A Sad Day For Western Christianity

Sadly for us religiously conservative Christians, Tim Keller passed away last week.  It is sad for us because of how Keller chose to defend and preach the Gospel. In contrast to authoritarian type speakers, Keller was the voice of Christian reason. Sometimes he would start disagreeing with a person by first agreeing with them on something else and thanking them for contributing to himself or others.

Why did Keller break the mold in terms of how he preached the Gospel and taught Biblical principles? Why did Keller speak softly, but logically, to unbelievers or those who disagreed with him? The answer to that question can depend on whom you ask. His critics would call Keller's soft and rational approach to teaching God's Word 'winsome.' Whatever they meant by that, that description usually preceded sharp disagreements with Keller on some point. But I don't think Keller thought of his approach as being winsome. Rather he seemed to believe that his way of sharing the Gospel or disagreeing with others provided an example of exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit as listed in Galatians 5. And in the light of Critical Theory's and Post Modernism's problems with a religion like Christianity which made exclusive truth claims about God, Keller's bearing the fruit of the Spirit while sharing the Gospel was what religiously conservative Christianity needed.

On a personal note, I need to better follow Keller's example of bearing the fruit of the Spirit way of responding to those who disagreed with him. I have strong disagreements with the Trump side of the Republican Party whom I find to be enraging with their antics and claims. I am not showing the anger toward them like I use to  and one of the reasons why that is the case is because I am older and have less energy than before. But another reason is because I am trying to show as much of the same grace as it is possible to those who enrage me as mentioned in. Psalms 103. For in the passage, we are told that God does not treat us as our sins deserve. And if that is the case, then how dare I not try to show some of the same leniency to others as God has shown me.

Keller's book, Center Church, should have won him the Nobel Prize in Church peace. It isn't that I agree with all of his points in that book, but it was a strong attempt to  explain how Christians differ on some points. And in explains that, he tried hard to fairly describe how other Christians would attempt to interact with culture.

Another one of Keller's strong points was his ability to read culture from an evangelical perspective. By that I mean that he could understand how people from different time periods in New York approach life and have an idea of how to share the Gospel with them. He perhaps did that better than anyone I came across.

Of course I had my disagreements with Keller. Those disagreements revolved around how Keller wanted to respond to people from different cultures. Like almost everyone else, I believe that Keller did not fully appreciate democracy and how Christians should respond to it. I remember some of his comments on same-sex marriage before and around the time of the Obergefell decision. If memory serves, Keller argued against the legalization of same-sex marriage because of how, in his view, it did not contribute to human flourishing. The trouble with that view is that democracy isn't about human flourishing or majority rule alone. Democracy is about also about limiting one's pursuit of self-interests in order to protect the equal rights and standing in society of others.

Keller's wanted to change our culture back to that of being a Christianish culture. If memory serves, his approach to doing that resembled a para church, high school ministry called Young Life. Back when I was involved with that ministry, Young Life sought to become influential in a high school by first focusing their efforts on recruiting and involving "key" kids--kids with influence. The belief of Young Life staffers and volunteers was that others would follow the lead of those key kids. Keller seem to have wanted to take that approach toward culture by moving Christians into important cultural positions in order to get others to follow.

I disagree with that approach to culture by Keller because I believe that we should rejoice and celebrate a multicultural society and look to protect the equality of those groups with whom we disagree. I believe that because that is what democracy demands of us.

Despite my disagreements, I count Keller's death as both a personal and Church loss. He has given us opportunities for changing how we share and defend the Gospel. It's time for us to seize those opportunities for the sake of the Gospel.

Below are links to some of the articles I have written that address and comment on what Keller has said or done.

Links to articles from this blog that address something that Keller said or did

1. How Can I Suffer, Let Me Count The Ways
2. Are We Christians Trying Too Hard To Fit A Stereotype? Part II
3. It Has Never Been Just Me, Myself, And I
4. Making American Christians Superstars
5. When Tribalism Becomes A Victim Of Collateral Damage
6. Does Occupy Hold The Secret To Keller's Plea?
7. Is This How Christianity Can Regain Its Cultural Groove?
8. Christianity And Social Justice
9. Will The Real Status Quo Please Stand Up
10. Keller Is Both Right And Wrong
11. How The Mighty Have Fallen
12. Welcome To Churchtopia
13. Whose Fault Is It?
14. What The Reformed Church Needs To Do To Be Heard Again
15. How Should We Now Do Christian Apologetics?
16. Unique Traits Of The Early Church?

Keller Is Both Right And Wrong

Since we have reviewed several of Tim Keller's articles, I trust that, for those  who are interested, one has read his bio if one wants to. So we might as well get to the article.

After having seen a tv interview with a fellow Christian, Keller felt compelled to write on how Christians should interact with a public that could very well be hostile to our faith (click here for the article). In his article, though Keller didn't agree with everything that the fellow Christian who was being interviewed said, his first comment was to shows empathy for a fellow person for how they might have felt about the interview. Showing empathy for someone with whom one disagrees is not a usual tactic we see in Christian reviews. I know that it is a tactic that I should use but most often do not when reviewing what fellow Christians have said.

Next, Keller aligns with how we should speak to the public; it is with the fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5. Unfortunately, showing the fruit of the Spirit when speaking to the public about the faith has been called 'winsome' by some Christians who feel that fellow believers who do that are losing their edge when speaking to the public. Those Christians feel that being winsome to people who are hostile to you will not work. But 'work at what?' is the all important question here.

Keller is righty firm in telling us that we must show the fruit of the Spirit even to a hostile audience. Keller goes on to say that part of persuading people to believe the Gospel is to show them why they should believer in Christ based on their own values. And though that approach has both benefits and costs, a Christian should be hard pressed to object to the spirit of the tactic. In addition, Keller suggests that, when we can, we should point out the inconsistencies between what an unbeliever proclaims and their own professed values.

In all of that, Keller is correct. So where is he wrong? He is wrong by not pointing out the particulars of what Christendom got wrong. Because of Christendom, because of its countless atrocities and oppression of others, we Christians have a lot of damage control to contend with before we should share the Gospel in some settings.  We need to point out what Christendom got wrong so that we can change what we are doing. Christendom caused great unjust pain for many who came from marginalized groups. And Christendom taught Christians that they should seek a place of privilege and supremacy in society so that they can, in paternalistic way, "guide" (a.k.a., impose our values on others) society and its culture in terms of what and what not  to do and treasure. However that "guiding" has often included the marginalization of others.

What is apparent with this present post-Christendom times is that Christians want the public to actually listen to what we have to say. And there is only one way to honestly get others to really listen to oneself. That is to listen to others as one would have them listen to oneself.  And just perhaps, that is an approach that we can more fully seek to practice in this post-Christendom era. And if that is the case, then perhaps we Christians should join fellow citizens who are unbelievers in celebrating the end of Christendom. For  there is no way by which we could practice this Golden Rule of listening under Christendom, under a hierarchical society in which one group achieves supremacy so as to exercise unwarranted control over others. Not addressing the damage control that is necessary for us believers to engage in during this post-Christendom time and not celebrating the end of Christendom because it could open new avenues in how we communicate the Gospel with others are what Keller doesn't mention.

