American Evangelicals: Strategic Withdrawal?

I appreciated Laura Ortberg Turner’s recent article in The Atlantic (“What Happens When the ‘Moral Majority’ Becomes a Minority?”). She identifies a suggestion by some American evangelical leaders that Christians withdraw from the political scene, emulate the Benedictines by engaging for a season in the contemplative life, and then prepare to reemerge in order to change the culture.

It is interesting to me that, after thirty-five years of presence in American culture—a culture that identifies itself as 70% Christian and 25% evangelical—those who are associated with the Moral Majority would think that withdrawal and reengagement would result in changing the people of the United States. I wonder what they might think would be different once evangelical Christians returned to the political scene after a time of isolation. Would God allow the rest of the USA to suffer consequences in the meantime that might parallel the disasters that befell ancient Israel?

A time of rest and contemplation might actually be good for American evangelicals, if that time of contemplation is less of a strategic withdrawal in preparation for a new attack on culture, and more of a humble time of reflection about what it means to follow Jesus into the world that God loves. We could all probably use a time out in order to give thought to our identity.

I am also interested in the way that the term “American evangelical” often suggests a unified body of religious people. There are a number of prominent voices that do not speak for all evangelicals. There are seminaries that consider themselves to be evangelical, and yet differ with one another about certain areas of theology, ethics, and social justice. There is probably a lot less uniformity among evangelicals than many people think.

Roman Catholics are sometimes described as though they are similarly uniform. In reality, the Roman Catholic Church is made up of a number of orders that are expanded by many sub-orders. There are orders that focus on attending to the inward life (like the Benedictines), and those that attend to the active life (like the Franciscans). They would all say that they are Roman Catholics and share a common life of prayer, but that they also express their vocations in a variety of ways.

I once heard Dr. Richard Mouw, former president of Fuller Theological Seminary, wish out loud that we Protestants could see our various denominations in the way that Roman Catholics see their orders. I wish that for evangelicals. I wish that some would, indeed, withdraw from the divisive drama of American political life and seek a fresh identity as the people of God. I wish that others would see their evangelical vocation as humble service to the poor and suffering of the world. I’d like to see others give themselves over to the enrichment of the church, calling people prophetically to live their lives in the way of Jesus.

Maybe that’s already going on. If so, then it might be good for some of the more dominant evangelical voices to withdraw for awhile so that the caricatures attributed to evangelicals would wither and die and people might see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven. Just maybe.

And maybe we could, indeed, redefine “evangelical” so that the term, rather than attributed to a particular block of American voters, would describe a people who continuously proclaim and demonstrate the present reality of the kingdom of God, a kingdom that Jesus said is now upon us. As such, we could become comfortable with that identification being expressed in ways as diverse as the orders of the Roman Catholic Church.

I wonder if that’s what Jesus meant when used the metaphors of “salt” and “light.”

Taking the Candidates' Religious Temperature

There is more news these days about why evangelicals should be wary of voting for Mitt Romney. The basis of this wariness is found in the doctrinal differences between Mormons and Christians (the fact that Mormon’s consider themselves to be Christians notwithstanding).

Clearly there are doctrines and teachings that separate Evangelicals from Mormons, such as, for example, the doctrine of God as Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Mormons don’t believe in the Trinity. Of course, neither do Jewish people. So does that mean that Evangelicals should not vote for someone who is Jewish? Don’t our divergent views about Jesus cause us problems here?

But a Roman Catholic, like John F. Kennedy or Rick Santorum, would be okay, right? After all, they are committed to Trinitarian theology and the divinity of Jesus. Oh, but wait: There’s all that other stuff about saints and papal authority and transubstantiation. Those are all things that Evangelicals in general do not endorse.

For Evangelical voters, is doctrinal correctness (however that might be defined) the litmus test for presidential suitability? In the USA it is legal to be affiliated with any religious group that one desires. People are free to be Evangelical, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim (yes, even Muslim) or of any other religious persuasion. We have this whole freedom of religion thing going for us, and I’m glad for that.

This freedom also means that a presidential candidate can be any or none of those things. While the USA probably wouldn’t elect an outspoken atheist to the presidency any time in the near future, it is not illegal for a candidate to disbelieve in God.

I wonder if, rather than asking about how a candidate’s religious faith (or lack of it) lines up with a certain brand of orthodoxy, we should be asking how that faith (or lack of it) informs their view of the world and the way they make decisions. Does a candidate’s religious orientation produce the kind of leadership that serves a huge and diverse nation like the USA? Does the candidate find an ethical and moral basis in a life of faith that gives voters confidence in the way that decisions will be made and how this country will engage with the rest of the world?

While our candidates typically enter office as Democrats or Republicans, once elected they must serve the entire nation and not just members of the party that elected them. Would a Mormon or Catholic or Jewish or Muslim president be able to serve the entire nation, or just adherents to that president’s preferred faith tradition? Would such a president be a leader to all, or just to a select few?

