Liberal Catholics Wake Up to Find That Obama Played Them for Fools

In the 2008 election Obama used a collection of both liberal Catholic and Left-wing Evangelicals (the technical terms is "useful idiots") to help him get elected. Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren helped fool many Evangelicals into thinking that Obama was a moderate, a centrist, a liberal but not a socialist in order to help get him elected in a center-right country.

Now, however, liberal Catholics who voted for Obama and refused the pleadings of conservatives to recognize Obama as the left-wing ideologue that he is are beginning to realize how foolish they were to fall for the propaganda. They were warned that Obamacare would trample on religious liberty and that it would force insurers to cover abortion. Liberal Catholics scoffed. Now it is clear how sadly mistaken the liberals were.

The Editors of National Review sum up the ruling by the Health and Human Services Department:

"The Supreme Court decided decades ago that access to birth control is a constitutional right. Now, the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services has decided that access to “free” birth control is a right, too. Under new HHS regulations, which the department is authorized to create under Obamacare, insurance plans will be required to cover birth control — including the morning-after pill “ella,” which seems to work as an abortifacient in some cases — with no co-pay. The rule will take effect Aug. 1, 2012, or later.

Of course, insurance companies don’t provide anything for “free.” Any time they cover a new service or eliminate co-pays, they charge higher premiums to make up the lost revenue. So the department is forcing people who do not use birth control to subsidize it, through higher premiums, for people who do."

The issue here is religious liberty. There is to be no conscientious objection: Caesar is telling the Church to go against its moral beliefs and fall into line.

Michael Sean Winters, a liberal Catholic who supported Obamacare is appalled at the heavy-handed betrayal:

One sentence in the statement from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stands out: “The administration remains fully committed to its partnerships with faith-based organizations, which promote healthy communities and serve the common good.”

What can those words “fully committed” possibly mean? They have punched Sr. Carol Keehan and Fr. Jenkins and many other Catholics who have taken shots for this Administration in the nose. They have jumped over the First Amendment to coerce religious organizations to do something we find morally objectionable. They have given people who loved the Affordable Care Act reason for pause, great pause. They have given the Republicans a huge battering ram with which to beat swing voting Catholics over the head.

I say “they,” but the full responsibility for this decision rests with the President. NCR has learned that the President called Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, this morning to tell him the news. Wouldn’t you have liked to be on an extension to listen in on that conversation. The president looked Dolan in the eye in November and said he would be pleased with his decision. I am guessing that Dolan is not pleased. He is not alone.

Winters followed up this blog with a post in which he declared that Obama had lost his vote forever, here.

Thomas Peters, a conservative Catholic blogger, cannot help saying "We told you so." (Who can blame him?)

Winters is right that this decision is a huge blow to liberal Catholics who have tried to cover for Obama. But Winters is wrong that the President’s decision comes as any sort of surprise. Of course Obama would throw his liberal Catholics supporters under the bus to please his leftist secular supporters. Obama’s wedding with liberal Catholics has always been one of convenience and he just filed the divorce papers. I therefore find it hard to sympathize with liberal Catholics who are shocked by this decision, because I’ve been warning for years that their relationship with Obama was bound to end in heartbreak.

But you know things are getting weird when Father Z has kind words to say about Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles as he does here. Why? Well, Cardinal Mahoney is bitter about Obama's betrayal too:

In probably the most expansive decision on the part of the US Federal government ever, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued an "interim final rule" to require virtually all private health plans to include coverage for all FDA-approved prescription contraceptives, female sterilization procedures, and related "patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity."

These are listed among "preventive services for women" that all health plans will have to include without co-pays or other cost sharing--even if the insurer, the employer or other plan sponsor, or the woman herself object to such coverage.

This decision from the Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] is from the highest level of Federal government, and I cannot imagine that this decision was released without the explicit knowledge and approval of President Barack Obama.

And I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience than this ruling today. This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic Community can muster.

From what he says in the rest of the blog post, Obama has lost Cardinal Mahoney's vote too and when Obama loses a liberal like Cardinal Mahoney, well it looks like he will be facing a united Catholic hierarchy as an enemy in the Fall election. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has a response here.

All I can say to the liberal Catholics is, welcome to the fight against the most anti-Christian president in American history and what took you so long? But, better late than never.

As for the Evangelical Left, I can only wonder what it will take to wake them up.

Why Religious Leaders Who Endorse Left-wing Politics Look Ridiculous

Evangelicals used to have a strong suspicion of anyone who got mixed up with politics. Now they have a strong suspicion of anyone who gets mixed up with conservative, pro-capitalist politics. Lefties, though, get a free pass and are regarded as "compassionate" and "missional."

But the truth is that religious leaders who endorse left-wing politics, whether they come from the "Evangelical Left" or the older Liberal Protestant or Roman Catholic Left, just make themselves look ridiculous.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the latest example. He has a piece in the Financial Times of London echoing the left-wing rhetoric of the protesters in front of St. Paul's. Here is a take-down of his intervention by Toby Young of the Daily Telegraph:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has an article in the Financial Times this morning in which he urges us to "take seriously the moral agenda of the protesters at St Paul’s":

The protest at St Paul’s was seen by an unexpectedly large number of people as the expression of a widespread and deep exasperation with the financial establishment that shows no sign of diminishing. There is still a powerful sense around – fair or not – of a whole society paying for the errors and irresponsibility of bankers; of impatience with a return to ‘business as usual’ – represented by still-soaring bonuses and little visible change in banking practices.

So what is the "agenda" of the St Paul's protestors? If you look at the "initial statement" issued by #occupylsx, it's pretty clear. The statement brands "the current system" "undemocratic and unjust", rejects "the cuts", attacks "the banks", calls for "an end to global tax injustice", supports the "student action" planned for 9th November, supports "the strike" planned for 30th November, supports "actions" intended "to protect our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing", demands "authentic global equality", expresses "solidarity" with the "global oppressed" and calls for "an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression". It ends by saying, "This is what democracy looks like. Come join us."

Not an unfamiliar agenda, then. It's the agenda of the Trotskyist left – almost all of these points are made with tedious regularity by the Socialist Workers Party, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Socialist Party (formerly the Militant tendency). The problem with this agenda, as any student of politics knows, is that it's impossible to realise without a massive escalation in state power. Indeed, it's hard to see how you could end "global tax injustice" or bring about "authentic global equality" without some sort of global super-state with far-reaching powers – and, presumably, a corresponding loss of British sovereignty. This is what democracy looks like, apparently.