 

Welcome To Churchtopia

In part 4 of Tim Keller's (click here for his bio) series on the decline and his proposed renewal for the American Church, he sets out a vision for where he would like the Church, if it was renewed in the direction of the historic Protestant faith, to be. There are 16 parts to his vision for such a Church. His vision for the future Church includes the following (click here for part 4):

• 'Cities become filled with flourishing neighborhoods that point to the churches within them as a crucial source of their life and strength.'
• 'Every U.S. community is honeycombed with home fellowship groups and house churches that build up the Christians within them, welcome non-believers, and serve their neighbors.'
• 'New churches are being planted twice as fast as churches are closing, and 2/3 of the people in the new churches are formerly unchurched and non-believers.'
• 'Christians would become famous for being the ones who show up in force first to help victims whenever there is any disaster.'
• 'Christian churches would be known as the most racially and culturally diverse institutions in society. The ‘face’ of the renewed Christian church toward society—its leading voices—are highly diverse ethnically, and the American church is tightly connected to the global church.'
• 'The church would become publicly recognized as a refuge for sufferers, known for its ability to help people through grief, pain, and loss.'
• 'There would be a robust, respected, and growing community of intellectuals and scholars that hold unashamedly to historic Christian doctrine who are (a) active in every academic field of inquiry, producing scholarship that contributes to and alters the field, (b) a growing presence in universities, and (c) an entire alternate intellectual economy of study centers, think tanks, academies, periodicals, and publishing.'
• 'Christians would be known for their just use of power, so that:
• In business, Christians are known to be less selfish and ruthless and more generous to peers, employees, and customers.
• In social entrepreneurship, Christians are known to be fueling an explosion of creative and effective nonprofits that target every social problem, leading to a measurable decrease in the poverty rate and improvements in other statistics of social well-being, and that Christians would be famous for being those most given to charitable giving and volunteering their time for those in need.
• In politics and government, Christians would be known for seeking the common good rather than their own electoral interests, and for being cognizant of the importance of government policies for a just society.
• A growth in church planting and church renewal among the poor would occur, supported non-paternalistically by the broader church and led by the poor themselves. This would be seen by society and credited with improvements in social indicators.'

Keller's vision for the Church is really a Church utopia. And though I respect and very much appreciate the sentiments expressed in his vision and his deep concern for both America and its Church, I feel that there are some logical flaws that are deeply engrained in Keller's vision and approach.

One of the logical flaws is that the goals expressed in Keller's vision becomes a standard of measurement that we should be working toward and use to determine if the American Church is being renewed. But as Keller correctly said in an earlier article in the series, revivals and revival movements are at the discretion of God's Spirit. And so while we flawed and sinful humans can contribute to revival and renewal, we do not have sufficient control to reach the goals Keller has laid out. Thus, it is possible that we can become so focused on Keller's goals in Keller's vision, other ways by which the Church is being renewed will fly in under our radar and thus we would be missing out on how God is already changing us.

This leads us to a problematic statement made by Keller. Before laying out his vision, Keller said the following:

'Our vision cannot be simply for a restoration of churches and Christian institutions to their former states of strength. That is to mistake means for ends.'

His statement is problematic in part because Keller's vision is simply an updated and improved state of what our churches and Christian institutions once enjoyed. And when we look at what has happened to the American Church and the fact that God's Spirit is sovereign in determining when and where revival movements occur, perhaps our means should be our ends as we trust God to do with our means what He has purposed to do.

There is another logical problem in Keller's vision for the American Church. When one scans the abbreviated above list, what seems to be the case is that Keller has placed the Church in a competition with secular people, institutions, and ideologies to prove which one more true and relevant. The ones who contribute the most to the common good win. Of course those who win also get the most followers. So we Christians are, according to Keller, by our actions, prove the Gospel to be true by our actions of out performing unbelievers.

There are problems with that approach. The more we are competing with secular people, institutions, and ideologies, the more we are prone minimize the contributions of those not in our group while exalting our own. Basically, the more we compete, the more tribal we become. And the more we  do that the more harm we bring to the reputation of the Gospel. But not only that, the Gospel is proven to be true not by our works, but by the works of Christ--especially His crucifixion and being raised from the dead. It is what God did that proves the Gospel. As for us believers, we are mixed bags when it comes to acting in ways that bring honor to the Gospel. But regardless of our failures and whether we contribute more to society than unbelievers, it is what Christ did on the cross and His being raised from the dead proves who He is.

There are some analytical problems with Keller's approach. In earlier articles, Keller laid out why the American Church has been in decline and he has some good observations and insights in doing that. Those reasons include magnifying the importance of political issues at the expensive of theology, embracing a faulty political ideology or agenda, sharp divisions in the Church and society over political ideologies, anti-intellectualism, a growing individualism and secularism inspired by the Enlightenment, racism, rigidity in how people react to differences in interpreting the Scriptures, insularity, and the secularization of society. In all of that, Keller gives an insider's view of why the American Church has been in decline. 

But he fails to give an outsider's view of why the American Church has been in decline--an outsider being an unbeliever? To sum up an outsider's view, we could simply say Church History is the reason why the American Church has been in decline. But such is too general a statement to be helpful. In particular, we need to look at the American Church, and American History for that matter, from the perspectives of Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, Marxism, and Post Modernism. Those approaches have very helpful models of thought that can fallibly tell us religiously conservative Christians part of why our Church has been in decline. 

While Keller, from an insider's point of view, is content to blame the Enlightenment for the what is called 'excessive individualism' of today has a problem, the question becomes whether our society's excessive individualism has been more the result of our own consumerism and Free Market System. 

Here we should note that the Enlightenment emphasized reason and science over faith  and authoritarian religions in interpreting the world. Part of that was due to the role superstition played in the exercise of faith. Replacing faith and reverent submission to religious leaders with reason does not mean that one is encouraging more individualism. Rather, emphasizing reason is emphasizing logic and the mathematics behind logic. Conservative theologians have been perhaps overly critical of the Enlightenment because it freed people from being compelled to submitting Church authority especially when the exercise of that authority was abusive.

From an outsider's view, we should note that the rise of "excessive individualism" started in the 1960s and served as part of a protest against the automatic submission to authority figures and past traditions that could also be oppressive and abusive. The protests were against racism, an immoral war, an overly-materialistic society, the subjugation of women, and the marginalization of the LGBT community. 

In addition, by the time of the 1960s, consumerism was all the rage. As consumerism grew, one's personal significance became more and more tied to what one consumed and how one consumed it. And as the desire to consume more grew, the concern for and connections with others which would move us to serve and help them, grew less. In his book, Stride Toward Freedom, Martin Luther King Jr. criticized capitalism because of how it enabled people to measure their lives in terms of what they earned and consumed and less by how they were connected with and helped others (click here and see pgs 94-95). The introduction of Neoliberal Capitalism only made consumerism hotter.

