America As A Nation Is Much Older Than America Is As A Democracy

Europe and North America are facing a battle between Democracy with equality vs authoritarianism with hierarchy. Today's conservative populous groups favor the latter. 

The more groups that are recognized as having equal rights in society in a given nation, the more that nation is leaning toward Democracy with equality. The more that a nation operates by giving preferential treatment to a given set of group(s) based on ethnicity, economic class, and/or ideology, the more that country embraces authoritarianism with hierarchy. What muddies the waters here is how groups that promote authoritarianism with hierarchy are treated.

Why is equality a requirement for a democracy? Jeff Halper explains on pg 74 of his book An Israeli In Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel when comparing ethnocracy with democracy

'An ethnocracy is the opposite of a democracy, although it might incorporate some elements of democracy such as universal citizenship and elections. It arises when one particular group—the Jews in Israel, the Russians in Russia, the Protestants in pre-1972 Northern Ireland,  the whites in apartheid South Africa,  the Shi’ite Muslims of Iran, the Malay of Malaysia and, if they had their way, the white Christian fundamentalist in the US—seizes control of the government and the armed forces in order to enforce a regime of exclusive privilege over other groups in what is in fact a multi-ethic or multi-religious society. Ethnocracy, or ethno-nationalism, privileges ethnos over demos. whereby one’s ethnic affiliation, be it defined by race, descent, religion, language or national origin, takes precedence over citizenship in determining to whom a country actually “belongs.” Israel is referred to explicitly by its political leaders as a “Jewish Democracy.”

Thomas Jefferson put it a little bit differently by saying what a democracy becomes when the majority does not respect the equal rights of the minority in his 1801 Inaugural Address

'All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression'

In other words, unless minority groups are recognized and treated as having equal rights, you have groups that do not have an equal share of the nation as well as oppression.

The more consistently we apply the inclusion of equality with democracy, the more we are compelled to relabel what the U.S has been for most of its existence. Until lately, America has been a nation that is not a democracy. And the more that political conservatives answer back that we were created to be a republic, the more they show that they do not understand the different forms that a democracy can take and that they are in favor of hierarchy provided that they are the ones with the power over all others. So considering that, should we be surprised at the support that my fellow politically conservative evangelicals have shown Trump and how they will be reluctant to withdraw that support even though they feel a building tension inside? 

Could we say that America was a democracy from 1787 to 1865? Blacks, Native Americans, and women could better answer that question. Could we say that America was a democracy from the start of  Reconstruction  to the 1920s? Blacks, Women, and Native Americans could better answer that question. Could we say that America was a democracy from the 1920s through the rest of Jim Crow? Blacks and women could better answer that question. Has America become a democracy since the days of the Civil Rights Movement? Blacks and the LGBT community could better answer that question--btw the LGBT community could answer all of the previous questions too. If you don't count the dominance that the wealthy have had over our government, we have been, ethnically speaking, coming closer to becoming a democracy than we ever had in the history of our nation. And that is because more and more groups were having their equal rights recognized by their governments and by more and more people in society.

And so America's transition to Democracy with equality has been very slow and long journey as it has been in much of the rest of the world. Before that, authoritarianism with hierarchy has ruled the day. And so perhaps we should not be surprised when we see groups throughout Europe and North America vying to reestablish authority with hierarchy. Once that has been reestablished, it is goodbye to democracy.

One of the keys to Trump's populism was the Obergefell Decision. Why? It is because it was after that SCOTUS decision when many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians were galvanized in fighting with their backs against the wall a culture war of their own making. The final spark that sustained the religiously conservative Christian initiated culture war was the emergence of the Trans community from the margins of society. And so the expansion of LGBT rights energized religiously conservative Christian to continue the culture wars. Without equal rights being recognized for the LGBT community, Trump might not have had enough ammunition to fan the flames and exploit the culture wars.

Our return back to the past, to authoritarianism with hierarchy, was well marketed by the Trump campaign. That kind of authoritarianism was sold as being ethnically based by demonizing DEI--religion is an ethnicity. And though the concerns of those who hated DEI have been initially based on religion, our actual return to authoritarianism is primarily economic class based--as the Trump Presidency has shown. In other words, what we are seeing is further cementing of a classocracy, Oligarchy in our case, wearing ethnocratic clothing. In other words we just experienced a partial bait and switch. And so we have begun our journey to become like Russia. Today's Russia is an oligarchy with a strongman leader and has a religious façade.

