Quick Links – Hits That Came As If On Cue
Yesterday I compared the extreme expressions of Evangelicalism to a cancer. Not in response, but as if on cue, some new material has appeared on the same subject. Hugh Hewitt interviewed theologian J.P. Moreland on Christians and their view of politics. Not sure I agree entirely with Moreland’s approach – but I certainly agree with this:
JPM: Well, I think Evangelicals have failed to develop a political philosophy that’s holistic. I think instead, they’ve tended to be issue-based rather than having an entire approach to government.
And then, something of a firebrand in the traditional Christian blogging world, the Internet Monk, predicts the collapse of Evangelicalism. In discussing the why’s, iMonk says:
Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This was a mistake that will have brutal consequences.
I am not entirely sure that Evangelicals have purposefully pursued this identification, I think in many instances it has been pressed on them, but regardless, it exists – and it is problematic. I have always contended here that politics will corrupt religion far more than religion could possibly corrupt politics, and I think that is the case in this instance. When religion becomes identified as the political, the religion ceases to be.
This is where I have an issue with Moreland – he dives back into the question “What does the Bible say about…?” If we try and press a Biblical, heck for purposes of this blog let’s say “scriptural,” viewpoint on every issue, then we approach that issue in politics as if exercising the authority of the Almighty. The religion is now fully politicized, the identity made and the decline begins.
If, on the other hand, religion exercises its primary purpose – to make better people – and those better people then come to bear by doing politics and being political, then religion and government stay separate, religion is protected, and government functions well in a religiously diverse society. Politically exercising divine authority is a recipe for absolutism in one of its many ugly forms – and that is not what has made America great these last centuries – nor American religion.
Lowell: Hurrah! Hurrah! And amen!
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