Rodney Stark on Why the Evangelical Left Has No Future

Timothy Dalrymple has a great interview with Rodney Stark at Patheos titled "Crusades for Christ." I would like to post some excerpts on the crusades, which was the main point of the interview, but I did review Stark's book God's Battalions here already.

But what I will do is to quote the last few paragraphs of the interview, which Justin Taylor also quoted over at "Between Two Worlds." (HT to Justin Taylor) He has some very appropriate (in my opinion) comments on the Evangelical left and the attempts of the Left to demonize Evangelicals as extremists.

Here they are:

What happens with "progressives" is that they cannot get any traction amongst evangelicals. Their audience, or their intended audience, is largely among the "mainline" congregations and the media that favor them. I don't think they have found much traction amongst most evangelicals -- and I think that's for the same reason that everybody has fled the old mainline. You get tired of hearing that capitalism is sinful and that Cuba is the way of the future, and other kinds of idiocy like that. Yet when I look at evangelicals using survey data, they are not a bunch of right-wing Republicans. They're conservative, but they're about equally Republicans and Democrats. It's religious and not political conservatism that defines them.

Very clearly, evangelicals don't like abortion. They do like school prayer and a few things like that. If those were right-wing issues, then sure, evangelicals would be right-wing. But if they're not right-wing issues -- and the majority of Americans agree with evangelicals on those issues -- then I fail to see that there's anything right-wing or scandalous about it. But when it comes down to meat and potatoes politics, evangelicals are not that different from the rest of America, and that's important for people to understand. A whole lot of them voted for Obama. Whether they will do so again, I don't know.

So, I think those guys are entirely wrong. I am tired of people like Mark Noll worrying about "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind." What do they expect? I don't consider it a scandal that a bunch of laymen don't want to read academic books. It's not a scandal that ordinary evangelicals are not left-wing seminary professors.

Too many evangelical intellectuals want to be the house conservative at the liberal banquet. So Martin Marty will invite you to his table because you can be the token evangelical. I'm sorry, but I'm not a token anything.

I could not agree more. Read the whole interview here.

Some Days I'm Embarassed to be an Evangelical

Like today, for instance, when several prominent Evangelicals such as Ron Sider and David Gushee, along with faux (former) Evangelicals like Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis jump into the health care debate along with liberal Catholics at a crucial moment in order to provide cover for the pro-abortion politicians and the pro-life ones who are being pressured to vote for the biggest expansion of abortion funding since Roe v. Wade. From the Weekly Standard:

"Rehashing their lobby for a proposed abortion compromise in the U.S. Senate version of Obamacare in December, liberal Catholics and Evangelicals are now urging the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the Senate version of the bill.

The self-professed evangelical and Catholic “pro-life leaders” insist that the Senate’s version of Obamacare sufficiently safeguards against abortion funding. They also try to rebut its pro-life critics and imply they are guilty of misinformation. But, instead, they illustrate that some “social justice” Catholics and evangelicals prioritize a government take-over of health care over firm protections for the unborn.

“As Christians committed to a consistent ethic of life, and deeply concerned with the health and well-being of all people, we want to see health care reform enacted,” wrote the religious activists in their open letter to Congress. “Our nation has a rare and historic opportunity to expand coverage to tens of millions of people, make coverage more affordable for all families, and crack down on many of the most harmful practices of the health insurance industry.”

Signers this time around, as in December, include liberal evangelicals such as Jim Wallis of Sojourners, Emerging Church guru Brian McLaren, Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, David Gushee of New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, Glenn Stassen of Fuller Seminary, and Florida megachurch pastor Joel Hunter, who is a prominent board member of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). Notably absent this time were other NAE leaders such as Christianity Today editor David Neff and immigration activist Samuel Rodriguez."

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops, all real pro-life groups, Evangelical groups like the Family Research Council and Conservative Evangelicals of all kinds are implacably opposed to the bill currently before Congress for a variety of reasons. But all oppose it because it promotes abortion, which is exactly why NARAL, Emily's List, NOW and other radical, leftist, pro-abortion groups are so highly supportive of it. The only time in this process that these groups growled was when the Stupak-Pitts Amendment was passed to the House bill. Why? Because it took abortion funding out of the bill. After these groups protested and besieged the White House, the Senate bill put abortion funding back in and the protests subsided.

It is ironic that these left wing Evangelicals portray themselves as pro-life when they don't stand against the murder of the innocents. And it is disgusting that they use the slogan "social justice" to describe a position that condones legalized private killing for convenience. When words are twisted so as to lose their meaning so completely, language is becoming useless. Orwell's vision is coming true before our eyes: "pro-life means killing" and "justice means murdering the innocent." When Evangelicals are party to this kind of "fascism with a smiling face" then I am deeply ashamed to be an Evangelical. It is time to pray, fast and do penance for Evangelicalism.

