Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For September 20, 2017

Sept 19

To Collin Hansen, Tim Keller, and Russell Moore and their blogpost video discussion of how sharing the Gospel is different today than it was in the past. This appeared on the Gospel Coalition website.

I think Keller's observations about sharing the Gospel today are very good. I would add an emphasis on the focus on the failures of the Church because of today's post modernism. Post modernism employs an negative outcome-based truth system so that if a belief contributes sins like marginalizing others, dominating others, and so forth, it cannot be true. We need to realize that past sins like marginalizing others, dominating others, war and such has greatly disillusioned people so that post modernism has become a natural reaction to those institutions that practiced those sins. Post modernism expresses the betrayal people feel toward those who claimed to know the truth. This is why the faults of the Church eclipse its contributions to society.
What we Christians could learn from the post modern rejection of the Church is to increase our revulsion at the same sins that so bother post modernism.
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To Joe Carter and his blogpost that contains a praeger video that boasts about charter schools. This appeared in the Acton blog.

First, Charter schools have a mixed record when examining the effects on the students. Though there were some reported improvements in certain areas, there were reported problems as well in terms of school accountability, college preparation for the students, the ability to remain open, and regular public schools being deprived of necessary funds.

If we take college preparation for example, the LA based Alliance College-Ready Public Schools stated that 95% of their low-income students go to college, around 75% did not finish (see https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/14/charter-schools-college-degrees/99125468/ ).

In addition, administrators of charter schools are as liable as administrators of regular public schools of making significant financial blunders. And, as mentioned before, some charter schools don't make it through the school year (see http://www.businessinsider.com/john-oliver-charter-schools-2016-8 ).

Additional problems include fraud and racial segregation (see http://www.salon.com/2014/05/07/charter_schools_are_cheating_your_kids_new_report_reveals_massive_fraud_mismanagement_abuse/ ).

But perhaps the biggest problem with charter schools is that it is designed to work on a faulty analysis. That analysis states that lack of competition is what hurts education in the public schools especially in some urban areas. But when one talks to teachers who teach  in inner city schools, their teaching performance is hampered by economic-induced instability in the homes of many of these students. Teachers sometimes design their course so that all work is done in class rather than splitting work up between in class and homework. And that doesn't include whether students get adequately fed before and after school.

Much of the instability is due to economic conditions that are described by many as hopeless. For what jobs do exist pay poverty wage even for those who have already take some college courses. Basically the economic system has abandoned certain areas of our city and that leaves people less able and motivated to get married and start traditional families.

So instead of pouring resources into urban areas that would provided economic hope for the residents by way of living wage jobs, charter schools are being formed as a way to help students escape their neighborhoods. And that is precisely the problem that is being overlooked here. That for many inner city neighborhoods, an individual's success is measured not by returning to the neighborhood to maintain a healthy status; it is measured by the ability to escape one's neighborhood. Such an approach facilitates a systemic abandonment of many inner city neighborhoods.
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To R. Scot Clark and his blogpost that quotes Carl Truman as he sides with a liberal who condemns liberal Christianity for both  not being able to cope with sex and its concern for the social consequences of those who approach sex in nontraditional ways. This appeared in the Heidelblog.

I am not sure that religiously conservative Christianity can adequately cope with sex either when one considers the sexual abuse of children in the Roman Church and  in the evangelical churches (see http://www.catholicconvert.com/blog/2016/11/25/sex-abuse-scandals-catholic-protestant-and-secular-you-may-be-surprised/  and  https://newrepublic.com/article/142999/silence-lambs-protestants-concealing-catholic-size-sexual-abuse-scandal  and   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/01/protestant-sex-abuse-boz-tchividijian_n_4019347.html ).

What seems to be a main point of emphasis both in what was quoted above and in the article cited is the animosity expressed not necessarily at sexual sins themselves, but at those who want the marginalization of the LGBT community in society to end. Pointing out that marginalization, as well as the marginalization of others, has more often than not been met with dismissiveness and derision by many religious conservative Christian leaders, one must wonder what happened to those who react that way and why aren't they  conscious of the Scriptures that warn us not to judge others because of our own sins and not to act like the Pharisee from the parable of the two men praying.
In fact, when we look at signs of the authoritarian personality type, obsession with sex is one of those signs along with hostility toward those who challenge tradition (see https://www.psychologistworld.com/influence-personality/authoritarian-personality ). And if we note what was just written, that obsession with sex can come out in abusive ways and that hostility toward others forgets or even denies one's own sinfulness and need for mercy and compassion.

The PCUSA concern about the marginalization of people, the LGBT community is not the only group studied, is Biblical. We are to care about the vulnerable. But many of us religiously conservative Christians have caused  Christians, both fellow conservative Christians who are also millennials and some more liberal Christians into a corner where they must pick between either marginalizing others in society or compromising Biblical standards on sex. Considering the post modern influence on conservative millennial Christians, we can understand how many millennials might be more prone to compromise those Biblical standards.
Yes, we need to warn ourselves and others about the the physical and spiritual problems that come with violating what the Bible teaches about sex. But we also need to be careful about how we warn ourselves and others and how we can respond when we do violate what the Bible teaches so that we can repent. It seems to me that too many religiously conservative Christians, such as Carl Trueman, have paid enough attention to the need of warning himself and others but have taken a 'damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,' approach in making such warnings.

We should also note that while many of us religiously conservative Christians are so focused on the sexual sins of today, we are unwittingly or intentionally following a historical flaw that other religiously conservative Christians have made: we have sided with those with wealth and power. We should note what happened to the predominant branch of the Church during and after the French, Russian, and Spanish Revolutions because they did side with wealth and power before those respective revolutions.





 

Pronouncing Judgments While Pretending To Be God

It happens with almost every disaster. Except for Hurricane Irma, which has just tragically pummeled islands in the Caribbean and now Florida, almost every natural and man-made disaster has been used by some of my fellow religiously conservative Christians to selectively preach repentance to America. And by selectively I mean that the LGBT community has been blamed for some disaster and challenged to repent. There are a number of disasters for which the LGBT community has been blamed (click here for list). Most prominent on that list are hurricanes. And the most reasonable answer for why those hurricanes caused the damage is because of climate change. And yet, the LGBT community was blamed.

The day this post is being written is an appropriate day for mentioning the above is because today is 9/11. And we should note that some religiously conservative Christians, including Jerry Falwell, blamed the 9/11 atrocities on the LGBT community. They, like their counterparts today, believed that God made a deal with America to protect it from harm because of America's religious beginnings. And so as we stray from our religious past, we venture out of God's protection for America. We should note that such a belief has no Biblical justification.

While so many families in our nation are currently suffering from catastrophic losses due to rains and floods in the South and to fire in the Northwest, there are two horrible things that are going on when some of my fellow religiously conservative Christians scapegoat the LGBT community for these disasters. First, they are employing what Chris Hedges has been saying they employ: 'magical thinking.' In order to confirm their theology and maintain their manipulative hold on people, these religiously conservative Christians are associating two things that are not in anyway related: natural disasters and the sexual orientations and practices by certain people. But because they claim to represent God, they have proven that our natural disasters and the sexual orientations and practices of certain people are related.