And so as we lose our democracy, let's remember that democracy was never really entrenched in America. And that is because, just as it is in the world, America's base has always been looking to dominate whether that pertains to dominating domestically or globally. What we are seeing today is tragic. It is like seeing a child die and so we are now robbed from seeing what that child would become if they were given an opportunity to fully mature.

Did Traditional Christianity Set The Stage For Trump?

If we want to gain at least a partial understanding why so many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians have been following Trump, their first step is to read about the authoritarian personality. Certainly, reading about that personality type will not tell us everything that there is to know about why many of us, not including me, have remained faithful to Trump. But it will give us a good introduction.

 Why study the authoritarian personality type in order to begin to learn about why many of my fellow believers have been following Trump? We should note that the appeal of fascism and ethnocentrism triggered studies into why the appeal existed. The emergence of leaders like Hitler and Mussolini were key examples of fascism and ethnocentrism. Fromm, from the Frankfurt School started to talk about the appeal of these isms in the 1930s while Adorno co-lead a study on why people responded the way they did. These began the studies of the Authoritarian Personality.

We should note today's emergence of highly authoritarian leaders who demonize their opponents and present themselves as messianic leaders or saviors. We should also note the ethnocentrism that is behind some of the growth in authoritarianism in nations like Hungary, Israel, or Turkey. And so overly strong leaders are not the only fulcrum for authoritarianism. Another source of focus for authoritarianism can be ideology while yet another could be political party. Here, the Soviet Union serves as an example. In any case, the focus of the authoritarian is that there is only savior for the people. That one savior can be an 'I' as in a person or 'We' as in a group. And because that is what is taught, a high degree of conformity to what the savior demands is required as well as a fear and hostility toward those are different.

We should note one of the first weaknesses of what was written about the Authoritarian Personality was that it was skewed against conservatives. That means that only conservatives were cited for this type of personality flaw. But it wasn't too long until the same kind of personality was recognized as being in vogue in "communist"--they were nevertheless anti-Capitalist--nations which should not have been difficult considering leaders like Stalin and Mao. Accurately measuring the presence or degree of authoritarianism in a person was another weakness. 

One of the best brief introductions into this type of personality was written by Erich Fromm (click here for the article). In his article, Fromm distinguishes between two kinds of Authoritarian Personalities (leaders are active authoritarians and followers are passive authoritarians), he identifies the traits that they share, and he mentions why people develop this kind of personality. And though there is more to say about the Authoritarian Personality type than what Fromm wrote, his article gives a good overview of the personality type.

But what does all of the above have to do with my fellow religiously conservative Christians and their yearning for a leader like Trump? I can give an answer to that question having been a religiously conservative Christian (a.k.a., flaming fundamentalist) for most of my life. One of the first things we are taught in conservative Christianity is the need to submit to authorities. In fact it seems that we are encouraged to seek authority structures and figures to submit to. Whether you are a child and must submit to your parents and then almost every other adult in your life, or you are a wife and you must submit to your husband, or you are employed and you must submit to your boss, or you are a believer and you must submit to your church's authorities, or you are a citizen and you must submit to the different governing authorities, there seem to always be some kind of authority figure to whom we are told we are dependent on for instructions. In other words, egalitarian relationships are rarely even briefly mentioned.

If you add our need to submit to all of the governing authorities above us to teachings about how the world is divided between us and them, believers and unbelievers, and that those unbelievers will eventually start to persecute us if we believers are being faithful enough, it should not be difficult to see how insular we religiously conservative Christians can become. And by being insular, it means that we prefer to stay in a bubble or echo chamber where many of our leaders have told us to stay so that we are protected from being led astray.

But how did the Republican Party become our political hiding place from the corruption of the world? My speculation tells me that it started with J. Gresham Machen's book, Christianity And Liberalism, where Machen correctly distinguishes between genuine Christianity and liberal theology, the brands liberal and conservative seem to have been generalized to other spheres such as political and economic ideologies and political parties. 

We should also note in Machen's case is that that he was unfairly treated to a significant degree. We should also note here that after liberal theology denied the deity of Christ along with the  supernatural intervention of God through Christ, acts of mercy and working for justice became a substitute for believing the Gospel. And thus some of Machen's reactions to liberal theology could have easily been spread to liberal politics and liberal ideologies since all of them, like liberal theologians, care about helping people. In addition, Machen held to the traditional values of the South which included some racist views. 

Now Machen's political views, except his racist views, still continues in some Reformed circles, what about the rest of the Evangelical world. Here we need to look at the work of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell who were able to solder religiously conservative Christianity to political conservatism.  And that included a political conservative view of America's history which puts a high value on conservative patriotism and what they view as traditional views of America.

