Redeeming the Culture

    

   Today the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its long awaited decisions involving two same sex marriage cases. In one case the court struck down provisions in a federal law that restricted marriage, for purposes of federal benefits, to heterosexual couples. In the other case, involving a referendum in California ("Proposition 8") that outlawed same sex marriage, they dismissed the case on technical grounds – the appellants had no "legal standing," i.e. they were not entitled to bring the case before the Court because they had not been injured by the lower court ruling overturning the proposition. Thus homosexuals will soon be able legally to wed in California. The decisions are lamented by the conservative religious community. It is hard to see how the institution of marriage can remain viable if virtually any sexual behavior is tolerated by society.
    As it so happens, hundreds of thousands are determined to do something about the moral decline of our country. On this coming Sunday, June 30, 2013, over a million and a half Christians are planning on participating in a mass event called "Call 2 Fall," in which believers in churches all across America will literally fall on their knees "in repentant prayer to reshape our lives and renew our land." The "Call 2 Fall" purports to be based on the familiar passage found in II Chron. 7:14: ". . . if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land" (NKJV). The sincerity of these believers can hardly be questioned, but it remains to be seen whether a brief gesture during a church service will be sufficient to arrest the moral and social decline of the nation.
    Conservative American Christians have been concerned about the direction of the country for quite some time now. As early as the 1960's there were Christian thinkers such as Francis A. Schaeffer, Rousas J. Rushdoony, and C. Gregg Singer who were warning about the direction of western culture. Encroaching secularism was already having a corrosive effect on morals and manners, undermining the core values of Western Civilization. But the dramatic turning point in American culture came in 1973 when the Supreme Court handed down its infamous decision in Roe v. Wade, legalizing abortion throughout the entire nation. The conservative religious community reacted with alarm.
    A host of books appeared urging Christians to organize and take action. One book in particular provided some insightful analysis of the legal aspect of the problem. It was The Second American Revolution (1982) by noted attorney John W. Whitehead. He demonstrated the ways in which our constitutional rights and liberties were slowly eroding as society in general gave up belief in God and in moral absolutes.
    But the question was, what can we, as evangelical Christians, do about it? Whitehead criticized the church for being too "Pietistic" – for being too narrowly focused on personal salvation while ignoring the culture at large. His solution was for Christians to become politically active, and he goes so far as to say, "Getting involved in local politics will eventually mean Christians running for office. This will include attending and eventually taking control of party conventions where grass-roots decisions are made" (p. 166).
    But it is precisely here where the trouble begins. Winning elections requires forming broad-based coalitions, and broad-based coalitions are bound to include non-Christian elements as well as Christian ones. The inevitable result is that the Christian message is compromised. It is one thing to bear witness to society at large, to preach and to teach, to publish and to broadcast; it is quite another thing to get involved in the hurly-burly of electoral politics.
    In retrospect the attempt to take over the culture has been a dismal failure. We have tried for forty years to reverse Roe v. Wade, and what we got instead was same sex marriage. The culture is clearly moving away from Christianity, not closer to it.
    The problem with the attempt to use the political process to reverse the country's moral decline is that it badly misconstrues the mission of the church. It is perfectly fine to want to influence the culture in a positive direction, but how do we do this?
    The first thing that we must understand is that the central task assigned to the church is contained in the Great Commission: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. . ." (Matt. 28:19,20). The reference to baptism clearly indicates that what is in view here is winning converts to Christ, i.e., personal salvation.
    When we look at the contemporary scene in America, however, we do not see this happening. Why? Because the church has gone about it the wrong way. It is not that we haven't tried – we have tried every strategy, method and technique imaginable. But all of it failed. It failed because the blessing of God was not upon it.
    Nowhere in the New Testament do we see Christians trying to Christianize the Roman Empire through politics, law or the arts. Rather, the primary means of advancing the Kingdom of God is the preaching of the gospel. But in order for preaching to get results the blessing of God must be upon it. "And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power . . .," the apostle Paul could declare (I Cor. 2:4).
    And why don't we experience that today? It is because we have failed to pray. We are disunited. We are careless and indifferent about our own relationship with God. We have grown carnal and worldly. Our "worship" is little more than entertainment. And we have substituted human organization, psychology, and marketing for the work of the Holy Spirit. The results speak for themselves.
    Yes, we need to fall on our knees and cry out to God. But it will require more than just a brief pro forma prayer one Sunday morning. It will require real repentance, and real confession. The sad part about it is that the average Christian today probably does not realize what the church is doing wrong, and scarcely knows what he should confess.
    We need to pray that God would open our eyes, especially the eyes of our pastors and "spiritual leaders." Only then will real reformation and revival come.