Even on a biblical level, such an association should not be used. For when one of God's people could identify the cause for a disaster, it was because of God's revelation and how He spoke to people back then. But such is not the case now. So those who are claiming that God is visiting natural disasters on us because of the LGBT community have no Biblical support for doing so. That lack of Biblical support isn't because the Bible doesn't speak against homosexuality, it does. It is because God doesn't speak to us the same way now as he did during the Old Testament times and the times of the Apostles.

The second horrible thing that is going on here is that because some religiously conservative Christians are scapegoating that community for the disasters hitting our nation, they are calling for judgment on this community. But, ironically speaking, it isn't God's judgment they are calling for, it is people's judgment. They want people to punish the LGBT community for the disasters that hit our nation. And hopefully, on their part, that punishment will move those in the LGBT community to repent. Ar least that is how the logic should work. But one has to wonder, with the vile ways in which some religiously conservative Christians speak about the LGBT community, whether some religiously conservative Christians just want to see those in that community to suffer because of their hatred for them.

 A significant amount of our nation is suffering from natural disasters. Our first concern when such disasters hit are the people who are suffering. That should be our first concern. If we are to have a second concern, then that should be about what, logically speaking, appears to be the cause of the disasters. Logically speaking, the cause of the disasters we are seeing is climate change. It is not certain that these hurricanes were stronger because of climate change and that the fires in the Northwest are because of climate change. But that is where the evidence points to. And so if we are going to repent in response to these disasters, our repentance should be over our contributions to climate change.

In addition, it isn't that hurricanes shouldn't remind us to call out to God for help. And it isn't that the Bible doesn't speak against homosexuality. It is though that those who blame our natural disasters on the LGBT community are revealing what is in their own hearts rather than why God allowed the hurricane to come. And what is in their hearts is a hatred for those they are commanded to love and to share the Gospel with. Thus, those who blame our nation's disasters on the LGBT community are among the first who should be repenting here.

Does The 'Wonder Woman' Movie Contain A Relevant Religious Message

The wife and I just saw the movie Wonder Woman with the son and his wife. The son loves the super hero movies while the rest of us went to be with the son.

The movie version of the story saw the Amazons as a society of superwomen who were created by the gods to protect the world. However, they ended up living on an island paradise that was protected from any human contact until an American spy flying a WW I German plane crashed off their shore. Wonder Woman, who was special among the Amazons, witnessed the crash and dove into the water to save the pilot. The pilot was followed by a German task force that attacked the island as they were pursuing the American spy. There was a brief battle in which the Amazons defeated the Germans but the Amazon woman who trained Wonder Woman was killed in the battle. 

Because of her mentor's death, along with hearing about WW I from the American pilot, Wonder Woman feels compelled to enter the fray. She helps the pilot leave the island paradise so that he could lead her into the battle where she thought she knew who was responsible for the war. At first, she blamed the war entirely on Ares and sought to kill him to end the war. She later learned that Ares was using the war to allow men to destroy each other. So while Wonder Woman fights against the Germans in a couple of battles and then defeats Ares, man's cruelty to man does not end and she decides to live in a mixed world of good and evil to do what she can to provide justice.

Now here comes the spoiler alert: there is no documentation that indicates that any of this, outside of WW I itself, actually happened. Thus, the movie Wonder Woman is neither theologically nor historically correct. But despite that, the story itself might have something relevant to say to certain groups of Islamic and Christian Fundamentalists. For certain sectors of both see war as a way of allowing men to destroy each other and usher in the rule of their particular religion over the whole world. This choice between allowing war to destroy almost everything or to live and work for justice in a mixed world of good and evil was the choice Wonder Woman faced after defeating Ares. And is the choice faced by all of us now.

Those who seek to escape that choice have already picked the first option. But not only have they opted for letting mankind destroy itself, they seek to live in their own spiritual island paradise where they are shielded from many of the distresses of the world. It's not that they won't love their immediate neighbor; it is that they will not lift a finger to fight against the social injustices and wars being forced on the world. They prefer their island paradise.

For my fellow Christians who prefer not to intervene to work for social justice and oppose war as part of our faith, how can we honor the Gospel when a fictional character shows more compassion for those suffering in the world than we do? Doesn't our lack of compassion driven courage indicate to some that our faith is not only as fictional as the Wonder Woman story, but is not as inspirational either?

In addition, I know that there are Muslims who are telling those who claim to be Muslim but are driving the world to Armageddon that they do not represent Islam. Rather, Muslims who are working for an all out war between civilizations, just like their Christian counterparts, are really following the god of war.

It isn't just Wonder Woman who has decided to fight to promote justice in a mixed world of good and evil, there are people of all faiths and of no faith who are doing the same. So those Muslims and Christians who want Armageddon or who withdraw from working for social justice and against war in a mixed world of good and evil are not bringing honor to their respective faiths. Instead, they seem to be following Ares, not the God whom they claim to follow.

Conservative Christianity's Three-Front War

It seems that we have multiple wars inside the United States. The  War on Christmas and the War on Women are two of the most well known wars that "exist." Of course they are not official wars, they are simply descriptions of cultural conflicts in society. However, I would like to add one more to the list of wars in American society. That war is the religiously conservative Christian War Against Change. Considering that many of us religiously conservative Christians (a.k.a., flaming fundamentalists with flaming referring to being passionate about the tenets of Christian Fundamentalism) view America as very our own special homeland. It is our homeland because we view America as starting as a Christian nation being built on biblical principles. And what we have seen is a spiritual societal coup by secularism so that many of us feel that we have lost our rightful place in society. That place is that of being privileged in exercising some degree of control over society's laws and its culture. But in the words of a famous piece of Jazz music, 'things ain't what they use to be.'

From my experiences on the Christian blogfront, my fellow religiously conservative Christians understandably see current changes as threats and are fighting a three front war against change. I should note here my political views differ quite a bit from most of my fellow religiously conservative Christians. I am a socialist and they tend to be either Republicans or Conservative Libertarians. Because of the differences in our politics, I can't agree with their war against change. And that tells us something right there. That perhaps, this war against change is more naturally driven than spiritually driven.

The fronts on which many of my fellow flaming fundamentalists are the Modernism front, the Post Modernism front, and a historical front where the historical subject of front is our nation's past.

What are meant by Modernism and Post Modernism? One way of understanding human time periods is to break them up by what metanarratives are predominantly used by people to understand the world around them. Metanarratives themselves refer to beliefs and stories people used to interpret the world. There are three time periods using the predominant metanarrative of the time to distinguish each division of time. They are Pre Modern, Modern, and Post Modern. With Pre Modernism, people used some kind of faith or belief in the supernatural to interpret the world around them. In other words, one's faith or belief in the supernatural served the metanarrative that most people relied on. With Modernism, people rely mostly on science and reason to interpret the world around them. Thus here, science and reason served as the metanarrative for most people. Post Modernism is the odd child of the three. For with Post Modernism, the metanarratives of both Pre Modernism and Post Modernism are rejected. What serves as a basis for truth then? It is kind of a mixture between relativity and an outcome-based truth system. With the latter, the truth of a belief or set of beliefs depends on whether they have produced oppression or exploitation, Since history is replete with many examples of people using their faith or science as a justification for dominating over others, both are rejected as having any ability to provide a metanarrative. Thus, Post Modernism is the most reactionary of the three time periods.

