Category Archives: Evangelicalism

Christianity is not a cultural project

Posted by on August 10, 2011 24 comments

One of the central features of what we might call “post-evangelical discontent” is the general state of being sick of hearing about a “personal relationship” with God as central to the meaning of being a Christian. Talk about “personal relationships” with God is pietistic and individualistic drivel through and through, and we must move beyond it to talk about what really matters, namely embodied discipleship in the church, which is a political, cultural reality in its own right. What is vital for those seeking to move beyond their post-evangelical discontent is to stop fixating on such evangelical niceties and pieties, and understand Christian identity in terms of culture, that is the church as a specific cultural project that, through its own life and the virtues it forms in its members, embodies the kingdom in the world.

Now, to be sure I agree that talk of a “personal relationship” with God is theologically problematic, especially in its fundmentalist-evangelical use. The idea that God is primarily interested in having some sort of emotional involvement with us as precious individual snowflakes is, quite obviously stupid. However, I also find it problematic to move, through a sort of short-circuit from this insipid individual relationalism to construing Christianity as primarily a cultural project. The reason this is problematic is because Christianity is not a cultural project. To be a Christian is not to adopt some new cultural identity, ecclesial or otherwise (as the cross-cultural translatability of the Gospel message in the New Testament shows). To be a Christian is rather to be called to witness to the act of God in Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. This can happen in any culture and in many forms, which is part of the beauty of God’s ongoing work of raising up witnesses by the Spirit.

As such, we need to pause in our rightful distaste for false pieties before seeking false sanctuaries in construals of “Christianity as culture.” Statements like the following should be roundly rejected:

If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God then you are a religious Christian. Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God. We do however believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. This makes us Christian.

It may interest folks to know that this statement comes, not from the pen of leading authors who write books on theology of culture, or the meaning of being the church in the post-Christendom world, but from Anders Behring Breivik, the architect of the recent terrorist attacks in Norway. I use this quote here not to say that the advocates of Christianity as a cultural project would somehow endorse Breivik’s actions; obviously they would not. My point is more basic: Christianity is not a cultural project and to construe it as such is always to set it in the service of some ideology or politics other than it’s call to witness to Christ. Just as we must reject false pieties, so too must we reject the false security that would have us imagine that Christianity is a culture rather than a calling that breaks into all cultures and forms of social life.

“Place” and ideology

Posted by on June 6, 2011 133 comments

A while back David Fitch posted some thoughts on the power of “place” to overcome ideology in the life of the church. He states his argument, briefly as follows:

. . . it is only through “place” that we can break the cycle of ideological church. It is only through engaging in the practices of being the local expression of Christ’s body that we can break out of the entanglements of ideological cynicism. It is only in being the church of Jesus Christ, whose belief and practice is grounded in the Triune relation of God in the world, that we can avoid being ideologized. It is only in building communities that have their own internal integrity built in the on-the-ground participation in the Reign of Christ – that we can escape the ideologization of the church.  No longer dependent upon ideological structure – we can then discern – resist- participate in the world in non violent non-antagonistic ways. This of course (I would argue) is the nature of the incarnation and incarnational communities.

Now, I want to say at the outset that I understand that Fitch is emphasizing “place” (as many missional and new monastic folks do, including myself) in an attempt to combat certain elements of the contemporary evangelical church, such as suburban commuter churches in which the congregates don’t share much in the way of meaningful common life. In the face of churches whose members may live anywhere and not necessarily anywhere near one another, the call to “place” seems to make some sense. Certainly the church is not faithful if it construes itself as a sort of abstract meeting place that does not call us into common life and mission together.

However, I’ve grown increasingly less confident in the notion of “place” to do the sort of heavy lifting that is often asked of it. First of all, in contrast to what Fitch seems to suggest, I don’t see how its possible for us to construe “place” in and of itself as giving us a way to “break the cycle of ideological church.” “Place” speaks of location, stability, longevity, peoplehood, cultivation, it conjures up the images of land and home. But this seems to be part of the problem: Is not commitment to “place” the greatest source of ideology in human history? Are not wars fought precisely in the name of “place”? Is not the effort to carve out and secure “place” at the very center of ideological conflict? To speak of “place” is speak of establishment, and as such, far from becoming a site of resistance to ideology, it forms the place of its very birth. Could not the call to seize upon “place” have the exact opposite effect as Fitch intends? Might it not drive the church towards a territorialism, a possessiveness, that insists upon securing its own “internal integrity”?

