hold to the ancient teaching on contraception. And the way divorce is handled in Catholicism differs from Orthodoxy and Protestantism, but I am not aware of any traditional church that doesn't view it as a moral failing to some degree.
It's not that small-o orthodox Christians don't sin. It's that we recognize sin as sin, and don't call it irrelevant, or even virtuous.
'Hybels and other mainstream evangelical ministers/theologians have not diverted from "evangelical orthodoxy" but only have expanded their understanding of what living faithfully to the scriptures looks like. It is precisely because of their "high view of scripture" that these evangelicals have come to take seriously issues of poverty, environment, and war and peace.'
I would disagree here, Matt. It seems to me that evangelicalism is moving leftward both theologically and socially (the two almost always go hand in hand.) Many evangelicals who "have come to take seriously issues of poverty, environment, and war and peace," may be bailing on the GOP (well and good) but rather than thinking these issues through Scripturally and logically and forming their own conclusions, are simply buying into the Democratic platform instead. i.e., that it's primarily the federal government's job to address these matters. If Pat Robertson's followers are the GOP at prayer, the followers of Jim Wallis, etc. are starting to sound more and more like the Democratic Party at prayer. One mess of pottage has been exchanged for another.
The answer here would seem to be a 'third way,' something that maintains theological and social conservatism, while at the same time eschewing the unrestrained capitalist/big business interests that have been dominant in the GOP since its inception. Does this mean a third party? Probably. The GOP is committed to big business, the Dems to big government. Both are run by special interests. The GOP wants unlimited financial behavior, the Dems, unlimited sexual behavior. How can conservative or traditional Christians of any stripe call either one of these shipwrecks "home"?
I do know that what Kirkpatrick reports in his piece -- about the generational divide leading to the Evangelical crack-up -- mirrors what I've noticed in my speaking to conservative, especially religious conservative, audiences about "Crunchy Cons." Older conservatives have no idea what I'm talking about, and wonder who let the liberal in the back door.
This is probably the most frustrating thing in conversation. Anything outside the libertarian sympathizing wing of conservatism is called liberal. You see it in Fund's hit piece on Huckabee. The guy wanted to improve roads in the State: LIBERAL! You see it in a lot of the reaction to crunchy cons. Neverminding for the moment that libertarians have typically been more at home with liberals, conservatives would be wise to realize that the 'new liberals' have a profoundly conservative library.
But again, Rod, whatever sexual rules one accepts, what is a Christian's responsibility to DO about them, other than live by them personally?
(I'm not sure what was stupid and ill-informed about my comment. [Just the last sentence?] But you didn't call me stupid, just my comment, so that makes it ok. And you're the host.)
Rod:
Following up on Connie ...
What happens to the 90%? (The percentage could be lower, but you get my point.)
It seems to me they are either hopeless sinners for eternity -- or they are forgiven, but then there is no real incentive for others to avoid being "hopeless sinners."
"Billy Graham, in his youth, was a Democrat -- as were most Southern evangelicals before the Civil Rights era. Some of them were fundamentalists and New Dealers to the extent that they welcomed government pork when it came their way. To suggest that evangelicals are reviving that Democratic tradition -- mildly populist economics combined with social conservatism and a fundamental belief in the export of American power -- doesn't so much herald a moderation as an expansion of cultural influence."
Why does this analysis of the old solid Democratic South ignore its most salient difference with the modern Democratic party--the issue of race? White Southerners back in the good old days were fine with populism and the New Deal, as long as Blacks could be excluded from it. When the Democratic party was finally forced to extend the New Deal to Blacks, which was essentially what the War on Poverty was about, the Solid South turned into a marshmallow.
Condi Rice tells the story of her father, a dedicated anti-racism activist, choosing to affiliate with the GOP because they were "the party of Lincoln" and the Democrats were the party of Strom Thurmond. Thurmond, of course, died a Republican. Most of his buddies made the switch at about the same time. Before we start worshipping the culture of the Old South, let's remember the evil it rested on.
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