So now we can discuss the first front on the Christians War Against Change: the fight against Modernism. Now what will be said here are general statements that apply to the majority of religiously conservative Christians I have encountered or observed. They are not absolute statements applying to all religiously conservative Christians.

Now it isn't the case that religiously conservative Christians who are fighting against Modernism reject all that science and reason have to offer. Rather, there are two specific areas where these Christians see themselves in a battle. These areas are climate change and the social sciences. What is the Christian beef against the science of climate change? It is that if the claims made by climate change scientists are true, then we Christians must make changes to our way of life here in America. In addition, many businesses which serve America must also make changes.

In other words, there isn't anything about climate change science that directly challenges Christian belief. And yet, climate change science has spurred a tribal response from many religiously conservative Christians. And by tribal response, I mean that Christians tend not to accept what unbelieving climate change scientists say about what is happening and our future. They will sometimes listen to fellow believers who talk about climate change. But outside of that, there is real skepticism experienced by my fellow religiously conservative Christians toward climate change science. 

And this tells us something that perhaps we Christians may not want to admit. That the reason why we are skeptical is because of what we have so tightly associated with our Christian faith: our nation's status quo and business interests. Of course, there is another factor involved in the Christian opposition to climate change science. That other factor is that of a turf war. Who can best describe the world around us? Is is secular science with its rejection of Creation and belief in evolution, or is it the Bible with its Creation account?

Psychology is another battle front where religiously conservative Christianity is fighting against Modernism. And though the battle lines are not as sharply defined as they are in Christianity's fight against climate change science, what we see is still a turf battle for who can best describe the world around us. What we do see here is more intermixing between Christianity and psychology than we see with climate change. But the more conservative the Christian, the more suspicious they are toward what can be learned from psychologists.

The second front religiously conservative Christians are fighting on is the one against Post Modernism. And the particular battle where most of the fighting takes place centers on LGBT issues. The current battle over same-sex marriage served as the Waterloo for Christian control over culture according to many of the religiously conservative Christians I have read. And when we add transgenderism to the mix, what many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians have concluded is that American society has rejected belief in absolutes and objective truth.

But why did so many religiously conservative Christians feel the need to oppose the legalization of practices like Same-Sex Marriage (SSM)? Many of the Christians bloggers I have read felt that it was an attack on marriage and that society's future revolves on the health of marriage. But such doesn't provide a complete answer because the state of marriage without SSM was not good anyway. Divorce rates and the number of single parents were way too high to say that marriage was doing well. My intuition says that much of the religiously conservative opposition to SSM was a look at who is moving into the neighborhood argument. Basically, this refers to neighborhoods in the past whose property values might have fallen once minorities moved into homes. Unfortunately, such reveals just a sliver of nation's deep historical problem with racism.

So here, many religiously conservative Christians argued that marriage would no longer be valued as it was if same sex couples were allowed to be married too. This in-your-face cultural change of having to see same sex couples' marriages being put on an equal status with heterosexual marriages signaled a 'sky is falling' response by many a Christian. Rod Dreher's Benedict Option was in response to changing sexual mores, especially the acceptance of homosexuality in society, such as seen in SSM.

The final front is more historic in nature. It is the belief, despite the rampant racism in our nation's history, that this nation was founded on biblical principles and thus was created as a Christian nation. And that nation was not only Christian, it believed in limited government. And thus the belief in limited government has become strongly associated with religiously conservative Christianity. So here we see the political front of the War Against Change. And many religiously conservative Christians seem to believe that conservative political ideology, especially when it emphasizes limited government, is wedded to their faith.

But why would this be the case? The only answer I can come up with revolves around tribalism and the resulting turf battles between secular liberals when they are in charge of government and the Church over who knows what is best for the American people. Many religiously conservative Christians who believe in limited government believe so because they see the Church as being solely responsible for helping those in need. Of course for that to happen, government would have to support the Church and that would give the Church a privileged position in society. While for others, they simply want as little interference by the government as possible.
 
But the tribalism itself is another key to understanding why many religiously conservative Christians believe in limited government. For that tribalism tells many of us religiously conservative Christians that we have everything to teach these secular liberals and nothing to learn from them.

It is unfortunate that many of us religiously conservative Christians are fighting on any of these 3 fronts, let alone all of them. It is totally unnecessary. For many of us, the fear of compromising or even losing our faith by benefiting from unbelievers drives us to fight this war. Ironically, this doesn't stop many of us religiously conservative Christians from wedding our faith to conservative political ideology. In addition, intolerance and fear of those who are different is also a contributing factor. In the end, our War Against Change not only hurts us and not only hurts those around us who would benefit from change, it dishonors the Gospel which has been sent by God to save those who believe.

What Is It That Makes Some Conservative Christians Appear To Be Backwards People?

Not so much on the refugee problem because we are more split in our opinions, but on issues like same-sex marriage, evolution and science, and certain foreign and economic policies, we Conservative Christians are not viewed positively by those who are not political conseratives. The problem with that perception has less to do with the views themselves and more to do with our refusal to listen to the beliefs of others. In other words, we share some responsibility in how others perceive us because of how we react. This combination of both our views and our refusal to learn from others will only guarantee the negative perceptions about us. And that is bad news for anyone who is concerned with the honor of the Gospel. For it is one thing for people to have scorn for the Gospel because its content offends them, it is quite another when the behavior and attitudes of its preachers cause people to question the validity of the Gospel.

Our problems start with misapplications of the tenet sola scripture. This means that we only need the Scriptures as a guide. But a guide to what? For when we apply Scriptures as our only guide, it follows that we don't need information or views outside of the Scriptures. And depending on what issues we are using the Scriptures as a guide, the tenet can be used to justify blatant and prideful ignorance.

To us Conservative Christians, the New Testament talks about the Church and the world in an us versus them manner. In addition, it  warns us against being strongly coupled with those outside the Church. If we add the sola scriptura tenet, it's easy to see how we Christians can be insular. This isolationism by itself would not cause too much scorn from others. What causes them to react negatively to us is the fact that we Conservative Christians want a significant control over them and what goes on in the world outside. How most of us want to control the world is best expressed through conservative political, social, and economic ideologies. And, for the most part, we find those who most follow our conservative ideologies are those in the Republican Party. And the immunity to criticism that we have assigned to our Biblically determined religious views is extended to our political and other ideologies because of how we have so aasociated our religious views with our secular views. Thus, we make sacrosant the beliefs that we wanted to use to determine the laws of our nation as well as the content of the education of our nation's children. And as for those who have different beliefs and ideologies, we easily relegate them as being anti-God and and sinful so we have no need to listen to or consider them. So we assume the right to tell others how to live while refusing to listen to and learn from either their life experiences or their use of logic and facts. Here, we have extended the caricature of the Roman Catholic priest who, while single, can give in-depth marital advice. We have extended that parody to all of secular life. We don't need to listen to others outside of our group because we can use the Bible to deduce how others must live.