And so how does this tie into the Authoritarian Personality type? When we read Fromm, we see that there are two kinds of Authoritarian Personalities: leaders and followers. Both kinds have become dependent on each other. Authoritarian followers look to attach themselves to bigger than life leaders, political groups, and/or ideas to give themselves a sense of significance and personal connections that they did not have before. For those people, groups, or ideas to be big enough to provide that sense of significance, they must at least be approaching all powerful or all knowing level. And that tells us the kind of thinking that followers most often employ. Followers employ a kind of all-or-nothing thinking by hold to a black-white worldview. And thus those who disagree with our hero/political group/idea, they must be against us because who or what we follow has all of the answers.

Authoritarian leaders depend on a very high degree of allegiance from their followers to give themselves the sense of significance and connection with others that they seek. Without enough people giving the authoritarian leader a high degree of loyalty, the leaders themselves feel vulnerable. However, they cannot afford to appear vulnerable to followers who are expecting larger than life heroes to follow.

Now the descriptions of authoritarian leaders and followers mostly, if not totally, come from Fromm. But what From contrasts with the Authoritarian Personality type shines a spotlight on why us religiously conservative Christians are vulnerable to succumb to the appeal of authoritarianism. The opposite of the Authoritarian Personality is a person whose maturity, love, and reasoning enables them to be independent--btw, Fromm does distinguish between relying on the views of authoritarian leaders, groups, or ideas from relying on experts in a given field. And if you remember how us religiously conservative Christians are constantly being guided to find the right authority figures and structures to submit to in order to protect ourselves from going astray, why we are vulnerable to authoritarian appeals should become obvious now.

Here we should note that when religiously conservative Christians, like Robertson or Falwell, wedded political conservatism, the Republican Party in particular, to the religiously conservative Christianity, they used issues like the pro-life issue. The fact that the religiously conservative Christian view of pro-life reveals how their black-white worldview operates. By exclusively emphasizing the right to life for the unborn, Pro-life has become defined, for my fellow religiously conservative Christians, solely by the abortion issue. Similar to that is today's exclusive emphasis on the family in responding to the LGBT community. That threats to post-born life from toxins in the environment, poverty, war, and certain diseases do not qualify as pro-life issues because the exclusive emphasis is on the abortion issue.

Now we should note that even before us religiously conservative Christians became a political force, just the authoritarianism from our religious lives and how that spilled into our social views has been around since the beginning of our nation. And our penchant for authoritarianism has spread well beyond the current conservative political and ideological boundaries. We can now see authoritarianism in both Democratic liberals and from some Leftists.

Thus, conservatism does not have a monopoly on authoritarianism. However, the more enamored one is with a leader, political party, or ideology, the more vulnerable one becomes to the vile clutches of authoritarianism.

And so, what do we see in Donald Trump and his followers that we did not see before Trump entered the political scene? With Trump we have a self-proclaimed Messianic figure who claims that he is the only one who can solve our problems. Us religiously conservative Christians should have seen red flags of blasphemy and its sub sequential idolatry flying high over his campaign. 

But many of us didn't because we preferred not to see those flags. And that was because many of us wanted a Trump like leader to restore order to America whose changes have come too quickly and too disruptive for our comfort. And considering how many of us were taught that America was founded as a Christian nation, these changes were also seen as being unfair and became oppressive in our eyes. And that doesn't count how we see these already intolerable changes as the harbinger of worse things to come.

If you can then imagine the fear, trepidation, and anger many of us, not  me though, feel over what has become of the present and what will seem to be our future, you should be able to understand why Trump appeals to so many of us. And that it is reasonable for Trump's persona and leadership so appeals to many of us religiously conservative Christians tells us so much about why Christianity is in decline in our nation. Anger over the present and fear of the future has caused us to choose poorly. In the meantime, real threats to our future, such as climate change, poverty, authoritarian regimes, and nuclear war easily fly in under our radar while the much of the world watches in horror. 

How Should We Now Do Christian Apologetics?

 As stated in a previous article, many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians, especially our leaders and influencers, seem to be experiencing an apologetic panic. What is an apologetic panic?

First, let's define apologetics. Apologetics isn't necessarily about apologizing, though that  is should be in this particular case. Apologetics is about giving a verbal defense of an idea or group. Thus Christian Apologetics would consist of defending the Christian faith. And what The Keller Center For Cultural Apologetics wants to accomplish is to use education to produce a new generation of people who can adequately defend and promote the Christian faith in today's culture.

Second, what is an apologetic panic? Panic itself is a word used to describe a strong, sudden fear. Sometimes, feeling panic causes us to overreact to a problem. Thus a Christian apologetic panic is an intense fear of what is in the current culture and society to the point of overreacting by trying too hard to say too much.

