Obama is a liberal Protestant who was formed in a church that preached black liberation theology and it is an open question as to how much of orthodox Christianity he actually believes. One would not have to believe much to fit comfortably into Jeremiah Wright's congregation and it is very difficult to believe that a person with orthodox Christian doctrine could have endured 20 years of Wright's rants.
But one thing Obama knows is that the Christian Church in America is an obstacle to his vision of a giant, all-powerful State directing the lives of individuals with as few as possible intermediate institution in between. The family is one such mediating institution and the Democratic Party has been following policies that weaken the family ever since they used the opening provided by the civil rights movement to implement the Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson. The Church is another such institution and as George Will remarked the other day on ABC's This Week, every institution of civil society must be broken to the saddle of the progressive state.
The Christian Church is hardly a monolithic entity and so the opportunity exists for Obama to try to divide and conquer. A frontal assault on the whole thing never works, so chipping off groups here and there is the obvious way to go if one's goal is to neutralize Christian opposition to the out of control Leviathan.
Two obvious fissures exist in the Christian Church in America that can be exploited by shameless politicians eager to neutralize the Christian moral witness. First, the Roman Catholic Church, which is dangerous because of its size and hierarchical organization, has a liberal wing that regularly dissents from the hierarchy and is perfectly positioned to be used as dupes for Big Government. Second, the Evangelical-Catholic alliance, which has become so dangerous to Leviathan in recent years, is always inherently fragile. Witness the way that the pro-life movement is winning the moral argument and the political fight over abortion ever since the Catholics and Evangelicals got together and liberal Protestantism declined to insignificance.
Enter the contraception issue. Why is Obama so anxious to turn a referendum on Obamacare into a referendum on contraception? It is his administration's strategy to defend Obamacare and the march toward ever Bigger Government. How so? Evangelicals and Catholics, on the one hand, and liberal and mainstream Catholics, on the other, disagree on this issue. The Evangelical-Catholic alliance on abortion is so strong now that abortion is losing its value as a wedge issue for liberals (which is why they now accuse conservatives of using it as a wedge issue). So they need a new wedge issue to divide Christians from one another.
The liberal Catholics who support Obama are dupes. He is just using them and will toss them aside like so much excess baggage once they have served their purpose. If it were not for the fact that the Pope and the Bishops are a genuine threat to Obama's re-election, they would be under the bus already.
Evangelicals should be wary of this strategy and should remember who their true allies are. And, let it be said, it is past time for Evangelicals to re-think their support for the whole contraceptive mentality. What I am surprised is not being emphasized right now is that Evangelicals and Catholics are equally opposed to the "morning after pill" and other poisons that cause abortions. And the government is determined to make every Evangelical college and seminary in America pay for such abortion poisons. We Evangelicals have every bit as much at stake as Catholics do in this sort of fight if we are serious about being anti-abortion.
If Obama can peel off some Evangelical support from the Evangelical-Catholic alliance and then get liberal Catholics fighting his battles for him against the hierarchy, then he dilutes the voting impact of traditional Christian opposition to his pro-sexual revolution policies. But if we are on to his game, we can ensure that there is no daylight between our position and the Catholic one. After all, this is not really about contraception; it is about religious liberty and limited government.
Showing posts with label Evangelicals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evangelicals. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Evangelism, Politics and the Mission of the Church
In the last post, I expressed my discomfort with N. T. Wright's book, which (somewhat intemperately) attacks the traditional Christian preoccupation with heaven and recommends a focus on social justice based on the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. This theology fits hand in glove with contemporary Evangelical tendencies to put more emphasis on social justice work than Evangelicals have previously done.
Sometimes trends with labels like "missional" or "emergent" seem to stand for practical outcomes and theology that is not very different from the old-fashioned social gospel movement. This is especially true for Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis, though not for Lesslie Newbigin or John Stott. (Stott's Christian Mission in the Modern World is still well-worth reading and is superior to much of the more recent writing on the same subject. And Lesslie Newbigin's work needs to be read in toto and not simply reduced to a few slogans.)
I want to stress that I do not regard this as an "either/or." I'm not saying that there is no place for Christian concern for poverty, the environment or abortion. I'm talking about balance and clearly liberal Protestantism has completely lost its balance and has lost classcial orthodoxy in the bargain. How can we avoid having the same thing happen to us as Evangelicals? What makes us think it is impossible? How do we make sure the biblical gospel, which pertains to eternity, is not submerged below the cries for social justice in the here and now?
I think we should make three key distinctions.
I. Evangelism versus Social Improvement - We should be capable of distinguishing between the work of preaching the gospel to individuals and calling them to personal, saving faith in Jesus Christ, on the one hand, and the work of improving society whether through social service, social action or politics, as a witness to our faith.