The previously mentioned issues of marriage, evolution and science, and foreign and domestic policies show how backwards we are.  Without considering the hardships of those in the LGBT community who previously were denied the right to marry the person of their choice, we, in part, opposed same-sex marriage because of how its legalization would affect us. We didn't show any concern about how its legal prohibition hurt those in the LGBT community.

In addition, we battle evolution in the classroom and do our best to deny what the majority of climate scientists have said. And why do we do this? It is because both destroy our narrative of the world and people. Yes, we are right in challenging spontaneous generation as not having been scientifically proved. But who has a clear enough view of how evolution mixes with creaton to produce the world to dictate what should be taught in our science classes? And why not be honest as to why so many of us, especially older Conservative Christians, refuse to admit that climate scientists have legitimate concerns about the future of our environment? If we were honest, we would have to admit that recognizing those concerns would not only change some of our beliefs, it would change how we live and our living standards.

And if anything demonstrates how we desire to share our world with nonbelievers, it is the militaristic foreign policies we Conservative Christians support especially when we are at war or when a Republican is in charge. For these policies revolve around a sense of superiority and thus entitlement to rule over others. And because we feel so entitled, we close our eyes and ears to the suffering those policies cause.

Being a follower of Reformed Theology, this is what I see happening in the Reformed world. On one hand, we have a group called the NeoCalvinists who believe that they alone know what the laws and mores for society should be. They don't need to work with nonChristians in forging laws and standards. Why? Because they believe that Church is reforming the world for Christ. 

On the other hand, you have 2-Kingdom Theology followers (2Kers) who do not believe in micromanaging society as the NeoCalvinists do except when it comes to applying their Christian view of natural law to societal laws. But at the same time, they use the absence of New Testament examples of saints working for social justice to justify neglect of social justice issues. They believe that if Jesus wanted us to pay attention to such issues, He and/or the Apostles would be doing that and they didn't. Their assumption here is that all of the question and different experiences we would face were faced by Jesus and the writers of the New Testament. So unless Jesus or a New Testament writer wrote about or were involved in particular causes, we Christians should not be concerned about them. Thus, we don't need to listen to those outside the faith as they are looking for help from injustice. But contrary to those expecations, some nonChristians seem to have a better understanding of what it means to love one's neighbor by working for social justice than these 2kers who pride themselves on their biblical literalism.

 In short, outsiders often look down on us not only because we read the Scriptures while refusing to listen to or learn from them, it is also because we want to either dictate parts of their lives or neglect the injustices they experience  which allow us to live comfortable lives. The mere refusing to listen to and learn from others might make us annoying, but we can still be harmless. It is the conjunction of telling nonChristians to speak to the hand while we assume the right to control parts of their personal lives or interfere with social justice efforts that cause them to look down on us.

A Tale Of Two Conservative Church Types

Writing for the Reformed African American Network, Dylan Justus (no bio available) writes a short piece designed to identify and then unite two kinds of conservative churches: Fundamental and Missional (click here for the article). We should immediately note that a Fundamental church is not a Fundamentalist church. While the former church is defined by how it relates to the world, the latter concerns itself with basic tenets of the Christian faith.

A Fundamental church is one that waits for the world to come to it for it to share the Gospel. In contrast to that, a Missional church goes out to meet sinners where they are. The crux of the difference, Justus correctly asserts is not in the content of what they preach, but in how each church believes one should interact with culture while sharing the Gospel with others. While a Fundamental church believes in as much separation as possible from the current culture in order to be pure by being as different from it as possible, a Missional church seeks to use culture to bring the Gospel to people. 

Justus' concern is to show that both kinds of churches preach the same gospel and he does an adequate job at doing that. However, Justus stops there and that is like having the stereotypical experience of eating a Chinese meal: one is hungry an hour later.

Being a Missional person who worships in a Fundamental church, I would like to complete one side of the comparison between these church types. And the focus of my comments will be on both structural in nature and how the risk each kind of church faces is addressed by Jesus' parables.

We will start with the Fundamental churches. Here we should note that Fundamental churches , in order to avoid being contaminated by the surrounding culture, wait for sinners to come to them. And in waiting for sinners to come to them, the memberships of these churches tend to be socially and politically homogeneous and thus the growth of these churches will be limited not by any offense found in the Gospel, but by demographics and the social and political standards held by the established members of the church. Such churches not only becomes places of worship, they become social and political club for its members as they provide a safe place to meet. 

But the above is not the biggest threat that Fundamental churches face. By waiting for people in society to come to the church, these churches, in essence, turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to many in society who are either crying out for help and/or being oppressed. In particular, these churches ignore those who are victims of groups and systems. At this point, the parable of the Good Samaritan should come to mind (click here for the parable). Why? It is because they have, unlike the Good Samaritan himself, ignored those individuals or groups who are left robbed and beaten by groups and the systems that maintain the status quo. And Fundamental churches do this by refusing to interact with society's structures. Here we should note that is not that  Fundmental churches never teach the Good Samaritan parable. It is that their applications of the parable are always based on the individual who has been hurt by other individuals, it never applies to those hurt by groups or systems.

The unwillingness of some conservative churches to speak out against slavery and Jim Crow in the past shows how Fundamental churches can act as the priest or the Levite did from the parable. Each had religious reasons for not helping the man beaten and robbed. Likewise, members of Fundamental churches have their religious reasons for why they do not help those who have been beaten and robbed because of the status quo. These religious reasons include not finding specific commands or examples in the New Testament telling us to help such victims and because needs caused by such suffering are physical needs, not spiritual/salvation ones. Because they fail to ask Martin Luther King's question of what will happen to the individuals or groups of people who have been beaten and robbed by the rulers of society and its systems if the Church does not help them, they fail to be the neighbor to these people and thus fail to love their neighbor as they should.

Though the days slavery and Jim Crow are over, racism still rears its ugly head especially amongst the ranks of some law enforcement officers. Have the Fundamental churches spoken out against the continued racism? In addition, we have abuses committed by the the upper economic classes on the rest of society as partially documented by Occupy Wall Street's Declaration Of The Occupation Of New York City (click here for the declaration). Have the Fundamental churches both spoken out against those abuses and ministered to the victims? See, by limiting the implementation of the Good Samaritan parable to individuals helping individuals, these churches, as corporate bodies, have told their members to do something they are unwilling to do themselves: that is help those they find by the wayside who have been victimized. Rather than helping, the Fundamental churches are waiting for such victims to attend church services with hopes that these attendees will join. Such is a very serious indictment on the Fundamental churches. It is serious because such can cause the religiosity of Fundamental churches to be similar to that of the scribes and pharisees of Jesus' day. And just like those scribes and pharisees, they have religious excuses for withdrawing from society. They don't wish to be corrupted by helping those in need.

On the other hand, the Missional churches sometimes live out the fears that the Fundamental churches harbor. That is, Missional churches can be so involved putting out society's fires that instead of using firefighting as a way of introducing and living the Gospel, they replace the preaching of the Gospel with putting out of these fires. The parable of the four soils illustrates this problem (click here for the parable). In particular, Missional churches run the risk of becoming the seeds that fall among the thorns (vs 14). For the people these seeds represent lose faith because of their concerns with their earthly lives.

I've seen more than one follower of Christ fall to the structural risk faced by the Missional churches. And what is most tragic is that the actual physical good these former believers do blinds them from the dangers of self-righteousness and the belief that they no longer need to believe in Christ for salvation.