Third, the problem that many religiously conservative Christian leaders and influences are reacting to is the end of Christendom. That is it is the end of a time period when religiously conservative Christianity held a certain prominent influence and informal control over culture. And it is the end of Christendom and what has replaced it that has caused the apologetic panic we see today.

And so now we come to the article that will be reviewed here. It is an article by Collin Hansen (click here for a bio) about an initiative by The Gospel Coalition that is named after Tim Keller, who is a deservedly famous and well-respected conservative Christian leader,. The Gospel Coalition has started a Christian apologetics enter to stop the decline of Christianity's influence over culture and hopefully to recover at least some of the influence that Christianity once had. Collin Hansen is the executive director of this project. And here we should note that Hansen doesn't believe that cultural apologetics is the or the best way of defending the faith. But it will be taught at the Keller Center.

According to Hansen (click here for Hansen's article), one of the stated objectives of The Keller Center For Cultural Apologetics is to find a broad perspective of where our culture is heading and how to talk about, or use language, to promote Christianity as being the most beneficial influence for our culture. At this point, one must wonder whether we have ventured from defending as done in apologetics to what should be called a cultural evangelism in the promoting of the faith. 

And perhaps the direction of the Keller Center consists of both cultural apologetics and cultural evangelism. For in defending Christianity, especially its moral values, we are sticking up for what has been replaced in our now secular culture. And in stating that because Christianity offers the best hope for how people live, we are trying to persuade people to choose either all of Christianity or significant parts of it. One part of Christianity that the Center wants to promote in our culture is much of the language that Christianity uses to describe the life and the world around us.

Hansen then gives an overall description of Christian cultural apologetics as he sees it. And again, we see a mix of both cultural apologetics and cultural evangelism:

Cultural apologetics, then, helps unbelievers want the gospel to be true even before they may fully understand this good news. We offer the beauty of the lordship of Christ as opposed to the ugliness of the lordship of the principalities and powers (Eph. 6:12).

Then citing a book by Ted Turnau, the message of Christian cultural apologetics accomplishes the task  by what sharing with the unbeliever what Christianity says about 'goodness, beauty, justice, hope, peacefulness, vitality, and mercy.'

Later on, Hansen repeats what has been said earlier about The Keller Center's approach to apologetics. It is to provide both a profound overall assessment of where our culture is going from a sound theologically conservative perspective.

Hansen then quotes Christian Smith on the current cultural dilemma in which we find ourselves. For what we are seeing today is a significant rejection of the past and the imposition of so much that is new today. And in so quoting him, he is describing our current cultural situation while neglecting why we are in that situation. 

What Smith calls the post-enlightenment period should be referred to as the Post Modern period. It is the Post Modern period because not only does Post Modernism  reject the Modernism with the Enlightenment, it also rejects Pre Modernism with its tinted glasses of faith. And the reason why it rejects both is because of the historic outcomes that both periods have either produced or have been associated with. Those outcomes include wars, exploitation, imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism, classism, and a host of other problems. And though we religiously conservative Christians would like to say that Post Modernism misunderstands us Pre Modern faith people by blaming us for those grave injustices, we need to first examine history to see if Post Modernism's assessment of us is at least understandable if not significantly correct.

In other words, part of Christian Apologetics today should include an apology tour of more depth than the one that was attributed to President Obama when he referred to some of America's past sins. Failure to go on this apology tour can produce the same results for us which the 2016 U.S. Presidential election produced.

In that election year, Donald Trump successfully portrayed himself as the outsider to the 'swamp' of Washington D.C. Never mind that Trump's picture of himself carried with it some gross inaccuracies, Trump gained a lot of support from people who viewed his opposition with contempt.

Why did Trump gain that support from so many people? It is partially because people recognized that there are things that are significantly wrong with the system and the establishment sectors of both major parties would not own up to their sins and failures. Thus, representatives from the establishment sector of both major parties did not have, in the eyes of the public, the credibility to counter Trump's claims.

So too, we have a problem with the period when Christianity held sway over the culture--this period is otherwise known as Christendom. People could recognize the many failures of Christendom and people associated those failures with the conservative Christian faith. And religiously conservative Christians failed to own up to enough of its failures and sins to do adequate damage control for the wrongs practiced during Christendom. This failure to own up to its mistakes and sins has cost religiously conservative Christianity much of its credibility in the eyes of many non political conservatives. And thus secular ideologies and isms are making inroads not just in society at large, but in the Church too.