This distinction should be kept in mind when deciding what action a Church qua Church should take with regard to social improvement. Social service is the direct meeting of the needs of individuals (food banks, relief work etc.) and is the primary work of the Church. Social action is the attempt to address the problems that create injustice through lobbying and public statements. This is not really the work of the Church qua Church and more appropriate for social justice organizations created and supported by Christians. Politics is direct involvement in democratic partisan activity with the goal of changing the law so as to facilitate either social service, social action or both. The Church and clergy should stay out of politics and Christians should participate as individuals in existing parties or through Christian parties.
The rule should be that the primary goal of the Church and the clergy is to preach the gospel and convert people. Some social service activity is certainly consistent with this mission, as long as it does not become central, but social action is questionable and politics is beyond the pale. (In extreme situations, social action may be necessary and appropriate. But it cannot become the focus of the institutional Church if the focus on evangelism is to be maintained.) The Church must keep evangelism and missionary work central. If people are genuinely converted, however, they will become involved in social improvement, but this will primarily be the work of the laity.
II. Moral Issue versus Political Issues - When the Church, as Church speaks out on politically charged issues it must not do so in a partisan manner. The best way to ensure that this does not happen is to limit the voice of the institutional Church itself to the morality of the issue and to leave aside the partisan political aspects. The Church must speak to actions which are good or evil and not to debatable methods of achieving desirable social outcomes. For example, abortion is an intrinsic evil and the Church must condemn it. On the other hand, the best way to address global warming is debatable and complex. The principle of stewardly responsibility for the environment can be proclaimed by the Church, but the best legislation dealing with carbon emmissions is beyond pastoral competence.
This will be difficult because even if the Church's pastors get it exactly right, those whose interests are harmed by the the moral stand of the Church will inevitably accuse the Church of partisan interference. But confronted with the demands of morality, it is the responsibility of those on the wrong side of the issue to change their stand and not the responsibility of the Church to pretend that it can change basic morality.
III. The Presence of the Kingdom Now versus the Presence of the Kingdom in the Future - When we pray the Lord's Prayer, we pray for the kingdom to come and this is an admission that there is a crucial sense in which the kingdom is not here already. Christians generally agree on the blessed hope of Christ's glorious return and the full manifestation of the Kingdom in the New Heavens and New Earth.
Yet, since the kingdom was present in the King and since we are the body of Christ, the kingdom already came in the past in one sense and is now present on earth in another sense. This raises a huge question: How is the Church related to the Kingdom? The short answer is, I think, as a witness to the kingdom. But what is the nature of that witness? Here we find Christians divided in their answers.
1. Christ's Presence in the Sacraments: This is the view of the Roman Catholic Church. The kingdom is present in the sacraments, especially the sacrifice of the mass where the real presence of Christ may be found. The Lutheran view, insofar as it tries to be Catholic but is inhibited by Luther's nominalism, may be regarded as a defective version of the Roman Catholic View.
2. Christ's Presence in the Word of God: This is the Reformed view. The kingdom comes in the reading, preaching and hearing of the Word of God, which bears testimony to Jesus Christ and makes him present. The authoritative voice of Christ is present in the proclamation of the Gospel. The exposition of the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures is constitutive both of the kingdom of God and of the true Church as well.
3. Christ's Presence in the Relationships Between Christians Within the Church: This is the Anabaptist view. It views the kingdom as visible in the sanctified lives of believers living in relationship to one another. If not disciplined by the Reformed view, it can easily slip into the Liberal Protestant view.
4. Christ's Presence in the Renewed Society Resulting From Social Improvement: This is the Liberal Protestant view. It views the kingdom as being present wherever one seek social justice, relief of poverty, peace etc. This may occur either in the Church itself or in the general society surrounding the Church. This is why the Church is called by those holding this view to discern where God is working and go there. The kingdom, in this view, is often reduced simply to secular ideals of peace and justice.
It seems to me that the fourth view is deficient and to be rejected. The third is dangerous insofar as it tends toward either perfectionism, on the one hand, or toward the fourth view, on the other. The debate is between the first two, especially between the Roman Catholic and Reformed views. Here the challenge is for the two sides to see that they have more in common with each other than with the other views because both see Christ present in a real and saving way in the Church.
Summary:
1. Evangelicals should take care to make preaching the gospel of personal faith in Christ central in their churches and to keep our focus on heaven and hell and the eternal destiny of every human being.
2. Evangelicals should understand social improvement as the work of the laity, a natural witness to the gospel by those who have been converted. The Church should equip its members for the work of influencing society for good, but the primary goal of pastors is not social improvement.
3. Evangelicals should be wary of any theology that pits the Synoptics against John and Paul or Jesus against Paul or which makes the coming of Christ's kingdom a human accomplishment in history. The Christian hope must not be reduced to secular, modern, liberal notions of progress or human perfectibility. It is much greater than that and the mission of the Church is to preach Jesus Christ and His Eternal Kingdom.
