Category: Culture

Michael Gerson served as a speech writer in the Bush administration while at the same time functioning as liaison for Bush with the Evangelical community. As Gerson is a bona fide Evangelical, complete with the spurs that came from graduating from Wheaton College, I never cared much for Gerson. He always had that air of Evangelical compromise about him and like most Evangelical movers and shakers he was (and is) completely tone deaf to Worldview complexities.

Today Gerson writes an article at,

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/09/nones_and_nuns_96399.html

In this article Gerson reviews a forthcoming book entitled, “American Grace: How Religion Is Reshaping Our Civic and Political Lives,” whichg is being written by Robert Putnam and David Campbell. Gerson describes the book as a classic piece of sociological analysis on American culture. The strength or weakness of a book that attempts to do sociological analysis is the presuppositions that are used to organize and read the collected sociological data. Now, this genre is seldom written from a Christian worldview but there are times that much benefit can be collected from such books when a kind of hard pragmatic approach rides shotgun on the pagan authors worldview. Such efforts by authors such as Neil Postman, Christopher Lasch, or Marshall McLuhan suggest that this genre can be read beneficially at times.

However, the book that Gerson describes does not sound like it will be one of those types of books. It seems that Putnam has at the core of his book the presupposition that such a thing as religion-less Americans exist. Gerson tells us that, “Putnam outlined the conclusions of “American Grace,” based on research still being sifted and refined. Against the expectations of hard-core secularists, Putnam asserts, “religious Americans are nicer, happier and better citizens.” This is like my saying that research indicates that people who inhale and exhale live longer lives, all the while noting that such a conclusion is against the expectations of people who don’t inhale and exhale.

The point here of course is that there is no such thing as religion-less people. Therefore for Putnam’s coming book to get off the ground he is going to have to tell us just exactly what constitutes religious people and what constitutes hard core secular people and he is going to have to defend this distinction from those of us who will use his definition of “religious” to show how religious his hard core secularists really are.

A few other tidbits from Gerson on Putnam’s upcoming book indicate to us that Putnam is operating from some strange assumptions. Putnam offers,

“Against the expectations of many religious believers, this dynamic (being better people) has little to do with the content of belief. Theology is not the predictor of civic behavior; being part of a community is.”

One hardly knows what to do with such a quote. Putnam seems to assume that communities are not crafted and constituted by what the members of the community believe. Does Putnam really believe that belonging to a religiously Muslim community that prizes Jihad won’t yield different civic behavior then belonging to a religiously Christian community that prizes Christian Worldview? Further, is Putnam really suggesting that the different civic behavior that comes from each respective community isn’t driven by the theology that has crafted and constituted the community from which different civic behavior arises? I don’t know what research Putnam is reading but I do know, from the quote above that his worldview is shaping his conclusions in a irrational direction.

Putnam cites the reason for what he styles the secularizing of America as

“Baby boomers being far less religious than their parents at the same age — the probable result, says Putnam, of a ‘very rapid change in morals and customs.'”

But what reason can there be for this “very rapid change in morals and customs,” except for a change in religion and theological belief? Baby Boomers didn’t become more secular or irreligious because of the rapid change in morals and customs, rather Baby boomers brought in a rapid change of morals and customs because they changed their religion and theology. Now certainly, the religion and theology of Baby boomers may be less officially organized than their parents religion and theology but that organizational lack doesn’t make their new religion, irrelgion and shouldn’t be styled as “secular,” unless one wants to speak of religious secularism.

Putnam offers as proof for his thesis that 30-35% of his 20 something respondents have checked “none” as their religious preference. But this only tells us that his respondents are not self conscious about their “religious preference,” or that they don’t do religion that is officially organized or structured. It most assuredly doesn’t tell us that his respondents are not religious in the sense of being a people who are shaped by convictions, and are involved in habits and rituals, that are informed by a belief system that is anchored by some god or god concept. All people are equally religious, though all people are not equally self conscious about their religiosity.

Putnam does mention the polarization phenomenon we are currently experiencing as Americans.

“There are fewer liberals in the pews and fewer unchurched conservatives.”

Now it is interesting here that Putnam in his nomenclature suddenly goes from “irreligious secularists” to “liberals.” If there is anything we know about political “liberals” is that their political liberalism is the result of their religious and theological liberalism. Fewer liberals are in the pews not because they are not religious or theological but because they have a different religion, theology, and church from those churched conservatives that Putnam mentions.

