Evangelicalism and Politics

[57Brave]

" There was no realistic option in this election who any Christian could proudly proclaim as a shining example of our faith, "



There certainly was. One mocked disabled people and bragged of sexually harassing women.
And the other had an email server in her basement.

If your religion is ok with knowingly voting for the former
Perhaps it is time to rethink said religion.
Unless of course you too are ok with mocking the disabled, cheating workers/veterans and harassing women

Quite often in life we are defined by our choices

and quite often " lesser of two evils " is an illusion

[nsacpi]

lesser of two evils is a good way to put....and I perceived one to be so evil that I voted with more fervor in this election than I have my whole life and for someone whose views on many issues are very far from mine

[Jaw]

lesser of two evils is a good way to put....and I perceived one to be so evil that I voted with more fervor in this election than I have my whole life and for someone whose views on many issues are very far from mine

Yep. Same here.

[Jaw]

Much love for some of my UMC brethren and I do believe there are true Christians & congregations within the mainline denominations. But as to the mainline as a whole (and I'd add the Prosperity Gospel folk), I'm with Machen. It's a different animal when creedal Christianity is denied (even if the words are retained).

Understood. Wesley himself made a good explanation for the other side (of which he was obviously a big part)

For neither does religion consist in Orthodoxy, or right opinions; which, although they are not properly outward things, are not in the heart, but the understanding. A man may be orthodox in every point; he may not only espouse right opinions, but zealously defend them against all opposers; he may think justly concerning the incarnation of our Lord, concerning the ever-blessed Trinity, and every other doctrine contained in the oracles of God; he may assent to all the three creeds, — that called the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian; and yet it is possible he may have no religion at all, no more than a Jew, Turk, or pagan. He may be almost as orthodox — as the devil, (though, indeed, not altogether; for every man errs in something; whereas we can’t well conceive him to hold any erroneous opinion,) and may, all the while be as great a stranger as he to the religion of the heart.

[BedellBrave]

Understood. Wesley himself made a good explanation for the other side (of which he was obviously a big part)

For neither does religion consist in Orthodoxy, or right opinions; which, although they are not properly outward things, are not in the heart, but the understanding. A man may be orthodox in every point; he may not only espouse right opinions, but zealously defend them against all opposers; he may think justly concerning the incarnation of our Lord, concerning the ever-blessed Trinity, and every other doctrine contained in the oracles of God; he may assent to all the three creeds, — that called the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian; and yet it is possible he may have no religion at all, no more than a Jew, Turk, or pagan. He may be almost as orthodox — as the devil, (though, indeed, not altogether; for every man errs in something; whereas we can’t well conceive him to hold any erroneous opinion,) and may, all the while be as great a stranger as he to the religion of the heart.

Sure, true Christianity is more than orthodoxy (there needs to be orthopraxis and orthopathos) but it is not less than orthodoxy. It certainly doesn't deserve the name when it uses orthodox terms gutted on their meaning. Wesley was certainly orthodox.

[BedellBrave]

Hypocrisy from the pastors and ministers?

Certainly.

[BedellBrave]

When did this divide between evangelism (the "good announcing" at etymological root) and evangelicalism (the "Bebbington Quadrilateral") come about, and how do you think that subtle shift in nomenclature conditions the activism of the latter?

I'd say, at least in theory, there isn't a divide between being evangelistic and being Evangelical. Being Evangelical by definition (Bebbington Quadrilateral) means you are pro-proclamation of the evangel. Heralding the Good News. Both the tenets of crucicentrism and conversionism are here in view.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question.

[BedellBrave]

I think the following video perfectly captures the sort of younger evangelicals that I mentioned in my first post.

[goldfly]

[BedellBrave]

I know this is a difficult for you to grasp, but not all Evangelicals are the same. And wait for it....some are even political liberals...

[jpx7]

I know this is a difficult for you to grasp, but not all Evangelicals are the same. And wait for it....some are even political liberals...

Some are even socialists.

[BedellBrave]

Some are even socialists.

And have been when it wasn't cool to be. ;-)

[Jaw]

I think the following video perfectly captures the sort of younger evangelicals that I mentioned in my first post.