So the question becomes for The Keller Center For Cultural Apologetics, are its people going to be honest about the failures and sin of Christendom that significantly contributed to the many social injustices that has produced the rejection of much of the past. Here we should note that Post Modernism doesn't reject religion per se, it objects to and argues against those religious faiths that make absolute exclusive truth claims. And, again, the historical outcomes of the claims made is the reason for their rejection.

If the teachings from The Keller Center For Cultural Apologetics does not acknowledge the failures of Christendom, then message from that center will have little to no credibility to those who are not political conservatives. In addition, the message from the Keller Center would basically be saying that whereas forefathers might have made some mistakes in the past, we now know how to rule over culture right.

But something must be taught at this Keller Center. That is that while it teaches its students about the Gospel and Biblical values, it must teach its students on how to work with unbelievers in society to build a society and culture that is free from Christendom. That is the only way in which we can interact with society without seeking the kind of position in society that Christianity had under Christendom which hurt the reputation of the Gospel. For while Christianity had a privileged place in society and culture during Christendom, people were exploited and marginalized. And it is that exploitation and marginalization of others that have caused many to turn a deaf ear to what religiously conservative Christianity says. In addition, by portraying Christianity as having a monopoly on truth and wisdom, we will be tempted to justify that position by trying too hard to say too much.

One has to respect the intentions and the efforts of those who are starting this new center for cultural apologetics. They care about the Gospel and they care about people. At the same time, those who are directing the efforts of this center for cultural apologetics must acknowledge at least most of the failures and sins of Christendom. Otherwise, regardless of their intentions and knowledge, they will end up repeating the errors and sins from the past.

Are We Religiously Conservative American Christians Turning Into A Cult?

 When I was in high school and college, there was a great book for religiously conservative Christians (a.k.a., flaming fundamentalists) like me to read. That book was called The Kingdom Of The Cults by Walter Martin. And, according to the book, the first telltale sign that a group was a cult was its bad theology. In other words, their theology was so wrong that it could no longer be called a Christian faith. And that tells people something about what we religiously conservative Christians believe about cults. Cults are something that people from other faiths get involved with, not us.

But in considering the evangelical ties to Trump, in part due to the number of qualities he shares with the characteristics of cult leaders, one would rightfully already expect that perhaps at least some religiously conservative Christians have already joined a cult. That however, leaves those religiously conservative Christians who are not enamored by Trump off the hook, right? Well maybe not.

Consider one of the statements made by Harry Reed made in a lecture recorded on video and posted on the Ligonier website, which is a religiously conservative Protestant organization that is respected for its intellectual rigor among religiously conservative Christians from the Reformed Tradition. Reeder stated that those who are promoting the current cultural revolution, which he opposes, are big business, big government, media, journalism, and the academy (click here for the video). Now switch back to Trump fans and see if their list of what sources of information to avoid are similar with the list that Reeder gave.

What is the significance of that list? One of the ways by which cults work is to isolate their members from outside influences. And so think about whom religiously conservative Christians, whether they are Trump fans or not, are told to not trust. It is those who hold to different views some of which might add important correctives to what we believe about the world. We only need to go to Church History to see how our leaders have steered us away from corrective information. When Heliocentrism was being advanced, leaders from both the Reformation and the Roman Church adamantly rejected and verbally attacked those advancing the theory. But their rejection didn't disprove Heliocentrism. Their rejection meant that those Christians who unquestionably followed their leaders remained in the dark as to the earth's relationship to the sun and other planets and the universe was.

Religiously conservative Christianity has had some other brushes with science and has ended up with a mixed record. And our past losses should tell us that, though we can have both a significant amount of trust in our leaders with a health dose of skepticism; we cannot afford to blindly trust them.

Reeder's statement is a call for those listening to engage in at least a partial isolation from the world. It is an informational isolation to be precise. And promoting isolation is an important method cults use to create conformity in their group.

But let's see if there are any other characteristics of us religiously conservative Christians have with those who have been trapped in cults. 

Another trait of concern here is the level of trust members are told to put in their leaders. Now here, we should remember that one of the characteristics of cult leaders is that they are charismatic. And if you ever hung out with a bunch of religiously conservative Christians from the Reformed tradition, one of the traits missing by both followers and leaders is charisma. 