Like most revolutionary socialists, I don't suppose the St Paul's protestors have thought very deeply about this problem. They fondly imagine that, untainted by capitalism, mankind is essentially good. A modicum of state control may be necessary in the early years of the revolution, when men are still in the grip of greed and selfishness, but this is just a “transitional phase”. Once a fully-fledged socialist society has sprung into being, people will cast off their wicked habits and the state – or global super-state – can wither away.

In reality, of course, the “transitional phase” never ends. Mankind is incapable of shedding those bad habits for the simple reason that they’re hard-wired into our DNA. Self-interest will always trump altruism. Family ties will always have a stronger claim on our loyalties than some abstract ideal. We will always struggle to gain a competitive advantage over our neighbours – which is why the Tobin Tax is such a bad idea. Far from withering away, the socialist state becomes ever more powerful in a vain attempt to suppress these instincts and preserve "authentic global equality".

Any political movement that legitimizes an escalation in state power, however well-intentioned, must be resisted. Whatever abuses men inflict on each other under free market capitalism will always pale into insignificance next to the abuses of the state. From Moscow to Havana, a utopian vision always ends with a boot stamping on a human face.

It is important to remember that the communists have been talking about the perfidy of the bankers for over a hundred years non-stop. The bankers, especially those "Jewish bankers" are the stock whipping boys for the International Socialists and National Socialists alike. The current economic crisis just makes ordinary people, who wouldn't normally give the Marxists a glance sideways, sit up and pay attention. This rhetoric gets a hearing when the mob is stirred up and looking for somebody to blame. In this sense, left-wing politics is a parasite and a disease on the body politic. It may lie dormant in healthy times, but can goad the mob into a witch hunt when the crops fail.

Religious leaders who play up this emotion-driven, fear-ridden, angry need to blame someone for the problems we face are playing a very dangerous game. Civilization is always fragile and dark passions lurk just beneath the surface in all human beings. Right now, the Archbishop of Canterbury looks merely ridiculous. If things were to degenerate, as they have many times in the past, he would go from looking ridiculous to looking irresponsible to looking malicious and evil in quite short order. Those with a platform and an office should be careful what potions they brew and what spirits they call up in the name of "democracy" and "social justice."

The Evangelical Left's Nostalgia Trip Down Wall Street

Mark Tooley, who is always worth reading, has some thoughts on the embrace of Occupy Wall Street by left-wing leaders. (Why, by the way, are those leaders always jumping on secular bandwagons to prove their relevance?)

In an article entitled, "Religion Flocks to Wall Street" he writes:

Because they are Americans, the Wall Street Occupiers are suffused with messianic purpose, as are nearly all our nation's American political crusades. But the often raggedy Occupiers themselves do not seem specifically oriented towards organized religion.

Not to worry. Religious Leftists of all sorts have rallied to the Occupiers' bedraggled banners. Guided by the Social Gospel's emphasis on social justice over theological details, these religionists discern God's Kingdom among the squatters' tents and sleeping bags. One group of clergy visited while carrying a mock golden idol shaped like the dreaded Wall Street Bull, the very incarnation of greed.

Praising the Occupation is a gamble for liberal evangelicals, who have tried so hard to appear centrist in recent years, anxious to softly persuade suburban churchgoers to abandon their conservative voting habits. Oldline Protestant elites, along with left-wing Catholic activists, of course welcome the Occupation as a long overdue 1960s revival.

After reviewing the police lineup of the usual suspects from the Episcopal, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ and Methodist church hierarchies, Tooley comes back to left-wing Evangelicals.

This call towards utopia, enshrouded simultaneously in grievance, entitlement, idealism, and youthful naiveté, has understandably seduced old-style street activists like Jim Wallis of Sojourners, or even Brian McLaren of the emergent church movement. "When they stand with the poor, they stand with Jesus," Wallis has pronounced, even before himself visiting the Occupation, which doubtless only amplified his excited nostalgia. "'The occupation of God has begun'" might inspire the same fear and hope among people today as 'the Kingdom of God is at hand' inspired in the first century," gushed McLaren, after attending his own local Occupation protest.

Indeed, I'll bet Jim Wallis is re-living his old Students for a Democratic Society days as he basks in the glow of the nostalgia. Is Brian McLaren even aware of how much he sounds like old-fashioned, early 20th century social gospelers when he compares the latest social trend to the kingdom of God?

I sometimes wonder if they grasp just how out of date they really are; the leftists who operated in the pre-World War I era and pre-Soviet era could be excused to some extent because they had never seen the fruits of Communism (although they should have been warned by the orgy of violence that was the French Revolution). But to gush about "equality" and "building the kingdom" with secular protest movements today is to have one's feet embedded in the cement of nostalgia while the parade passes by.

Representing a newer generation of Evangelical liberal is Shane Claiborne, a winsome young white man who typically sports dreadlocks, a bandana, and a rustic smock, while proclaiming good news for the poor to attentive middle class evangelical students. "In a world where 1 percent of the world owns half the world's stuff, we are beginning to realize that there is enough for everyone's need, but there is not enough for everyone's greed," he recently insisted. "Lots of folks are beginning to say, 'Maybe God has a different dream for the world than the Wall Street dream.'"

The dubious statistic about the wicked "1 percent" aside, Claiborne speaks some truth. But he and the other religious enthusiasts for Wall Street aren't calling for individuals to shed their wealth for God's Kingdom. Of course, they primarily want an all powerful state to seize and redistribute wealth according to some imagined just formula, after which the lion will lie peaceably with the lamb. It's a utopian dream, not based on the Gospels, always monstrous when attempted, and premised more on resentment than godly generosity. But it's a message that will always have an audience in a covetous world.

What strikes me is the insight Tooley offers in the last sentence. Is it not transparently obvious that the whole appeal of the OWS protests to the ordinary, fuzzy-minded, college kids with iPhones and $100K of student load debt is nothing other than plain covetousness? The Gospel is about generosity; socialism is about forced redistribution. Why is this? Because the Gospel changes lives while socialism fiddles around with social structures. Socialism cannot make people generous; only the indwelling Spirit of God can do that.

But really, religious leaders promoting covetousness??? I suppose it is no stranger than religious leaders promoting fornication . . . or divorce . . . or murdering pre-born babies. Breaking the Ten Commandments seems to be just what the Religious Left does.

