Pluck the cotton from your ears and hear the cracks and booms: The Evangelical Right -- always a mile wide and a millimeter deep -- is fracturing. Witness the drama before South Carolina's January primary: Alleged "leaders" gathered in Texas and endorsed Rick Santorum; supposedly Bible-thumping Palmetto State Republicans replied by opting for a thrice-married and twice-divorced adulterer steeped in a history of ethics violations. So much for family values -- and so much for zombie-like cabals bending to their theocratic king-makers.
Yet television's "analysts" still deafen themselves to those cracks and booms, their ears stuffed with old clichés of voting blocs. They're missing what theologian Scott McKnight called "a new kind of Christian social conscience." I plead with them: Read Marcia Pally's outstanding book, "The New Evangelicals: Expanding the Vision of the Common Good," which documents the shifts McKnight describes. A telling statistic: In 2009, 35 percent of evangelicals identified themselves as Democrats and 34 percent as Republicans. The rest were independents. In other words, most evangelicals aren't even voting in this year's GOP primaries. Another: 64 percent of all white evangelicals don't believe church officials should endorse political candidates.
Pally, who teaches at New York and Fordham universities, pops myths in almost every chapter: Colonial Baptists argued for the separation of church and state because they feared adulterous, off-with-your-head monarchs editing their creeds and dictating their practices (no dominion theology here); evangelicals ministered in slums and populated the 19th century's progressive movement; Benjamin Warfield (1851-1921), the Princeton divine and bulwark of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, saw no threat in the theory of evolution. And evangelicals were actually late-arrivals to the pro-life fold. The Baptist Press endorsed the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. W.A. Criswell, the Southern Baptist president at the time, said this: "I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person ..."
I, along with the majority of contemporary evangelicals, disagree with Criswell; but I'd be intellectually dishonest if I didn't sympathize when pro-choice advocates claim we changed the goalposts.
The movement's two prongs -- social reform and personal piety -- were ripped apart when theological liberalism swept through mainline Protestantism early in the 20th century. Evangelicals largely retreated and plotted scenarios of looming "raptures." The Religious Right roared into flame in the 1970s, although some debate its spark: Conventional wisdom cites homosexuality and abortion; David Balmer says the effort gelled around government threats to the tax exempt status of racially segregated religious institutions. Whatever the original foundation, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson supplied juicy quotes while Ralph Reed organized Republicans waving the pro-life, pro-family flag.
But an "evangelical left" lingered and surveys showed that Falwell, Robertson and Dobson were never popular among the faithful. Many held their noses while voting Republican and resonated with Billy Graham: "It would disturb me if there was a wedding between religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."
And why the guns' n' guts blustering? And why don't Republicans do anything about abortion? And since when did Jesus authorize "enhanced interrogation techniques?" And shouldn't we care for God's creation? And why isolate only two issues?
Where's the second prong?
It was always there, just beneath the surface, waiting for new evangelicals to dig it up and re-fasten it to personal devotion. Enter author and pastor Rick Warren, who practiced "reverse tithing" after re-discovering the Bible's 2000 references to the poor. Willow Creek Pastor Bill Hybels also discovered those verses and implemented social and environmental justice ministries. The Vineyard Christian Fellowship lists ministry to the poor as a key value: Tri Robinson's Vineyard church in Boise, Idaho, has launched several social and environmental ministries. Richard Cizik teamed up with several leaders and founded the "New Evangelicals for the Common Good," which advocates nuclear disarmament, torture elimination, inter-religious dialogue and environmental reform.
The earthquake rocked in 2005: Christianity Today, evangelicalism's influential magazine, cautioned against mingling the faith with partisan politics. The rumblings mounted: Forty-one percent of white evangelicals were happy with Democratic victories in the 2006 mid-terms; the National Association of Evangelicals warned against torture and criticized the Bush administration in 2007; several leaders signed the 2008 "Evangelical Manifesto," which cautioned against becoming "useful idiots" to manipulative politicians; and 32 percent of white evangelicals under 30 voted for President Obama, up five percent from the previous election.
Pally cites those facts and sprinkles her book with interviews. The "new evangelicals," who should actually be labeled "historic evangelicals" because they're refastening the second prong, are an issue-by-issue people. We can't peg them. There's a consistent refrain: Implement Christ's will. Party platforms are mere curiosities.