Putnam goes on to explore the implications of the above statement,

“The political implications are broad. Democrats must galvanize the “nones” while not massively alienating religious voters — which is precisely what candidate Obama accomplished. Republicans must maintain their base in the pew while appealing to the young — a task they have not begun to figure out.”

What Putnam is saying here is that in order for America not to be hopelessly divided the parties have to find candidates who can build coalitions between the religious people who hate the God of the Bible (Putnam’s “nones”) and people who are rooted in historic Christianity. Putnam insists that is what Obama did but the polling evidence doesn’t align with that as exit polling from the last election revealed that Obama did not get a greater “Evangelical vote” than Bush did in 2004.

Putnam’s conclusions are disconcerting.

“Putnam regards the growth of the “nones” as a spike, not a permanent trend. The young, in general, are not committed secularists. “They are not in church, but they might be if a church weren’t like the religious right. … There are almost certain to be religious entrepreneurs to fill that niche with a moderate evangelical religion, without political overtones.”

I don’t know what rock Putnam is living under but legion are the names of religious entrepreneurs who are already hustling to fill the niche he speaks of.

What Putnam is saying here is that if a Christian evangelical religion can be constructed that doesn’t upset the politically liberal agenda of the young then that new religion will be able to take off. Can this explain the popularity of the Radical Two Kingdom movement? R2Kt sells itself as a religion that is a-political. In R2Kt Churches liberals can be converted without having to give up their liberal social agenda. Jesus can live with Marx.

It’s difficult to believe that the Church could be any more compromised but since the Church is currently a institution that is driven by marketing and demographics we can expect to see a burgeoning movement that reflects what Putnam anticipates here.

Gerson finishes the article by saying,

“In the diverse, fluid market of American religion there may be a demand, in other words, for grace, hope and reconciliation — for a message of compassion and healing that appeals to people of every political background. It would be revolutionary — but it would not be new.”

Does Gerson really believe that American Christianity today doesn’t already offer “grace, hope and reconciliation?” Does it take the affirmation of a new political movement in order for “grace, hope and reconciliation” to be present?

Gerson, once again reveals the chief quality of compromise that is so characteristic of Evangelicalism.

“If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family—anything you like—at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder.”

C. S. Lewis
That Hideous Strength

Reading Lewis is like working in a diamond mine. If you can ignore the wasteland of the mine the constant find of diamonds is a recurring delight.

Here Lewis captures perfectly the idea of how the antithesis works itself out over time as the elect and the reprobate who had, perhaps for generations, worked peacefully side by side eventually each become, perhaps due to some unforeseen momentous event or cultural crisis, epistemologically self conscious to the point that cultural friction becomes so prevalent that it is impossible to continue together as a people without conflict.

If the hate crimes legislation continues to slither its way through legislative process and becomes law the time of comparative elbow room will have come to an end. If this hate crimes legislation passes even the possibility of even apparent neutrality will disappear.

The contrasts are getting sharp out there. Montana has passed a gun and ammunition law that thumbs its nose at the Federal government and Federal gun and ammunition legislation. Reports are out there that suggest that homeland security document that labeled historical Americans as extremists are being taken seriously by law enforcement. Oklahoma has ignored a Gubernatorial veto and passed a resolution proclaiming Oklahoma sovereignty. I suspect that we are coming to a time where indecision will be decision and that no person will be allowed to temporize regarding their convictions.

I’m sitting here listening to a internet radio interview that is produced by Liberty University with Miss California, Carrie Prejean.

http://www.afr.net/index.php?option=com_sermonspeaker&task=singlesermon&id=11203&Itemid=0

Thus far she has been compared to Eric Liddle and Queen Esther of the Bible. Carrie has been lionized for her bathing suit high heeled stand for Jesus for saying that she was raised to believe that marriage was to be between a man a woman when asked about her thoughts on that subject during the Miss USA contest.

This post is not so much about Miss Prejean. I spoke to that in a previous post. Really, I’m quite pleased that Carrie answered the question the way she did as opposed to saying that she hopes one day herself to marry another woman. Further, I’m even willing to grant that it took admirable character of a sort to answer the question the way she did knowing full well that it would likely cost her the Miss USA contest.

This post is instead about the evangelical / fundamentalist reaction to Miss Prejean. Remember, a scant generation ago fundamentalists, such as those who created Liberty University, were the ones who frowned on card playing, movie watching, and women wearing pants. The fundamentalists have come a long way baby. Now the fundamentalists are talking about how the barely dressed Carrie Prejean is a role model and that they intend to tell their youth groups and Sunday Schools about the parading nearly naked and faithful Carrie Prejean.