Bedell I am curious to know your thoughts on this article, and on the trend of contemporary millennial megachurches in general:
http://www.kansascity.com/living/rel...188544194.html

I am generally in favor of changing up the environment and how the message is delivered to make people more comfortable and to get as many as possible in the door. We have a great contemporary service that has been a huge success. I don't attend that service often, but most of our best outreach and ministry programs are lead by members who do normally attend that service. At the same time, I have reservations about some of the "new school" churches where they seem to not only be changing the environment, music, and delivery style, but also the message itself (I should note that this feeling is only based on anecdotal evidence of conversations I have had with the parishioners, and services I have downloaded and listened to in the car) . There were a couple of quotes in this article that made me wince, so I am wondering if they do the same to you.

[BedellBrave]

Bedell I am curious to know your thoughts on this article, and on the trend of contemporary millennial megachurches in general:
http://www.kansascity.com/living/rel...188544194.html

I am generally in favor of changing up the environment and how the message is delivered to make people more comfortable and to get as many as possible in the door. We have a great contemporary service that has been a huge success. I don't attend that service often, but most of our best outreach and ministry programs are lead by members who do normally attend that service. At the same time, I have reservations about some of the "new school" churches where they seem to not only be changing the environment, music, and delivery style, but also the message itself (I should note that this feeling is only based on anecdotal evidence of conversations I have had with the parishioners, and services I have downloaded and listened to in the car) . There were a couple of quotes in this article that made me wince, so I am wondering if they do the same to you.

Jaw, sorry I missed this earlier. To be honest, I think it really is a mixed bag. Afraid this article misses some of the complexity and assumes all millennials are about the same. There are commonalities, but I don't think the "contemporary vs. traditional" paradigm is the best way to get at it. That sort of thing had greater traction with boomers. Now, that's not to say super contemporary won't appeal to certain segments of a millennial population. But, very liturgical - high church does as well. I know it is anecdotal, but we've recently had a surge in attendance/involvement of millennials and we are about as high-church as you get in my Presbyterian circles - and it's a multi-ethnic group of millennials.

That said, being honest, addressing issues lovingly, being willing to bend on adiophora, and not being owned by the Republican party doesn't hurt.

[BedellBrave]

This: link


For centuries, renewal movements have emerged within Christianity and taken on different forms and names. Often, they have invoked the word “evangelical.” Followers of Martin Luther, who emphasized the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, described themselves in this way. The Cambridge clergyman Charles Simeon, who led the Low Church renewal movement within the Church of England, adopted the label. The trans-Atlantic eighteenth-century awakenings and revivals led by the Wesleys were also often called “evangelical.” In the nineteen-forties and fifties, Billy Graham and others promoted the word to describe themselves and the religious space they were seeking to create between the cultural withdrawal espoused by the fundamentalist movement, on the one hand, and mainline Protestantism’s departures from historic Christian doctrine, on the other. In each of these phases, the term has had a somewhat different meaning, and yet it keeps surfacing because it has described a set of basic historic beliefs and impulses.

When I became a Christian in college, in the early nineteen-seventies, the word “evangelical” still meant an alternative to the fortress mentality of fundamentalism. Shortly thereafter, I went to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, to prepare for the Presbyterian ministry. It was one of the many institutions that Graham, Harold Ockenga, and J. Howard Pew, and other neo-evangelicals, as they were sometimes called, established. In those years, there was such great energy in the movement that, by the mid-nineteen-nineties, it had eclipsed mainline Protestantism as the dominant branch of the Christian church in the U.S. When I moved to Manhattan to start a new church, in 1989, most people I met found the church and its ministry to be a curiosity in secular New York but not a threat. And, if they heard the word “evangelical” around the congregation, a name we seldom used, they usually asked what it meant.

Today, while the name is no longer unfamiliar in my city, its meaning has changed drastically. The conservative leaders who have come to be most identified with the movement have largely driven this redefinition. But political pollsters have also helped, as they have sought to highlight a crucial voting bloc. When they survey people, there is no discussion of any theological beliefs, or other criteria. The great majority of them simply ask people, “Would you describe yourself as a born-again or evangelical Christian?” And those who answer ‘yes’ are counted. More than eighty per cent of such people voted for Donald Trump, and, last week, a similar percentage cast their ballots for Roy Moore, in the Alabama Senate race. So, in common parlance, evangelicals have become people with two qualities: they are both self-professed Christians and doggedly conservative politically.