A Terrific Ministry in Our Church

This is not anything I take credit for in any way, but it is one of the things about my local church that make me feel privileged to belong. One of our men's Bible study groups has taken on the job of serving the single mothers in our congregation. They just finished painting the entire townhouse of one of the single mothers in our church and they did a whole list of odd jobs around the house while they were at it. The boys in that family know that their earthly father left them but they also know that God has provided men from our church who care about them and seek ot mentor them. One of the younger teen boys in that same family was trained to drive the ride-on tractor and do the lawns at our church by a man who is unable to have a family of his own. He and his wife are trying to adopt, but in the meantime he leads this ministry to single mothers.

We have been at our church for over six years now and I love the people there and the evidence of God's Spirit at work. We moved from the (US) equivalent of an American Baptist Church to the (Canadian) equivalent of a Southern Baptist Church and at first we were not quite sure how this was going to work out. We were a little dubious about being in such a conservative setting. But I have found that the church has surprised us in so many ways and I believe that I've been changed more through my ministry there (I'm the part-time Theologian in Residence now) than the church has been changed by my ministry.

Our Youth Pastor is a graduate of Liberty University. We have a number of home-schooling and Christian-schooling families, as well as a number of teachers in the public school system. We are located in a growing suburb of Toronto that is part of a dynamic metropolitan area of over 6 million people. We are become steadily more and more multi-cultural and reflective of our community. I noted that when the grade 3-4 kids were called forward to help lead a song with rhythm instruments a couple of weeks ago, the majority were brown and black in skin color. We have over 20 different first languages among our people and literally have people from every continent (except Australia). We have more and more East Indian and Asian lately, having had a large Caribbean contingent for a long time. We also have immigrants from Eastern Europe and Latin America. It is a dynamic place with an attendance of 450 on Sunday morning, over 150 adults in mid-week Bible study groups and the same number in adult SS. Our children's choir and Kidds With Purpose groups are extremely active and the youth group is growing quickly. We are only 18 years old and our building was finished in 2002.

The church has people in it and so it is not perfect. But the vision for missions, the authenticity of discipleship, the humility of the leadership and the guiding vision of our pastor make for a healthy and growing church.

Why do I say all this? Well, simply to encourage anyone reading this blog about the health and reality of the local church. Don't believe all the doom and gloom. Rumours of the death of the church are greatly exaggerated and have been for 2000 years. Sure there are dead patches; there always have been. But the Spirit is constantly causing signs of new life to sprout up all around us - if we have the eyes to see and, in my case, if we dare to try a new church that has a reputation for being conservative.

Going Undercover at Liberty University

Kevin Roose was a typical, secular student at Brown University from a liberal Quaker family when he decided to transfer to Liberty University for a year to experience first hand what a conservative Evangelical enclave like Liberty was really like. His family was pretty worried that he might get burned at the stake or converted into a mindless zombie, but he told them to think of it as a year abroad program. In truth, he did visit a different culture.

His intention all along was to write a book about his experience and the result is The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University (Grand Central Publishing, 2009). This book, begun when the author was only 19, is one of the most encouraging and hopeful contributions to the culture wars I have ever read. Roose does not get saved and he does not change his liberal convictions, but he finds that the people he meets are sincere, real and a long way from being the stereotypical conservative zealots of the liberal imagination. He takes classes in Old Testament, New Testament, Theology, Evangelism, and Creation Science and participates fully in campus life, even to the point of singing in the 300 voice choir at the Thomas Road Baptist Church and going on a mission trip to Florida on Spring Break to do personal evanglism.

He discovers that a university with rules isn't such a bad thing and has no problem fitting in - to the point that he worries if he being converted. He even dates a nice Christian girl and has to call if off lest it become too serious. He worries about deceiving everybody and wonders how they will react when they find out he was there to write a book. But when he tells his friends, he finds them understanding and forgiving, although they insist on praying for him when they discover he isn't saved.

In a strange twist of fate, he ends up conducting the last interview given to the print media by Jerry Falwell before Falwell's untimely death just days before the end of Roose's semester at Liberty. His story about Falwell for the student newspaper, ironically, is a puff piece that focuses on humanizing Falwell, rather than engaging him on theological and social issues. One of the most interesting quotes is what he said in answer to his father's question as to how he found Falwell. Knowing that his father is looking for him to say that Falwell is really just like his caricature, Roose answers that Falwell is "a complicated man."

That quote summarizes the book for me. For Roose, Evangelicals and conservatives are not one-dimensional, cartoon characters who play their assigned roles in a long-running liberal morality play in which they represent the forces of darkness, superstition and evil. Rather, they are complicated people with feelings, sincerely held beliefs and many good points, along with many flaws and wrong-headed opinions, as well as good ideals they sometimes live up to and sometimes don't. In short, they are human.

Roose, too, is a complicated man. I mean that as a sincere compliment because he sounds like the kind of person who really is open to communication and who wants to understand conservatives. One can only wish that all of us were as open to understanding the other side as he is. May his tribe increase.

Happy Mothers Day!

