Whose Fault Is It?

Tim Keller (click here for a bio) has written a series of 4 articles on the fall and possible restoration of the American Church. His first article is about the falterings of Mainline Protestant churches. However, it is difficult to know whether the first article is more about the disarray in the American Church or in America itself because of the loss of influence that the American Church has had on society. He does have a concern for both falterings (click here for the article). 

In this article, Keller gives too rosy of a picture of both America and the American Church prior to the fall of Mainline Protestant churches and the 1960s. In fact, his view of how America has changed seems to be a bit white-male-Christian-centric. The failures that existed in America before the fall of the Mainline Protestant churches and the 1960s were glossed over and almost described as exceptions to the rule. What Keller misses from the good old days of America was when there seemed to be a national consensus on values that included:

1. Love of country
2. Love of family
3. Serving the community/caring for neighbors
4. Sexual chastity
5. Thrift
6. Generosity
7. Respect for authority

But this is where Keller's view of the past might be distorted by the lenses through which he sees America's past. White males had good reason to love their country back then. Did blacks? Many family problems were hidden. The fact that women were stuck in dysfunctional families because societal practices that made women significantly dependent on men to exist. Before the 1960s, women could be refused jobs or the buying of a home because of their biological sex. Women often needed their husbands' approval to get a loan or a credit card. A landlord could refuse to rent property to a woman with children.

Up through the 1960s, blacks had to endure Jim Crow laws and culture in the South and harsh segregation and intense prejudice in the North. Blacks could be beaten, tortured, mutilated, bludgeoned, and murdered by whites, both civilians and police, without accountability. Their basic rights were denied including the right to vote. And gone with the right to vote was the privilege of sitting on a jury. That meant that both blacks accused of crimes and whites who were accused of visiting violence on blacks were often tried in front of strongly biased juries. And all of that does not include many of the indignities and injustices that blacks suffered in this nation. An indicator of how bad it was for blacks before the 1960s could be seen in what America's first black MLB baseball player, Jackie Robinson, said about singing the national anthem. Interracial marriages were illegal in the majority of states.

Other races didn't fare well either. Native Americans were horribly treated. Latinos also faced brutal violence and harsh discrimination.

Though they were receiving better treatment by the 1950s, America's labor history is replete with government violence as local and state federal officials would persecute and questionably convict. There was also the murder labor activists and leaders.

As for the LGBT community, homosexual acts were criminalized and homosexuality itself was considered to be a mental illness and even a 'sociopathic personality disturbance and the government considered homosexuals to be security risks (click here for the source). They also suffered discrimination and violence.

Keller sees the 1960s as the turning point by which failures in the Mainline Church were beginning to have their full negative effects on the nation. Beginning in the 1960s, Keller sees the switch from more of a united, community-centered American society that had a shared set of religiously conservative Christian values to a society that was based on individualism and relative morality. And the result of the emphasis on individualism and relative morality is a fracturing of American society that produced hard-line schisms both in society and the Church.

In short, when Keller talks about the problems we see in American society today, he seems to compare them with the state of white America in the 1950s and before.

Now Keller doesn't believe that all was bad in the 1960s. He had expresses respect for Martin Luther King Jr because his movement appealed to a universal values and a higher authority. But that is the only rights movement that Keller expresses respect for.

According to Keller, the failures of the Mainline Church could be due to its embracing of Liberal Theology. That embracing began in either the late 19th or early 20th centuries. What Liberal Theology did was to deny the existence of the supernatural character of Jesus, His works, and His death and resurrection along with the supernatural method in which the Scriptures contain revelation rather than a progressive reflection on life. Liberal Theology then sought of find significance in the Scriptures by identifying the general principle of life and justice that could be found there. The Mainline Church then became a place where political causes and identity replaced the orthodox Christian view that the Church was a place for redeemed sinners. 

As a result, according to Keller, the population and influence of the Mainline Church lessened because people began to realize that they didn't need such a church to do what the mainline Church was doing. This is where individualism and moral relativity replaced reliance on a higher moral authority and natural law in both the Church and society. And because the values that Liberal Theology produced were not widely enough accepted in America, there are no common set of values in America today.

The time period that existed before the 1960s was a period of Christendom in America. Here we could define Christendom as a period where religiously conservative Christianity had a dominant hold on American values and its laws. While Keller wants to scapegoat the Mainline Church for this fall of Christendom and the fracturing of America, we really have to ask ourselves whether the pivotal time period of the 1960s was pointing out and protesting not just inconsistencies in America's Christendom, but its glaring errors and moral failures.

Here we should compare our current time period the religiously conservative Christian Church seeking to restore the Christendom that was lost with the Church during the time of the Apostles. During the latter time period, there was no Christendom. And as we read the New Testament, we don't see any effort or concern to establish Christendom during that time period. Now that doesn't prove anything about the value, or lack thereof, of Christendom. However, the 1st century Church was concerned with evangelism and maintaining a peaceful unity, faithfulness, and purity of the Church. That doesn't mean that we should have no concern for social justice. It is that such a concern should be a part of our evangelism and maintaining faithfulness in the Church. Thus, when we open our eyes to the full failure of Christendom in this nation, perhaps we would do better to follow the 1st century Church in doing the same. I say that as someone who disagrees with a significant portion of Keller's analysis of the past but shares his religiously conservative Christian theology.