Articles in which you may also be interested:
Was the "Relgious Right" a Mistake? 
Christianity and Politics 
William Jennings Bryan: A Lesson in Faith and Politics 
The Real Issue in Gay Marriage Debate 
The Legacy of the Counterculture 
The Future of Playboy America 

Raised Evangelical: Bob’s Story - VI

We continue with our responses to the "Raised Evangelical" series on the atheist blog "Love, Joy, Feminism."

 

Section 6: Politics

 

Question 1: In his book Broken Words, Jonathan Dudley argues that a fourfold opposition to abortion, homosexuality, evolution and environmentalism constitute the markers of evangelical tribal identity. What role did opposition to these four issues [play] in your fundamental or evangelical upbringing, and would you agree with Dudley?

    Frankly most of these weren't issues when I was growing up. Abortion was illegal and homosexuality was never discussed in public. Evolution, of course, was discussed and debated. Environmentalism was not an issue for Christians at that time.

    Part of the problem with Dudley's thesis is that he is defining Evangelicalism in sociological terms: Evangelicalism has a "tribal identity" marked by opposition to certain political issues. But Evangelicalism should mainly center on the experience of salvation (justification by faith, the new birth, and a relationship with God). The church is supposed to be the mystical body of Christ and the communion of the saints, persons who are tied together by the shared experience, not a voting block in the American electorate tied to a secular political party.

    Abortion and homosexuality are, of course, serious moral issues that deserve the attention of the church, and evolution raises questions about the underlying worldview. Opposition to environmentalism, however, does not logically follow from the other three. If nature was created by design, then we should respect the design in nature just as we do in marriage. We are no more justified in raping the environment than we are in raping a woman on the street. Both acts violate God's purposes in creation and bring about serious consequences. Francis Schaeffer, in fact, wrote a very interesting book on the subject in 1970 – Pollution and the Death of Man.

 

Question 2: What role did you, your family, or your church community believe Christians should play in politics? What did your family or church hold was the end goal of Christians' involvement in politics? What were your family and church community's beliefs about the end times, and how (if any) did these beliefs affect their view of Christian's role in politics?

Question 3: Were you, your family, or your church community involved in politics? What did all their involvement include? Did your pastor ever preach a political view from the pulpit? Did you ever picket an abortion clinic, attend a "defense of marriage" rally, or participate in any related activities? Describe your experiences.

    The short answer to the first question is "none whatsoever." We were Baptists, and one of the "Baptist distinctives" is separation of church and state. Moreover, to answer the question about the end times, our church was very strongly Dispensationalist, and believed that we were living in the last time. The last great apostasy was underway, and the Soviet Union was preparing to invade Israel from the north! (Yes, that's what prophecy teachers were actually saying back then. How a supernatural figure like the Anti-Christ could be a dialectical materialist and a dogmatic atheist was never clearly explained.) Thus things were not expected to get any better. The church saw its role as snatching a few last sinners from the world before the end finally came (within the next few years).