One of the things I enjoy about my local church (Westney Heights Baptist Church) is how it destroys stereotypes of what conservative Evangelical churches are supposed to be like. As I travel around, I am amazed at what many people think conservative Baptists are like. We are supposed to be male-dominated, right-wing, angry, self-centered, unconcerned about the poor and oppressive toward women. It is true that our church does not believe in ordaining women, but everything you might think follows from that simply doesn't. Sometimes real life is more complicated than the stereotypes and theoretical assumptions about what must or must not be the case about people, given their conservative beliefs.

Today was Mothers Day and our pastor did some interesting things that don't usually happen in the service. First, we had a baby/family dedication. We had a typical couple with two children and then we had a woman and her two children with no husband in sight. Her husband wouldn't be caught dead in church, but this mom's mother and grandmother were there. So what does the pastor say? Usually he gives a little talk about the importance of the father, the importance of the mother and the importance of the congregation in bringing up this child. But with a father missing, wouldn't that make this mother feel bad? Yet, fathers are crucially important. He didn't miss a beat, but spoke of a study he read about recently (one of those social science catches up to common sense stories) in which it was determined that what a father says at the dinner table does more than any other single action to determine a child's attitude toward God. So where did that leave the "spiritually single" mom? The rest of the service was the answer.

First, the congregation stood and in prayer commited to helping raise these two babies.

Then it was time for the announcements and the pastor said that although the Jr. High SS class would be handing out carnations to every woman 18 years and older in the service on the way out, he had carnations to hand out to 8 special women. First, he called up the four Jamaican ladies who have been preparing communion in our church every month for 15 years to apologize to them. This was supposed to be communion Sunday, but he switched it to next Sunday, while mistakenly forgetting to tell the ladies. So the pastor wanted to say "Sorry" in front of the whole congregation. It was really a way the whole church could recognize and show appreciation for four faithful servants who labour behind the scenes on behalf of all. We clapped when they forgave Pastor Jack and those who know the inside story know they would all walk through fire for their beloved pastor.

Then, the pastor read a newpaper article from the local paper this week that informed us that Durham region (the four city area in which we are located) has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in all of Ontario, with half of those pregnancies ending in abortion. He told us this is a scandal and that it is our calling as members of this church and citizens of this area to get involved in doing something positive to reverse this trend. Then he called up four women to receive a carnation who exemplified ways in which we could do it.

First was Margie T., who has been a home missionary with Youth Unlimited working with single moms and also with prostitutes for many years. She is heavily supported by our church in the budget, with prayer, by volunteers etc.

Second was my wife Bonnie, who serves on our local Pregnancy Help Center Board of Directors. Various people in our church volunteer at the Center and we support it in our budget.

Third was Sherri F., who does emergency foster care for children who are removed from
situations where the parent(s) can not properly care for them. She was not there because this was the day she was giving up little D. who she has been caring for during the past year. He was underweight and developmentally delayed when she got him and now he is almost at the normal physical and developmental benchmarks. To give him up now, knowing that he may not be going into an uncertain situation, was heart wrenching for her and her husband.

Fourth, the pastor called up Shane, a developmentally challenged man in his twenties who has been adopted by M., a woman who has fostered about 40 children - all of whom had mental or physical disabilities. She in not getting out to church anymore, but the pastor asked Shane to take it to his mom and he was glad to do so. Shane sings in our choir and loves everyone in our church.

By this time, there were only a few dry eyes left in the place. We realized that there were really some saints among us showing us the way to ministry through pain.

But the pastor was not through yet. After a wonderful old spiritual sung by a young black girl during the offering, the pastor introduced the speaker for the morning. Cheryl R. is our unpaid Director of Children's Ministry. She is also an Acting Captain in the Toronto Fire Services and as a single woman has the time and calling to direct our extensive and excellent children's ministry. She spoke on passing on a spiritual legacy to our children. One of the things we have recently done to enhance our ministry is to train our workers and organize ourselves to do Christian Education with special needs children. We had parents staying home because they couldn't bring a ADHD or autistic child to SS. Now we have workers who give one-on-one attention to such children and they are integreated into our regular SS program. We have parents sitting in Church and SS who never got to go before and we have children who are too difficult for the local public schools to handle singing in our Kidds Choir and honestly looking quite literally like angelic "choir boys." (The Kidds Choir musical last weekend was a major production and a huge success.)

Cheryl R. is like a mother to the children of our church and with her organizational skills she matches up boys with men and girls with grandmother types and the body literally helps parent children, especially those without fathers. One such boy just became the assistant lawn mower driver because a man in our church who takes Ja. 1:27 literally has taken him under his wing.

It was just another Mothers Day at Westney Heights Baptist Church. The Gospel was preached and exemplified. We were encouraged to keep on doing the work of loving people one at a time - pregnant teens, special needs kids, fatherless boys, and parents of young children. We can't reduce the overall pregnancy rate in Durham Region all by ourselves. But we can swim upstream rather than drifting downstream like dead fish. And motherhood was exhalted, women were shown respect and appreciation by men and the body of Christ was reminded of its responsibility to parent together all the children in our church - even the ones the world says are unimportant or difficult. We were reminded that, although we all have a physical mother, in reality the church is our mother too. Thank God.