Sometimes trends with labels like "missional" or "emergent" seem to stand for practical outcomes and theology that is not very different from the old-fashioned social gospel movement. This is especially true for Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis, though not for Lesslie Newbigin or John Stott. (Stott's Christian Mission in the Modern World is still well-worth reading and is superior to much of the more recent writing on the same subject. And Lesslie Newbigin's work needs to be read in toto and not simply reduced to a few slogans.)
I want to stress that I do not regard this as an "either/or." I'm not saying that there is no place for Christian concern for poverty, the environment or abortion. I'm talking about balance and clearly liberal Protestantism has completely lost its balance and has lost classcial orthodoxy in the bargain. How can we avoid having the same thing happen to us as Evangelicals? What makes us think it is impossible? How do we make sure the biblical gospel, which pertains to eternity, is not submerged below the cries for social justice in the here and now?
I think we should make three key distinctions.
I. Evangelism versus Social Improvement - We should be capable of distinguishing between the work of preaching the gospel to individuals and calling them to personal, saving faith in Jesus Christ, on the one hand, and the work of improving society whether through social service, social action or politics, as a witness to our faith.
This distinction should be kept in mind when deciding what action a Church qua Church should take with regard to social improvement. Social service is the direct meeting of the needs of individuals (food banks, relief work etc.) and is the primary work of the Church. Social action is the attempt to address the problems that create injustice through lobbying and public statements. This is not really the work of the Church qua Church and more appropriate for social justice organizations created and supported by Christians. Politics is direct involvement in democratic partisan activity with the goal of changing the law so as to facilitate either social service, social action or both. The Church and clergy should stay out of politics and Christians should participate as individuals in existing parties or through Christian parties.
The rule should be that the primary goal of the Church and the clergy is to preach the gospel and convert people. Some social service activity is certainly consistent with this mission, as long as it does not become central, but social action is questionable and politics is beyond the pale. (In extreme situations, social action may be necessary and appropriate. But it cannot become the focus of the institutional Church if the focus on evangelism is to be maintained.) The Church must keep evangelism and missionary work central. If people are genuinely converted, however, they will become involved in social improvement, but this will primarily be the work of the laity.
II. Moral Issue versus Political Issues - When the Church, as Church speaks out on politically charged issues it must not do so in a partisan manner. The best way to ensure that this does not happen is to limit the voice of the institutional Church itself to the morality of the issue and to leave aside the partisan political aspects. The Church must speak to actions which are good or evil and not to debatable methods of achieving desirable social outcomes. For example, abortion is an intrinsic evil and the Church must condemn it. On the other hand, the best way to address global warming is debatable and complex. The principle of stewardly responsibility for the environment can be proclaimed by the Church, but the best legislation dealing with carbon emmissions is beyond pastoral competence.
This will be difficult because even if the Church's pastors get it exactly right, those whose interests are harmed by the the moral stand of the Church will inevitably accuse the Church of partisan interference. But confronted with the demands of morality, it is the responsibility of those on the wrong side of the issue to change their stand and not the responsibility of the Church to pretend that it can change basic morality.
III. The Presence of the Kingdom Now versus the Presence of the Kingdom in the Future - When we pray the Lord's Prayer, we pray for the kingdom to come and this is an admission that there is a crucial sense in which the kingdom is not here already. Christians generally agree on the blessed hope of Christ's glorious return and the full manifestation of the Kingdom in the New Heavens and New Earth.
Yet, since the kingdom was present in the King and since we are the body of Christ, the kingdom already came in the past in one sense and is now present on earth in another sense. This raises a huge question: How is the Church related to the Kingdom? The short answer is, I think, as a witness to the kingdom. But what is the nature of that witness? Here we find Christians divided in their answers.
1. Christ's Presence in the Sacraments: This is the view of the Roman Catholic Church. The kingdom is present in the sacraments, especially the sacrifice of the mass where the real presence of Christ may be found. The Lutheran view, insofar as it tries to be Catholic but is inhibited by Luther's nominalism, may be regarded as a defective version of the Roman Catholic View.
2. Christ's Presence in the Word of God: This is the Reformed view. The kingdom comes in the reading, preaching and hearing of the Word of God, which bears testimony to Jesus Christ and makes him present. The authoritative voice of Christ is present in the proclamation of the Gospel. The exposition of the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures is constitutive both of the kingdom of God and of the true Church as well.
3. Christ's Presence in the Relationships Between Christians Within the Church: This is the Anabaptist view. It views the kingdom as visible in the sanctified lives of believers living in relationship to one another. If not disciplined by the Reformed view, it can easily slip into the Liberal Protestant view.