Yoder and the Evangelical Left

Mark Tooley has a good review of Peter Leithart's Defending Constantine at the American Spectator. He writes of John Howard Yoder's influence on the Evangelical Left:

Much of the Evangelical Left, so influential on Christian college campuses and increasingly prominent in Washington, D.C., relies on neo-Anabaptist beliefs. Sojourners activist Jim Wallis, who last week launched a crusade against "cuts" in the 2012 federal budget, adheres partly to this tradition. These neo-Anabaptists demand total pacifism and reject the military. Unlike traditional Anabaptists, they are not separatists, and many exuberantly advocate Big Government control over medical care, food, energy, and virtually all of life. The godfather of sorts for these disjointed neo-Anabaptists was the late Mennonite theologian and Notre Dame professor John Howard Yoder. He joined most Anabaptists in assuming that Christianity was massively corrupted by 4th century Roman Emperor Constantine's embrace of Christianity. The resulting Christendom created over 1,600 years of wars and oppression ostensibly in the name of Christ.

Read the whole review here.

It strikes me as right that Tooley, who is such a keen observer of all things having to do with theological liberalism, should identify John Howard Yoder as the "godfather" of the Evangelical Left. This is precisely why I was drawn to him in the 90's and also precisely why I now find his theology to be pretty much useless, except when it is dangerous.

Someone asked me just this morning how I became so conservative (politically and theologically) and I am never sure if I fully understand it all yet myself. But one major flash of insight came when I realized that the cultural Marxists - who are so powerfully influential today in academic and cultural elite circles - hate the traditional family, traditional sexual ethics and the sanctity of human life as much as they hate capitalism. That ended my ability to posit moral equivalence between the Left and the Right. Compared to the Right, the Left is far more evil. They simply are not equivalent.

I mention this because Tooley's paragraph above makes clear that Yoder's influence was to train a generation of younger Evangelicals to hate and despise their own cultural heritage - to reject as violent, colonial, patriarchal and racist the legacy of Western Christendom over the past 1500 years. By doing so, Yoder helped create a void into which cultural Marxism could move. Marxism Has been in the process of colonizing the ecclesiastical structures of a dying Christian faith in the West for over a century now. As faith in Jesus Christ declines, Marxism offers a modern, this-worldly substitute complete with eschatology, guilt, martyrdom, holy books, a prophetic stance and much more.

This is part of the explanation (which of course is far more complex than this one little point) for why the Evangelical became "Left" politically and economically. And it explains why those who first embrace economic Marxist theories are so susceptible on all the other "culture war" issues: sanctity of life, traditional marriage, sexual morality etc. There is a connection between rejecting one's cultural traditions, embracing the sexual revolution and using Marxism to criticize capitalism. These three moves fit together and reinforce one another.

But maybe it all starts with a loss of confidence in one's tradition, one's culture and one's heritage. If so, the influence of Yoder has been massive - and tragic.

Why Does the Left Project Its Obsession with Promiscuity, Unnatural Sex and Abortion onto Conservatives Who Want Nothing to Do with Such Things?

One of the least serious and most amusing charges made against conservative Evangelicals like me is that we are "obsessed with gay marriage and abortion." What a ridiculous accusation! We have absolutely no interest in either subject unless somebody tries to make murdering babies legal or tries to change the definition of natural marriage. It is clearly the Left which is obsessed with these things and it is the Left which is the clear aggressor in the culture wars that have been raging since the 60s. I believe the pop psychology phrase that describes this phenomenon is "projection."

So it is nice to see this high school debating tactic demolished every once and a while. The latest to shoot these barrel-dwelling fish is David French, who writes:

I chuckle when I hear the common critique of the religious and secular left: "Evangelicals are obsessed with gays and abortion." The criticism is so common that it's often internalized and adopted by the church itself. Similar to our reaction to another leftist refrain ("Christians care about children until they're born"), we act as if the critique is legitimate-as if it's the result of some kind of empirical, good-faith analysis of Christian action in America. But it's not. It is, pure and simple, a talking point.

And it's false. Demonstrably false.

What if I told you that American Christians, in fact, are "obsessed" with helping the poorest and weakest members of our society? Would that improve our image? What if I told you that this "obsession" was so obvious as to be demonstrable even to the most hardened skeptic? Would that make you doubt the good faith of the "obsessed with gays and abortion" critique? . . .

We can find part of the answer by looking at the budgets of the largest and most influential Christian organizations. A website called Guidestar publishes the tax filings of most charitable organizations, so register (it's free) and take a tour of Form 990s.

First, you'll notice that Christians do give lots of money to what I'd call "pure" culture war organizations, but not as much as the Left. The largest (by budget) include my employer, the Alliance Defense Fund, and the Family Research Council. Of the pro-life organizations, two of the largest are National Right to Life and Americans United for Life. These organizations raise quite a bit of money-almost $60 million combined. But it's not as much as the leading legal organization on the Left. The ACLU Foundation (which does not include the various state ACLUs) took in $98 million with the national ACLU itself raking in an additional $33 million.

But what about organizations like Focus on the Family? Focus is big, no doubt, with gross receipts exceeding $135 million. But anyone with even a passing familiarity with that organization knows that the vast majority of its efforts are thoroughly divorced from the "gays and abortion" side of the culture wars. Its website and radio show are primarily dedicated to such topics as enriching your marriage, dealing with unruly teens, and reviewing TV shows and movies for their family-friendliness.

How do those numbers stack up with leading Christian anti-poverty charities? Let's look at just three: World Vision, Compassion International, and Samaritan's Purse. Their total annual gross receipts (again, according to most recently available Form 990s) exceed $2.1 billion. The smallest of the three organizations (Samaritan's Purse) has larger gross receipts than every major "pro-family" culture war organization in the United States combined. World Vision, the largest, not only takes in more than $1 billion per year, it also has more than 1,400 employees and 43,000 volunteers.

If you care about poor people in need, you had better hope that the Evangelical Left fails to entice many conservative Evangelicals down the path of liberal Protestantism. You had better hope that the number of conservative Evangelicals grows quickly - if you actually want to see the poor get help, that is.

Evangelicals and Progressivism

This post is part 3 in a four-part series on Peter Berkowitz's extremely helpful and informative article, "Obama and the Rhetoric of Progressivism," which you can read here. In this post I look at how this article can help us understand the nature, defects and future of the Evangelical Left.