Neoliberalism or Neoliberal Capitalism was the form of capitalism that followed the Bretton Woods System, which lasted from just after the end of WW II to the 1970s and 1980s. The Bretton Woods System of Capitalism allowed for much more government control and intervention into the financial world. But Neoliberal Capitalism sought to cut as many social responsibility ties as possible between the business world and both government and society. This freed businesses, especially publicly owned companies and corporations,  to pursue maximizing its profits to benefit the ROI of shareholders. Such an ethic removes concerns for others as well as other external factors because the sole focus for maximizing profits is one's own welfare. And as business principles were applied to other areas of life during this current stage of Neoliberal Capitalism, so too were a growing disconnection with and lack of concern for the welfare of others.

So how is it that Keller, and other religiously conservative Christians scapegoat the Enlightenment for the individualism we see today? It is because the Enlightenment challenged the religious authorities of both its day and today. All of that is part of why I wrote that there are analytical problems with part of Keller's views on the causes for the decline of the American Church.

Another analytical problem with Keller's assessment of what caused the decline of the Church is that verboten theories, like Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Marxism, theories that are adamantly rejected by religiously conservative Christians like Keller, sometimes give a better analysis of Church and American history than Keller and other religiously conservative Christians have. Now Keller has a point in warning us about those theories because their plans for solving the problems provided by those theories are often inadequate if not harmful. But at least their analysis is often on target and insightful.

Those  theories, such as Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, Marxism, and Post Modernism shed much light on the failures of the Church and the Western Civilization. If we look at what the Frankfurt School said about authoritarianism or authoritarian personality type, we see a partial description of how religiously conservative Christians too often interact with each other as well as society and the world. Marx's analysis of the form of Capitalism during his lifetime serves us well to understand our current economic system that revolves, for the most part, around the whims and desires of wealthy shareholders. Such shareholders serve as the business world's equivalent of absentee slum landlords because, for the most part, their only concern is for what return they can get out of business while showing little to no concern for the other stakeholders of a given business. Stakeholders here could include the environment, employees, and communities in which those employees live.

We could go on, but perhaps it is time to offer an alternative solution to Keller's approach. It would be nice if the solution presented here would help satisfy some of the parts of the vision Keller provided, but doing so should be treated as unintended achieved benefit.

If we want to stop the decline of the Church, we must do damage control. As mentioned before, the Church has directly, and indirectly through Western Civilization, failed humanity in major ways. We have to come clean with our failures in a more expansive and pervasive way than Keller has pointed out.

One of the ways in which we can come clean with some of our failures is to admit that we don't consider our nation's democracy to be an important factor in how we hope to fix the Church and the nation. Here we should note that democracy is more than majority rule through elections. Also included in democracy, because of what the word means, is what Jefferson fallibly hinted at in his 1801 inaugural address (click here for the source):

'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.'

Democracy, according to Jefferson's words, but not necessarily by his actions as President, involves a certain egalitarianism that goes against the grain of authoritarians because the latter prefer hierarchical societies. Thus, what we Christians must consider to be social justice should be guided more by Jefferson's statement than what some of us would call Biblical justice or by what Keller often cites as the common good. We should note that many a dictator has appealed to the common good when mandating abusive policies. That was true of both Hitler and Lenin.

We should note that the New Testament itself recognizes that the Church lives in a different setting than the Old Testament people of God did. For the latter lived, for the most part, in a religiously homogeneous society while we Christians have often been living in religiously heterogeneous societies. And thus, unless we want to lord it over others by gaining a privileged place of supremacy in society over others, we need to pursue equality even for many of those with whom we disagree the most. For example, we need to pursue and defend full equality for the LGBT community while adamantly holding to Biblical sexual moral values in our evangelism and within the Church.

Because of our religiously heterogeneous democratic society, we need to collaborate more with unbelievers regarding what social justice is and how we should pursue it. For social justice must be society's response to its injustices. Yes, there are some issues on which we can't agree with many unbelievers on. For example, we cannot agree with the legalization of elective abortions. However, we can commit to collaborating in creating social and governmental policies that significantly reduce the need for abortion in addition to making elective abortions illegal.

In short, we can't isolate ourselves from the world to forge a "Christian" vision for social justice and then try to force that vision on unbelievers in society. 

In addition, we must address the different forms of tribalism that are in our midst. Tribalism occurs when there is a high degree of loyalty to a group regardless of the identity of the group. That high degree of loyalty indicates that a person gets a great sense of significance from identifying with the group. Thus that high degree of loyalty eventually moves us to pursue a moral relativism with regard to the groups we are tribal toward so that a what is right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. Nationalism, which would be tribalism based on national identity, is a major culprit that causes Christians to embrace moral relativism when it involves evaluating and even supporting the policies of one's own nation. The result of tribalism is that the Christian starts to lose the ability to condemn immoral actions practiced by one's own nation. Ideological and political tribalism does something similar only for a given ideology or political party. The solution here is for us Christians  to base an overwhelming majority of our personal significance on the fact that we are sinners who are saved only by God's mercy shown through Christ alone. All other sources of significance must be very limited in comparison to the significance we gain by belonging to Christ.

If we want to battle anti-intellectualism, the we Christians have to break up with our use of authoritarianism. On a political level, authoritarianism is anti-democratic. On an apologetic and personal levels, authoritarianism is anti-rational. For authoritarianism believes that what is right and wrong depends on the tribal credentials of a given source more than on the facts and logic used by that source to make one's case.

Are there more things we can do to do damage control in order to help the Church? Certainly. But this article has already gone on too long to list them.

Making American Christians Superstars

 This is a review of the third article from a series of 4 articles written by Tim Keller (click here for a bio) about the American Church, its past prominence in America, and how to restore it to both its former place in American society and spiritual state. Because these reviews will overall be negative, it is important to pay respect to a deservedly well esteemed Christian leader and minister.

What prompted Keller's series on the fall of the American Church and how it can be restored is similar to why Amos chided the Israelites for their relaxed attitude to the spiritual fall of Israel (click here for Amos 6:1-7). The American Church has fallen and too many Christians either don't care or are keeping the Church down. Keller is hurt by the state of the American Church and that is a sentiment we should all share.

Furthermore, Keller has constantly served as a breath of fresh air among Christian leaders because of he employs a Biblical rationalism in both how he teaches people and answers critics. 

My overall criticism of this series of articles by Keller is in their limited perspective. And by limited perspective, I am not referring to any lack of insight or thought on Keller's part. I am referring to Keller's approach where he only seems to be aware of the American Church's fall. He shows no recognition of the Democracy to which he wants to American Church to return.

Keller is hoping for a revival movement in America. A revival is when the Church grows both in members and in seriousness in which believers take their faith and lives in Christ. And what Christian could argue with that? We should note that the closer walk with Christ that believers should embark on must never be confused with expecting perfectionism from  themselves. That is because while in one sense, we have died to sin and are alive in Christ (click here for Romans 6:1-14), we continue to sin (click here for Romans 7:7-25, there for James 3:2, and there again for I John 1:8-10). Regardless of how much we repent, we must never lose sight of the fact that we will always be able to identify with the Tax Collector from the parable of the 2 men praying (click here for that parable).