We do well to remember that “place” is not neutral. “Places” are created by blood, by division, by violence. It is decidedly easy for the images of belonging and stability that “place” conjures up to imagine that it is simply benign and beautiful. But the truth is that it is not enough to call the church to embrace “place.” Rather the church must be called to critically question and act in response to the forces and powers that divide the world. It is not enough to say “place”; rather we must critically examine the nature of the different spaces in which we find ourselves. The “place” that is the urban ghetto is a decidedly different space than the suburbs or the uptown. They are not really “places” at all, but rather are spaces, created by various forces of social and political (and spiritual!) power. Embracing the “place” that is the urban ghetto is decidedly not the same thing as embracing the “place” that most middle class churches inhabit.

It seems to me that the more pertinent call to the church is not simply to embrace “place”, as if that were some overarching category. Rather the church must discern how different spaces are created in this world, how the principalities and powers seek to divide, enslave, and dehumanize those for whom Christ died and in whom he still suffers. It is into those spaces, the spaces claimed by the idolatrous powers that the church must be found if it is to be counted faithful to the Messiah who proclaimed salvation and restoration to “the least.” In entering these spaces we are not promised the security of “place.” Quite the opposite: “The Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Discipleship calls us, I believe, not into the security of place, but into the insecurity of obedience, of suffering with and bringing the good news to those who are being ground under the oppressive wheel of the powers. It may be that “place” is not a gift we will always be able to claim or assume upon. It may be instead that we are called to die to the security of “place,” and be driven, by the Spirit to pour ourselves out as a drink offering with, for, and alongside those who are driven out of “place.”

Denying the gospel

Posted by on March 22, 2011 27 comments

I’ve already mentioned Mohler’s recent vocalization of a common evangelical predilection for despising and distrusting single people in positions of church ministry. As I’ve also noted, this whole evangelical (and in some ways more broadly Protestant) obsession with getting all ministers “safely” married and childrened is decidedly anti-biblical. The universal testimony of Jesus and Paul in the NT accounts is that, while marriage isn’t wrong, its decidedly disadvantageous to the life of discipleship. So there’s that.

But more pointedly for me is the fact that the belief that marriage is somehow safer, more adult, and more responsible for Christian ministers seems to me to deny the truth of Gospel. I don’t mean to put too fine a point on this, but is it not true that the Gospel declares that, in Christ, old “natural” divisions and restrictions are no longer sovereign? Does it not proclaim that it is the Holy Spirit who distributes gifts to the body just as God desires, irrespective of social location?

To say that there is any inherent superiority — in any way — in Christian ministers being married is not only to contradict the scriptural witness; it is also to deny that the reality of God’s work in Jesus Christ really happens the way the Gospel claims it does. To argue, as folks like Mohler do, that a social-cultural institution (however good it may be in many ways) is the dominant norm for those who would proclaim the Gospel is to deny what the Gospel proclaims, namely that in Christ social-cultural divisions, whatever they might be no longer “are.” What is something, the Gospel says, is “a new creation.”

To say that pastors need to be married is to say that there is no new creation, no presence and action of the Spirit, and indeed, that Christ is not truly Lord. It is to deny that “the form of this world is passing away” and claim instead that “all things continue as from the beginning” and therefore we cannot believe the Gospel in a way that calls forth actual action and faith. Instead we are left to simply defend cultural status quos and the various forms of domination they propagate. That is what Mohler and his ilk peddle and proclaim: The denial of the Gospel and its replacement with a project of cultural conservatism. It is idolatry of the worst sort and should be repudiated by all Christians.

 

As if it needed to be said

Posted by on March 21, 2011 40 comments

It’s good that a recent NY Times article has drawn attention to the unending evangelical idolatry of marriage and family and their correspondingly shameful treatment of single pastors, and especially of single women pastors.

Well known theological hack and neocon ideologue, Al Mohler gives us a rather striking display of his own idolatrous and anti-biblical views on the matter saying that “if [students seeking to enter the ministry] remain single, they need to understand that there’s going to be a significant limitation on their ability to serve as a pastor.”