Now we are not like the Roman Church who has the Pope, but we do have leaders from the past. For religiously conservative Reformed Christians, those leaders in whom we are told to place almost absolute, if not absolute, trust in are our standards: our confessions of faith and catechisms. Those who wish to hold offices in many conservative Reformed denominations are expected to subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith and its catechisms. Also, office holders and congregants are expected to follow other Reformed standards such as the Heidelberg Catechism. The conservative side of the Lutheran Church, such as the LCMS, have their own set of standards to subscribe to. Please note that pew sitters are not required to subscribe to the standards like office holders are required to subscribe to. And those office holders are allowed to list exceptions they have. But the exception list has to be small. However, the degree agreement with the Standards. Also note that there are teachings from our standards that cannot be compromised without destroying the Christian Faith. But not all teachings from our standards fit in that category.

The issue here is that the level of agreement one is expected to have with the standards of a given denomination is very high. And if you add to that the significant semi-isolation that Reeder and others have suggested, we now see two key characteristics that we religiously conservative Christians share with those who are cult members. One is informational isolation. And with that, we see another trait: the control of information. And when we compare the degree of trust in which we put in our standards, we can experience a significant vulnerability to being indoctrinated.

Other traits include a self-degradation. If you ever read the Westminster Catechism's commentary on the Ten Commandments, one would be reminded of what use to be termed in football as 'piling on.' For that is what the Westminster Standards do when talking about how sinful we are. Just read what the Westminster Larger Catechism lists what is forbidden by the Commandment prohibiting the committing of adultery (click here for the source):

'The sins forbidden in the seventh commandment, besides the neglect of the duties required, are, adultery, fornication, rape, incest, sodomy, and all unnatural lusts; all unclean imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections; all corrupt or filthy communications, or listening thereunto; wanton looks, impudent or light behavior, immodest apparel; prohibiting of lawful, and dispensing with unlawful marriages; allowing, tolerating, keeping of stews, and resorting to them; entangling vows of single life, undue delay of marriage; having more wives or husbands than one at the same time; unjust divorce, or desertion; idleness, gluttony, drunkenness, unchaste company; lascivious songs, books, pictures, dancings, stage plays; and all other provocations to, or acts of uncleanness, either in ourselves or others.'

One can certainly understand much of what is prohibited. But note how drunkeness, gluttony, idleness, among other behaviors, are thrown into the mix about adultery. Note that keeping 'unchaste company' is a violation of the commandment. And so how are we to minister to some of the same kind of people to whom Jesus ministered in person and hung out with if we were to follow what the Larger Catechism says about prohibiting adultery?

The trait of being unmercifully hard on oneself is shared by many who grew up in dysfunctional homes. I know that I have, and continue to have, that trait all too many times because I grew up with an alcoholic father and a mother who had her own significant struggles. I know others whose sources of dysfunction are different who also share that same struggle.. And unless I miss my guess from reading the Westminster Larger Catechism's commentary on the Ten Commandments, at least some of the writers of the Westminster Standards also grew up learning to suffer with that trait. 

And it isn't that we should not note how sinful we are as people. It is that, if we are not careful, we can indulge in a harmful inner self-flagellation that makes us more vulnerable to becoming cult members. And what is deceptive here is that inner self-flagellation appears as a badge of honor to many of us who hold to the Reformed Theological beliefs.

I see that so many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians have shown a penchant for our informational isolation. Many, but not all of them, have joined the Trump followers. And so now they are denying the clear realities of the pandemic and vaccines, systemic racism in our nation, the validity of the 2020 Presidential election, and climate change despite the overwhelming evidence that constantly challenges our faith. And since the 2015 Obergefell SCOTUS decision, we have increasingly isolated ourselves from legitimate sources of information in the world. 

Why have we started to isolate ourselves more? One of the reasons can be found in what is preached from the pulpits of many religiously conservative churches. It is a message of fear. It is a message that tells us pew sitters that we will be persecuted more and more for our faith because Christianity is no longer the dominant influencer on culture. Unfortunately, we anticipate persecution because we have learned to confuse disagreement with hostility. And we have not been able to distinguish those who are hostile to us because we are still trying to impose our values on them from those who are hostile to us because of the message of the Gospel. And realize that developing an us vs. them mentality is part of how cults work.

We need to stop and check if being in a cult is not just something that others are vulnerable to.

References

• https://janjalalich.com/blog/behavioral-control-system/
• https://janjalalich.com/help/characteristics-associated-with-cults/
• https://carm.org/about-religions/what-are-some-signs-and-practices-of-a-cult/

 

Neglecting The Log In One's Own Eye: Conservative Christian Culture Imperialism

 In a recent Mortification of Spin podcast, the hosts, Carl Trueman (click here for a bio) and Todd Pruitt (click here for a very brief bio) address the subject of culture wars. In that podcast, Trueman and Pruitt not only engage in some seslf-congratulatory behavior in the conflict, they, Trueman in particular, equate what should be the Christian view of culture wars with conservatism. But more importantly, they show a complete misunderstanding of what a culture war is. And thus they mistakenly equate culture wars with how one or both sides address the other  (click here for a link to the podcast).