Here we should also note what Frederick Dale Bruner wrote about us believers and being unaware of having sin in his book, A Theology Of The Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience And The New Testament Witness, pg 235). Bruner asks about 3 category of Christians in that context. He asks about the person who believes so much in their own righteousness that they fail to see the sins they have, or about the person whose faulty conscience has hardened them to their sins, or about the Christian who is driven into despair because they always see the sins that they have. And so the call to increase one's devotion to Christ must be answered in a way that allows the Christian to have realistic expectations of themselves.

When Keller talked about revival and Christians getting more serious with their faith, he was talking about what happens when revivals come. As to what causes revivals, again Keller notes that it is the sovereign work of the Spirit. But that is the primary cause. Keller lists 3 secondary causes for revivals and revival movements to happen. The causes are below:

1. There is a recovery of the Gospel. Of course that implies that the Gospel was lost, or to be more precise people attention was no longer on the Gospel.
2. There is always corporate prayer. Not that there wasn't any prayer in the first place. But prayer that brings about a revival is well beyond the normal use of prayer by Christians.
3. There is always creativity. Christians find new ways to do what they were doing before.

 

The problem that Keller sees is that politics have replaced Christ and  Church is dividing up over politics. Keller also opposes the blind allegiance that Mainline Christians pay to liberal politics and Evangelicals and Fundamentalists  give to conservative political view. 

But there is a problem with Keller's objection to the Church becoming divided by politics. Politics involves morality and morality is an essential subject for Christians. And so, unfortunately, there will be some natural divisiveness over politics. 

Keller then lists what must be present for revival movements to occur and talks about the need for a new revival movement. The need for such a movement is because the American churches have been dragged down into our nation's conservative-liberal bickering. He states that a new revival movement must be based on historic Protestant theology. And that those in the movement must have the same theological beliefs especially about God and Christ. Keller points to the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonies Creed, and the Athanasian Creed as standards by which we should unite our faith. Other essential beliefs include the 5 solas, the inerrancy of the Scriptures, the doctrine of sin, the doctrine of atonement, the need for being born of the Spirit, the need for the Church and its functions, the physical return of Jesus Christ. and repentance.

Some of the problems that stand in the way of developing a new revival movement are the divisions in the American Church. Those divisions involve the exclusion of previously established speakers on the speaking circuit and divisive issues like CRT, gender ideology, and social justice. But we should note that those issues are moral issues and, again, moral issues are an important part of the Christian life. And so Keller is saying that we should let past wrongs suffered over these issues go and that we should put more focus on the Gospel.

Next Keller ventures off into the making of American Christians into superstars. According to him, we need to develop a Protestant Social Teaching that will cover the social justice issues that have been divisive  from a unified Protestant perspective. Here Keller is telling Protestants that they need to do what Catholics have been doing for years regarding engaging in social justice issues. 

Now that might sound like Keller is telling the Church to jump back into the fire that he told  it to leave. But that isn't the case. For what Keller complained about, again, was when social justice issues and politics replaced the Gospel in the Church.

So while avoiding the recent historical problem of Churches dividing over social justice issues and politics, there are bigger problems on the horizon for what Keller is proposing. First, the development of a Christian critique of different social justice ideologies seems to suggest that Keller is saying that we need a Protestant version of Dreher's Benedict Option. Dreher proposed that Christians should isolate themselves somewhat from the world into their own communities so they can develop their own approach to a changing world. His option was in response to the SCOTUS Obergefell decision which was seen as the final defeat for Christians in America's culture wars.

Such an approach can be arrogant to say the least. For with that approach, we Christians could be telling the world  that they have what it takes to teach the world how to solve its social problems while we have little to nothing to learn from the world regarding those problems. Another problem with Keller's suggestion is that in addressing justice issues, religiously conservative Christians have recently struggled with distinguishing what God's Word says about justice for those in the Church from what justice should look like in society where there are both believers and unbelievers. As a result, what Keller suggests can cause us to impose our religious standards and even faith on unbelievers. We would also begin to oppress certain groups. 

What Keller is telling the world with this suggestion is that we Christians are now in the position of defining what real social justice looks like as opposed in the past when we supported things like slavery and white supremacy. One only needs to ask those from the LGBT community whether they can expect a fair shake from us Christians if we are the ones who get to define what is social justice.

In addition, we have to wonder whether we Christians, including our leaders, have the competency and expertise to adequately define and address social justice issues. After all, the isolation that Keller seems to suggest in developing a Protestant Social Teaching could easily result in our inability to fully grasp the social injustices others are facing and thus we would be unable to develop an overall view. We only need to look back into Church History to see where the Church spoke out loudly and boldly over issues it had no expertise in. The debate over Heliocentrism is a prime example. A 20th century example includes the debate over evolution and a 21st century example includes the reluctance of many a religiously conservative Protestant to recognize how human activity is significantly contributing to climate change. It's not that we Christians don't have any contributions to make in any discussion on social justice issues; it is whether we should take a leading role in formulating the solutions. 

There are a few other things to discuss in the article that will not be mentioned here. But there is a lingering question in terms of what is driving Keller to develop the vision he has for the restoration of the American Church in terms of its former place in American society. That question is this, if America had never embraced Christendom, would Keller's vision for the Church be the same as it is now? How much is the American Church's lost status in society driving Keller's thinking here?

How The Mighty Have Fallen

 Tim Keller (click here for a bio) has written a 4 part series on the fall of the American Church and how it can be restored. In the first article, Keller focused on how the Mainline Protestant churches fell. In this article, Keller focuses on the fall of the Evangelicalism (click here for the article). Remember from his last article Evangelicalism had replaced Mainline Protestantism's in terms of its controlling influence in Christendom in America.

In this article, Keller continues some themes used in his first article. He also shows a strong bias in favor of religious conservative Christianity in his analysis of what is happening in America. Some of those themes that show his bias, include the claim that all that is good in America and the West comes from Christianity. Also he claims that decay in America, both in the Church and in society, comes from secularization. And the root source for that secularization has been the Enlightenment. Keller claims that the ideas from the Enlightenment began to destroy the good that the Christianity had created and maintained in society including our personal connections and institutions. That is because, according to Keller, while Christianity emphasized community, the Enlightenment, by making human reason the standard by which we judge all things, glorified the individual. In addition, his view of the Sexual Revolution misses the point that the revolution was primarily about equality for women in society.

But we also see in Keller's analysis his lite but significant reliance on black-white thinking. His treatment of the contrast between Christianity and the Enlightenment as well as the political polarization he mentions between those on the right and those on the left lends evidence to that charge. 

However, Keller also provides some useful definitions and distinctions. For example, Keller provides the current working definition of Christian Fundamentalism as including the belief in Biblical literalism  combined with some rigid social marks or cultural views. Those marks consist of cultural attitudes and practices, of its adherents that revolve around isolationism from the world or control of others. 

A list of those social marks are below

'Moralism vs gracious engagement'

'Individualism vs social reform'

'Dualism vs a vision for all of life'

'Anti-intellectualism vs scholarship

'Anti-institutionalism vs accountability'

'Enculturation vs cultural reflection'

Keller defines Evangelicalism by 4 basic tenets of the faith. And though  those 4 basic tenets are not the same as 5 basic tenets of the faith adhered to by the first generation of Christian Fundamentalists, what we see from Keller's definitions is that Evangelicals were defined by what they believed about God and how they relate to Him. And because Christian Fundamentalists are those who  believe much of what Evangelicals believe because of how they interpret the Bible, what, for the most part, distinguishes Fundamentalism from Evangelicals are the social marks. Keller also briefly compares Fundamentalism with conservative Confessional Protestantism. And in that comparison, though conservative Confessional Protestantism has the same high regard for the Scriptures that Fundamentalists have, the former does not adhere to  Biblical literalism. In addition, the former does not share the same social marks. 