A final word must be added here about the state of religiously conservative American Christianity today. While universal values and natural law has been portrayed by Keller as predominantly being a conservative concern and practice, many of these same Christians are exhibiting the greatest difficulty in accepting widely held views of our current situation consisting of climate change, the continued presence of systemic racism, gun violence, and the pandemic. Yes, our current situation and moral values are not the same things. However, accepting commonly held truths, whether they be factual truths or moral truths should be strongly connected with holding to universal values. And yet, Keller seems to be scapegoating Liberal Theology and the mainline Church for what ails this nation.

Is Oneself Not Big Enough To Be A Religiously Conservative Christian And A SJW?

For as long as I can remember, religiously conservative Christianity has, for the most part, always opposed those working for Social Justice. In the 1960s, many religiously conservative Christianity blindly supported the Vietnam War and Jim Crow. In fact, two major denominations, the SBC and the PCA, have passed resolutions publicly apologizing for their resistance to the Civil Rights Movement.

One could go farther back than that. Machen's feud with Liberal Theology went beyond their unfair treatment of him in the United Presbyterian Church and their misrepresentation of the Christian Faith. That is indicated by his rejection of everything they advocated and many of his followers have taken his place in persecuting everything about Liberal Theology including its social concerns.

If we want a recent example of religiously conservative Christianity's opposition to Social Justice, one only needs to look at the writings of its leaders in the buildup to the Supreme Court's  Obergefell decision. Not one leader saw the decision as one that concerned equality for the LGBT community in society. In fact, by trying to prevent the legalization of same-sex marriage in America, religiously conservative Christians were saying that America always needs to see such marriages as a stain on society and thus the LGBT community must always be marginalized to some degree rather than be recognized as equals, in society.

Is it any wonder then that Rev. William E. Alberts (click here for a brief bio) has been writing articles for Counterpunch that imply that religiously conservative Christians must leave their conservative faith in order to be able to oppose social injustices. The latest is called Beware Of Authoritarian Christians (click here for the article) and what that article says is that Christians who take the Scriptures seriously and who understand that God speaks authoritatively to us are a threat and thus are obstacles to Social Justice.
 
Non-conservative pposition to religiously conservative Christianity is not new. Back in 2005, I responded to a ZNet article that said that Christian Fundamentalism is not opposed to Social Justice (click here for my article, cannot locate the article I was responding to). What was key in that article was the accurate definition of Christian Fundamentalism.

Likewise, what is key in interpreting Alberts's article is the accurate interpretation of what Authoritarian Christians are. And it is there that the beginning weaknesses of Alberts's article become apparent.

On the other hand, Church History is not kind to my view that religiously conservative Christians can work for Social Justice. I would have to look long and hard to find examples of religiously conservative Christian leaders who do break away from their political conservatism to work for Social Justice. However, I can easily find regular individual religiously conservative Christians who do.

What does Alberts say in the above cited article? Alberts seems to say that acceptance of the historic Christian Faith is merely an example of authoritarianism. The following quotes show his disdain for the historic Christian Faith:

• However, many other Christians use The Bible to stress belief in the uniqueness of Jesus himself, not in the universal “Blessed are the peacemakers”-ethic of humanness he taught. For these Christians, first and foremost, Christianity is about right biblical belief, not just democratic behavior. Fundamental here is Jesus’ exclusivity as the only Son of God and savior of the world (John 14: 6), not the inclusivity underlying his story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37).
   
• For traditionalists, God’s unchanging “eternal“ sexual ethic” includes Jesus’ teaching, “ Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh?” (Matthew 19: 4-6) Another “God-breathed” Scripture “authoritative for our lives” is Paul the Apostle’s condemnation of homosexuality in Romans 1: 26-27: “Even their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.”

The above quotes from Alberts's article shows not only a denial of the historic Christian Faith, but a gross misrepresentation of it as well. Nowhere in the New Testament is faith in the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as God's Son and only savior of the world a contradiction the beatitude of 'Blessed are the peacemakers' or the story of the Good Samaritan. If Alberts correctly understood the point of that parable, then he would understand that that parable both tells us how to treat others while condemning us for not doing so.

In addition, Alberts misses the irrefutable logic that is in the historic Christian Faith regarding God's Word. If a superior being, whom we call God, created us for a purpose, it logically follows that that superior being not only can speak authoritatively to us, but will do so. The issue is whether Alberts believes that the God of the universe is a superior being to us.

Alberts's use of what is democratic to judge what is valid in the Scriptures indicates that he either he does not believe that God is a superior being or that we are sinful creatures--that we have fallen into sin is another tenet of Christian Fundamentalism. For Alberts says:

Christianity and authoritarianism are commonly believed to be at opposite ends of the democratic-autocratic continuum.

