The term 'the Religious Right' is used often to refer to a populist movement and popular religious leaders. There is no doubt that they adamantly oppose the Cultural Left. But they are not the only religious American conservatives who oppose the Cultural Left. So too do religiously conservative scholars.
By the religiously conservative scholars, I am referring to seminary educated college and seminary professors and ministers. To be specific, people like Carl Trueman, R. Scott Clark, Tim Keller, Andrew Walker and others. That doesn't mean that all religiously conservative scholars are opposed to the Cultural Left, but many are.
By the Cultural Left, I am referring to Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, Cultural Marxism, and Post Modernism.
At stake is the right to be recognized as the authoritative interpreters of the world around us in the 20th and 21st centuries to Christians as well as the rest of the world. And that means which interpreters of history will have the most influence on others. Here we should note that influence is, in some contexts, power. And what many religiously conservative Christian leaders are very sensitive about is who is influencing, or exercising power over, their flocks. The general fear of many religiously conservative Christians leaders is that by acknowledging contributions to discussions on social justice made by those from the Cultural Left, one is giving them more influence, more power. That is because those acknowledgments give credentials to those from the Cultural Left. And in an authoritarian subculture, those credentials translate into those from the Cultural Left becoming authority figures who will more easily influence fellow Christians. Thus, leaders from the Cultural Left who are now competing with religiously conservative Christian leaders for the ears and eventually the minds of fellow Christians
At this point, we should note that we are no longer talking about interpreting theology, we are talking about interpreting history, society and culture, and ideologies whether they be political, economic, or social. In other words, we are talking about interpreting life in the here and now. Many religiously conservative Christian leaders not only want to be the authoritative interpreters of theology, but of the rest of life too. And there is some good reasons for that but it can pressed to far. It is pressed to far when what Christians have heard or read about the Cultural Left is from other Christians only. Such an approach for Christians learning about the Cultural Left is telling unbelievers to only watch Bill Maher's film Religiosity to learn about Christianity.
In the end, what most, but not all, of these religiously conservative Christian scholars object to about the Cultural Left is how the Left criticizes an old status quo that is treasured by these Christian scholars. They are troubled by how the Cultural Left has shown the widespread failures of the slices of either Western Civilization or Americana which these Christian scholars have canonized. Sure these Christian scholars have valid criticisms to make of the Cultural Left's treatment of their sacred cows; but, generally speaking, they treat the Cultural Left in the same way that they say the Cultural Left is treating Western Civilization and America. For just as the Cultural Left has sometimes taken an all-or-nothing approach to assessing Western Civilization and America, so to have these Christian leaders done to the Cultural Left. Thus, what is most often encouraged by these Christian leaders is a wholesale rejection of the different movements and perspectives from the Cultural Left.
A better approach to take to the Cultural Left by these Christian leaders would be to first readily recognize the contributions that the Cultural Left has made to understanding life around us. Then they can provide their criticisms but they need to allow democracy to serve as a context for those criticisms. That is because some of what is not acceptable for Christians in the Church should be acceptable in a democracy. To not recognize that is to encourage a hubris in these religiously conservative Christian scholars.
Finally, we should recognize the strongest attributes that these religiously conservative Christian scholars and the Cultural Left have. For the former, they have Scriptures to help them, and myself, to understand life. For the latter, they have a less filtered powers of observation by which they can see the past and the present. In other words, both have major contributions to make in helping us understand our world today.
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