It seems to me that the Apostle Paul believed the exact opposite of the shit that Mohler’s spouting here (1 Cor 7:28-38). Funny how explicit rejection of the clear teaching of the NT can be made to go hand in hand with blustering proclamations about inerrancy. Add it to  the laundry list of evangelical self-contradictions I guess.

Homophobiaphobia

Posted by on November 9, 2010 50 comments

There’s a lively discussion underway at Daniel Kirk’s blog in which he has called for a moratorium on the use of the word “homophobic” as a descriptor for folks whose theological and/or political positions on same-sex relationships is non-affirming. Now of course I’ll be the first to admit that I believe there are many who aren’t irrationally afraid of gay sex who have disagreements about the theological status of same-sex relationships. But the ensuing conversation around Daniel’s post brought some stuff back up for me that I think merits mention.

First, it seems incontrovertible to me that when the gay community calls certain positions or behavior from others “homophobic” they are stating something about the way in which they experience those ideas and behaviors. In other words, it is a relational term. What they experience from how these others relate to them is an experience of being reflexively feared and viewed as a source of revulsion. As such, I don’t see how it can be up to others to tell the gay community when and whether they can use the word to describe others. What they are describing is their experience of being treated a certain way by others. Now I suppose people could argue that they are wrong about all that, and they have, in fact, been being treated with love and dignity when they thought they were being treated with fear and revulsion, but it seems to me that that would have to be a pretty convincing argument. In my experience people tend to have pretty good sense of when others are afraid of them and find things about them repulsive.

Second, I’m really perplexed by why people are so desperate to avoid the term “homophobic” being applied to them. Now of course, no one wants to be accused of having an irrational fear, which is conjured up by the term “phobia.” But let us leave that aside, especially since it seems to me that the most common connotation of “homophobic” is not irrationality but simply revulsion. If same-sex activity and relationships are sins against God and nature, why would anyone shy away from despising those acts? If gay sex is just as wrong as pederasty or incest, why should we be so concerned to make sure we’re all polite about the one and not the other? Why all the fear of “homophobia” if that is, in fact, what taking sin seriously is supposed to mean?

I always find it interesting how the anti-gay sex position always wants to insist on a polite, measured, and properly ordered civil dialogue about the issue. They claim that to toss around terms like “homophobic” is to distract from the “real issues” and inhibit conversation. Honestly I’m pretty convinced that the real diversion from substantive dialogue is the insistence on keeping everything all tidy and polite. To try to sanitize everything in advance and make sure no one gets called any names sounds innocent enough, but it is hardly a neutral move. To insist that things never get heated and self-involving is to cast the argument, in advance, as one in which all participants are good, honest, basically forward thinking folk that just need to speak more clearly to each other. But its an open question whether that is in fact that case. The gay kid who got the shit kicked out of him all through high school, often by Christians, may not feel like he can extend that sort of open hand of politeness, and who are we to say that he has to?

Anyways, my main point is that the desire to sanitize this discussion is itself an ideological move. If we’re really talking about things as important as both sides think we are, there’s no reason to assume that this should be some sort of polite conversation. According to traditional Christian teaching, non-heterosexual sex is a sin against God and an nature, which, like all sins can send you to hell. That’s serious. According to the movement for same-sex rights today the traditional view of homosexuality is degrading, oppressive, and inhumane. That’s serious too. If we’re talking about things that really are that serious, lets let them be serious rather than trying to keep everything nice and contained for the sake of appearing polite and agreeable. To do that is simply to be dishonest about the nature and severity of the disagreement. And that serves no one, at least in terms of furthering discussion and understanding.

Beckwith’s Rome

Posted by on March 24, 2010 34 comments

Jamie Smith has a review of Francis Beckwith’s book, Return to Rome up at The Other Journal. It certainly takes Beckwith to task for, among other things, making Rome in his own evangelical image. Definitely worth a read. Here’s an excerpt:

Beckwith has returned to the Rome of his evangelical dreams: a pure, pristine defender of truth, justice, and—not so surprisingly—the American way. No wonder, then, that he sees no tension between being “both Evangelical and Catholic.” His is an Evangelical Rome. This plays itself out in a curious conversation with his comrade J. P. Moreland. After reading Moreland a passage from an unnamed author who affirms that “the question about truth is the essential question of the Christian faith as such, and in that sense it inevitably has to do with philosophy,” Beckwith asks his colleague: “Guess who wrote this?” After Moreland reels off some favorite Protestant philosophers, Beckwith plays his gotcha: “It’s the Pope!” “He’s one of us!” Moreland replied in exuberance (78).