So what we have in the end is something we can add to what Justus saw should unify the Fundamental and Missional churches. For not only are they united by the Gospel they preach, they are united by their need for one another. For as the Fundamental churches can remind the Missional churches not to lose its focus on faith in Christ for for the forgiveness of sins, the Missional churches can help the Fundamental churches to better fulfill the command to love their neighbors in society and thus avoid settling for the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees.

Authoritarianism Is The Problem

Perhaps it is impossible to know when, but a transition occurred during a trivial traffic stop. A police officer went from being a polite and non-confrontational public servant to being a bullying instigator. The end result was the arrest and eventual death of a young Black woman who started the day looking forward to starting a new job in the near future.  

Perhaps the change in the arresting officer's approach to Bland was signaled by the fact that when he returned to the car for Bland's signature on the citation, he approached the driver from the driver's side rather than the passenger's side which is the side he used the first time. Or perhaps perceiving her state of agitation when he returned, he felt threatened. Or perhaps he sensed a lack of respect when she failed to comply by putting out a cigarette. In any event, by the time he asked her to step out of the car,  he was no longer in control of his anger.

One of the first causes many assign to this tragedy is race. While the police officer is a White Hispanic, Bland is Black. And Bland had already developed a history of encounters with the police (click here). But another possible reason for why things went awry was because of Bland's gender. That some police officers stop women to "check them out" is not news to me. Former students of mine would tell me that this happens. In addition, some officers feel free to be heavy-handed with women they've stopped (click here). 

And still another reason for why the police officer became so confrontational with Bland was the cultural influence from his place of employment. Police officers must dabble with being authoritarian at times. That can, depending on situations, be a necessity for doing the job. We must realize that there are times when police officers must demand a complete compliance from the public for both the sake of doing the job and for their safety. Of course, there are also times when being authoritarian is not necessary. And knowing when to turn off the authoritarian switch can be difficult especially when there are coworkers who have the same problem. And it seems, from watching what went on during the traffic stop, that authoritarianism played a part in the interaction between the officer and Bland.

Here, we should note some of the characteristics of an authoritarian personality. This blog reported these characteristics in a previous post (click here). Some of these characteristics that seemed to be involved here were a belief in power, a tendency to be hostile to others, has a black-and-white worldview, believes in conformity, projects ones own faults on to others, and a belief in one's own superiority. And it seems with the bipolar way by which this officer was interacting during the recorded  traffic stops, that problems with being authoritarian was at least one of the reasons why things escalated the way they did.

And how this officer's interaction with Bland escalated into a serious confrontation is not too far different to how the Conservative Christian Church has reacted to the same-sex marriage controversy here in America. When there was a chance to keep same-sex marriage from becoming legal, the Conservative Christian Church acted very authoritarian to the rest of society. It demanded that such marriages prohibited by law. By our expertise, we acted as if we knew marriage better than all others. And then there was the sensitivity to criticism by those who could legitimately complain that they have been oppressed by the Church in this matter. That sensitivity yielded anger and demands that Christians be not subject to the same laws regarding discrimination that all others were. The arguments used to justify Christian businesses refusing to provide goods and services to same-sex weddings were the same that justified how businesses treated Blacks during Jim Crow.

In addition, we should note that the Conservative Christian Church both embraces and promotes authoritarianism. Most of our relationships are hierarchical. In fact, almost all of our relationships within the Church are hierarchical. Thus, we have a difficult time when we deal with an outside world much of which wants democracy and equality. Our authoritarian tendencies are perhaps why many of us, not this blog though, could not make a case before the public without being offensive. This blog, while holding to conservative Christian theology, has supported same-sex marriage in society. It opposes it in the Church however.

Groups that foster an authoritarian culture must learn how to temper their reliance on authority if they wish to effectively communicate with the outside world. Why? It is because only in hierarchical societies where authoritarianism is accepted. We can't say that all of society embraces a hierarchical structure, though we could say that there are subcultures that do. The inability to turn off the authority switch when dealing with those outside the group will only serve to alienate one's in society.

But there is another reason why groups like many groups of police officers and the Conservative Christian Church should want to put limits on how they use authority to relate to outsiders. That reason is that of the traits of authoritarianism linked with the police officer who stopped Sandra Bland, four ofthem are indicators of narcissism as well. This means lowering our dependence on authoritarianism will not only help us in relating to the outside world, it will be good for us as well.

 

The Invisible Triple Threat To America's Christians

Many religiously conservative Americans wear their religion on their sleeves. Of course this means that their religious views and sentiments are full display. And the combination of that eager sharing of one's religion, adhering to the patriotic theme of American Exceptionalism, believing that America was founded as a Christian nation, and embracing Biblical themes from both the Old and New Testaments makes many of us religiously conservative American Christians susceptible to isms that can prove to be quite harmful to both ourselves and to others. These isms are authoritarianism, narcissism, and tribalism. For each of these isms, we will first define it, then we will show how it is related to American Conservative Christianity, and finally we will begin to display how they are interconnected.

We could define authoritarianism as the over reliance on the use of  human authority. This over reliance is to the point being oppressive or supporting oppression. In terms of the traits of authoritarianism, authoritarianism can be divided into two categories: active and passive authoritarianism. The former kind of authoritarianism refers to authoritarianism as exercised by leaders while the latter form is practiced by its followers (click here for a reference). We should also note that truth in authoritarian circles is more determined by the credentials of the source than by the facts and logic of a particular argument. Such assumes that too many in the audience are not qualified to question those in authority.

We should note that it is easy to see where Conservative Christians get their authoritarianism from. Most of the relationships we have, as described in the Scriptures, seem to involve authority figures. God is our ultimate authority. We are to submit to the authority of our governmental leaders whom God has placed over us. We are to submit to our church leaders for the same reason. We are to submit to those with authority at work also for the same reason. Children and wives are to submit to the male head of the house because Christ is the head of the Church. And children are also to submit to their mothers.

It seems like every place we turn to, we are facing an authority figure to whom we owe obedience. Thus, we struggle with democracy because democracy levels the playing field between people. In addition, democracy allows us to challenge those in authority. Finally, a democratic society is not obliged to recognize God's authority here on earth. Yes, there is a final reckoning. But while we are here on earth, democratic societies can disregard many of God's commands. 

Thus, we run into our problem. We want our society both to be called democratic and to be submissive to God's authority. It's like we cannot turn off our submit to authority switch while trying to respect democracy. And when we see how authority was wielded in the Scriptures, we struggle with not expecting the same kind of response when people rebel today. In addition, many of our past great Church leaders were very authoritarian. 

Take Martin Luther and John Calvin as examples. They were eager to enforce all of God's laws on society. And they were more than bombastic in dealing with disagreement and dissent. So we struggle and perhaps feel insecure with allowing people to have the freedom to ignore or challenge those in authority. And not only that, we often imitate their blustering rhetoric because you either obey those in charge or you disobey. The traits of authoritarianism, that is the unbalanced reliance on authority, are listed after the end of this blogpost.