    Moreover, most Christians at that time didn't have an especially favorable view of politicians. They were cigar-smoking, whiskey-swigging crooks who cut deals in back rooms. They were the dissolute looking bunch of characters you saw hanging out in the bar in a downtown hotel. Most Christians wouldn't care to admit that they knew any of these rogues and scoundrels personally.

    Beneath the surface, however, there was a gravitational pull toward right-wing politics. Although the pastor was careful not to discuss it from the pulpit, I think that Barry Goldwater got a lot of support from the members of the congregation when he ran for president in 1964. The fervently anti-Communist John Birch Society attracted support from evangelical Christians, and I can remember reading None Dare Call It Treason, by John Stormer, which laid out an elaborate conspiracy theory.

 

Question 4: What political issues did you, your parents, and / or your church community see as most important in deciding who to vote for and why?

    People's perceptions back then were colored by the Cold War, and the threat of a possible nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union. And since the Soviet Union had tried to combine (illogically) a socialistic economic system with and atheist / materialist worldview, many conservative Americans did the exact opposite: they tried to combine (illogically) Christianity with laissez-faire capitalism.
What seemed to make it plausible at the time was the fact that some large companies back then practiced a kind of "welfare capitalism" that included generous benefits packages. And so American conservatives threw their support behind the free-market economic system and a strong national defense.

    There was also an ethnic dimension to all of this. Most "WASPS" (White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants) in the north were aligned with the Republican Party, while Catholics and Jews were mainly identified with the Democrats. So many Protestants, evangelical and liberal alike, thought that they were protecting the traditional American way of life by voting Republican.

    My father, and I think my grandfather before him, were strongly pro-business and ant-union, and pro-military. My father was known to have voted for Democrats only twice – once by mistake (he accidently pulled the wrong lever in the voting booth), and once because he thought that not even a Democrat could be as bad as Nelson Rockefellar, who was the Governor of New York State at the time. Shortly afterwards the Conservative Party of NY was founded, and my father became an enthusiastic supporter.

Was the “Religious Right” a Mistake?

    One of the more controversial bloggers at Patheos, Frank Schaeffer ("Why I Still Talk to Jesus – In Spite of Everything" -- http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankschaeffer/) recently had a blog post entitled "How Evangelicals Doomed the Republican Party, God, and (Maybe) America." He accuses Evangelicals of having a distorted view of reality, and of allowing themselves to be used as the pawns of billionaires and neoconservative warmongers. He cites as examples the denial of global warming and the unqualified support for Israel, which, he says, prevent us from finding sane and sensible solutions to these problems. "Touch it where you may the evangelical / Republican / billionaire alliance is doomed, it's doomed because the non-retributive Jesus is the true Lord, not a hate filled ideology of imperial overreach that is embraced by crazed and militarized right wing neoconservatives."
    One might wish that Mr. Schaeffer himself would imbibe a little more of the spirit of the "non-retributive Jesus," but there is an element of truth to what he says. Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether or not Evangelicals are self-deluded, the fact remains that they are in an uneasy alliance with Roman Catholics, Mormons, Libertarians, and establishment big business Republicans. Each faction can blame one of the others for the loss in the recent election. Did the Republicans lose because some of their candidates took "extreme" positions on abortion, thereby alienating women voters? Or was it because Mr. Romney was a multimillionaire who is out of touch with ordinary Americans? Both seem to have been factors.
    Looking ahead to the future, what is especially foreboding for social conservatives is that several states legalized same-sex marriage by popular vote, and the Democrats did especially well among women, minorities and the young, suggesting that changing demographics are working in their favor. Other pundits beside Mr. Schaeffer are saying that the Republican Party needs to change. But change into what?
    This is, in fact, a genuine dilemma. As Frank Schaeffer's late father, the famous theologian Francis A. Schaeffer, labored to point out, western civilization as a whole has experienced a seismic shift away from its Judeo-Christian moorings toward a more secular and materialistic orientation, and this raises the specter of an increasingly amoral and disordered society. One simply cannot stand idly by while he watches civilization collapse. Yet as the elder Dr. Schaeffer also pointed out, the philosophical underpinnings of orthodox Christianity are radically at variance with the naturalistic assumptions of modern secular thought. The younger Mr. Schaeffer concludes from this that Evangelicals (and presumably his conservative evangelical father) are simply deluded. But should Evangelicals allow the outside world to redefine their faith?
    As a Christian believer I would have to say "absolutely not." "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). It would be sheer folly to throw one's soul away for the sake of political expediency.
    What should we do then? Our first concern should be to remain faithful to Christ and maintain the purity of our testimony. This means that we must be especially wary of engaging in partisan politics. The mudslinging and vilification, the vested interests and power politics hardly adorn the gospel.
    Secondly, we must recognize that America is not likely to change for the better unless we change individual hearts and minds, and this can be accomplished best through evangelism. But we must be careful here to preach the whole message. Part of the reason for America's moral decline is that most modern preachers are reluctant to talk about sin. But the gospel is incomprehensible unless we lay out first what God requires from human beings in the way of moral conduct. And the truth be known, the church's own members need to repent and start living the life themselves. Actions, it has often been said, speak louder than words. Let the atheists and agnostics argue and debate all they want; they cannot argue against the example of a virtuous life.
    This does not mean, however, that we must remain silent in the face of encroaching evil. We can protest. We can write letters and hold demonstrations. We can demonstrate compassion by extending the helping hand. But let us never sully the name of Christ with partisan bickering. It only confuses the issues and undermines our credibility.
    The way to reform society has been laid out for us: it is the power of the Word of God. "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).