But somehow, I can’t imagine Benedict XVI on the faculty of Talbot School of Theology any time soon. So what’s going on here? Beckwith’s Pope is like Norman Geisler’s Aquinas: an anonymous evangelical. On a more macro scale, Beckwith’s Rome is evangelicalism by other means; that is, his is an intellectualized Catholicism—Rome as the home of the true set of Christian propositions or what Beckwith is wont to call “a Christian worldview.” Thus, he criticizes the Catholic teachers of his youth who “spoke of Catholicism as ‘our tradition’ rather than as a cluster of beliefs that were true” (36). The Rome to which he has returned is, ironically, the matrix of Christianity as an intellectual system—“ironically” because Cardinal Ratzinger (just a few weeks before becoming Pope Benedict XVI) has explicitly said that “Christianity is not an intellectual system, a collection of dogmas, or a moralism. Christianity is instead,” Ratzinger emphasized, “an encounter, a love story; it is an event.”

Dressy fundies

Posted by on January 21, 2010 31 comments

Have you people been checking out this new 9 Marks thing? Wow. That’s really all I can say. I mean, I know that regular displays of fundamentalist-evangelical craziness are constant in the United States. But this little self-styled bunch of prophets really seem to take the cake. Its like they’re fighting the battles of nineteenth-century liberalism in the twenty-first century on purpose.

Now of course the essays reflect a complete lack of scholarly acumen or even biblical literacy in most cases, but what’s amazing is the kind of smarminess that oozes off of every page. I mean, what do you make of quotes like this:

For most of my adult life, I have been a pastor among the highly educated, the materially successful, and the politically powerful. It’s not that I sought these people out as more strategic than others. It’s simply where God’s providence placed me.

Wow, that sure is great for you, isn’t it? Gee wasn’t it nice of God’s providence drop you miraculously among the super rich and the politically powerful? Thanks God!

Yeah, its no accident that the majority of this little movement’s contributors are ruling elites of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, which sits but a couple blocks from the U.S. Capitol building.

And then there’s the “9 marks” themselves which consist of expository preaching and then, well, 8 things that start with the word “biblical” (well I guess one of them is actually “promotion of Christian discipleship and growth”).

Couldn’t they just narrow down the list by just having one mark called “biblicalness in all things” or something? Why try to make up a movement just to display your church’s sense of superiority?

Anyways, if you’re looking for some woefully bad reasoning, odd martyr complexes, and general theological dyslexia, check out the 9 Marks. Its a treasure trove of fundamentalist dumbshittery.

Edited to add: I deeply apologize if my language in the last paragraph offended any people with dyslexia. I by no means meant to compare you to orangutans that run the 9 Marks. Please accept my apologies.

Conservatism and the Privatization of Religion

Posted by on October 20, 2009 29 comments

Watching (d)evolution of the lumbering organism that is First Things is certainly interesting. One of the latest developments in this conservative bazaar is the recent addition of a group blog by evangelicals. The lineup is rather interesting, consisting of the sort of usual suspects one might expect to see on a blog by politically conservative evangelicals (i.e. plenty of the Biola types). However, when you starting looking though the posters more deeply, and some of the posts, things start to look quite odd, considering the deeply Catholic nature of First Things.

To take the most extreme example, at least one of the posters on this new blog is ardently anti-Catholic. Like, extremely so. Think rabid fundamentalism meets the New Calvinism meets a loud person with an IQ of around 75 and you’ll have a slight idea of what we’re dealing with here. What are people like that doing posting on the same site as David Bentley Hart and Rusty Reno? It boggles the imagination.

But if you really think about it, all the pieces fit. At the most fundamental level the “first thing” which this publication concerns itself is simply  neoconservatism. And really nothing more than that.  To be sure there are exceptions that prove the rule, and occasionally a good article or post peeks its head through the quicksand, but the fact remains that at a basic level as long as you’re a political conservative, nothing else matters at First Things. You can be an Ultramontane Caesaropapist or a Fundamentalist who thinks the pope is the antichrist as long as you’re both glad to be conservative together.