The fury and incredulity of many in the larger population at this constituency has mounted. People who once called themselves the “Moral Majority” are now seemingly willing to vote for anyone, however immoral, who supports their political positions. The disgust has come to include people within the movement itself. Earlier this month, Peter Wehner, an Op-Ed writer for the Times who served in the last three Republican Administrations, wrote a widely circulated piece entitled “Why I Can No Longer Call Myself an Evangelical Republican.” Many younger believers and Christians of color, who had previously identified with evangelicalism, have also declared their abandonment of the label. “Evangelical” used to denote people who claimed the high moral ground; now, in popular usage, the word is nearly synonymous with “hypocrite.” When I used the word to describe myself in the nineteen-seventies, it meant I was not a fundamentalist. If I use the name today, however, it means to hearers that I am.

Understanding the religious landscape, however, requires discerning differences between the smaller, let’s call it “big-E Evangelicalism,” which gets much media attention, and a much larger, little-e evangelicalism, which does not. The larger, lower-case evangelicalism is defined not by a political party, whether conservative, liberal, or populist, but by theological beliefs. This non-political definition of evangelicalism has been presented in many places. The most well known is by the historian David Bebbington, whose “Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s” has become standard. He distinguishes evangelicals from other religions and Christians by a core set of beliefs. Evangelicals have generally believed in the authority of the whole Bible, in contrast to mainline Protestants, who regard many parts as obsolete, according to Bebbington. They also see it as the ultimate authority, unlike Catholics, who make church tradition equal to it. In addition, the ancient creedal formulations of the church, such as the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, as well as others, are taken at face value, without reservation. And, again, unlike many in mainline Protestantism, evangelicals believe that Jesus truly did exist as the divine Son before he was born, that he actually was born of a virgin, and that he really was raised bodily from the dead.

Under Bebbington’s formulation, another defining evangelical quality is the belief in the necessity of conversion, the conviction that everyone needs a profound, life-changing encounter with God. This conversion, however, comes not merely through church attendance or general morality, but only through faith in Christ’s sacrificial death for sin. A lyric from Charles Wesley’s famous hymn captures the evangelical experience of conversion through saving faith in Christ alone: “My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth, and followed thee.” Finally, contemporary evangelicals feel bound by both desire and duty to share their faith with others in both word and deeds of service. In this, they seek to resemble, as well as to obey, their Lord, Jesus, who is described as mighty in word and deed.

Do the self-identified white “big-E Evangelicals” of the pollsters hold to these beliefs? Recent studies indicate that many do not. In many parts of the country, Evangelicalism serves as the civil or folk religion accepted by default as part of one’s social and political identity. So, in many cases, it means that the political is more defining than theological beliefs, which has not been the case historically. And, because of the enormous amount of attention the media pays to the Evangelical vote, the term now has a decisively political meaning in popular usage.

Yet there exists a far larger evangelicalism, both here and around the world, which is not politically aligned. In the U.S., there are millions of evangelicals spread throughout mainline Protestant congregations, as well as in more theologically conservative denominations like the Assemblies of God, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. But, most significantly, the vast majority of the fast-growing Protestant churches in Asia, Latin America, and Africa all share these same beliefs. And in the U.S., while white Evangelicalism is aging and declining, evangelicalism over all is not.

The enormous energy of the churches in the global South and East has begun to spill over into the cities of North America, where a new, multiethnic evangelicalism is growing steadily. Non-Western missionaries have started thousands of new urban churches there since the nineteen-seventies. Here in New York City, even within Manhattan, I have seen scores of churches begun over the last fifteen years that are fully evangelical by our definition, only a minority of which are white, and which are not aligned with any political party.

In my view, these churches tend to be much more committed to racial justice and care for the poor than is commonly seen in white Evangelicalism. In this way, they might be called liberal. On the other hand, these multicultural churches remain avowedly conservative on issues like sex outside of marriage. They look, to most eyes, like a strange mixture of liberal and conservative viewpoints, although they themselves see a strong inner consistency between these views. They resist the contemporary ethical package deals that today’s progressivism and conservatism seek to impose on adherents, insisting that true believers must toe the line on every one of a host of issues. But these younger evangelical churches simply won’t play by those rules.

In a book published earlier this year, “In Search of Ancient Roots: The Christian Past and the Evangelical Identity Crisis,” the historian Kenneth J. Stewart makes the case that the evangelical impulse in Christianity has been with us for centuries, taking on many different forms and bearing many different names, while maintaining substantially similar core beliefs. Many have analyzed the weaknesses of the current iteration of this movement. The desire by mid-twentieth-century leaders to foster more widespread coöperation between evangelicals and downplay denominational differences cut believers off from the past, some religion scholars have found. The result was an emphasis on personal experience rather than life in a church with historical memory. This has made present-day evangelicals more vulnerable to political movements that appeal to their self-interest, even in contradiction to Biblical teachings, for example, about welcoming the immigrant and lifting up the poor. However, evangelicalism is much more resilient than any one form of itself. The newer forms that are emerging are more concerned with theological and historic roots, and are more resistant to modern individualism than older, white Evangelicalism.