Keller also mentions the sociological location of Evangelical and how that affects their beliefs. He mentions how Evangelicals from other nations have different views that American Evangelicals.

So the question becomes how did Evangelicalism fall? For one thing, Keller states that faith in general was in decline. Factors that contributed what is causing the decline in Evangelicalism is the fall of faith in America including moving religion to the realm of the individual by making science and technology the only agreed upon tools we have to solve problems, radical individualism where the person, rather than the community, becomes the only judge of one's actions, the secularization of the masses, and the promotion of a therapeutic view of the self, the political polarization of people, the sexual revolution, and an increase in the percentage of people who had a higher education.

In addition, there were events in the US that produced a social context for  American Evangelicals which are different from Evangelicals from other nations. Keller calls the above mentioned social context a sociological address. 

Keller also lists social markers that tend to distinguish Evangelicals from Fundamentalists. These social markers dealt with how Christians interacted with or stood away from the outside world. And while Evangelicals act in ways that both interacted or stood away from the outside world, Fundamentalists, because of their rigid in thinking, tend to strongly stand away from the outside world. 

While Evangelicals were the mighty in America's Christendom, and thus in America, from the 1940s to the 1970s. But with religiously conservative Christian involvement in politics came a resurrection, of sorts, of Christian Fundamentalism in America. And with that started a decline in Evangelicalism

Part of the fall of Evangelicalism have been due to certain challenges listed and described by Keller. Those challenges include:

• 'The United States is slowly running out of traditionally-minded Americans to be converted, and conservative Protestants on the whole are unwilling or unable to reach the highly secular and culturally different.'
• 'Notably, conservative church politicization has turned off half the country. In a polarized environment, white evangelicals’ strong identification with one party and one presidential candidate has produced deep and hostile reactions from the 50% of the country opposed to this political platform. And, in general, the 50% that it has alienated is younger and more multi-ethnic. Many fundamentalists consider this a victory, rather than a defeat.'
• 'Conservative churches, both fundamentalist and evangelical, continue to have a race problem. Conservative white evangelicals in the past (1) originally supported slavery, (2) were silent during the Jim Crow era, (3) largely rejected the Civil Rights movement of the time, and (4) were slowest to integrate their schools and seminaries.'
• 'Fundamentalism is an anti-intellectual movement, and even non-fundamentalist evangelicals tend toward pragmatism. Catholicism is both a popular religion for the masses and yet has nurtured a robust intellectual class. Fundamentalism’s largely anti-intellectual stance has only grown among conservative Christians who are alarmed by the progressive excesses of today’s universities.'
• 'Conservative Protestants lack a model for relating to a secular culture. Evangelicalism has been a prominent part of a “Christendom” culture—one in which Christian beliefs and practice were dominant and assumed. Now that this has changed, evangelicals struggle to find a “public theology”—one that defines how they relate to the larger society. Many fundamentalists simply want to re-establish Christendom through government action. Others simply want to withdraw from culture altogether and just build up the church.'

The listing of these challenges by Keller are very insightful and helpful. Because of the political allegiance of all sorts of religiously conservative Christians to conservative political, economic, and social ideologies, they have become a very loyal, and productive, voting block for the Republican Party. And so when we look at the first listed challenge, the potential growth of all groups of religiously conservative Christians is significantly limited. 

We could easily broaden the 2nd listed challenge to include but go beyond religiously conservative Christianity's draw to racism. In fact, the history of the Christian Church in the last few centuries show that the predominant branch of the Church in a given nation often side with wealth and power. The Roman Church sided with wealth and power in the pre-revolutionary times of both France and Spain  and the Orthodox Church did the same during the pre-revolutionary times of Russia. In America, conservative Protestantism has sided with wealth and power by their siding largely with the Republican Party despite their denial of climate change, our nation's problem with gun violence, systemic racism, and the threat posed by the pandemic especially in its first two years.

For the third challenge, we need to ask how far behind Fundamentalism's anti-intellectualism is Evangelicalism's? Such points to a personal social marker that Keller does not bring up because that marker is present, in different levels and ways, in all of religiously conservative Christianity from Fundamentalism to Evangelicalism to conservative Confessional Protestantism. That marker is authoritarianism as researched and described by the Frankfurt School. And here were are referring to authoritarian personality types. 

With the authoritarian personality type, truth is determined more by the ideological beliefs and credentials of a given source more than on the facts and logic involved in what a source says. That means that for religiously conservative Christians, what a source says will be, to varying degrees, readily accepted or rejected based on the ideological tribes to which the source belongs. That goes for theological and religious ideologies, which is why we have denominations within the Protestant branch of the Christian Church, as well as political and economic ideologies. An explanation for that can be found in Keller observing that all too often religiously conservative Christianity has been conflated with conservative American values and beliefs.

And as much as Keller complains about the conflation of Christianity and American conservative ideology, he shows signs of this embracing of authoritarianism in this series in how he describes the divide between Christianity and the secularism that came from the Enlightenment. For with authoritarianism comes a black-white worldview. And  Keller's comparison of Christianity and the Enlightenment comes the attribution of all that is good in America to Christianity and all that is causing America to fall is the Enlightenment.

Of course, what was just said leads to the 4th challenge. How can religiously conservative Christians, whether they be Evangelicals or conservative Confessional Protestants, engage with secularists from the Enlightenment tradition when they have already seemed to have said to them that we have everything to teach you  but have nothing to learn from you? That is the message given when one attributes all that is good in America to one's own group and attributes the decay in America to the group one is speaking to.

We also need to challenge Keller on his view that individualism, which stems from the Enlightenment's reliance on reason and science, is what has divided our nation, has destroyed our respect of authority (mentioned in Keller's first article in the series), as well as has destroyed our institutions by destroying our faith in them. By emphasizing reason and science, the Enlightenment didn't usher in individualism into America's psyche, it attempted to promote mathematics, which is the basis for reason, and science.

Not only that, perhaps individualism isn't the monster that Keller makes it out to be. Rather, what is causing our nation to be so divided as well as persuading parts of the Church to shy away from intellectualism is tribalism. Tribalism has more than one definition. The one being employed here describes tribalism have having such a high degree of loyalty to a group that one loses the ability to look at a given group objectively. In addition, tribalism produces a relative morality in people so that what is right and wrong depends on who does what to whom.

Our nation is divided into competing groups, not into a kind of anarchy where each person is doing their own thing. Thus, the division in our nation is due to tribalism. And here we should note that what appears to be a lack of respect for authority is not the real problem. That is because tribalism, in part, consists of the authority of one's own group. So what appears to be a lack of respect for authority is nothing more than the rejection of the authority of a rival group.