4. Christ's Presence in the Renewed Society Resulting From Social Improvement: This is the Liberal Protestant view. It views the kingdom as being present wherever one seek social justice, relief of poverty, peace etc. This may occur either in the Church itself or in the general society surrounding the Church. This is why the Church is called by those holding this view to discern where God is working and go there. The kingdom, in this view, is often reduced simply to secular ideals of peace and justice.
It seems to me that the fourth view is deficient and to be rejected. The third is dangerous insofar as it tends toward either perfectionism, on the one hand, or toward the fourth view, on the other. The debate is between the first two, especially between the Roman Catholic and Reformed views. Here the challenge is for the two sides to see that they have more in common with each other than with the other views because both see Christ present in a real and saving way in the Church.
Summary:
1. Evangelicals should take care to make preaching the gospel of personal faith in Christ central in their churches and to keep our focus on heaven and hell and the eternal destiny of every human being.
2. Evangelicals should understand social improvement as the work of the laity, a natural witness to the gospel by those who have been converted. The Church should equip its members for the work of influencing society for good, but the primary goal of pastors is not social improvement.
3. Evangelicals should be wary of any theology that pits the Synoptics against John and Paul or Jesus against Paul or which makes the coming of Christ's kingdom a human accomplishment in history. The Christian hope must not be reduced to secular, modern, liberal notions of progress or human perfectibility. It is much greater than that and the mission of the Church is to preach Jesus Christ and His Eternal Kingdom.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Evangelical Swearing = Living on the Edge (for an Evangelical)
I have often wondered why so many Evangelicals of my generation or younger seem to think that swearing is cool. They weren't brought up that way; it was not part of Evangelical culture a generation ago. Apparently it is new, exciting and "transgressive" to a certain sub-culture of people who apparently are trying to prove that they are not to be associated with Evangelicalism, even though, truth be told, they really are Evangelicals down deep. Shhh!
If they were really wanting to be "transgressive" wouldn't they have tatoos and HIV, be involved in a homosexual relationship and refuse to use a condom - or something like that? But swearing? I mean that's it? That is your great "transgression?" A couple of cuss words here and there and the occasional F bomb? That is all that distances you from Jerry Falwell and James Dobson? That is the only difference between you and a Navigator staff worker? I can hear it now: under torture you yell out "Yes, I admit I have an NIV Study Bible. I confess, I go to church more than once a week. OK, I even admit that I have memorized the Romans Road. But - I can cuss up a storm. Please let me go!"
I think an anthroplogist would view it as an identity marker, that is, as a way of saying I'm not in that group, I'm in this other group over here. It is kind of like circumcision for a Jew or rosary beads for a Catholic or being in favor of abortion for an East Coast Liberal. It is a way of differentiating oneself from certain stereotypes and cultivating a certain image. It is also, perhaps, part of the growing up process.
Or maybe you are a pacifist and you want to act tough. I understand why Stanley Hauerwas has to cuss like a drunken sailor. He is a pacifist from Texas so what else can he do?
Personally, I find it boring and boorish, but that's just me. Maybe it is because I was brought up in a home where every third word was a swear word and high school and my first few jobs were all exactly the same. The novelty wore off a long, long time ago. In fact, I still find it novel and interesting to hear someone who can express himself with a larger vocabulary than those who use one of 10 English swear words 20% of the time, (which is why I find reading David Bentley Hart with my dictionary open is so much fun!)
If they were really wanting to be "transgressive" wouldn't they have tatoos and HIV, be involved in a homosexual relationship and refuse to use a condom - or something like that? But swearing? I mean that's it? That is your great "transgression?" A couple of cuss words here and there and the occasional F bomb? That is all that distances you from Jerry Falwell and James Dobson? That is the only difference between you and a Navigator staff worker? I can hear it now: under torture you yell out "Yes, I admit I have an NIV Study Bible. I confess, I go to church more than once a week. OK, I even admit that I have memorized the Romans Road. But - I can cuss up a storm. Please let me go!"
I think an anthroplogist would view it as an identity marker, that is, as a way of saying I'm not in that group, I'm in this other group over here. It is kind of like circumcision for a Jew or rosary beads for a Catholic or being in favor of abortion for an East Coast Liberal. It is a way of differentiating oneself from certain stereotypes and cultivating a certain image. It is also, perhaps, part of the growing up process.
Or maybe you are a pacifist and you want to act tough. I understand why Stanley Hauerwas has to cuss like a drunken sailor. He is a pacifist from Texas so what else can he do?
Personally, I find it boring and boorish, but that's just me. Maybe it is because I was brought up in a home where every third word was a swear word and high school and my first few jobs were all exactly the same. The novelty wore off a long, long time ago. In fact, I still find it novel and interesting to hear someone who can express himself with a larger vocabulary than those who use one of 10 English swear words 20% of the time, (which is why I find reading David Bentley Hart with my dictionary open is so much fun!)
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