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In the 2008 election, Obama's team learned from the mistakes made by John Kerry's campaign in 2004 when "values voters" (aka Catholic and Evangelical Christians) flocked to George W. Bush. When I say "flocked" I mean something like "ran screaming from the horror that was Kerry's blatant secularism." Obama's team determined that they would not cede the white evangelical vote to McCain and that they would reach out to religious voters. They got Obama to talk about religion, which he proved relatively effective in doing. They used Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis to reach out to younger Evangelicals and to those interested in the peace and justice agenda.

Tiffany Stanley in an article in The New Republic, entitled "Things Fall Apart: How Democrats Gave Up on Religious Voters," writes:

Between 2004 and 2007, when Obama announced his candidacy for president, he became possibly the most prominent Democratic politician who was comfortable speaking about religion—a liberal who gave the impression that his religiosity was heartfelt, genuine, and important to his politics. He spoke with ease about his conversion; of the influence of Reinhold Niebuhr and Martin Luther King, Jr.; and, in a key speech before the Call to Renewal conference in 2006, of the importance of “religion in the public square.” In the 2008 presidential election, Obama’s message seemed to resonate with religious people who had not, in recent years, gravitated toward the Democratic Party. He won more churchgoers than any Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton.

But, she notes, the wheels have come off the Democratic outreach to "values voters."

But, in just two short years, the left has become sluggish in its courtship of religious voters, significantly scaling back its faith-outreach programs. . . . In the recent midterm elections, House Democrats lost white evangelical voters in greater numbers than they did in 2004, when “values voters” flocked to George W. Bush. Reversing their Democratic allegiance from the past two elections, Catholics—nearly a quarter of all voters—favored the GOP 54 to 44 percent. Compared to 2008, the drop-offs were steep: a 20-point decline with Catholics, a 14-point decline with white evangelicals, and a 10-point decline with white Protestants. How and why did this happen?

Jennifer Rubin in her blog at the Washington Post, "Right Turn," comments on Stanley's article and says that, while the article explains that the Democrats have scaled back their political programs designed to win over religious voters, Stanley never explains why they have done so. Rubin offers her own explanation:

You have to imagine that value voters lack core convictions -- an obvious bit of cognative dissonance -- to miss why it is that religious voters disapprove of the Democrats these days. It's the agenda. Religious conservatives are staunchly pro-Israel. They don't like Obama's approach to Israel. They are pro-life; Obama has reversed the Mexico City accord, appointed two pro-choice Supreme Court justices and reversed Bush administration policies on stem cell research. Value voters have a commitment to "traditional family values;" the Democrats successfully championed the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." Value voters bristle at efforts to restrict religious expression in the public square and at government interference with the free exercise of religion (e.g. they favor a conscience clause for health-care providers with regard to abortion and birth control). The administration has generally ignored such concerns. And finally, religious voters generally care deeply about religious freedom around the world; Obama's record is woefully deficient in this regard.

Moreover, religious voters have traditionally been suspicious of the power of the state. It comes as a shock to many on the left, but it is entirely understandable, that while the agenda is focused on fiscal matters, many in the Tea Party identify themselves as religious conservatives. Once again, the Obama administration and religious voters are at odds on fundamental policy issues.

So the real question is not why value voters have fallen away from Democrats, but why a significant number were lured into the Obama camp in the first place.

In Rubin's estimation, the Democrats were never serious about serving the religious voters as a constituency; they just wanted to hoodwink enough of them to vote Democrat in a close election but had no intention of budging on policy.

Mark Tooley at The Weekly Standard asks: "Is the Religious Left Fizzling?"

Over the last several years the old religious right reputedly has been melting down, with younger, more liberal evangelicals in the ascendency. But exit polling from the 2010 midterm election indicate no major political shift among evangelical or Protestant voters.

According to CNN's exit poll, 77 percent of self-described white evangelicals or born again Christians voted Republican. This number is actually higher than the 74 percent who supported George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004, which was considered a high water mark for conservative evangelical activism. Seventy percent of white evangelicals and born-agains voted Republican in 2008 and 2006.

But I want to call attention to Tooley's conclusion (and we are getting to Berkowitz soon!):

Exit polls of actual voting by evangelicals indicate that the evangelical left remains primarily a phenomenon among evangelical elites on seminary and college campuses and among some parachurch and activist groups. The prolonged wars, culture clashes, and ultimate financial collapse during the George W. Bush years undoubtedly moved some evangelical elites and young people to the left. But the ongoing recession, explosion of government spending, and liberal stances on abortion and homosexuality by the Obama administration (the NAE quietly opposes revoking “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”), along with the president's discomfort with American exceptionalism, have likely solidified grassroots evangelicals overall within their traditional conservative politics. Like left-leaning mainline Protestant elites starting decades ago, evangelical elites increasingly will probably denounce their own constituency for its lack of political enlightenment.

The Evangelical Left is following a predictable path just as the progressive Protestants of the mid to late 19th century in embracing progressivism right down to the idea that the ordinary people are too stupid to understand how progressive, enlightened and good the left-leaning progressive elites are. The Evangelical Left is attempting to gain control of all Evangelical institutions and has already made serious inroads into seminaries and publishers and has taken almost complete control of most Evangelical liberal arts colleges. It suffered a real setback in the 1980s when it was expelled from the leadership of America's largest Evangelical denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. But the battle continues and those ignorant of history will be impotent to prevent its repetition.

Peter Berkowitz, in discussing the "Old Progressivism" notes in passing that the Protestant churches and the Social Gospel were integral elements of the original progressivist movement.

The original progressivism arose in the 1880s and 1890s and flourished during the first two decades of the 20th century. It is associated with, among others, Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, scholars Fredrick Jackson Turner and Charles Beard, reformer Jane Addams, theologian Walter Rauschenbusch, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, philosopher and educator John Dewey, and journalist and New Republic founder Herbert Croly.

At their best, the original progressives responded to dramatic social and economic upheavals generated by the industrial revolution, opposed real Gilded Age abuses, and promoted salutary social and political reforms. They took the side of the exploited, the weak, and the wronged. They fought political corruption and sought to make political institutions more responsive to the will of the people. And they advanced programs and policies that, in a changing world, brought liberal democracy in America more in line with the Declaration of Independence's and the Constitution's original promise of freedom and equality for all.