In their podcast, Trueman and Pruitt discuss where the term 'culture war' came from. According to them, the first use of the term was made by Pat Buchanan when he was involved in politics. If memory serves, Buchanan, an authoritarian at heart, warned fellow conservatives of the advances that non-conservatives were making in becoming culturally influential. And thus Buchanan was warning his fellow conservatives that conservatives would be losing control over culture and society. Such a warning provides a context necessary for understanding the culture wars that we are experiencing today. That context involves a concept not mentioned in my hearing or reading; that context is Culture Imperialism.

Here we should note that before the culture wars began, conservatives had a certain sway over culture to the extent of not only having laws that would enforce some of the values promoted by religiously conservative Christians, but society was marginalizing some who didn't follow those values. We could call this time period one of Conservative Christian Culture Imperialism. In particular, many of those values had to do with sexual practices. Homosexuals in particular were one of the whipping boys of  Conservative Christian Culture Imperialism.  But we should note that before the end of the Civil Rights Movement, people of color were often targets of this Conservative Christian Imperialism because of some of the ties between religiously conservative Christianity and white supremacy. And, we can use the word 'Imperialism' rather than 'Dominance' because this dominance was once held to throughout Western Civilization.

What justified this Conservative Christian Culture Imperialism was paternalism. Conservative Christianity claimed that the enforcing of its values was what's best for all societies. And thus Conservative Christianity should have some degree of control over the values society was suppose to promote and practice. So, in other words, this Conservative Christian Culture Imperialism was an exercise in Christian paternalism. And though not using the same terminology, this concept of Christian Paternalism was alluded, by Trueman in particular, as he talked about how Christians need to get the message out about what is good for society.

And so while Trueman and Pruitt seem to be singing the Things Ain't What They Use To Be blues about not only the acceptance of homosexuality and the new approaches to gender identity, Thepy seemed to have forgot, or perhaps favored, the context from which this new acceptance emerged. It arose from Conservative Christian Culture Imperialism and the desire to eliminate, and probably forever prevent, a return of that imperialism that has caused so many abuses and atrocities committed against those from the LGBT community and others.

Here we should note that the efforts to address and correct long standing  social injustices often result in a phobic type reaction to the past so that beliefs and practices that which were accidentally associated with those past injustices are grouped to together with those beliefs and practices that actually contributed to the injustices. Thus the proverbial baby is often tossed out with the bathwater approach is taken. And that is because of the past injustices, a great reluctance or even complete refusal to extend any effort to distinguish between those beliefs and behaviors that were accidentally associated with the injustices from those beliefs and behaviors that actually contributed to those injustices.

While Trueman and Pruitt equate the hostility of one's interaction with those who hold to different cultural values as being part of culture wars, such is not necessarily true. Rather, if we understand culture wars as a certain kind of response to culture imperialism, then the way to avoid culture wars is to resist culture imperialism and work for culture coexistence instead. That instead of seeking to dominate, we look to share culture and society with others as equals.

What culture coexistence for my fellow religiously conservative Christians and those in the LBGT community could look like is that while both sides would have the right to fully and publicly express what their values are, both sides would advocate for full equality in society for those from the other side.

Of course that means that some beliefs could not be promoted. Those beliefs would be those that deny equality for those who hold to other beliefs. Generally speaking, we already do this in terms of religion and call it the freedom of religion. And we point to the 1st Amendment as supplying the grounds for the coexistence of faiths in our nation.

In short, Trueman and Pruitt, though having some justified criticisms of the new enforced  'orthodoxy' regarding gender identity, need to take a different approach to the new orthodoxy. For example, both many religiously conservative Christians and those from the LGBT community have oversimplified the biological sex vs. gender identity conflict by conflating one side with the other. For while one side states because they are the same, one's biological sex, a physical entity, should dictate what one's gender identity, a social-psychological entity, must be, the other side reverses that. We need to adequately readdress that conflict so that neither biological sex nor gender identity are used to override the other. 

We religiously conservative Christians in America and those from the LGBT movement should work for each other's full equality in society. For doing so is to promote culture coexistence. And though I dislike reducing complex issues to binary terms, I'm afraid that the only alternative to culture coexistence is to conduct culture war in order to establish or maintain culture imperialism or dominance.

The Chalenge For Religiously Conservative Christians

In an ever changing world, we religiously conservative Christians face a monumental challenge for as long as we live. That challenge is to remain faithful while living in an ever changing world.