As such, I submit that First Things is only serving to perpetuate what they so often deride: the privatization of religious and theological convictions. For them, the most central claims of the church’s life and doctrine are swept aside so that all can come together in the embrace neoconservative ideology, the master story that supersedes all religious and theological trivialities. Oddly enough, this predominately Roman Catholic publication actually offers a goofy and contrived alternative form of catholicity, namely that of neoconservative ideology. It is conservatism rather than the faith of the church that will bind us together in common mission, concord, and purpose. Truly a bizarre, though not unpredictable ideological development. A publication dedicated to theology’s public importance has ultimately become nothing more than the obviation of theology itself. As such all we have left is a half-baked neocon ideology in the ruins of what was once a sort of okay publication.

Why John Piper is Dangerous

Posted by on August 20, 2009 171 comments

A while back a commenter asked me to do some sort of incendiary write up about John Piper like I’ve done a few times about Mark Driscoll. One would think that it would be much harder to write such a critique of Piper because he is far more personable and, by all appearances, charitable. Driscoll is a rapacious frat boy who can’t stop flapping his trap. Piper is a pastor. It’s a good deal easier to see the absurdity of Dirscoll’s theological and social views when he preens about how often he gets oral sex from his wife and hosts mixed martial arts fights that supposedly tell real Christian men how to be. He’s patently ridiculous in almost every way. Its all theatrics and megalomania. With Piper however everything is different. Piper is measured, sensitive in speaking, and by all appearances, fairly humble. He’s far, far more palatable, personally and pastorally than Driscoll.

However, this is precisely why John Piper is far more dangerous than Driscoll. Piper’s pastoral manner renders him far more subtle, more believable, more seductive. Whatever else I may say about Driscoll at least he lives the absurdity of his theology out to nth. Piper however is able to project calm compassion and thoughtfulness onto his preaching and teaching in a way that many find appealing who woudl be immediately put off by Driscoll. This is why Piper can get away with saying the most utterly insane things. Like his recent claim that the tornado touchdown that hit a Lutheran church in Minneapolis was God’s judgment and warning to the denomination to stop their proposed initiative to allow gay clergy.

If someone like Driscoll or other more obviously crazy evangelicals like Pat Robertson were to say something like this they’d immediately be called on it (remember Falwell’s whole thing about how the gays, lesbians, and secularists made God bring about 9/11?). But Piper’s defenders flock to him when he proclaims this sort of insanity. And its all because of the image he projects of being the sensitive, strong, measured, and humble pastor.

Driscoll is an obvious yapping wolfling. Piper is the quintessential wolf in very authentic-looking sheep’s clothing.

Evangelicals and Empire

Posted by on June 22, 2009 3 comments

For those who are interested, I’ve just had my review of Bruce Benson and Peter Heltzel’s new book, Evangelicals and Empire published in The Other Journal. The book is a fascinating engagement with the empire theory of Hardt and Negri from the standpoint of evangelicalism. The book looks both at how Hardt and Negri’s theory might be brought to bear on evangelicalism and how evangelical theology might offer challenges to Hardt and Negri. Definitely worth a read.

Evangelicals and Epistemology

Posted by on June 13, 2009 7 comments

“The circle of conversation has brought me around to the problem with which I made a special point of not beginning, namely the fixation of contemporary “evangelical” identity on epistemology and reason. From where we stand today, under the claim of a liberating Lord calling us to be the servants of our neighbors, that preoccupation seems to represent a concession to Enlightenment and not a victory over it. It looks like an acceptance of the Scholastic notion that we seek a truth system with which to defend ourselves as those who possess it, rather than being claimed by a Lord who calls us to join him in his condescension.”

~ John Howard Yoder, To Hear the Word, 60-1. (New Edition forthcoming from Cascade Books)

Why do Evanglicals Care More About Cussing than the Treatment of Women?

Posted by on June 3, 2009 52 comments

The pomo darling boy of the super-reformed emerging church has recently drawn the ire of some of his fellow conservative, driscoll-thumb-400x270reformed evangelical friends. Mark Driscoll has long been known for his regular practice of cussing from the pulpit and engaging in many, many quite explicit sermons about (marital) sex. He has often said that the Song of Solomon is his favorite book of the Bible. In a lot of evangelical circles that are antagonistic to the perceived liberalism of the emerging church, Driscoll has been something of a poster-child for a while. Here we have a younger pastor who dresses cool, is “culturally relevant” and who’s still militantly conservative, insists that men must exert authority over women in every context, and who holds unswervingly to Westminster-style reformed theology.