Does the word, then, have an ongoing usefulness? For now, the answer may be no. These new urban churches are certainly not mainline Protestant, yet they don’t look at all like what the average person thinks of by the term “Evangelical.” Will these younger churches abandon the name or try to redefine it? I don’t know, but, as a professional minister, I don’t think it is the most important point to make. What is crucial to know is that, even if the name “evangelical” is replaced with something else, it does not mean that the churches will lose their beliefs. Some time ago, the word “liberal” was largely abandoned by Democrats in favor of the word “progressive.” In some ways, the Democratic Party is more liberal now than when the older label was set aside, evidence that it is quite possible to change the name but keep the substance.

The same thing may be happening to evangelicalism. The movement may abandon, or at least demote, the prominence of the name, yet be more committed to its theology and historic impulses than ever. Some predict that younger evangelicals will not only reject the name but also become more secular. That is not what I have been seeing here in New York City. And studies by the Pew Research Center and others indicate that religious denominations that have become more friendly to secularism are shrinking precipitously, while the evangelical churches that resist dilution in their theological beliefs and practices are holding their own or growing. And if evangelicals—or whatever they will call themselves*—continue to become more multiethnic in leadership and confound the left-right political categories, they may continue to do so.

Timothy Keller is the founder and Pastor Emeritus of the Redeemer Presbyterian Churches of New York City.

[Runnin]

Christianity is in trouble and it's one of it's biggest threats.

When we’ve reached a place where good Christian folk think it’s a matter of major theological principle not to sell pastries to gay people but are willing to give pedophiles a pass, I think it’s safe to say that American Christianity today — white American Christianity in particular — is in a pretty sorry state.

It’s not just that a vocal segment of white Christians can’t tell righteous leaders from sexual predators and overestimate the power of baked goods to communicate spiritual messages; our failures are wider and deeper and more foundational than that. We’re remarkably ignorant of the history and the current state of the world we inhabit, and no better with scientific knowledge either. We don’t believe the media, but we’ll believe the most incredible Twitter rumor or Facebook post, curated for us by Vladimir Putin. We are surprisingly ignorant about religion, not only other people’s, but even our own.

But perhaps most importantly, white Christians seem unwilling to be guided by the plain truth of our shared faith. Instead of forming judgments about how to live our lives based on how our religious convictions interact with real-life circumstances, we pass off irascible reactions as theological principles. White evangelical Christians like guns, for example, and do not especially like immigrants. Compared to other demographics, we’re excited about the death penalty, indifferent to those who are impoverished or infirm, and blind to racial and gender inequalities. We claim to read the Bible and hear Jesus’ teachings, but we think poor people deserve what they (don’t) get, and the inmates of our prisons deserve, if anything, worse than the horrors they already receive. For believers in a religion whose Scriptures teach compassion, we’re a breathtakingly cruel bunch.

[Jaw]

This: link

I really enjoyed this. I learned some things, I agreed with some things, I disagreed with some things.

First off,
And, again, unlike many in mainline Protestantism, evangelicals believe that Jesus truly did exist as the divine Son before he was born, that he actually was born of a virgin, and that he really was raised bodily from the dead.

I am surprised that any denominations that disagree with any of the above are considered as part of Christianity.

Next
Finally, contemporary evangelicals feel bound by both desire and duty to share their faith with others in both word and deeds of service. In this, they seek to resemble, as well as to obey, their Lord, Jesus, who is described as mighty in word and deed.

That was the best definition I have seen for "Evangelical." In my mind it is the difference between "casual Christians" and those that feel the fire. If you feel the fire, you really have no choice but to meet the author's description of an Evangelical.

I take issue with this:

In my view, these churches tend to be much more committed to racial justice and care for the poor than is commonly seen in white Evangelicalism. In this way, they might be called liberal. On the other hand, these multicultural churches remain avowedly conservative on issues like sex outside of marriage. They look, to most eyes, like a strange mixture of liberal and conservative viewpoints, although they themselves see a strong inner consistency between these views. They resist the contemporary ethical package deals that today’s progressivism and conservatism seek to impose on adherents, insisting that true believers must toe the line on every one of a host of issues. But these younger evangelical churches simply won’t play by those rules.