Finally, the loss that Keller is lamenting over and what he wants to see restored is a form of Christendom. But Christendom to any degree or at any level is a contradiction to Democracy. That is because Democracy is more than just the rule of the majority where voting is allowed. Democracy also includes a sharing of power so that the majority does not use its voting power to oppress any minority groups in the nation. Jefferson so warned against the majority from using their power to oppress minority groups in his 1801 Inaugural Address.

And there is one of the reasons why we see a  decline in Evangelicalism. For even if Evangelicals can put an end to their racism and even if they can break the trend in Church history of siding with wealth and power, Evangelicals, in the name of moral values and natural law, will always work to marginalize one particular group in America: the LGBT community. And one of the reasons why Evangelicalism has declined is because of the 1960s. That is because thee 1960s have been described as some as the time period where there was an excess of democracy. 

Our problem is that we religiously conservative Christians, including us Evangelicals and conservative Confessional Protestants, let alone Christian Fundamentalists, have a penchant for authoritarianism whether it stems from tribalism or not. And in authoritarian societies, there are hierarchies. But the presence of any hierarchy means the negation of democracy. With the 1960s pushing democracy, Evangelicalism was rightfully seen as one of its opponents. 

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.

Unique Traits Of The Early Church?

 A while back, Tim Keller (click here for a bio) wrote an article for the Gospel Coalition website which reviewed a couple of books by Larry Hurtado which described early Christianity. In particular, Hurtado focused on traits of the early Church which might have caused it to be persecuted more than any other religion in that time period.

After mentioning how Christianity became such an identity itself for Christians in contrast to what other religions did not provide for their followers, Keller, drawing on Hurdato's work, goes on to list and briefly describe 5 traits that the Early Church which distinguished it nt from the rest of Roman society (click here for the article).

Before commenting on those traits, what came to mind was a question of how accurate was the article. I thought about that knowing how American Christians like to glorify their own nation beyond what the facts allow for, that the same could be done for their faith.

The first trait listed by Keller is that the Early Church was multi-racial. This is kind of a tricky description  because while the Early Church period Keller is describing  goes back to the 1st century, the concept of race did not occur until the mid 17 century AD. So the more precise way of describing the Early Church would be multi-ethnic. 

We know from the New Testament that Christianity started as a Jewish sect but then included Gentile believers. And that there was sometimes a strain since the Gentile believers were not expected to follow the Law of Moses not just as strictly as Jew believers did, but they were not expected to strictly follow the Law of Moses. In particular, the parts of the Law of Moses that not followed strictly by Gentile believers but were followed by Jewish believers regarded circumcision, the Sabbath, and food restrictions. The New Testament mentions how not strictly following the Law of Moses became a point of contention not just for Jews who didn't believe in Christ, but even for some who did (see Acts 21). In addition, there is a story from the book of Acts where Hellenistic Jewish widows were being neglected in the distribution of food. That was soon addressed and is described in Acts 6.

Other than that, all I had left to support or challenge this claim was the Epistles from the New Testament. And those Epistles preach an acceptance of multiple ethnic groups.

The second trait was that the early Christians practiced forgiveness even despite persecution. But something must be added here. The persecution of Christians was not the constant status for Christians during the first 3 centuries that preceded the time when Christianity became legal. Except for the time of Nero, whose attacks on the Church were temporary, persecution of Christians stemmed from more local sources than from Rome. Some time after Nero, the punishing of Christians for their faith occurred on a more passive basis in that they were not searched for, but they were punished if found. It wasn't until the 3rd century that an active persecution of Christians were ordered by Rome. But it was ordered then on an on and off basis depending on the Emperor in charge.

Christians did suffer persecution during those 1st 3 centuries. Sometimes their suffering was due to their association with Judaism and other times they were persecuted for perceived crimes. Where Christian practices and beliefs cause conflict was in the Christian rejection of other gods and reluctance to serve in the Roman army.

The next trait, for which I did not find anything was that the Early Church was known for how it helped the poor and suffering.

The fourth trait was the Early Church's regard for the sanctity of life. Here, the abortion issue comes to mind. And it is with that issue that perhaps there is more distinctions that come into play than what many Christians might first assume. First, along with Paul's writings to the Corinthians, there was a pattern of discouraging women from marrying in order to help spread and promote the teachings of the Gospel.

As for abortion, it was Roman Emperors from the early 200s that declared abortion to be illegal. They did that with having the rights of the fathers in mind more than respecting life in the womb. Christian legislators who were in power later on kept those laws intact. What should be noted is that 2 Christian Synods, one in 314 AD and the other in 407 AD decreased the penalties for having an abortion.

Where early Christians demonstrated their high regard for life though was in the rescuing of infants left out to die of exposure.

The final trait mentioned was that early Christians practiced a sexual counterculture in that they restricted practicing sex to that within a heterosexual marriage. Much of that view of the early Church came from the New Testament. What is not mentioned there is that sex was sometimes discouraged in marriage except for procreation. 

What is the purpose of this review? It is this, that we Christians tend to idealize our past to make a present point. And it isn't that there were big distortions about our past made in Keller's article. It is, on the other hand, that more nuance and a more complete look at our past reveals some discrepancies with what Keller wrote. And thus when we look at our past as Christians, we want to do thorough research so as to see the past for what it was, not to see it for the purpose of trying to make a present point.

References

1. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/5-features-early-church-unique/
2. https://timothykeller.com/author

Christianity And Social Justice

 Tim Keller (click here for a bio) is a deservedly well respected and popular leader in Reformed Theology. He thinks through issues more thoroughly than many other leaders. He will use the Reformed Theological traditions, the confessions and catechisms, without putting them on too high a pedestal. And many Christians from the Reformed theological tradition rightfully look to him for guidance when confronting today's issues. Of course Keller is not infallible. But some of the criticisms of him are simply silly and reflect more on his critics than on him.

But there are valid criticisms to make of what he teaches, and his approach to justice have some questionable areas depending on one's context. And hopefully, the criticisms made in this blogpost will not add to the list of silly criticisms made by some others. The article being reviewed here is called Justice In The Bible (click here for the article). This article is part of a series of articles on justice and it contains links to those other articles.

The article, if it is to be read within the context of its title, is an important subject for Christians to study and to act on. But, and this cannot be emphasized enough, Biblical justice is not social justice--a distinction not made in the article being reviewed from what I have read. The difference between the two can be found in who is defining justice. In the former, God's Word tells us what is just. In the latter, it must be society that determines what is just and must act on what it finds. Keller's article makes some very good points that many other Christians fail to make in talking about biblical justice. But it does not provide a good aid for Christians who are working for social justice. Why is that? It is because despite some of his words that state otherwise, Keller's assessment of social justice movements acts more to discourage Christians from working for social justice than to encourage them.

Again, we should be reminded that social justice must be a societal response. That means that for the Christian to pursue social justice, they must work side by side with unbelievers. And that becomes difficult when Christian leaders, Keller is not the only one, overly criticize social justice movements while extolling a given Christian approach. And that is how Keller begins his article. He states that only the Bible gives a comprehensive enough treatment on the subject of justice while secular approaches are reductive.