The Culture Wars

    In his editorial in last Monday's USA Today Stephen Prothero deplored the bitter divisiveness of the current "culture wars," and suggested as an antidote what he calls "The American Bible," a collection of core texts that define us as Americans. He then concluded his piece with a quote from Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address: "Let us then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. . . . Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans -- we are federalists."
    We can hardly blame Mr. Prothero for wanting to restore a measure of civility to our public discourse, but at the same time we think that he has vastly underestimated the differences that divide us. The sad fact of the matter is that we are no longer "brethren of the same principle," as Jefferson so elegantly put it.
    In Jefferson's day there was a consensus on certain core values that no longer exists today. It is fascinating to note the makeup of the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. In included Benjamin Franklin, and , of course, Jefferson himself, both free-thinkers, as well as John Adams, who would eventually become a Unitarian. But the committee also included a devout evangelical Christian, Roger Sherman of Connecticut. In spite of this difference of religion, they were agreed on certain core principles which they said were "self-evident": that all men are created equal, and that they were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
    Would they have put it that way today? It seems unlikely. What separates us today from the world in which they lived is Charles Darwin. While Jefferson, Franklin and Adams were religious liberals or free-thinkers, they were not atheists. They believed in a rationally ordered universe created by an intelligent Supreme Being. Darwin, however, called all of that into doubt, and with it the whole rationale for the Declaration. In Darwinian thinking there is no Creator, and all living beings are in a constant state of evolution, locked in a struggle for survival. On this construction of things it is hard to see how there could be such a thing as an "inalienable right": there is no Supreme Being to endow anyone with any rights. Thus the values of human dignity, freedom and equality are no longer "self-evident truths," and the Christian is thrown back on a direct appeal to divine revelation to support the idea of human exceptionalism. This, in turn, is unacceptable to the modern secularist. Thus today we are no longer "brethren of the same principle." Rather, the debate is over whether or not universal principles exist at all.
    As faulty as David Barton's historiography undoubtedly is, his supporters have a sense of something of immense importance. What they sense is that civilization itself is at risk. We have become a society that has lost its faith in its core values, the universal norms of justice and humanity. Militant atheism is a denial of values and ideals of every kind. Do we, as a nation, still have anything worth fighting for?