christopher d
21 Jan 2006, 06:26 PM
Back when I was Christian, I used to bristle at the thought that folks would confuse my faith with that which was sputtered out by the Falwells and Robertsons of this world. No, I didn't believe that a slap on the forehead was going to cure cancer, and no, I didn't believe that most of my fellow music school students were going to be turned into pillars of salt. You must have me confused with the Fundies. After reading two articles I ran into today on nytimes.com, I can see that the Left in Christianity isn't the only side bristling.
The first article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/20/opinion/20marsh.html?incamp=article_popular_2) was published in today's Times. It is written by an evangelical Christian professor of religion at U Va, and his reaction to some of the war-drumming in the name of Christ that was done in the propaganda build-up to GWII. As if working from a slate of evangelical talking points, both Franklin Graham, the evangelist and son of Billy Graham, and Marvin Olasky, the editor of the conservative World magazine and a former advisor to President Bush on faith-based policy, echoed these sentiments, claiming that the American invasion of Iraq would create exciting new prospects for proselytizing Muslims. Tim LaHaye, the co-author of the hugely popular "Left Behind" series, spoke of Iraq as "a focal point of end-time events," whose special role in the earth's final days will become clear after invasion, conquest and reconstruction. For his part, Jerry Falwell boasted that "God is pro-war" in the title of an essay he wrote in 2004.
Mr Marsh (the essay's author), then goes on to contrast this perspective with that of evangelicals prior to the rise of groups like the Moral Majority Such sentiments are a far cry from those expressed in the Lausanne Covenant of 1974. More than 2,300 evangelical leaders from 150 countries signed that statement, the most significant milestone in the movement's history. Convened by Billy Graham and led by John Stott, the revered Anglican evangelical priest and writer, the signatories affirmed the global character of the church of Jesus Christ and the belief that "the church is the community of God's people rather than an institution, and must not be identified with any particular culture, social or political system, or human ideology."
Then, as if trying to atone for his sect's hubris on his own, he offers this petition: What will it take for evangelicals in the United States to recognize our mistaken loyalty? We have increasingly isolated ourselves from the shared faith of the global Church, and there is no denying that our Faustian bargain for access and power has undermined the credibility of our moral and evangelistic witness in the world. The Hebrew prophets might call us to repentance, but repentance is a tough demand for a people utterly convinced of their righteousness.
Wish as I would that the Times would have had the balls to run something like this in January '03 rather than January '06, it didn't happen. I wonder whether or not the sentiments in the piece would have been written, rather than just felt, prior to today.
Buried in the piece is the name of someone referred to as "The Pope" of Evangelicals: John Stott. An Anglican Priest from London, he is as staunchly conservative as they come in his Christianity. He also takes the bits in the Bible about "feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, etc" as seriously as he does the bits about who one should and should not sleep with. Last November, David Brooks wrote an op-ed piece (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/opinion/30brooks.html?ex=1137992400&en=1c34fca0e2752f04&ei=5070) on him that makes the Christian Evangelical real for me in a way no Televangelist ever could. These three paragraphs are particularly illuminating: There's been a lot of twaddle written recently about the supposed opposition between faith and reason. To read Stott is to see someone practicing "thoughtful allegiance" to scripture. For him, Christianity means probing the mysteries of Christ. He is always exploring paradoxes. Jesus teaches humility, so why does he talk about himself so much? What does it mean to gain power through weakness, or freedom through obedience? In many cases the truth is not found in the middle of apparent opposites, but on both extremes simultaneously.
Stott is so embracing it's always a bit of a shock - especially if you're a Jew like me - when you come across something on which he will not compromise. It's like being in "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood," except he has a backbone of steel. He does not accept homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle, and of course he believes in evangelizing among nonbelievers. He is pro-life and pro-death penalty, even though he is not a political conservative on most issues.
Most important, he does not believe truth is plural. He does not believe in relativizing good and evil or that all faiths are independently valid, or that truth is something humans are working toward. Instead, Truth has been revealed.