What should be pointed out here is that the Bible's treatment of justice is one that cannot be fully reached this side of heaven. Thus, not everything that the Bible prescribes about justice is applicable here. In addition, along with overly criticizing secular approaches to justice, Keller writes that Christians who wish to pursue justice should begin with the Church. Though he does tell believers to work in the world, when we combine the claim of having a superior view of justice with his criticism of social justice approaches along with some errors in how he describes some secular movements, those who uncritically agree with him have far more reasons to not only work for justice within the confines of the Church, but to restrict their readings on justice to Christian views only. Thus, they will tend to be unable to pursue social justice.

Some of his errors in assessing other groups come with his comments about the Left. His comments about socialism imply that socialism is a monolith about power (a statement made from another article in his series on justice) that believes that a person's money belongs to the state. At this point, Keller has not only failed to distinguish Socialism in the Marxist tradition from Socialism that existed before Marx, he has failed to distinguish the different approaches to Socialism by those who lean toward Marx. Libertarian Socialism, for example, doesn't really believe in the State. Other forms of Marxist Socialism don't apply an all-or-nothing approach to private possessions and wealth as what Keller seems to have assumed.

And perhaps one of his most blatant errors in this article is when he says the following about Critical Race Theory (CRT)

CRT sees all racial disparities and inequalities are due to structural factors.

But how can that be when CRT sees racism as a combination of individual racial prejudice and social structures that discriminate or oppress people because of race (click here and there).

Furthermore, he seems to have strongly discouraged Christians from relying too much on a CRT viewpoint. Why? The following quotes might help answer that.

On the one hand, CRT can’t be used merely as a tool apart from its worldview assumptions, because the underlying worldview in many ways is the tool.

And

Listening to CRT thinkers can help us rediscover our own tools, rather than simply using theirs.

Regarding the first quote, we should remember that  CRT's worldview assumptions do not have be either accepted or reject in whole. They can be accepted in varying degrees depending on how they match up with God's Word.

The second quote shows why this article does not help Christians in pursuing social justice. This Christian apartheid approach to tools used to pursue justice removes Christians from working with CRT in part. It seems that Christians are restricted to using tools founded by other Christians.

Likewise, when Keller talks about equality, he seems to say that the concept of equality started with the Scriptures. If we consider the fact that the attempts to promote equality by our nation's founding fathers was flawed, then Keller's comments on why Aristotle seem to overstate the case. Aristotle, in a flawed way, did teach about and promote equality. Thus, the Bible doesn't have a monopoly on the concept of equality.

We might also ask if why Keller sees universal equality in the Scriptures because of the times. We should note that at least some others from the Reformed theological tradition did not necessarily see the same in the Scriptures. Here we could think of the Puritans, Jonathan Edwards, J. Gresham Machen.

Finally, I got the impression that this article by Keller was written as if he was participating in a measuring contest where he was writing to show the vast superiority of what he sees as the biblical approach to justice compared to what we see in the secular social justice movements, in particular those influenced by Marxism.

The above lists some of the flaws in Keller's article. and realize that those some of those flaws depend on the context in which one reads the article, there is much good in the article which is usually absent from other religiously conservative Christian writings on justice. His writings on how we are to advocate for the the vulnerable is a bright spot though he is reluctant for the Church to speak out as an institution on politics.

Perhaps the biggest strength of this article is found in Keller's treatment of corporate sin and corporate responsibility. To better understand those concepts, we only need to replace the word 'corporate' with the word 'group' where, in this case, the group is a society or the state. This part of Keller's teaching is very important because of the emphasis on individualism by many religiously conservative American Christians. We sin partly because of how the groups we are a part of have influenced us and the groups we belong to sin. The former explains why Israel was punished for the sins of individual Israelites. It also explains why Achen's family was punished with him for his sin (see Joshua 7). Keller lists how some nations sinned and thus were punished by God in the Old Testament. And by some nations it means that Israel was not the only nation punished for its sins.

Keller did well in drawing attention to systemic racism. As Keller wrote in the article, this is a very tough reality for American white Christians to acknowledge and Keller does well to bring this reality to our attention. He tells us that all of us Christians must work together to see how systemic racism was evident through slavery, Jim Crow, and redlining (he refers to that concept without using the word). But then he mentions how systemic racism exists today such as in how public schools are funded and how racism exists in the criminal justice system. But as Keller called systemic racism the 'elephant' in the room, economic classism shows that one can have more than one elephant in the room.

Keller also does well to remind us Christians of our duty to help and care for the vulnerable such as the poor. That not only should we be advocates for them, but that our efforts to help them should be sacrificial. 

There are other good parts in the article and it is well worth reading. I should note that my own history might have colored how I have read this article. My experiences of protesting wars, protesting for the rights of immigrants, my past participation in a local activist group as well as in Occupy Wall Street have moved me to believe that we Christians need to be working hand in hand with others and not be afraid of what social justice movements teach. If we know the Scriptures well enough, we should be able discern what beliefs in those movements are not scriptural.

And we should note that Keller tells us to be political but not partisan. I believe that a better way to say that is to say that we should be involved in different social group movements but without being tribal. Here, being tribal, or tribalism, refers to a possessing a high degree of loyalty to a group such that loyalty to that group trumps our commitment to principles and values, especially those we learn from the Scriptures. The end result of tribalism is that we see right and wrong being determined by who does what to whom. We shouldn't have such allegiance to any group that prevents us from errors and sins.

Is This How Christianity Can Regain Its Cultural Groove?

Many religiously conservative Christians have felt a sharp and enduring pain from our faith having lost its place in culture and society, and thus our culture and society have lost its way. And part of that loss is an enhanced, which is sometimes by manipulation, anticipation of persecution and the generalization and magnification of a few small, socially hostile acts against individual Christians in America. Well-known, and deservedly so, Reformed theologian Tim Keller (click here for bio ) has recently written an article that gives suggestions on how we can reverse our fortunes. The title of this article actually does well in summarizing Keller's expecatations: How To Reach The West Again (click here for the article).

The article is well worth reading and interesting. But rather than try to give a point-by-point review of the article, I want to get right to the heart of the matter in terms of why Christianity is not where it use to be in culture and society. And then ask you the reader to read Keller's article to see if what I provide here helps make Keller's article a bit more complete.

First we should not compare our post-Christian culture and society with Christianity's position in the 1st century even though there are some similarities. Why? It is because while 1st century Christianity was basically a newborn in that it had yet done anything good or bad, Christianity's status in America is based on the loss of status and position and thus Christianity's current situation is more similar to Israel's exile in Babylon. That is because Christianity's new position is punishment for centuries of past and current sins just as Israel was finally punished for its centuries of sins.

What was Christianity's sins? It was that of dominance. And I can't help but believe that though there are comments made in Keller's article against trying to regain that dominance, that, in the end, that is what Keller is saying we should do only in new ways.

And one of the key problems with Keller's article is that though there are fleeting statements that indicate a recognition of that past dominance, there are no indications of being contrite for it.

What Keller's article seems not to appreciate is how the New Testament describes its expectations of society. This is done in a couple of passages that describe Church discipline. In both of those passages, society is described as being a mix of Christians and unbelievers with no hint of Christian dominance. In one sense, ancient Rome provides a partial model for how society should be according to the New Testament.  Rome is a partial model because as a pagan society, in that it recognized the existence of many gods, Rome showed much tolerance to non-Christian religions. But Rome was not a complete model because it became intolerant of Christianity's claims to exclusivity.