We Conservative Christians are also at a higher risk than normal to suffer from Narcissism. Think about it. We believe that because our nation was founded on Biblical principles, it is special and is above all other nations. It is that 'city upon a hill' that shows the way to the rest of the world. And that is just from American Exceptional point of view.

From the Christian view, we believe, and rightly so, that Jesus is the only one who can save us. And thus, we are the only ones who are saved. So how is it that we do not think more highly of ourselves than others think of themselves? And if we are that enlightened or saved, the world should listen to us. For we, or our leaders, are the only ones who have and understand God's Word. And because of that, we are the only ones who can help the world solve its problems.

Of course, we should define narcissism. Narcissism occurs in the presence of an extreme degree of self-admiration and self-absorption. For one to be classified as experiencing narcissism, one must have at least 5 of the 9 major traits listed at the end of the blogpost. We should also note that both individuals and whole groups can suffer from narcissism (click here). We should also note that when you have a group or collective narcissism, the individual members may not be narcissistic, but the group functions as being narcissistic. And it should not be too hard to see how the patriotic and biblical emphasis on the uniqueness on our uniqueness would not only cause us to believe that we above others, but that we are entitled to be so recognized. And this is especially true when so much is at stake, such as our prosperity.

Finally, we have tribalism. Tribalism refers to the degree of loyalty we exhibit for a group. When the degree becomes great enough, we say that there is tribalism. Here we should note that all of us belong to multiple groups. Two of the major reasons why we belong to groups is for feeling significant and obtaining security.

From a moral point of view, we can say that tribalism occurs when loyalty to a group trumps commitment to morals and principles so that what is right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. Thus in the end, besides the 3 traits of tribalism listed in the Reference and Traits section, we could add one more trait implied by our definition of tribalism: defensiveness.

We should only note that the Old Testament is full of tribalism. It starts with belonging to the right family, then it proceeds to belonging to one of the right tribes. It finishes with belonging to the right nation. And in the meantime, some horrible acts of war committed against civilians were sanctioned by God for His people only.

The New Testament is better only in that God's people were not commanded to war against others. But the Church now becomes the tribe to which we should be most loyal. In fact, Denny Burk, a Conservative Christian theologian and blogger has just reinterpreted the phrase 'the least of these' from Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats to referring to Christians only (click here for Denny Burk's blogpost, click there for Jesus' parable). Having the Church as our main tribe is how we are to separate ourselves from the world.

Again, the traits for each of the isms are listed below in the section References and Traits. However, below is a picture illustrating some of the traits each ism has as well as shared traits. Some of the traits in the picture are summations or are derived from the individual traits listed in Reference and Traits section. 

Traits of the isms

We should note the traits shared by two or more of the isms include

• believes one is superior to others
• is hostile to others or to differences
• believes in power
• projects faults on others
• practices conformity
• is defensive

We should note regarding the shared traits, belief in one's own or one's group superiority could easily foster the belief in the authority of one's group. With that comes the expectations that people conform to the group's expectations and acknowledge the group's status. That, as is in the case of any authoritarian, acknowledgment of weaknesses by the group would diminish the credentials of the group and could thus be met with hostility when those weaknesses are mentioned. This interplay is but one example of how these isms with their trait are interrelated.

Whether Conservative Christians are more at risk of falling for any or all of these isms can be determined by observation, especially when observing the Church under trying circumstances. So we could simply ask ourselves this question: Are the traits listed under shared traits or those that accompany just one ism what we are observing in the majority of Christians during times of controversy such as the same-sex marriage issue? For if that is what people are seeing, we should note that we are failing in providing a credible witness to the Gospel.

References and Traits

--Note that these traits are quoted from the websites provided--

Some traits of authoritarianism (see http://www.psychologistworld.com/influence_personality/authoritarian_personality.php )

1. Blind allegiance to conventional beliefs
2. Belief in aggression to those who do not subscribe to conventional thinking or who are different
3. A negative view of people in general
4. A need for strong leadership which displays uncompromising power
5. A black-white worldview
6. A tendency to project one's own feelings of inadequacy, rage and fear onto a scapegoated group

Traits of narcissism

(see http://psychcentral.com/disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder-symptoms/ )

1. Grandiose sense of self-importance
2. Preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. Believes that he or she is special or unique
4. Requires excessive admiration
5. Has a very strong sense of entitlement
6. Is exploitive of others
7. Lacks empathy
8. Is often envious of others
9. Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behavior toward others

Other traits (see https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/201311/6-signs-narcissism-you-may-not-know-about )

1. Highly reactive to criticism
2. Low self-esteem
3. Inordinately self-righteous and defensive
4. React to contrary viewpoints with anger  or rage
5. Project onto others qualities, traits, and behaviors they can't--or won't--accept in themselves
6. Have poor interpersonal boundaries

Traits of tribalism (see https://staffanspersonalityblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/the-personality-of-tribalism/ )

1. They view their own group, called the ingroup, superior to other groups, called outgroup
2. They conform to their group norms
3. They favor their ingroups while being hostile to outgroups

when The Political Past Catches Up With The Religious Present

Cathy Lynn Grossman has just written an article for Religion News Service about a Pew Research Center report on religion in the US (click here for Grossman's report). The report states that things are changing in that the number of Christians is declining while the number of those who are not religious is increasing. And one of the reasons why these numbers are changing is because of political views more than religious ones. In particular, conservative politics and conservative religion, which appeared to have married each other immediately after birth, show one partner embarassing the other.

Grossman reports that the Pew Center report shows that while Christians make up the vast majority of people in America, Christianity is losing people at a disconcerting rate (8 percentage points from 2007 to 2014). This drop cuts across all demographic groups. Those who have recovered the most fumbled believers are atheists and agnostics. And a reason why Conservative Christianity is bleeding believers, that is in terms of percentages, has to do with conservative politics. Here, Grossman quotes Mike Hout, a sociology professor who provided comments for the study, in attributing the disinterest in Conservative Christianity to its ties in conservative politics. Some who left this branch of Christianity "didn't want to be identified with" conservative political 'agenda.'

We should note that political ties have harmed Conservative Christianity before--only in America, the Conservative Church is getting off relatively light. For Conservative Christianity's past ties have often been with those with power. And both the French and Russian Revolutions saw at least portions of the Conservative Church, the Roman Church and the Orthodox Church respectively, experience some harsh persecution because of their political connections.

Will this trend of conservative politics costing Conservative Christianity believers continue? The study doesn't address that so we have to stay tuned for the next report. But suffice it to say, Conservative Christianity's leaders must examine the ties between conservative politics and Conservative Christianity. Otherwise, Conservative Christianity will have doomed itself to the future of conservative politics in America. Such hardly seems to be a Biblical approach in determining which political views to pursue. And the past indicates that if we don't take a Biblical approach to determining our political views, we are more likely than not to latch on to those with wealth and power. And as the previously mentioned revolutions indicate, such an approach sets us up for unnecessary persecution--political persecution that is, not religious persecution.

The End Is Near For White Conservative Christian Americans

Isn't it ironic that the end is coming first for those who carry signs that say: 'The End Is Near'? And yet, according to Amanda Marcotte (click here for a quick bio and click there for her article), this is the case. And it isn't just Marcotte who is saying this. Several Conservative Christian blogs have been anticipating the coming period of exile where Conservative Christians will no longer have their traditional privileged position in deciding our society's laws and mores. What is the reason for this loss of power? 