However, I guess Driscoll’s theological and political allegiances aren’t enough to keep him in the good graces of the conservative evangelical literati. His regular sermons about sex, which often consist of straight up commands to the women of the church to perform whatever sex acts their husbands might desire have not been well-received by the likes of John MacArthur and John Piper. What’s interesting, though is what particular transgressions this outrage has been directed towards.

Most everyone is talking about the fact that the problem with Driscoll is the inappropriateness of his language. Its just not okay for you to be talking explicitly about sex and cussing from the pulpit. That’s the downbeat of the current backlash, and that’s the central issue that has framed the current debate among evangelicals that run in these circles. To his credit, MacArthur (who I generally despise, at least theologically if not personally) has put is finger on the more troubling issue here. Namely that Driscoll’s sexual explicitness is all deployed in the interest of coercing women to fulfill whatever sexual whims their husbands might have. As MacArthur rightly points out, Driscoll’s regular sermons on what the Song of Song has to say about sex always ends up pointing out “obligatory acts wives must do if this is what satisfies their husbands, regardless of the wife’s own desire or conscience.” This is the real problem, people.

Lest anyone think Driscoll is being misrepresented here, listen to just a couple quotes from one of these sex sermons: “Ladies, let me assure you of this: if you think you’re being dirty, he’s pretty happy. Jesus Christ commands you to do this.” This is misogyny sexual domination at its worst. From the pulpit we have an evangelical pastor ordering the women in his church to perform any sex act a husband might desire because, after all, Jesus commands this. In the Song of Songs. I guess.

What’s so disturbing about all this is the way this little kerfuffle is being framed as simply a problem with inappropriate language. The Victorian sensibilities about what is proper verbal etiquette among evangelicals trump the rampant exploitation, degradation, and misogyny that this allegedly Christian pastor is perpetrating on thousands of women on a weekly basis. This is a disgrace. A filthy, sickening disgrace.

The American Patriot’s Bible

Posted by on June 2, 2009 27 comments

Have you  seen this? Have you heard about this? Among crazy evangelical Bibles, this one definitely takes the prize for being the most utterly terrible. Thankfully, Greg Boyd has thoroughly spanked this idolatrous piece of trash in a recent two-part review. Here’s one snippet:

But the Revolutionary War is not by any means the only nationalistic violence celebrated in the Patriot’s Bible. To the contrary, the glory of nationalistic violence permeates this Bible. For example, every book of the Bible opens with a montage of national monuments, symbols, stars and stripes, etc… which include, with few exceptions, images of armed soldiers, bombers and battleships. Most stunningly, each Gospel opens with a scene that includes soldiers struggling to raise a flag under the words “In God We Trust.” All the subsequent books of the New Testament open with a montage that includes a flag waving behind the Statue of Liberty on one side and armed marching troops on the other. It’s quite breathtaking—and I don’t mean this in a good way.

patriots_bible.jpg

Similarly, a very high percentage of the commentaries sprinkled throughout this Bible exalt American wars and their heroes. To give but one example, a comment in 2 Samuel about how “the mighty have fallen in the midst of battle” (2 Sam. 1:25) elicits a half page commentary entitled “Duty-Honor-Country.” In it the commentators review a famous speech given by General Douglas MacArthur in which he claims that “[t]he solider, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training – sacrifice.” In facing danger, MacArthur adds, the soldier “discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image.”

The soldier on the field, prepared to die and kill for his country, apparently exemplifies the greatest act of religion and the best expression of what it is to be made in the image of God!

(I have to assume MacArthur and the commentators of the Patriot’s Bible only intend to refer to American soldiers, though it remains unclear how they could justify such a selective application of the imago dei). The commentary becomes even more amazing as it recounts MacArthur’s statement that “…the solider who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.” The contributors clearly agree with this theology, for they comment that, “as long as other Americans serve their country courageously and honorably, [MacAthur’s] words will live on” (p.341).

Without in any way detracting from the courage of soldiers who lay down their lives for their country, I find myself utterly confounded as to how Christian commentators can agree that a military combatant is “the noblest development of mankind.” Since Christ is the perfect illustration of what it means to be “in the image of God,” and since he is our Lord and the one we are called to imitate, shouldn’t he be the criteria for what constitutes “the noblest development of mankind?” Yet, he refused to buy into the Jewish nationalism of his day (despite the fact that Israel, unlike America, actually had been sanctioned by God in the Old Testament). And he laid down his life for his enemies rather than engage in violence against them (Mt 26:53) or allow his disciples to do so. (Jn 18:10-11, 36).