But progressivism went astray owing to a defect in its basic orientation. It rejected the sound principles of government embodied in the Constitution, because of a critical difference of opinion about human nature. Progressives believed that great improvements in the moral character of humanity and in the scientific understanding of society had rendered the Constitution's scheme of checks and balances - or better its separation, balancing, and blending of power - unnecessary to prevent majority tyranny and the abuse of power by officeholders. Whereas the makers of the American Constitution believed that the imperfections of human nature and the tendency of people to develop competing interests and aims were permanent features of moral and political life, progressives insisted that progress allowed human beings, or at least the most talented and best educated human beings, to rise above these limitations and converge in their understanding of what was true and right. Indeed, according to the progressives the Constitution's obsolete and cumbersome institutional design was a primary hindrance to democratic reforms to which all reasonable people could agree and which upright and impartial administrators would implement. It is a short step from the original progressives' belief that developments in morals and science had obviated reasonable disagreements about law and public policy and dissolved concerns about the impartiality of administrators to the new progressives' belief that in domestic affairs disagreement is indefensible and intolerable.

Liberal Protestantism went wrong by embracing the heretical progressivist view of man as perfectible by education and by rejecting a biblical Augustinian view of human nature. This was the key doctrinal mistake and it led to a rejection of the penal substitutionary atonement as the heart of the Gospel and to the exaltation of social service to the center of the Church's mission and message instead. All this followed logically from the embrace of Rousseauian perfectionism. And it is happening all over again, which explains why progressives like Brian McLaren are so adamantly opposed to Reformed theology and its atonement-centered Gospel. The problem with the Evangelical Left is its embrace of progressivism.

The Evangelical Left Seems a Little Grumpy These Days

If this article in Christian Week is an accurate reflection of Rene Padilla's views, then he appears to be confused and angry.

He criticizes presentations at the recent Lausanne Congress in Capetown which emphasize evangelism and tries to re-define evangelism as discipleship. He is quoted as saying:

"Superficial evangelism is not going to get the job done," says René Padilla, a renowned evangelical scholar from Latin America, currently living in Argentina. "Jesus talked about making disciples who learned to obey everything he has taught."

OK, if this was all he said it would not necessarily be a problem. Jesus, in the Great Commission, commanded his followers to preach and baptize (evangelism) and to then teach these new believers to "obey all things I have commanded you" (discipleship). One cannot be a disciple without being converted and to convert people and then leave them in a state of only superficially understanding the faith is to fail in the mission. Both are necessary; to play them off against each other or debate which is more important is a non-starter. You can't disciple a person who has not responded to the preaching of the Gospel and you can't say that conversion/baptism is all that is needed.

But Padilla doesn't seem to see it that way. He called one presentation by a speaker from Campus Crusade for Christ a "waste of time" that demonstrated "the syncretism of American evangelicalism," which he characterized as "the market mentality and the obsession with numbers and calculation." In this one statement he manages to combine anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism and anti-evangelism prejudices!

The article also describes him as being critical of John Piper for preaching that we as Evangelicals ought to be concerned about the eternal salvation of people as well as their material lot in this life.

Padilla was also unhappy with John Piper's strongly stated desire for the global church represented by the Lausanne movement to agree, "for Christ's sake, we Christians care about all suffering—especially eternal suffering."

"Why especially?" asks Padilla. Why are the needs of people after they die a higher priority than their needs now? "This doesn't mean we don't proclaim. But proclamation is not the first thing." He points to Ephesians 2:14-18: "Jesus is our peace, does our peace and proclaims our peace. To be; to do; to say. Why say that the most important thing is to say? To be; to do; to say. Put them in that order. Christ is our peace."

I don't understand Padilla's objection here. All Evangelicals believe that lost people need Christ and that those who die outside of Christ are lost eternally. This is a matter of eternal life and eternal death. If Padilla does not believe that, he is free to believe whatever he likes but Evangelicals have always believed it and always will.

Why would he want to single out Piper for criticism? Is it because Piper is challenging the left-wing emphasis on "social justice" or "the social gospel" and calling people back to biblical basics? I don't know but Padilla certainly seems angry about something. He is quoted as saying:

Padilla is encouraged that "a lot of third world people at the congress are critical of the strategy for the evangelization of the whole world." The three key global issues, he contends, are discipleship, globalization (poverty) and stewardship of creation. "In a congress like this, these are the key issues we should be exploring to see what we can do about it.

"But here we are again with the obsession for numbers—how to make more converts; how to build megachurches. I wonder when U.S. people are going to learn to listen to what others are saying, all over the world," says Padilla.

Padialla may be encouraged that a lot of Third World people are critical of the strategy for world evangelization, but I am not. His priorities of "discipleship, globalization (poverty) and stewardship of creation" sound just like the liberal priorities of the World Council of Churches. An emphasis on evangelism is not somehow uniquely "American" and most third world Evangelicals would be surprised to hear that Padilla thinks it is because for them it is simply biblical.

If Padilla wants to promote the liberal agenda and denounce the priority of evangelization, he is free to do so. But he should not expect much of a hearing from Evangelicals. Maybe that is what makes him so cranky.

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.

Homosexuality, Evangelicalism and the Gospel

Note: The following article was published in the Tyndale student newspaper: Canon 25 (Apr. 2010).
_____________

The most important cultural event in the past century was the sexual revolution, which was the rejection of traditional sexual morality by the middle class in North America and Europe during the 1960s (the intellectual elites of Western culture having already rejected traditional sexual morality). The sexual revolution is a denial that there is a Divinely created order in the world to which we must submit in order to be happy and fulfilled as creatures. Utilizing moral relativism and hyper-individualism, the sexual revolution sought to overturn traditional sexual morality, which upholds stable family structures that have child-rearing as their central focus, so as to promote the fulfillment of the individual through hedonism and choice.

Liberal Christians have followed the secular culture in abandoning traditional sexual morality. Since they had already lost their belief in the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, it was easy to set aside the exegetical tradition of the Church that had universally condemned homosexual behavior. For over a century now liberal Christians have embraced first the social gospel and then liberation theology in place of the personal Gospel of sin and salvation. Therefore, as the culture becomes more hostile to traditionalists of all religions, liberal Christians have added sexual liberation from traditional morality to their message and have thus been able to avoid clashing with the culture and having to face persecution. Liberal Christianity substitutes experience for Scripture as the highest authority and substitutes the false gospel of inclusivism, which requires no repentance, no forgiveness, and no transformation, for the Biblical Gospel of sin, repentance, faith, forgiveness and transformation.