Why is the sky falling now? I can think of 3 reasons 2 of which were mentioned by Marcotte. The first reason is demographics. There are getting to be fewer Whites in proportion to people from some other races and even still fewer Conservative Christians. The drop in the population percentage of Whites has to do with the population growth of other races. When you add to that the drop in the number of those who claim a religious affiliation, it is only natural to conclude that we will see a smaller percentage of white, conservative Christians.

But we should note, as Marcotte does, that the drop in the percentage of white, conservative Christians also has to do with their attitudes toward certain people who are different. And that difference has to do with attitudes toward sex. It seems that we have an old guard in the white conservative Christian American demographic who are punitive toward homosexuals in how they want society to treat homosexuals. They also cry foul when they are resisted. 

Now some of the resistance faced by that old guard, according to some of my fellow Christians, comes from the Political Correctness movement. And there is a little merit to that idea because of a few extreme elements in that movement. But the idea that a group that is losing its privilege and has been involved in marginalizing others would cry persecution and claim to be victims simply because some of its victims are making gains for itself is irritating to say the least. In fact, it is offensive. And when we add that to society's changing views of sex where, as Marcotte noted, in that people are feeling less guilty about having sex, we could add that it would be easy to see where some of the main messages preached by these Christians is losing its appeal.

Marcotte stops there, which perhaps reflects some of her major concerns; but there is one more point to make regarding why white, conservative Christians in America are losing their place in society. That point has to do with how their Christianity measures up to postmodernism. Postmodernism, as I understand it, is a reactionary movement that seeks to avoid the past moral mistakes of domination and colonization. Here we should note that the 'metanarratives' of both premodernism and modernism have been used to justify the exploitation and abuse of others. This exploitation and abuse in America occurs economically and in the world through foreign policies abroad. And included in premodernism is the Christian faith.

If we add to postmodernism's rise in popularity, the silence of white, conservative Christians on the domination and colonization we see in the world today provides another reason for why white, conservative Christianity is losing its appeal. The concerns regarding domination and colonization are real and merit opposition. So when white, conservative Christians try too hard to control the sexual lives of individuals while saying nothing to those who would exploit and abuse others, it seems that not only are white conservative Christian Americans losing their public appeal, they are creating a perfect storm for themselves. And that storm will cause the continued emptying of the white, conservative Christian movement in America.

Marcotte does say some significant things here about why white, conservative Christian Americans are no longer an in group. The comments on demographics are important and her calling the efforts of white conservative Christians to control what homosexuals are allowed to do in society 'overreach' is a nuanced way of being spot on. But there is a larger picture to consider as well. And that is where Marcotte fails. For while she looks at this Christian movement from a sexual issues perspective, white, conservative Christians continue to be silent about a status quo that relies on the exploitation and domination of others to live. Perhaps their silence is because they do not want to bite the hands that feed them. And this is what she should have also written about.

Some Conservative Christian Obsessions: Islam, Marx, And Sex

When it comes to relating to the outside world, it seems that some of us religious Conservative Christians have hangups. We get stuck on certain issues while other ones roam around unimpeded. And there is a certain method to our madness. What is allowed to go free are those parts of the status quo from which we feel free to  benefit and take credit for. And what we are trying to put the brakes on in society are outside influences.

Of course, what we are most focused on is sex. For when we consider how Conservative Christians hardly ever write about the perils of our economic system, the damage being done to the environment, and our proclivity for making new weapons and war, the attention we pay to sex might appear to some as a defense mechanism. And that might, to some degree, be true.

Before saying anything else, I should be clear that my data sample of Conservative Christian writings is rather small compared to what's out there, but there is definitely a pattern. Sex is a big deal to us. This is especially true for the sexual practices of others. For when those practices pass a certain threshold, we feel very threatened. In fact, the perils we perceive make us want to either rule over our immediate world or escape from it. Nothing could illustrate this more than our reaction to the current judicial decisions recognizing same-sex marriages. In response, some of us Conservative Christians tried to pass legislation that would restore some Jim Crow type laws and allowances only with a different target.

In terms of the blog world, one popular Christian blog had posted a double-digit number of post on the issue of sexual orientation dating back just to January, 2015. Blogposts and articles about the sexual orientation issue at other blogsites are not as frequent, but they are there. Another popular Christian blogsite has also posted a double-digit number of blogposts and articles on sexual orientation but dating farther back than the beginning of this year. 

Again, not all Christian blogsites focus so much on society's changing views of sexual orientation as the two blogsites mentioned above, but they do report on it while remaining silent on other issues.

We Conservative Christians are very touchy about sex. That is because there are many sexual practices that both bring God's displeasure (see I Corinthians 6:9-10 for example) and which we feel pressured, either as a result of our own weaknesses or due to changing values in society, to pursue. And perhaps since there are clear and strong Biblical sanctions against sexual immorality, we're afraid to admit that committing such immorality is an understandable part of our fallen human condition. Admitting that creates dissonance regarding how serious the committing of sexual sins is. 

So since many of us don't have the tools to handle that tension, we turn to fear. And in turning to fear, we have externalized the problem by focusing on the sexual sins of others. BTW, it isn't that we shouldn't be afraid to commit sexual sin, we should be. But we can't afford to be so focused on avoiding sexual sin that we overlook our participation in a very exploitive economic system, our contributions to the harming of the environment, and our silent complicity in our nation's pursuit of war and the rule of force. In other words, we have a tremendous amount of work to do even if we are able to remain sexually pure.  

We should note one thing here, the more we write about society's changing sexual mores, the more we seemed to view our problems with sex as something that is outside of us. And, as stated at the beginning, sounding the alarm at what is foreign and giving hall pass after hall pass to what is familiar is what primarily determines what we will obsess about.

And speaking of warning people about outside threats, we give special treatment to both Islam and Marxism. For Islam is a foreign religion to this country for most of its history and Marxism is a foreign political economic system. And if we add atheism, as some Christians bloggers do (see here for an example applied to Great Britain), we have the perfect foreign trifecta for what ails us. Our problems are never because our own chickens have come home to roost.

The flap over the President's National Prayer Breakfast comments serves as example of how some of us religious Conservative Christians will only see the problems that reside outside of us (click here, there, and there again). In fact, Pat Buchanan equated Obama's criticisms of Christianity and the Crusades as kind of changing citizenship from America to the World (click here). And think about that, criticizing Christianity's past before there was an America is equated with changing national identies. This illustrates the Conservative identification of Christianity with America and the West. 

We should add that Islam should not feel especially picked on, Marxism is being targeted too. And the Conservative Christian's problem with Marxism is that they so often identify and equate it with the Soviet Union's Communism (click here). To try to argue otherwise can result in attempts at public humiliation--please note Steven Rummelsburg's February 21 comment on how I was not only 'confused' in my answers about socialism, he stated that I would defend the 'authoritarianism of a social utopian despot' (click here).

I don't mention Rummelsburg's strong comments toward me to cause others to look down him. Rather, I want to point them out to show how strongly the equation of the Soviet Union's Communism with Marxism has been hammered into people. And as much as Rummelburg accused me of lacking 'rigorous intellectual work,' others, with reputable intellectual reputations would disagree with him (click here and there). Here are a couple more links on a Conservative view of Marxism (click here and there).