I feel that the author picked the low hanging fruit here, intentionally avoiding the difficult issues. Presbyterians have fought over Amendment B. The UMC is on the brink of civil war over the same issue. It's admittedly terrible to fight inside a church, but these are things that have to be worked out. The Kansas City pastors quoted in the article I linked earlier seemed eager to dodge the controversial, the author of this piece did as well. I have heard the same in sermon podcasts from a mega church that is flourishing in Atlanta right now.

We need people to know they can come as they are. Nothing is more important. But "Come as you are" isn't the end of the message, it's "Come as you are, and be transformed." It feels like there is a trend developing where the last part of that sentence is left out, and I think that is dangerous. Let me stop here and say that I've been in something of a fervor lately, feeling amplified amounts of both the love and the fear, but we don't walk a wide road. We are told it is easier to thread the eye of a needle with a camel than for a rich man to get to Heaven. It terrifies me to think we would skip past the messy parts when the stakes have been made so plain. We are also told not to judge those outside of the church, but to hold each other accountable. How can a church body do that when they aren't willing to offend anyone? How can we grow spiritually without recognizing our faults and working to improve them?

I'll shut up now. I had planned on saying a lot more but I'm finding it difficult to articulate my concerns in the well meaning way that they are meant, and my alarm is going to start assaulting my eardrums in about 4 hours.

[BedellBrave]

I really enjoyed this. I learned some things, I agreed with some things, I disagreed with some things.

First off,
And, again, unlike many in mainline Protestantism, evangelicals believe that Jesus truly did exist as the divine Son before he was born, that he actually was born of a virgin, and that he really was raised bodily from the dead.

1. I am surprised that any denominations that disagree with any of the above are considered as part of Christianity.

Next
Finally, contemporary evangelicals feel bound by both desire and duty to share their faith with others in both word and deeds of service. In this, they seek to resemble, as well as to obey, their Lord, Jesus, who is described as mighty in word and deed.

That was the best definition I have seen for "Evangelical." In my mind it is the difference between "casual Christians" and those that feel the fire. If you feel the fire, you really have no choice but to meet the author's description of an Evangelical.

I take issue with this:

In my view, these churches tend to be much more committed to racial justice and care for the poor than is commonly seen in white Evangelicalism. In this way, they might be called liberal. On the other hand, these multicultural churches remain avowedly conservative on issues like sex outside of marriage. They look, to most eyes, like a strange mixture of liberal and conservative viewpoints, although they themselves see a strong inner consistency between these views. They resist the contemporary ethical package deals that today’s progressivism and conservatism seek to impose on adherents, insisting that true believers must toe the line on every one of a host of issues. But these younger evangelical churches simply won’t play by those rules.

2. I feel that the author picked the low hanging fruit here, intentionally avoiding the difficult issues. Presbyterians have fought over Amendment B. The UMC is on the brink of civil war over the same issue. It's admittedly terrible to fight inside a church, but these are things that have to be worked out. The Kansas City pastors quoted in the article I linked earlier seemed eager to dodge the controversial, the author of this piece did as well. I have heard the same in sermon podcasts from a mega church that is flourishing in Atlanta right now.

We need people to know they can come as they are. Nothing is more important. But "Come as you are" isn't the end of the message, it's "Come as you are, and be transformed." It feels like there is a trend developing where the last part of that sentence is left out, and I think that is dangerous. Let me stop here and say that I've been in something of a fervor lately, feeling amplified amounts of both the love and the fear, but we don't walk a wide road. We are told it is easier to thread the eye of a needle with a camel than for a rich man to get to Heaven. It terrifies me to think we would skip past the messy parts when the stakes have been made so plain. We are also told not to judge those outside of the church, but to hold each other accountable. How can a church body do that when they aren't willing to offend anyone? How can we grow spiritually without recognizing our faults and working to improve them?

I'll shut up now. I had planned on saying a lot more but I'm finding it difficult to articulate my concerns in the well meaning way that they are meant, and my alarm is going to start assaulting my eardrums in about 4 hours.

Thanks Jaws. Just a couple of quick thoughts. I've added a couple of numbers in your post.