Evangelical, however, are in a different situation. We believe in the inerrancy and authority of Scripture and our very identity is defined by our confidence in the power of the biblical Gospel, through which we have forgiveness of sins, eternal life and a transformed life. We declare the good news that God can forgive any sin and transform any sinner, no matter how serious and entrenched that sin might be. Therefore, we are on a collision course with a culture that is determined to normalize all the forms of deviant sexuality that flow from the sexual revolution, of which homosexuality is just one.

How will Evangelicals respond to the sexual revolution in the long run and, specifically, how will we deal with the pressure to endorse homosexuality that is so pervasive in today’s secular culture? Sadly, I believe that Evangelicalism will divide over this issue. Homosexuality will be an issue of division because of the tremendous pressure exerted by the culture over this particular issue. There are many other issues raised by the response of the Church to the sexual revolution that are being discussed, disagreed on and worked through such as divorce, remarriage and new reproductive technologies. But the secular culture will not leave us in peace on the issue of homosexuality and many Evangelicals choose to conform to the culture and, in the process, will migrate into liberal Protestantism.

The Evangelical Left has been moving toward liberalism for some time now on a wide range of issues including the acceptance of open theism and panentheism, the embrace of left wing politics and economics, a watered down view of biblical authority, an uncritical endorsement of secular feminism, the rejection of the penal substitutionary doctrine of the atonement and downplaying of the necessity of personal conversion. Those who are enamored of such moves will likely be open to the approval of homosexual behavior as well. But what is at stake in such a change to the Church’s traditional teaching? Is disagreement on homosexuality merely a disagreement on a moral issue that does not touch the heart of the Gospel? One can only wish it were that simple.

What is at stake here is the truthfulness of the basic Gospel message. Are we sinners in need of salvation or merely good people in need of inclusion in the body of Christ without repentance? Are we under God’s judgment and in need of justification on the basis of the atoning blood of Christ? Are we lost and without hope apart from salvation in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit? Is there hope for people struggling with deep seated sinful patterns, vices and temptations that are now a part of their very being? Or is the Gospel only for good Church people who don’t have to change much in order to live the Christian life?

We are being tested here as to the real content of our faith. Homosexuality is a deep seated disorder that is not always in every situation freely chosen by the person involved. That, however, does not make it part of the original good creation. In a fallen world, many of us struggle against such deep seated moral disorders and will do so for our whole lives. The Gospel does not promise instant release from all sin and temptation, nor does it promise that we can totally overcome a homosexual orientation in this life. But it does promise that if we walk by the Spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the sinful nature. A life of obedience and joy in the Holy Spirit is available to all people including drug addicts, alcoholics, homosexuals, those addicted to heterosexual sex and those who struggle to overcome the painful effects of sexual abuse. For some this may involve a life of celibacy, which can be a witness to the Kingdom of God and a spiritually fruitful way of life that brings joy and friendship in Christ. What the world thinks is a “fate worse than death” can be a fulfilling and joyful life in Christ.

Our faith will be tested in the years ahead in at least three ways. First, it will be painful to watch former brothers and sisters in the Faith drift away into liberalism, thus escaping the persecution that will come upon all who stand firm for the traditional teaching of Christianity, and it will be tempting to join them. Second, our commitment to the Faith once delivered to the saints and the authority of Scripture will be tested as more and more arguments are mounted against traditional exegesis, sometimes by those who can talk the Evangelical lingo because they themselves have been raised within Evangelicalism and are on the way out of the movement. This will require steadfastness and discernment. Third, our confidence in the power of God’s Holy Spirit will be tested as we are told over and over again that the Spirit is helpless against the power of a homosexual orientation and that people cannot change something so fundamental to their identity even with God’s help. We must resist the temptation to lose confidence in the hope and freedom promised to those who humbly seek the strength that comes from trusting in God to change us and empower us for holy living.

What is at stake? Faithfulness to the Gospel itself is at stake. The authority of Scripture, the Lordship of Christ and the transforming power of the Spirit are all implicated in this moral issue. The stakes could not be higher, but those who endure suffering and persecution in this life because of their faithfulness to Christ and the Gospel can look forward to joy and peace in the Kingdom of God. And anyone struggling with the temptations of same-sex attraction can find forgiveness, healing, peace and strength to live the Christian life at the same place we all find these things – at the foot of the cross.

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.

The Democratic Party, the Evangelical Left and Abortion

Robert Costa in The Corner has a report on an interview with Bart Stupak, the leader of the pro-life group of Democratic House of Representatives members. It makes for jaw-dropping reading on the ferocity of the pro-abortion fervor among the current leaders of the Democratic Party. [my bolding]

"Sitting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. “They’re ignoring me,” he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online. “That’s their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate’s health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don’t have the votes, it’s been made clear to us that they won’t insert our language on the abortion issue.”

According to Stupak, that group of twelve pro-life House Democrats — the “Stupak dozen” — has privately agreed for months to vote ‘no’ on the Senate’s health-care bill if federal funding for abortion is included in the final legislative language. Now, in the debate’s final hours, Stupak says the other eleven are coming under “enormous” political pressure from both the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). “I am a definite ‘no’ vote,” he says. “I didn’t cave. The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions.”

Stupak says he also doesn’t trust the “Slaughter solution,” a legislative maneuver being bandied about on Capitol Hill as a way to pass the Senate bill in the House without actually voting on it. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” he says. “I don’t have a warm-and-fuzzy feeling about what I’m hearing.”

Stupak notes that his negotiations with House Democratic leaders in recent days have been revealing. “I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he says. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.” The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, “are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.”

What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”

If Obamacare passes, Stupak says, it could signal the end of any meaningful role for pro-life Democrats within their own party. “It would be very, very hard for someone who is a right-to-life Democrat to run for office,” he says. “I won’t leave the party. I’m more comfortable here and still believe in a role within it for the right-to-life cause, but this bill will make being a pro-life Democrat much more difficult. They don’t even want to debate this issue. We’ll probably have to wait until the Republicans take back the majority to fix this.”

“Throughout this debate, even when the House leaders have acknowledged us, it’s always been in a backhanded way,” he laments. “I’m telling the others to hold firm, and we’ll meet next week, but I’m disappointed in my colleagues who said they’d be with us and now they’re not. It’s almost like some right-to-life members don’t want to be bothered. They just want this over.”

