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Some Very Simple "Christian math" for Thinking About Trump

1/19/2016

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Here it is in simplicity. I am entirely laying aside any questions about Trump's own faith or morality. Christians hold (at least) two sometimes competing "biblical" values: the nature and mission of the Christian church, the "body of Christ" vs. the prophet Jeremiah's (or rather God's) instruction to the Israelites in Babylon to "seek the peace (shalom) of the city in which live." Now, let's suppose for the sake of argument (wincing here) that 'seeking the peace of the society' would best be fulfilled by "making America great again" in the sense that Trump proposes. And furthermore, let's suppose that Trump actually could do that. In other words, I am here (painfully) giving all the benefit of the doubt to Trump and his supporters on value #2.

What about the other value? I am entirely unwilling to equate the basic agenda of the Christian church with American greatness, mostly because the Christian church is a global, transnational body. I am entirely unwilling to suppose that Trump's agenda is consistent with the basic agenda of the Christian church as defined by ANY major transnational stream of Christian thought (individual ideologues aside) in the past 200 years. Here, I am not willing to give Trump the same benefit of the doubt, but let us suppose that a Trump Presidency, in its enacted policy, neither hurts nor helps the most basic agenda of the Christian church (I am presuming that this agenda precludes xenophobia and religious discrimination, even if such agendas did fit with value #2). I am decidedly unconvinced that brutal military response would appropriate or effective to stop (rather than enflame) the persecution of Christians in places where they are vulnerable.

The very moderate question I want to ask is this: will the visible, audible, public support of Trump by Christians (publicly, visibly, audibly representing themselves as representative Christians) help or hurt the agenda of the Christian church, the "body of Christ" in carrying out its mission as defined by ANY major transnational stream of Christian thought in the past 200 years?

I can imagine a convoluted scenario whereby the Christian church ends up repenting of its support for Trump and its public humility and demonstrable repentance ends up helping the basic agenda of the Christian church, but I wouldn't suggest this as a game-plan.

Along with many others, I affirm Paul Wehner's Trump and the debasement of faith. 
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Fear and Loathing in Evangelicalism: The record that keeps on skipping

12/2/2015

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"This record keeps skipping. Everyday I read something new about our Crumbling Cultural Christendom. Today it was a throwback article on NPR about Randall Balmer's 2011 book, Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical's Lament and Tobin Grant's post of last week on Religion News Service, "Evangelicals (always) fear losing religious liberty and being called bigots; a look at 1950s evangelicalism." Go check them out.

The topic of Grant's post is fairly self-evident, but the main thrust is evangelical concern about public discourse. Grant writes, "such is evangelicalism. It is a tradition that wants to engage in public debates in which evangelical arguments are met with hostility." In the 1950s, evangelicals (represented by the National Association of Evangelicals or NAE) were afraid that the U.S. government's newly friendly relationship with Roman Catholic leadership would erode religious freedom; but more so, they were beginning to feel that explicitly Christian discourse was increasingly unwelcome in these public debates. (This is now kind of ironic given Fr. John Neuhaus' prominence in evangelical circles for the promotion of ecumenical efforts in public theology - check out First Things.) They complained about a "code of platitudes" governing public discourse, in the same way that many leaders today complain about "political correctness." They also pushed for the U.S. to withhold aid from countries that limited religious freedom, which seems somewhat reasonable depending on the circumstances, but runs counter to certain New Testament teachings about loving concern for enemies and persecutors. 
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Tobin Grant is making interesting cultural observations, not necessarily critiquing anyone, but his article reminded of atheist Daniel Dennett's challenge from his book Breaking the Spell:
Suppose I have a friend, Fred, who is (in my carefully considered opinion) always right. If I tell you I’m against stem-cell research because “my friend Fred says it’s wrong and that’s all there is to it,” you will just look at me as if I was missing the point of the discussion. This is supposed to be a consideration of reasons, and I have not given you a reason that I in good faith could expect you to appreciate. (From Brian Hines' Church of the Churchless site).