Why is that so challenging? It is challenging because our faith ties us to specific truths from the past. Those truths must be clinged to  if we are to maintain our ties with that past and our faith. At the same time, the world has been constantly changing since the time period from which those truths came from. Those changing times sometimes changes how the truths we hold must be lived out in the world.

For us religiously conservative Christians, we have often held to the truths of our faith in ways that seem to deny or dismiss the changes that have occurred in the world. Why would we deny or dismiss those changes? Because those changes demand that we do some things differently from what our past seems to have taught us. And we have fear that if we make too many changes, we will separate ourselves from the basic truths of our past.

So many of us religiously conservative Christians have relied too heavily on what a select number of past Christians have done and taught to both understand and respond to an ever changing world. And though such a response has not cut us off from the past, it has all too often cut us off from the present and being able to evangelize others.

This counter-productive approach to living in the present is part of the subject that Jeff Christopherson (click here for a very brief bio) wrote about in a recent Christianity Today article. Christopherson wrote about how we are to carry out the Christian missions today and his suggestion would not only address how we should carry out our missions, it addresses the challenges we religiously conservative Christians face in life.

But not only does Christopherson's article (click here for the article) help us in facing today's challenges, it shows a certain degree of self-awareness that many of us religiously conservative Christians have lacked. The key statements of Christopherson's article follow:

But the instinct to turn inward and backward is always a dead end. It's an instinct driven by fear, not by love. It's a selfishness that rallies its tribe toward a provincial self-preservation of its rights, not a missionary force that sacrifices its rights for a greater spiritual harvest. Inwards and backwards is the defensive position of a losing cause.

When identifies the instinct of the religiously conservative Christian as being inwards and backwards, he is talking about our over reliance on select sources from the past to understand and respond to today's world. The inward instinct refers to the heroes and teachers we choose to measure the world by. The backwards instinct refers to the time periods from which we choose our heroes. They are all past time periods. And here, he is not only referring to Biblical sources, he is referring to the heroes we choose from Church history. 

For Calvinists like me, those heroes would tend to include John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, the Westminster Divines, and so forth. For others, Martin Luther and those who contributed to the Augsburg Confession. Of course Augustine would be included by Catholics, those from the Reformed community, and conservative Lutherans.

Of course there are select heroes who might even come from the 20th century. But for the most part, those heroes of ours on whom we would refer to as our spiritual Jedi Masters come from a more distant past.

In contrast to looking inwards and backwards, Christopherson seems vague on the solution. For he says that to look inwards and backwards is to live in fear while the solution of looking forwards and outwards is to live in love. And to a point, he is absolutely correct. But what is missing is a lack of precision when referring to what it means to look forwards and outwards. Thus when he says the following, I'm afraid that his statements have already raised too many red flags that would prevent many religiously conservative Christians from benefiting from the great observations he has made about us religiously conservative Christians:

As I look at the challenges facing the church, I'm increasingly skeptical that our well-worn categories of liberalism and conservatism are a helpful distinction to describe faithfulness to Christ. This is the path marked by some in generations prior. The terminology and methodology that distinguished this path once seemed clear, but now it’s obscured by false dichotomies, harsh assumptions, critical stereotypes, and defunct methods. And this division that is splitting the world's political landscape has pervasive influence on the modern church.

Now if the liberalism and conservatism distinction refers strictly to political ideologies and parties, I would fully agree. But if the distinction also includes liberal and conservative theologies, then I have to object. I have to object because too much of theological liberalism denies the basic tenets of religiously conservative Christianity. And to deny those tenets is to cut ourselves off from the past, from the faith.

Christopherson's article provides an excellent mirror in which many of us religiously conservative Christians should stare into. We need to become more self-aware of our over reliance on the past. But I think he would do better if instead of seeming to offer an exclusive-or choice between looking  inwards and backwards vs looking forwards and outwards, he would challenge us to do both by balancing our looking inwards and backwards with looking forwards and outwards. For the problem that has plagued many of us religiously conservative Christians has always been an over reliance on learning from the select heroes from the past, not a reliance on them per se. 

We religiously conservative Christians will always need to look somewhat inward and backwards. That is because it is looking inwards and backwards that keeps us anchored to the truths of our faith. And thus looking inwards and backwards helps prevent us from separating ourselves from the truth. We simply need to balance that inwards and backwards gaze with one that also looks forwards and outwards. Balancing those two approaches can prove to be very difficult. But it is the only way for us religiously conservative Christians to meet the challenge of remaining faithful while being able to share the Gospel in an ever changing world.