And the politics of the issue are pretty rough. “This has really reached an unhealthy stage,” Stupak says. “People are threatening ethics complaints on me. On the left, they’re really stepping it up. Every day, from Rachel Maddow to the Daily Kos, it keeps coming. Does it bother me? Sure. Does it change my position? No.”"

Could the Democratic leadership actually be so crass as to view abortion funding as a way to save money? Could they actually be that insensitive to human life? And they try to paint the Republicans as unfeeling and lacking in compassion? How a Christian could vote for people like that is beyond me.

Now maybe I missed it, but I have not heard a word from Sojourners or Brian McLaren or Tony Campolo expressing support for the brave little band of Democratic House of Representatives members who are standing up the Democratic establishment on a matter of life and death. I went to the Sojourners website and they highlighted support for the health care bill but never mentioned abortion. Remember that the next time they portray themselves as bring Evangelical concerns to bear on the Democratic Party. The Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Family Research Council, the National Right to Life Association and the Susan B. Anthony List, among others, have been faithful in fighting the good fight. Left-wing Evangelicals have been MIA.

During the run-up to the 2008 election, which Tony Campolo served on the Platform Committee and they touted the new "abortion reduction" language, I told you it was all smoke and mirrors. How I wish now that I had been wrong.

The moral of the story is: "Don't trust the Democratic Party establishment on abortion and don't trust left wing Evangelicals to take a conservative position on anything."

Holding Obama's Pro-life Supporters Accountable

Here is an open letter to Obama's pro-life supporters from the website "Moral Accountability." The website was set up to hold Obama and his supporters for living up to the claims made for him to the effect that he was the real pro-life candidate in the last election and would work for abortion reduction. Without this key support from Roman Catholics and Evangelicals, Obama might not have been elected. Splitting the pro-life vote was a keystone of his electoral strategy. We must not forget and we must face the facts as they emerge. It is early yet in the Obama presidency, but it is looking very bad so far. The letter begins:

"We share with you a commitment to the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family. It is for this reason that we oppose abortion, embryo-destructive research, euthanasia, and every other form of direct killing of innocent human beings. We believe that these practices are grave injustices that no society should promote, facilitate, or even permit.

Despite Barack Obama’s record of support for legal abortion and its public funding, and his pledge to lift President Bush’s limitations on the federal funding of embryo-destructive research, you felt that Obama would, all things considered, make a better president than John McCain, and you encouraged your fellow pro-life citizens to join you in voting for him. Some of you argued that Senator Obama, despite his vocal support for legal abortion and equally vocal opposition to pro-life legislative initiatives, was actually the superior candidate from the pro-life point of view. His economic and social policies, many of you said, would strike at the causes of abortion and reduce its incidence. You predicted that lives would be saved.
When it came to embryo-destructive research, many Obama supporters argued that there was no difference between their candidate’s position and the position of Senator McCain. Both, unfortunately, proposed to lift President Bush’s restrictions on federal funding of this lethal research. So that issue was a “wash.”

We have always feared that your hopes and expectations would prove to be unfounded. We have never found it plausible to think that Obama’s policies will reduce the number of abortions. Indeed, we suspect that the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, to mention just one of pro-life laws Obama pledged to eliminate, will (as the abortion lobby itself has predicted) increase the number of abortions in the United States, perhaps by as many as 300,000 per year. But the jury is still out on that one, so let’s lay it aside for the moment.

On March 9, however, the verdict came in on the issue of embryo-destructive research, and the news is very bad."

Read the rest here:
http://www.moralaccountability.com/mission/an-open-letter-to-president-obamas-pro-life-supporters/

Second Thoughts on Obama from the Evangelical Left

In an article in USA Today on Monday, David Gushee writes of his growing discomfort with the Obama presidency on the issue of "abortion reduction."
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/03/mr-president-we.html?csp=34

During the campaign, Gushee, along with Ron Sider, Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Joel Hunter and other Evangelical leaders were drawn into supporting Obama, along with Catholics like Doug Kemiec and Nicholas Cafardi. They all had left wing leanings and were seduced by loose talk of "abortion reduction." But no actual policies for abortion reduction were proposed by Obama other than a general rise in welfare payments. In order to buttress their claims that welfare could reduce abortion, a flawed study was put forward, which has since been discredited. In short, there never was any reason to think that Obama was committed to reducing abortion in any kind of meaningful way. But it gave cover to those who wanted to vote for the left in general. Now, however, David Gushee is honest enough to admit that the abortion reduction rhetoric is all style and no substance.

So far Obama has made four major decision relating to abortion:

1. The decision to repeal the Mexico City Policy, which prevented US government funding from going to organizations working in the Global South, which were providers of abortion services. This policy kept Western NGO's from imposing abortion on poor countries and Obama reversed it.

2. The Obama administration announced it intention to review the rule allowing health care professionals to be conscientious objectors and not participate in abortion. There are many who want to force Christians out of health care or make them participate in grave moral evil. Obama seems to be putting leftist ideology above individual conscience here, although there is a chance this change will not be made. The US Catholic bishops are fighting this initiative with everything they have got.

3. Obama appointed a pro-abortion extremist, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, as head of the massive Department of Health and Social Services. Sebelius has been disciplined by her own bishop, Archbishop Naumann, for her pro-abortion policies, yet she is now in a position to impose the will of NARAL in hundreds of areas.

4. Then Obama reversed Bush's ban on embryonic stem cell research, despite the fact that it means the destruction of human life at its earliest stages for utilitarian purposes.

Gushee recognizes that he has been tempted to support what is morally evil in hopes of good outcomes in other areas:

"Mexico City, conscience clause, Sebelius, embryonic stem cells. In each case, I have been asked by friends at Democratic or progressive-leaning think tanks not just to refrain from opposing these moves, but instead to support them in the name of a broader understanding of what it means to be pro-life. I mainly refused.

But I do confess that my desire to retain good relationships with the Obama team has tempted me to give what was asked in return for the big payoff of a serious abortion-reduction initiative that I could wholeheartedly support."