Now, do Conservatives ever recognize other problems besides those with sex, Islam and Marxism? Yes. Many Conservatives are effectively writing against racism. Others are writing against human trafficking. But there is, for the most part, silence regarding the imperfections of our nation's own systems. And even when there is such recognition, such as in Joe Carter's blogpost on predatory lending (click here), the solution is not found in any call for justice and the changing of the system. Rather, in that article, Carter calls the Church to rescue the victims from a system that is to remain unchanged.

In short, what drives the obsessions of many of us religious Conservative Christians is a witch hunt for blame. Too many of us seem unable to recognize how what we have supported could have hurt others and so we look at how outsiders either threaten our wellbeing or have actually caused us harm. And until we can be more honest with ourselves, our obsessions with the faults of others will thrive.

Today's Conservative Christian Crisis Has Been America's Problem All Along

Conservative Christianity is facing a crisis. What is the crisis? If you read Conservative Christian blogs, you would think that its biggest threat is sexual: that is same-sex marriage. There is even some concern about the increased attention being given to transgenderism. For not only have Conservative Christians found the judgments of the Federal Appeals Courts on same-sex marriage to be disappointing to say the least, the Conservative Christian fight against such marriages is suffering too many defeats in popular opinion polls.

And yet, how to react to the acceptance of same-sex marriage in society isn't the crossroads we are facing. Society's growing acceptance of same-sex marriage serves as but a single instance of our current critical point. We should note that we've faced other such instances and we have not fared well there either. 

What is the real challenge that is facing Conservative Christianity today? The challenge is this: How will Conservative Christianity share society with others? There are only 3 possible answers to this question and one is nonstarter. So either Conservative Christians can look to either share society as equals with nonChristians or seek a privileged position to rule over them. 

If the first option is chosen, then Conservative Christians will not use democratic procedures to force some subset of their beliefs on unbelievers through legislation. Not only that, they will protect more groups of nonChristians from being discriminated against by the law than they currently do. 

If the second option is pursued, then Conservative Christians will use legislation to some degree to either force unbelievers to practice, observe, or endure some Conservative Christian held belief or prohibit some behaviors or actions of nonChristians which we consider to be taboo. In either case, with the second option Conservative Christians seek a superior position over others because they feel entitled, if not also obligated, to that place in society. This feeling of entitlement is based on a sense of superiority over unbelievers which must be recognized for the future well-being of society. That sense of superiority can revolve around the knowledge we have or our character .

The same-sex marriage debate will illustrate how some Conservative Christians feel they have a superior knowledge to nonChristians. There are three reasons why Conservative Christians oppose the legalizing of same-sex marriage: because of what it says in the Scriptures and because of what natural law says. In either case, Conservative Christians act as if their definition of marriage is as much a part of reality as gravity. Obviously, those who don't accept the Scriptures as God's Word will receive scorn from some Conservative Christians because they have rejected what is clearly God's Word.

But some other Conservative Christians understand the problems with forcing God's Word on society. They believe in religious freedom and they understand that the society is not the Church. But at the same time, they will work to prohibit same-sex marriage in society because of how they view natural law. Natural law, according to these other Conservative Christians, is based on how we were physically created to be--note the religious slant that already exists. Some of us believe that one of government's responsibilities is to enforce natural law. The problem here is that these Conservative Christians deny that there can be multiple versions of natural law. And we fail to recognize that our view of natural law comes from the Scriptures. So when we push government to legislate some portions of their view of natural law, especially with laws controlling sexual behaviors and marital relationships, we are seeking a backdoor way of controlling society and reaching a superior status to nonChristians in society.

It's not that I disagree with my fellow Conservative Christians' views of natural law. It is that both I don't see any Scriptural mandates for governments to enforce every aspect of natural law and I don't think it is fair that we assume we have the right to control the lives of unbelievers. Rather, what is legislated should result from Christians and nonChristians collaborating that our laws would both protect society from those who would do us harm and prevent most groups of Christians and nonChristians from being marginalized. Obviously, there should be some marginalization for those who would do harm to others.

Finally, other Conservative Christians oppose same-sex marriage because of how it violates the tradition definition of marriage. The adherence to tradition is always selective. If nation's forefathers clung to tradition, there would be no American Revolution. If those in the Civil Rights Movement were more loyal to tradition, we would still have segregation and Jim Crow. Such examples should not be used to imply that we should have no regard for tradition. These examples merely point out that tradition by itself is not an adequate reason to maintain a certain practice. In addition, the traditional view of marriage is based on the Scriptures or the Christian view of natural law. And so those who use tradition to defend their opposition to same-sex marriage in society also struggle with seeking a privileged position in society in terms of determining its laws.

So the crisis facing Conservative Christianity is not about changing sexual mores or changing definitions of marriage. Neither is it about past issues such as public monuments created to honor God's Word. The Church has every tool necessary to handle those challenges in evangelism. The crisis we face is whether or not we will share society with nonChristians as equals. Our crisis is whether or not we will work side by side with unbelievers in determining what laws are fair and necessary so that fewer groups are marginalized. We should note that marginalization of most groups comes only when some groups obtain a privileged position in society. 

The acquiring of a privileged position by some groups starts a pendulum swing. Again, most groups are marginalized when some groups become privileged. This establishes a societal version of the game King of the Hill. Some of the marginalized groups eventually turn the tables and scapegoat the previously privileged groups for their troubles. When this occurs, the same game continues only a switch occurs in the standings. Those who were last are now first and those who were first are now last. And if we are committed to morals and principles, our chief complaint will be against the game itself rather than who's in first place today.

But what could be said about seeking a privileged place in society by some Conservative Christians  can also be applied to America's role in the world. For too long, we have been uncritical of America's leadership position in the world. Too many of us have been so proud of the fact that America is the leader of the Free World that we have been blind to the apparent oxymoron that is a part of the above statement.  For here, we should ask the following questions: How can a part of the world be free if it submits to a leader? Also, why does any part of the world that is free need a leader? These questions undo the notion that America is the leader of the Free World.

But what is more important than the oxymoron is this, if we regard ourselves as being the leader of any part of the world, will our reactions to challenges presented by other nations or groups be controlled by absolute moral standards and principles or will such reactions revolve more around maintaining our leadership position and prestige? For history shows that we've all too often sacrificed absolute moral standards in how we react to nations that don't follow our lead. These sacrifices can be seen in how we have sponsored and/or conducted terrorist attacks in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan (we sponsored Bin Laden when a Russian approved government was in control there) or when we have supplanted democracies or democratic procedures with tyrants such as in Iran, Chile, Vietnam, and Greece just to name a few examples. 

Why do we seek to be a strong leader in the world? Is it not because we feel entitled, due to some perceived superiority, to control the world or parts of it? Again, the same King of Hill Scenario is in effect as it is in a nation when some group gains a privileged position.  The only difference between playing a domestic version of King of the Hill from a global one is found in the toys used by the players. In the global version, more of the toys used are weapons. And in an age when the proliferation of WMDs is inevitable, continuing that game does not bode well for anyone's future.