Intrigued by the concept of someone simultaneously Anglican and Evangelical (not conservative, mind you... I've seen plenty of those), I did some research on his church, his publishing house, charitable work, etc. Not in any of the position papers on those sites are sex or abortion, women in the episcopate (or priesthood, for that matter), the war, homosexuality or any of the other hot-button issues that are literally tearing the Anglican church in two mentioned. But, things like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, preaching the Gospel... That's what Stott's protoges are most proud of. That speaks volumes.
The first article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/20/opinion/20marsh.html?incamp=article_popular_2) was published in today's Times. It is written by an evangelical Christian professor of religion at U Va, and his reaction to some of the war-drumming in the name of Christ that was done in the propaganda build-up to GWII. As if working from a slate of evangelical talking points, both Franklin Graham, the evangelist and son of Billy Graham, and Marvin Olasky, the editor of the conservative World magazine and a former advisor to President Bush on faith-based policy, echoed these sentiments, claiming that the American invasion of Iraq would create exciting new prospects for proselytizing Muslims. Tim LaHaye, the co-author of the hugely popular "Left Behind" series, spoke of Iraq as "a focal point of end-time events," whose special role in the earth's final days will become clear after invasion, conquest and reconstruction. For his part, Jerry Falwell boasted that "God is pro-war" in the title of an essay he wrote in 2004.
Mr Marsh (the essay's author), then goes on to contrast this perspective with that of evangelicals prior to the rise of groups like the Moral Majority Such sentiments are a far cry from those expressed in the Lausanne Covenant of 1974. More than 2,300 evangelical leaders from 150 countries signed that statement, the most significant milestone in the movement's history. Convened by Billy Graham and led by John Stott, the revered Anglican evangelical priest and writer, the signatories affirmed the global character of the church of Jesus Christ and the belief that "the church is the community of God's people rather than an institution, and must not be identified with any particular culture, social or political system, or human ideology."
Then, as if trying to atone for his sect's hubris on his own, he offers this petition: What will it take for evangelicals in the United States to recognize our mistaken loyalty? We have increasingly isolated ourselves from the shared faith of the global Church, and there is no denying that our Faustian bargain for access and power has undermined the credibility of our moral and evangelistic witness in the world. The Hebrew prophets might call us to repentance, but repentance is a tough demand for a people utterly convinced of their righteousness.
Wish as I would that the Times would have had the balls to run something like this in January '03 rather than January '06, it didn't happen. I wonder whether or not the sentiments in the piece would have been written, rather than just felt, prior to today.
Buried in the piece is the name of someone referred to as "The Pope" of Evangelicals: John Stott. An Anglican Priest from London, he is as staunchly conservative as they come in his Christianity. He also takes the bits in the Bible about "feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, etc" as seriously as he does the bits about who one should and should not sleep with. Last November, David Brooks wrote an op-ed piece (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/opinion/30brooks.html?ex=1137992400&en=1c34fca0e2752f04&ei=5070) on him that makes the Christian Evangelical real for me in a way no Televangelist ever could. These three paragraphs are particularly illuminating: There's been a lot of twaddle written recently about the supposed opposition between faith and reason. To read Stott is to see someone practicing "thoughtful allegiance" to scripture. For him, Christianity means probing the mysteries of Christ. He is always exploring paradoxes. Jesus teaches humility, so why does he talk about himself so much? What does it mean to gain power through weakness, or freedom through obedience? In many cases the truth is not found in the middle of apparent opposites, but on both extremes simultaneously.
Stott is so embracing it's always a bit of a shock - especially if you're a Jew like me - when you come across something on which he will not compromise. It's like being in "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood," except he has a backbone of steel. He does not accept homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle, and of course he believes in evangelizing among nonbelievers. He is pro-life and pro-death penalty, even though he is not a political conservative on most issues.
Most important, he does not believe truth is plural. He does not believe in relativizing good and evil or that all faiths are independently valid, or that truth is something humans are working toward. Instead, Truth has been revealed.
Intrigued by the concept of someone simultaneously Anglican and Evangelical (not conservative, mind you... I've seen plenty of those), I did some research on his church, his publishing house, charitable work, etc. Not in any of the position papers on those sites are sex or abortion, women in the episcopate (or priesthood, for that matter), the war, homosexuality or any of the other hot-button issues that are literally tearing the Anglican church in two mentioned. But, things like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, preaching the Gospel... That's what Stott's protoges are most proud of. That speaks volumes.