And

For these Christians, it is not about The Golden Rule of empathy between people, but about using biblically-based beliefs to rule over people. It is about the overriding authority of particular biblical pronouncements and required obedience to them. Such authority and obedience are actually fundamental characteristics of anti-democratic tendencies. Claiming that biblical passages are revelations from God does not make them true, nor demanding obedience to them any less authoritarian.

  
Alberts's use of democracy to filter out what is true Christianity from the Scriptures indicates that he has joined many Christian Fundamentalists who oppose Social Justice activism in particular practice: That practice is the inability or unwillingness to distinguish between life in the Church and life in society. For far too many Christian Fundamentalists, life in society should pretty much mirror life in the Church. Thus they believe they have the right to impose their beliefs on society. For Alberts, it's the converse of that so that he believes that society has the right to impose its standards on the Church.

Alberts goes on to say that because of the authoritarian nature of the historic Christian Faith, that followers of that faith have fallen prey to the Authoritarian Personality Type described by Adorno and others. The study of the Authoritarian Personality Type is a result of much reflection on what occurred in among regular German civilians during the Nazi years. Though it is true that so many followers of the historic Christian Faith have embraced active and passive forms of the Authoritarian Personality Type, that is not because of the historic Christian Faith and its contents.

For Alberts to make good on his accusation that mere acceptance of the historic Christian Faith is an exercise in that kind of authoritarianism, he must show that such acceptance meets the key traits of that personality type. But that claim grossly misrepresents what is involved in those who succumb to the Authoritarian Personality Type. For part and parcel of that personality type is not just the mere acceptance of some recognized authority figures or set of traditions, what is always a part of the Authoritarian Personality Type is when aggression and hostility are shown to those who challenge accepted authority figures and a given set of traditions. Without that aggression and hostility, those who hold to traditional views and follow recognized authority figures are simply followers and even teachers of those beliefs.

Alberts does fail to mention a pertinent problem of the initial description of the Authoritarian Personality Type. It was initially criticized as being skewed in the favor of non-conservatives in that the traits associated with that personality type were found solely in conservatives. Only later did the traits associated with the Authoritarian Personality Type expand to recognize the authoritarianism that can occur in non-conservatives. And hanging out with the political left as I do, not liberal Democrats mind you, I've seen close to as much authoritarianism in the Left, as well as among Liberals, as I've seen in conservatives. The authoritarianism is the same, what is different are the set of authority figures and traditions that are aggressively defended.

Another flaw in Alberts's view of the historic Christian Faith can be found in the following quote:

Sadly, many traditionalist Christians are anti-introspective and thus lack a psychological understanding of personality and sexual development, which would counter a paternalistic need to reconcile others to their beliefs. Psychological insight enables self-understanding, which enables empathy, which enables practicing The Gold Rule of doing to others as you would want them to do you – all of which enable The United Methodist Church’s slogan, “Open Hearts. Open Minds. Open doors.” More than traditionalists realize, they are believed to be “fashion[ing” God in the “image” of “large areas of [their] own inner life.”

According to the parable of the two men praying taught by Jesus (click here for Luke 18:9-14), nothing could be more anti-introspective than to deny one's own sinfulness and because of that sinfulness, one can neither trust in one's own goodness nor see oneself as being superior to others. Why did Jesus compare the Pharisee who saw no sin in himself with the tax collector? It was because those who trusted in their own righteousness and saw themselves as being superior to others exhibited the anti-introspection that Alberts claims to be talking about. For how does the parable begin?

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:

How is it that if Jesus told this parable to religious leaders who denied their own sinfulness, that Jesus's parable does not also apply to Alberts and his apparent denial of human sinfulness?

Finally, we should address the burr in Alberts seat that drives this article of his. His article is simply an attempt to psychologically shame the United Methodist Church for not accepting practicing homosexuals into their  leadership. Such a rejection denies homosexuals from reaching their God right to find 'human fulfillment' in how their sexuality.

Never mind that refusing to ordain LGBTQ persons, or allow same-sex marriages are glaring obstacles to their “human fulfillment.”

Now if Alberts was complaining about how the vast majority of leaders in the historic Christian Faith want society to marginalize the LGBT community, he would have a very valid complaint about authoritarianism in the religiously conservative Christian Church. But that isn't his complaint. Again, because he expects the Church to mirror society and he appears to deny the sinfulness of people, his complaint is not valid. He forgets the many times that New Testament writers call on the Church to be different from the world and that includes in terms of its sexual purity.

In essence, Alberts's article is typical criticism of the historic Christian Faith from a Liberal Theological and Post Modernism views. And because of that, his criticisms are either non-starters or include misrepresentations of the Christian Faith. In addition, he has so defined and used the definition and traits of the Authoritarian Personality Type so as to indicate, at least in the issue of the Methodist Church refusing to accept the ordination of practicing homosexuals, in a way that ironically makes him and those who agree with him invulnerable to practicing the same confidence in one's own righteousness that the Pharisee from the parable of the two men praying displayed.

However, we should note that far too many of religiously conservative Christians have embraced the Authoritarian Personality. It just isn't for the reasons that are specified by Alberts.