All the same, I can't help but ponder the possibilities: The GOP has been unmasked while Democrats remain tone deaf to the sensibilities of the world's most religious industrialized nation: Did the Obama Administration honestly think it would catch no flak from Catholic bishops over birth control? Perhaps these new evangelicals will unwittingly transform the GOP and resurrect the moderate-to-liberal Republican. Perhaps they'll bring back sanity.
Time will tell. Meanwhile, pluck the cotton, oh analysts. Hear the rumblings and take shelter from the earthquake. Your clichés are crumbling around your talking heads.
Follow Charles Redfern on Twitter: www.twitter.com/credfernjr
The New Evangelicals - NYTimes.com
Annals of Religion: The New Evangelicals : The New Yorker
What's New Is Old: 'America's New Evangelicals' | Christianity Today ...
There are many bridges to mend. Separation of church & state the primary one.
Nope. I think the Obama Administration KNEW it would catch flack from Catholic bishops, if for no other reason than Catholic Dems, like Joe Biden, told them so. But I also think our President knew that something like 95% of Catholic women have used contraception in their lifetimes. I think he looked at the pews and saw no families of 8...or even 4. And I think he said "I can lock up the women's vote, and NOW." In a week, he flushed got Santorum to say he thought states should be able to outlaw the pill. He forced the GOP to go further right. And he said nothing until things got to a fever pitch, then- BAM! "Catholics? You don't have to pay a dime. Free birth control for all!!!" Now, you don't believe he came up with THAT solution overnight, do you? LOL. Of course not. He had it in his hip pocket all along, right next to the birth certificate he whipped Donald Trump with, hehe.
Now, do I think my President is THAT Machiavellian? Well...lets just say you don't get to be the first black president of a country like this, without being one of the smartest people in any given room. And if his chess skills can move us past the Reactionary Right, then I say more power to him. Obama 2012!
The Bush crowd had 8 yeas to change the abortion laws and did nothing. And George said it was God's will, he was chosen to be president. Which God was he talking about?
I was there in the 1970's, 1980's, 1990's, 2000's and the author is wrong! There has never been a counter-argument from the non-existant Christian-left. I have always been acutely aware that there weren't Christian Americans who sought to demand that Jerry Falwell stop his politicization of Christianity.
But all this is academic because the PROOF is in the elections, the Oil Lobby WON! the Wall Street lobby WON! the Bank Lobby WON! because Christians voted for GOP candidates.
Evolution produces a vast variety of individuals for the purpose of providing a resilient response to environmental changes, Evolution even works on memes like Christianity, this is why we have seen Christianity contort and radically evolve over the past 400 years. Now as the arc of Christianity in America enters decline a new species of Christian talker emerges...
Praise the Lord! ~ Obama 2012!
Do you really believe the flak that is coming from the Catholic bishops right now is over birth control? What you are witnessing is a power struggle; birth control is simply a vehicle. To the extent that this article calls for openness in our observation of what's happening around us, it is a useful piece. But all of us have to be careful; our favorite preconceived notions must be viewed with the same objective light as we decry 'wrong notions' about ourselves.
FETUS IS NOT A BABY (GOOGLE THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT CHART), but a parasite because the classification of the biological relationship that is based on the behavior one organism (fetus) and how it relates to the woman’s body.
as a zygote, it invaded the woman’s uterus using its TROPHOBLAST cells, hijacked her immune system by using NEUROKININ B and HCG— so her body doesn’t kill it, steals her nutrients to survive, and causes her harm or potential death.
wikipedia org/wiki/Trophoblast
“The placenta, It secretes Neurokinin B containing phosphocholine molecules. This is the same mechanism used by parasitic nematodes to avoid detection by the immune system of their host.[2]”
wikipedia org/wiki/Immune_tolerance_in_pregnancy
wikipedia org/wiki/Human_chorionic_gonadotropin
“It is also possible for a symbiotic relationship to exist between two organisms of the same species.”
answers com/topic/symbiosis — Gale’s Science of Everyday Things.
just like a parasitic twin — wikipedia org/wiki/Parasitic_twin
“an animal or plant that lives in or on another (the host) from which it obtains nourishment. The host does not benefit from the association and is often harmed by it”
thefreedictionary com/parasite
pregnancy CAUSES HARM: thelizlibrary org/liz/004 htm
galerouth blogspot com/