1. Sadly, the problem, as was famously spelled out years ago in Machen's "Christianity vs. Liberalism," is that far too many theological liberal maintain the orthodox language but gut it. Some will speak of the "resurrection of Jesus" by by no means truly believe that Christ was physically resurrected from the dead. By the term they now mean that something of the spirit of Jesus remains alive. I remember R.C. Sproul (who recently died and has truly be one of the most influential figures within theologically-serious evangelicals) recalled the story of being with a couple of other theological students going through ordination exams in the presbytery of his then mainline denomination, and one such student asked nervously his fellow students, "should I go with the resurrection or not?" He knew he had to use the language, but wasn't sure what the committee really thought. Again, unfortunately, mainline denominations are riddled with this sort of thing. When retaining orthodox creeds and confessions in larger collections of contradictory theological statements (like in the PCUSA) they'll relegate to the older, theologically sound statements to having been a part of their "tradition." I've run across too much of that sort of dishonesty. I respect the out-and-out heterodox who are honest in their heterodoxy, than the heterodox using orthodox language to dupe the flock.

But this, in part, is why there are Evangelical denominations and why the mainline churches have so often split, shedding themselves really of much of the Evangelical voice that had been there. Of course remnants are left and their are many dear brothers and sisters committed to renewal efforts within these denominations. Men like J. I. Packer come readily to mind (though I believe he has been given the boot now). Yet, those who do are often marginalized and the machinery of the denomination is very much used against them.

Two smaller denominations which are now thoroughly Evangelical though are worth mentioning in this regard - one Lutheran and one Presbyterian - the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. Both had been on the regular liberalizing trajectories of mainline churches, but both made the turn back to their more historical-orthodox positions clearly within the evangelical world. I do wonder if that might happen to the UMC (there are glimmers of hope for me). Time will tell.

Btw, Keller is a minister in the PCA. The PCA began as the conservative-Evangelical withdrawal from the old Southern Presbyterian mainline denomination, that now is a part of the PCUSA. The PCA is certainly an evangelical body.

2. The churches that Keller refers to are still historically-orthodox on the sexual issues - abortion and SSM - that is they are pro-life and pro-traditional marriage (see my opening post). He himself has been clear and attacked for being orthodox. The PCA (as all conservative Presbyterian churches) has clear statements regarding marriage and sexual issues in her doctrinal standards. Yet, I think you do sense rightly there is a temptation w/i many of those congregations (whether independent congregations or congregations of denominations that are in liberal urban settings) to "go soft" on such issues. I think the Hillsong example in NYC is illuminating.

I do agree with your "come as you are and be transformed" point - very much so. But I think I'd add (as would the ones in Keller's view), that call goes to all and not just to those we might have deemed liberal in their ethic. It would include, in my mind, those who've bastardized Christianity into a civil-rah-rah-patriotic religion. We all have things, views, attitudes, etc., that need transforming. That would include the one who "hates liberals" and the one who is eaten up by greed just as much as the one who is wrestling with sexual issues.

[BedellBrave]

Christianity is in trouble and it's one of it's biggest threats.

When we’ve reached a place where good Christian folk think it’s a matter of major theological principle not to sell pastries to gay people but are willing to give pedophiles a pass, I think it’s safe to say that American Christianity today — white American Christianity in particular — is in a pretty sorry state.

It’s not just that a vocal segment of white Christians can’t tell righteous leaders from sexual predators and overestimate the power of baked goods to communicate spiritual messages; our failures are wider and deeper and more foundational than that. We’re remarkably ignorant of the history and the current state of the world we inhabit, and no better with scientific knowledge either. We don’t believe the media, but we’ll believe the most incredible Twitter rumor or Facebook post, curated for us by Vladimir Putin. We are surprisingly ignorant about religion, not only other people’s, but even our own.

But perhaps most importantly, white Christians seem unwilling to be guided by the plain truth of our shared faith. Instead of forming judgments about how to live our lives based on how our religious convictions interact with real-life circumstances, we pass off irascible reactions as theological principles. White evangelical Christians like guns, for example, and do not especially like immigrants. Compared to other demographics, we’re excited about the death penalty, indifferent to those who are impoverished or infirm, and blind to racial and gender inequalities. We claim to read the Bible and hear Jesus’ teachings, but we think poor people deserve what they (don’t) get, and the inmates of our prisons deserve, if anything, worse than the horrors they already receive. For believers in a religion whose Scriptures teach compassion, we’re a breathtakingly cruel bunch.

Shoot! I was so hoping that you wrote that Runnin!!

[Jaw]

Bedell I can't tell you how much I enjoy these interactions.