People who obey the New Testament and follow this example, I submit, should be viewed by Christians as most clearly reflecting the image of God and as constituting “the noblest development of mankind.”

If Torture, then Not Christian

Posted by on May 1, 2009 13 comments

Nice surprise from the Scriptorium Daily, a blog based out of the supremely conservative Biola University. The only other time I had ever heard of the author was in a book he edited that was a debate over young versus old earth creationism. Well, regardless of where he comes down on that particular issue, the author is right on the money here:

Torture of any human being is incompatible with the Christian faith.

This should have been obvious, but like many hard and inconvenient moral lessons it was not. Christianity grew in cultures that used torture frequently and so had cultural assumptions inconsistent with their faith. Like most evil things, torture is justified by the good that can come of it. Most bad things are tempting because of alleged goods, but Christian experience shows that any gains from torture are not worth the cost to the souls of men and cultures.

Because there are times when torture seems like a good idea, Christians followed the practice of most ancient cultures and sometimes used it when they gained power. However, it was always a difficult decision for Christian civilizations to make and always had critics amongst Christian theologians and philosophers. The practice was modified and prisoners were given greater rights. The longer Christians thought about the practice and experienced the results, the broader the disdain and condemnation for it.

Eventually, a consensus developed in the traditional Churches that torture was a temptation to do evil, a snare of devils to corrupt souls, and a delusion that promised good, but only certainly did evil.

The condemnation of torture is part of the culture of life so central to the Faith. It is sad to see some Christians use arguments and lines of reasoning to justify torture that are similar to those used to justify abortion.

Traditional Christians disdain those who mutilate the corpses of enemies, because it dishonors the Image of God. How much worse is it to mutilate the living body or the immortal soul of a man?

Compassion, Homosexuality, and Platitudes

Posted by on April 23, 2009 12 comments

A USA Today opinion piece on Christianity and homosexuality strikes me as rather boring–and a little annoying. The author is a young Southern Baptist who writes about faith and culture and appears to be into Christian environmental advocacy. What we have here is a plea for evangelical Christians to stop being ridiculously homophobic and love gay people even if they don’t agree with their lifestyle. Well that’s just dandy and I’m sure there are plenty of neanderthal evangelicals out there who have a visceral hatred of all things gay who need to hear it.

But. Is anyone else getting tired of this kind of semi-progressive evangelical way of talking about this stuff? Why on earth is it so earth-shattering for Christians to be saying that we need to be loving towards people, irrespective of their sexual exploits and identities? All too often these sorts of “pleas” come off as far too self-congratulatory and confident. They assume that the issue is closed, settled, and certain and all we need to do now is be nice and loving about how we deploy our settled correctness. What looks like sensitivity and opposition to bigotry is, in fact false humility.

At least the crazy fundamentalist bigots that the author derides are quite obviously unsettled by homosexuality. The author is placidly unaffected by it. He is secure in his belief that its wrong to have gay sex, but the presence of gay people doesn’t bother him. He is enlightened, patient, and loving, undisturbed by the presence of the otherness of gays. This posture makes alarmingly clear that the problem of homosexuality–or the issue of Christian sexual ethics more generally–is just not a problem for him. Its all something that he can easily handle, processing it in a paternalistically compassionate and calmly measured manner.

But shouldn’t we disturbed by issues like this? Isn’t a total lack of conceptual unsettledness a glaring sign of ideology? This is why mainline liberalism and mature compassionate evangelicalism are two sides of the same coin when it comes to the issue of homosexuality. For both the actual presence and issues of gay Christians are an afterthought. What counts is ideological advocacy for the correct, settled, true position. This is precisely why, to my mind, Rowan Williams is taking precisely the right course in regard to these issues. He is refusing to allow ideological advocacy, in either direction, to determine how the church faces these issues. Only by starting there, and by taking seriously the challenge of actual gay people in the particular reality of their lives can we begin to address this issue in a way that doesn’t fall into ideological platitudes that do little more than validate us in our sense of self-certainty and correctness.

Switch to our mobile site