Does this mean that all public dialogue on public policy must be framed in "secular" terms? The debate is ongoing. On one hand maybe Christians shouldn't be so pragmatic. Speak the language of faith and deal with the results. On the other hand, when it comes to ethics, insisting on the language of faith sometimes seems to assume that Christian ethics are totally arbitrary, rather that assuming that Christian ethics stem from a God who may have reasonably discernible human well-being in mind.

Randall Balmer's lament is summarized as follows:
"He says blind allegiance to the Republican Party has distorted the faith of politically active evangelicals, leading them to misguided positions on issues such as abortion and homosexuality.
"They have taken something that is lovely and redemptive and turned it into something that is ugly and retributive," Balmer says.
He argues that modern evangelicals have abandoned the spirit of their movement, which was founded in 19th-century activism on issues that helped those on the fringes of society: abolition, women's suffrage and universal education.
"I don't find any correlation in the agenda of the religious right today," Balmer says.
Balmer's book describes how he discovered that the Religious Right of the late 70s and the 80s was not founded on concern about abortion, but concern about religious liberty stemming from IRS attacks on Bob Jones University for its outmoded "anti-miscegenation" policy that forbade interracial dating. Balmer, a somewhat disaffected evangelical historian was invited to attend a fairly high-level meeting of Religious Right leaders in 1991, in which this reality was clearly stated. He points out that certain prominent Southern Baptist leaders (for instance) welcomed more permissive legislation on abortion in the 70s and he laments that late-20th century white-evangelicals were on the wrong side of civil rights in the 60s in particular.

This is a fascinating excerpt and I have not read the book, but the excerpt misses a couple of things. First, the "pro-choice" (anachronism noted) Baptist leaders of the 70s were about to walk into a brutal maelstrom of ecclesial tension in the 80s. Those guys represented an "old guard" that was on the way out. Second, even if Religious Right leadership came late to abortion as an issue with potential traction to mobilize their base, it might still be the case that evangelicals (ie. church-goers, not politicians) saw in abortion an issue worthy of the legacy of 19-century activism. The methods and ideologies used by activists, then and now, might still be deeply problematic as well, but to dismiss the pro-life movement because of the idiosyncrasies of its foundation, its sometimes crude scientific misunderstandings and uncompromising ideology is to miss the bigger point. People in our country regularly dismantle living humans in the womb, often because women feel they have no other "choice." What kind of choice is that and is this reality unworthy of the attention of Christians? I understand that Balmer is partly frustrated because Religious Right leaders created a false narrative, and it is well worth Balmer's revision to set the story straight. Therefore, maybe his lament should be less concerned with the missed opportunities for heroic activism on the left (this issue, not that one) and more concerned with evangelical truth-telling and power-politics in general.
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Young Folks' God (or De-colonizing Theology): Teaching and Theological Process Part Two

3/17/2011

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The conversation above, for all of its flaws (it is an unedited part of a longer documentary by Tony Jones based on his 2009 book The New Christians) is a good demonstration of how I think "Reformed" or "traditional" Christians and more "postmodern," "progressive" or "Emergent" Christians (PPECs below) are missing each other. I planned to write these posts weeks ago, before the Bell's Hell controversy broke (here), but never got to it.  Now it seems urgent.

As I teach theology at an ecumenical Christian college with a thorough but hospitable faith statement, I make it clear that we aren't a church and aren't in the indoctrination business.  I most frequently drive my students back to the Bible with their theological questions while explaining how various groups in church history raised "big issues" and made sense of them.  In the last post in this series I noted that many of the young (often nondenominational) Christians I teach want to opt for a "lowest common denominator theology." However, at around the same age, many young Christians discover the joys of tradition, as well as critical thinking and the like. Some have sunk their teeth into church and theological traditions ranging from Eastern Orthodoxy to Reformed while PPECs(now for about 14 years) have essentially been asking for (demanding? taking?) the same freedom that new churches of the global "south" have taken in their post-colonial contexts (see especially the writings of Ghanaian theologian Kwame Bediako). 