Please don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with playing cards, watching movies or women in pants. Indeed, the rapacious side of me has no problem with ogling soft porn models in their underwear. However, the better Angel of my nature still does think that a young lady publicly displaying her under wear and selling herself as a sex object in order to win a beauty prize probably still defies the Scripture’s call for modesty. Just call me old fashioned.

I don’t know what to attribute the Christian community’s exalting of Miss Prejean to. Maybe it is because there is such a desperate need for heroes that the Christian community will glom onto anybody. Maybe everybody else grew up and I’m just being my usual curmudgeon, “why can’t anybody else see this except me” self. However, I think it more likely that what has happened is that even the Fundamentalists have defined deviancy down. In 2009 homosexuality serves as the definitional bar for deviancy, and so today a soft porn model can be seen as a hero for Jesus by Evangelicals and Fundamentalists for taking a mild stand against homosexual marriage. In 2049 it may be that Liberty University will be giving an award to and singing the praises of a transsexual Beauty Queen who took a stand for Jesus by mildly denouncing the push for mainstreaming bestiality.

Obviously the problem here is that the Christian community is allowing the culture to define deviancy, which has the added advantage of allowing Christians to partake in the deviancy of soft-porn, whether by being a soft porn model or by lusting after the soft porn models, while still giving them the ability to be self-righteous about homosexual marriage. This is a deal if there ever was one as Christians can satisfy both their lusts to be a Sex object or to objectify women and their need for feeling superior to other people all at one time.

If your a sinner like me any deal that allows me to be a horndog and sanctimonious at the same time is better than 2 for 1 coupon day at the adult bookstore peep show.

The Christian Reformed Church publication, “The Banner,” continues to push the homosexual agenda with its Editor’s recent Editorial on homosexuality. The Editor professes that he is not pushing homosexuality but merely desires to see all the hurting homosexuals that attend CRC churches receive loving acceptance and pastoral care.

The Editor suggests that the way to get past the current conversational impasse on the issue in the Denomination is for everybody to put aside their certainties on the subject and “do some fresh, serious, Bible study that is also informed by the latest scientific research on the subject.” Speaking only for myself, I would prefer to see some fresh, serious, scientific research that is also informed by wisdom of the Bible.

The problem with consulting “creation revelation” independent of the presuppositions drawn from Scripture is that “creation revelation” is only as good as the presuppositions that we bring to the “creation revelation.” Good and bad, and right and wrong, can not be determined by scientific research, though scientific research can be used and has been used to justify changing good and bad, and right and wrong in order to fit our preferences.

Face it, if Adam and Eve had looked to creation revelation and scientific research in order to determine whether or not they should eat the forbidden fruit they would have concluded that since the tree was good for food, and since the tree was pleasing to the eye, and since the tree was desirable to make one wise therefore scientific research and creation revelation taught that it was good to eat the fruit.

The call for people to put aside their certainties is merely a pretext to get the opponents of homosexuality to lay aside their opposition. It is only the opponents of homosexuality who lose by laying aside their certainties that the Scriptures speak against homosexuality. I mean, nobody really believes that the latest greatest scientific research is going to return a report confirming that homosexuality is deviant and putrid behavior. So, Rev. DeMoor appeals to laying aside our certainties and appeals to “scientific research,” knowing that such a call serves his agenda.

Rev. Bob DeMoor of the Banner, by opening and pursuing this conversation, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is serving the homosexual agenda.

“Neither Christ’s perfect humanity in His people nor Satan’s total depravity in His people are ever manifested totally in History.”

Dr. Gary North
Dominion & Common Grace — pg. 61

The antithesis remains real but the absolute fullness of it is only in principle. The fact that Christians still remain in need of much sanctification combined with the fact that pagans can not be perfectly wicked (apart from killing themselves) means that Christians and pagan interests can overlap to the degree that Christians are not yet perfectly sanctified and that pagans have not yet become perfectly conformed to their liege lord.

Now when an overlap of interests occur there will be vast tensions in the mutual agreement, for they are not in agreement in principle, but only in as much as they have not yet each worked out the implications of their Master’s wishes and nature. The agreement occurs in the context where the pagan is seeking (consciously or unconsciously) to build up his master’s Kingdom, while the Christian is seeking to build up his master’s kingdom.