Gushee recognizes that we cannot fight a utilitarian mentality with a utilitarianism. And he recognizes that our responsibility as Christians is to be moral, rather than politically successful. He writes:

"But this kind of calculation is precisely what has gotten Christian political activists in trouble in the past, not just for 40 years but for 1,600 years. We gain access to Caesar in order to affect policy; we hold onto access even if it involves compromising some of what we want in policy; in the end, we can easily forget what policies we were after in the first place. I think this definitely happened to the Christian right. It doesn't need to be repeated by the Christian center or left."

Gushee of all people, as a highly educated ethicist and theologian, knows full well that left leaning Christians were engaging in compromise with Caesar long before the rise of the Religious Right. The whole Social Gospel movement was just this very thing. And the past election was just another chapter in the long-running saga of Evangelicals shifting left-ward as they became fascinated with politics and the seemingly infinite power of government to effect social change. It is so easy for the State to replace God in our thinking.

I would argue that the Religious Right was more prinicipled in this respect than the Left insofar as it cared about specifically moral issues - marriage, abortion, euthanasia, pornography - than a general, ideologically-pure, liberal ideology of individual freedom. Yes, the Right was pro-capitalism, but it was anti-capitalist to the extent it stood in defence of the unborn and of marriage. (If the Left was really as anti-capitalist as its rhetoric would indicate, they would oppose big business when it commodifies human sexuality, which they don't. My point is that we are all more complicit than we like to think.)

The big mistake of the Religious Right was its utter and shameful failure to apply the just war criteria properly to the second Iraq war. Support for that war probably cost the Republicans and the anti-abortion cause this past election and the effects will be felt for decades to come in the form of needless deaths due to abortion and euthanasia. We let the unborn down when we let the people of Iraq down. (Although I opposed the Iraq war from the start, I include myself because it was my people, my movement, my Evangelical andCatholic allies who let Bush off the hook and we as a movement are to blame.)

I respect David Gushee for his willingness to admit that he was wrong. I just wish other Evangelical leaders who helped elect Obama would be as courageous and honest. I give the last word to Gushee and it is a good word:

"My understanding of the majestic God-given sacredness of human life tells me that a society that legally permits abortion on demand is deeply corrupt. It pays for adult sexual liberties with the lives of defenseless developing children. That practice, in turn, desensitizes society to the implications of paying for prospective medical cures with defenseless frozen embryos, which themselves are available because our society pays for medically assisted reproductive technology by producing hundreds of thousands of these embryos as spares. And yes, that same commitment to life's sacredness has grounded my opposition to paying for national security with torture, or paying for today's affluence with tomorrow's environmental destruction."

A Setback for Evangelical - Catholic Relations

Keith Pavlischek at First Things has a few hard, but fair, things to say about the Evangelical Lefties who hitherto have held themselves out as "prophetic" and unwilling to "compromise" like the Religious Right people, who supposedly are just tools of the Republican Party. He notes that Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis and co. had better lay off the sanctimonious "More prophetic than thou" stuff now that they are providing Obama with cover for his pro-abortion agenda. See the statement by a number of religious leaders supporting the Sebelius appointment. Note the signatures.
http://www.firstthings.com/blog/2009/03/05/the-self-proclaimed-prophethood-of-evangelical-believers/

Pavlischek is disappointed with some of the names on this list and so am I. I am particulary saddened to see Ron Sider's name here. I expected to see Tony Jones and Brian McLaren - they have pretty talked their way out of Evangelicalism with their increasing liberal theological views. And nobody considers Randall Balmer a spokesman for Evangelicalism. But Ron Sider is theologically sound, an honest man and a principled ethicist. The same goes for David Gushee and Glen Stassen. Seeing their names here makes me wonder if it is possible for anyone to adopt left-wing views on economic matters and not, sooner or later, be drawn into supporting the culture of death. I always thought there was no necessary connection between the two - but watching what is happening with the Obama election makes one wonder. http://faithinpubliclife.org/content/press/2009/03/top_christian_leaders_welcome.html

A similar list of Catholics in support of Obama's appointment of Sebellius was released by Catholics United. http://ncronline.org/news/politics/26-prominent-catholics-back-sebelius-pick

Notice how efficient the Obama administration is in spinning its policies so as to keep the public from realizing what they actually are up to? Recruiting Evangelical and Catholic leaders with name recognition to support their pro-abortion appointments creates confusion in the public mind about what is going on. And getting to Senator Brownback was a masterstroke for them, although it will prove to be a disaster for Brownback down the road.

But I have to say that what is most disturbing about this whole incident is the fact that it is a set back for ecumenical relations between Evangelicals and Catholics. Archbishop Naumann, Gov. Sebelius' pastor, has asked her, in view of her aggressive support for legalized abortion, to refrain from communion until she has made a confession of her sin and publicly renounced support for abortion. The liberal Catholics who are backing her are going against their own church and the Evangelicals who are backing her are poisoning Catholic - Evangelical relations. Why do we need Evangelicals supporting the culture of death? Isn't that what liberal Protestants are for? (I suppose this just goes to show how irrelevant liberal Protestantism has become. Nobody even cares if they sign these sorts of statements anymore.)

It is all too rare for Catholic bishops to use church discipline on high-profile Catholic politicans who profit at the ballot box from their Catholic reputation, only to flaunt the teachings of the Church in order to further their own careers. This is dispicable and the Kennedys, the Bidens, the Pelosis and all the rest ought to be ashamed of themselves. Archbishop Naumann presumeably knows Kansas politics and Gov. Sebelius better than we do and we ought to be supporting his judgment. He is the third Archbishop in a row in that diocese to clash with Sebelius, so this is not personal. It is a matter of Christian ethics and moral theology. It is not even a matter of whether a secular state should allow abortion; it is a matter of whether Christians should compromise morally in an attempt to advance their political careers. This is a completely non-partisan issue, which has been politicized in a devisive manner by the signers of these two statements of suport for Sebelius. Courageous Catholic bishops who take a stand - often at great personal cost - deserve the respect and support of all those who love Christ and want to witness to the Gospel in public, rather than hiding in their little ghettos out of the firing line and out of sight. Sure it is easy and popular to support Obama now, but do they have to be quite so dutiful and tame about it? Is there anything Obama could do that they would oppose? It is hard to imagine - and that is a shame. It is time for the Evangelical Left to start acting like real prophets, rather than acting like tame court prophets.

UPDATE
Archbishop Joseph Naumann speaks out. Read it here. http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=32453&wf=rsscol

I was going to say that Archbishop Naumman needs our prayers at this time, but after reading his letter I'm inclined to think that we Evangelicals need his prayers even more.