The PPECs are essentially saying, "We have history with various traditions of Christianity that were imposed upon us, but we now claim the right to take the best from what we received and to develop theology for today that fits our context."  Like most of the young Christians I meet, PPECs seemed to have minimal (initial) connection to the enculturated dispositions and intellectual frameworks of any traditional denomination, though some have church/family loyalties and their beliefs packed for them. Nearly the same could be said for the church culture of Anabaptists; radical reformers who hit "reset" on the church in the 16th century much harder than Luther or Calvin and took it in a different direction  Perhaps it is no surprise then that many PPECs have read Anabaptist theologian John Howard Yoder and Western-culture missiologists like Lesslie Newbigin and his descendants.

In 1659, Rome’s Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith had the sense to ask 3 French missionaries to China:  "What would be more absurd than to import France, Spain or Italy, or any other country of Europe into China?  Don’t import these, but the faith." Granted, they assumed the "venerable antiquity" of Chinese tradition (and the controversy went on) but they had the right question and imperative. The overwhelming density and pervasiveness of current Western cultural influences (popcompared to anything that might be called "venerable" amounts to the accrual of culture for young Westerners today that is arguably as removed from the major theological traditions of "old World" Christianity as Chinese culture may have been in 1659. 

Jewish legend states that 70 isolated Jewish elders each made exactly the same Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures for Ptolemy. Sometimes Christians who have embraced a traditional systematic theology act as if all other Christians should arrive separately at the same systematic theology from their readings of the Bible.  Or, barring this, that they should skip the theological process and just buy the systematic theology they are offered. Neither of these options is likely. If this has NOT been the case missiologically on other continents, should it be the case in Europe or North America as the church seeks to re-evangelize its old territory? Some may embrace a traditional theology expressed in new or old ways.  Others need the freedom to engage in theological process for themselves, in community, from the scriptures; finding different points of connection, priorities and emphases than their Christian ancestors.
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Who's In? Will Lewis and Graham have an inclusivist club in hell?

11/23/2010

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It doesn't take more than the first 2 minutes to get the idea.  This guy thinks Billy Graham is going to hell.  He thinks Graham is going to hell because Graham thinks some certain people might NOT go to hell.  Now, as far as I know, the preacher in the video above is a "nobody."  I mean, I'm sure God loves him and "all [people] created equal and endowed by their creator..." and all that, but you know what I mean.  Graham, on the other hand, is the most prominent evangelist of the 20th century (in case you didn't know).
So, there it is from the man himself.  In 1978, in a McCall's magazine interview, Graham (or the organization, for Graham) said, "I used to think that pagans in far-off countries were lost--were going to hell--if they did not have the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached to them.  I no longer believe that... I believe there are other ways of recognizing the existence of God... and plenty of other opportunities, therefore, of saying yes to God."

C.S. Lewis has been criticized for similar views (this link has some other interesting links).  At the end of The Last Battle, Lewis wrote the following famous exchange between a follower of the Anti-Aslan, Satan-figure Tash, and Aslan himself, narrated by the man:

"Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou shouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."

So, the most popular Christian apologist of the 20th century was also an "inclusivist."  Of course, neither of these men were professionally trained "theologians" nor does their adherence to a belief turn that belief into the proper or even an acceptable Christian position.  In The Great Divorce, Lewis even suggests that some Christian theologians might have a theology club in hell. I'm not very interested in discussing the eternal fate of either of these men, or anyone else necessarily, but Gandhi usually comes up in these conversations.  So, in our class discussion on Friday, I took a vote.  On Nov. 22, 2010, 38 out of 70 Christian college students (with their heads bowed and eyes closed) raised their hands in answer to the question, "Do you expect to see Gandhi in heaven?"

I see that hand...
For another interesting video on the subject, head over to my friend Scott's site.
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    Matt Hunter, Ph.D

    Multidisciplinary religious scholar and practitioner

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