Thus, as religiously conservative Christians, we should welcome and work for a society where as many gods are recognized in the name of religious liberty and tolerance while calling all to repentance. And whether we should welcome such a society is not clearly enough stated in Keller's article though he is against political domination. What is missing is whether cultural and social marginalization is a natural result of what Keller is trying to promote.

Christianity is not the only victim of its continued attempts to dominate. Post Modernism is a partial result of that domination and thus those who have been influenced too much by Post Modernism are victims too. We should note that Post Modernism speaks more against Modernism than Pre Modernism to which Christianity belongs. Here we should note that Post Modernism is friendly to inclusive, not exclusive, religions.

So before we religiously conservative Christians (a.k.a., flaming fundamentalists) can regain a more credible voice, we need to openly acknowledge our failures of both the past and present. We need to take our own 'apology tour' before we can realistically expect unbelievers to even be interested in listening to us. What Keller says about our need to be servant-oriented is more than true. But without acknowledging our past failures, it will be more difficult to be servant-oriented and thus many will not be convinced that we have changed our ways.

One more point that is not exactly clear in Keller's article. That is in how we Christians should share this pagan society with unbelievers. Again, Keller does well to speak against wanting political dominance. But what should be the substitute? How can we both be salt and light to culture and society when we want both to call people to change while supporting the notion of a pagan society in the name of religious liberty?

One way is to learn how to share society as equals. And that means being politically, as well as culturally and socially, involved in sharing society with others as equals. And to do that, we must guard the equality of the other groups as if it was our own.

That means that we Christians most politically collaborate with unbelievers to do that. But to do that, we must also resist the siren call of tribalism. And that is especially true regarding political and ideological tribalism. To avoid tribalism, we cannot even imply any kind of relative utopia, especially in the name of Christ. To do that requires that we too strongly associate the Gospel with specific ideologies and that divides the Church because there will be real Christians who hold to other ideologies. And the moment we fall for some ideological or political tribalism, we have lost our prophetic voice that challenges all ideologies to repent from sin.

Hopefully these comments will make Keller's article more complete. But it is the reader who is the final judge for that. And to do that, one must read both Keller's article and this article.

Does Occupy Hold The Secret To Keller's Plea?

A while back, Tim Keller (click here for a bio) wrote a blogpost that repeated Rodney King's plea that we all get along. Keller wrote this blogpost in the month preceding the 2016 Presidential election as he called for 'civility in the public square.' What Keller was pleading for was what a book by John Inazu called for. Inazu called for a 'confident pluralism' (click here for info on the book). Such pluralism, according to Inazu, would result from people demonstrating to their neighbors virtues such as tolerance, humility, and patience (click here for Keller's blogpost). Keller went on to define those virtues

In making a genuine plea, Keller avoided the mistake that political elites who opposed Donald Trump made: he acknowledge the faults and sins of his own group. This should come as no surprise to those who are familiar with Keller's writings. Keller acknowledged that some of the blame for the lack of public civility rests with his own tribe, his fellow Christians. He shows no interest in blaming any other group. Keller readily acknowledges that during the 1980s and 1990s when Christians had more positions of influence, they showed little interest in creating a confident pluralism where they failed to practice the virtues of tolerance, humility, and patience.

Keller goes on to say that to develop public civility, we must first practice those virtues in our neighborhoods. He also said that churches should be molding their members to practice these virtues in the public square not just for the sake of creating a truly pluralistic society, but to remedy the association that those Christians from the 1980s and 1990s made with the Gospel. Because of their arrogance and intolerance, Christianity was perceived as being a toxic religion--a not so new development in Church history when one considers how the Church has often supported wealth and power despite the suffering for the rest such supported caused.

So far so good for Keller's message about civility in the public square. Keller correctly identifies an important problem that existed then and is with us now. Thus, Keller answered the what question. In addition, Keller points to his fellow believers as partially creating the problem. By doing that, Keller partially answers the who question. And really there is nothing wrong with what he wrote.

But of course there is a problem. The problem lies with what Keller did not say, he did not address the why question. Why have people, including my fellow Christians, worked against a real pluralism that includes civility in the public square. And here, perhaps a lesson from Occupy would help us to do better. For the decision making process in Occupy did not revolve around conquering by winning some majority in order to push one's own interests to the exclusion of the interests of others. Instead, the decision making process practiced in many Occupy meetings revolved around keeping people together by identifying and removing what an individual or group would regard as a deal breaker. We made decisions that 100% of the participants could stand behind.

It's not that we were perfect in how we tried to address the legitimate concerns of member in our groups. I remember from my days with the Global Justice Working Group of Occupy Wall Street, we had to learn how to disagree with one another. But once we did that, we learned how to work out our differences. And the structure of our meetings revolved around making decisions that could either be supported by everyone in the group or avoided any deal breaking positions.

Certainly we can't use the same processes and structures in our nation's political processes that were employed by Occupy. And it is unrealistic in such a large and diverse nation to expect the kind of consensus agreement we used in Occupy. However, the goal of caring for both our own interests and the interests of others in the decision making process so that we can produce as much consensus as possible is a worthy goal that not only contributes to, but requires civility in the public square.
 
Now so far, I have, while praising some of the practices of Occupy, failed to answer the why question that Keller did not address. Why has the land of the free and the home of the brave so miserably failed at sustaining civility in the public square? I believe that if we look at America's two most important institutions, one answer is more than apparent. Those two institution consist of our democratic processes and the free market. The former, perhaps to an inadequate degree, promotes egalitarianism with a one-person, one-vote system. And if we think about democracy as a state of being for the nation, then there should be egalitarianism in terms of how we share society with others. That we should want America to equally belong to all of its citizens rather than allowing America to belong more to some than to others.

But the free market is not about egalitarianism, it is about competing with and defeating others and even making conquests. There is no egalitarianism in the free market because in that market, we have a one-dollar, one-vote dynamic where one is only responsible to advance their own interests. Thus, as one wins, they earn more dollars that, in turn, gives them more power. And to maximize one's profits, one must eliminate at least some of one's competitors. And that will result in gaining even more power that leads to gaining more profits.

So the why question can be answered by answering the following question: Is our democracy more influenced by values promoted by the free market or is our free market influenced more by democratic values? The more our democracy becomes a gateway to conquering our opponents and winning power and control, the more our democracy is influenced by the free market. Similarly, the more we share our wealth rather than accumulate it, the more our free market is influenced by democratic values.

At this point, the why there is such little civility in the public square is answered. That the why has more to do with how the free market influences our democracy more than with how our democracy influences the free market. Our growing wealth disparity supports this point as with wealth disparity comes power disparity. And it's not that Keller's admission about fellow Christians is wrong. It is that such a truth bears less relevance to the problem of our lack of civility in the public square. And that can be seen in how many conservative Christians from the 1980s and 1990s both were strong supporters of the free market and looked at our democratic processes as a way to consolidate power and advance their own agenda only rather than to share power with others as equals and advance their concerns as well.