I think that we are often asking the wrong questions. Are we asking about a candidate’s faith because we want to know how our particular interest group will be served, or because we want to know how that nation at large will be served? Are our questions about acquiring a political power base for ourselves, or about the well-being of our neighbor?

The wrong answer to the questions would be that faith doesn’t matter, or that it can be set aside as though it is irrelevant to leadership. Of course it matters, and of course it forms people at a very deep level. How that faith produces a leader who can lead well is what we should try to discover.

Learning from Mormons

I read an article this morning about the late Daniel Pearl's baptism-by-proxy, performed by some Mormons in Idaho. I knew that baptism of the dead was a common practice by Mormons, but I never knew what was behind it.

It appears, at least according to this article, that their goal is that all people will be redeemed. Saved. So they baptize the dead—even non-Mormons like Daniel Pearl—so that the world might be saved.

While I'm not advocating for Mormon doctrines, I am intrigued by this. Evangelicals preach the gospel so that some will be saved (depending on how they view things like election, predestination, and God's mission in the world). Mormons baptize the dead so that all will be saved. I guess they figure that as long as they keep up the family research work that they do and respond to the requests to baptize the dead, they'll always be in that business.

Maybe there is something for we evangelicals to learn here. We too often draw sharp lines about who is in and who is out, as if we have laid claim to the guest register at Hotel Heaven. We've created very precise requirements about what makes a person acceptable to God (we say that it's faith in Jesus, but we sometimes include the accuracy of the confession, doctrinal affirmations, and even political preferences in the mix). The Mormons don't seem too concerned about those kinds of things. They just baptize the dead willy-nilly, with the intent of helping them live forever in the place of God's intention. So maybe it's a practice that people like me don't buy, but there's still something behind it worth considering.

And it isn't universalism, just so you know. Unless we're talking about the universal nature of God's love, and the universal reach of his mission in the world, and the universal call for the people of God to bring blessing to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:1-2). That's the kind of universalism I can affirm.

I'm not particularly interested in baptizing the dead, but like Daniel Pearl's mother graciously commented, I think that the Mormons have good intentions. Perhaps we might learn that we can baptize the living with love, prayer, blessing, care, service, hope, and direction. We should certainly preach the gospel, but not absent of demonstration. The evidence of the kingdom of God's present reality is seen in people and communities of faith that demonstrate the reality of the kingdom.

We need to express our own good intentions.

New Requirements and New Enemies

As the GOP continues its journey toward a presidential nominee, I've observed some new requirements for a candidate's acceptability and some enemies that we apparently need to fear.

Here are the new requirements:

A candidate must be able to

1. Prove to be the most conservative of all.

The Republican candidates have dueled over this requirement, as if the most desirable brand of conservatism is the one that is furthest away from the center. There are certainly important things to conserve, and I would think that an open table of debate would be one of them. I'm unclear about how fighting over who's the most conservative accomplishes that.

2. Endorse a faith system that is the most acceptable to the evangelical voting block.

Rick Santorum seems to be doing well in this one. It's interesting to me that when John F. Kennedy was running for office, people feared that a Roman Catholic would allow the US to be run by the Vatican. Now the fear seems to be transferred to the Temple in Salt Lake City. What would we have done if Joe Lieberman had become President? Would it have been Tel Aviv or Yahweh in charge? Would Joe's faith have been enough for evangelicals?

Here are the new enemies:

1. Moderates.

From what I've been hearing, the Liberals are not the only enemy to fear. Now the Moderates are under suspicion. Is it now undesirable to have someone in office who serves the entire country? Standing firmly in one extreme or the other is better, right? Bad, bad Moderates.

2. Candidates who can't make us evangelicals happy.

Disturbingly, we evangelicals (whoever we really are) come off as a grumpy bunch. The Bible says a lot about joy (the kind that is grounded in Jesus, not the kind that is the result of getting what we want), and it appears that our joy is complete when we get the right candidate in office. So we seem to demand a candidate that bellies up to the bar and meets our demands (and, as one Christian leader has suggested, to awaken "the sleeping giant" of Christianity).

I get worried about this sort of thing. I would hope that USAmerican Christians (and it's a pretty diverse bunch, hardly unified sufficiently to be a sleeping giant) would continue to press upon issues that need to be addressed in our country—like poverty, injustice, immigration—without characterizing ourselves as a powerful political force that can make or break elections.

Isn't our vocation as followers of Jesus different from that? Or is the term "evangelical" now indistinguishable from "conservative Republican?"

I'm not suggested that "liberal Democrat" or "moderate whatevers" would be better. I'm suggesting that we American Christians—particularly the most vocal evangelicals—slow down and revisit the true vocation of followers of Jesus. That's a label that should stand on its own.