Conservative Christianity's Three-Front War

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christians Should Include Self-Criticism When Criticizing Others

Dr Graham Cole teaches at Beeson Divinity School, a school which sprang up from Samford University. In the accompanying video, Cole is asked about Post-Modernism.





In this interview Cole is asked for a definition of Post-Modernism and he provides a partial definition. He states that Post-Modernism is the rule of relativity as opposed to Modernism which is the rule of reason. And he praised Post-Modernism because for challenging Modernism's for relying on human reason. However, he criticizes Post-Modernism because it embraces relativity. He states that neither Modernism nor Post-Modernism is a sufficient guide for finding one's worldview.

If neither Modernism nor Post-Modernism are good enough, what should we use to develop a worldview? Pre-Modernism is the answer according to Cole. The reason is because Pre-Modernism relies on the rule of revelation and Christians know that we have God's true revelation. So Christians should use God's revelation as the ultimate standard in developing one's worldview.

Before we proceed, we listen to what Cole says about one's worldview. According to Cole, a worldview consists of the ideas we use to interpret the world. These ideas act as 'gatekeepers' in determining how we process the world around us. A Christian worldview uses the Scriptures as one's primary source for ideas used to interpret the world. Cole identifies 3 criteria a Christian should use in evaluating competing worldviews. The first criteria is whether the ideas we rely on here are Scriptural. The second criteria is whether the ideas we relay on here are 'thinkable.' Here, a worldview is thinkable if it is consistent and does not lead to contradictions. Finally, one must determine if one's worldview is 'livable.'

Before criticizing Cole's views here we should note that his criteria for developing worldviews are good. We should also note that this clip does not give us an opportunity to hear everything that Cole thinks about Post-Modernism. But here is the problem. At least in the interview seen in the above video, though Cole gives an adequate definition of Post-Modernism, he fails to list the issues that Post-Modernism has been trying to address when it embraced relativity and rejected both the rule of faith/revelation, which is Pre-Modernism, and the rule of reason. Post-Modern embraced relativity because those in the movement found the colonialism, wars, and imperialism that resulted from both Pre-Modernism and Modernism to be not livable. And this is true especially when WMDs exist. Neither Pre-Modernism nor Modernism showed themselves to be effective in restraining man's tendencies to show intolerance, dominate others, and make war.

So what we see in Post-Modernism's emphasis on relativity is not the assertion of a positive but an attempt to remove a negative. That is that Post-Modernism attempts to remove any reason which, according to history, people have used to rationalize their brutal treatment of others. Seeing that neither the rule of faith/revelation nor the rule of reason has curbed our abuse of others, none are livable.

So Cole's problem here is not found in his criticisms of Modernism and Post-Modernism. Rather, his problem is not owning up for Pre-Modernism's failures, Christianity's sins to be specific.  And though his hesitancy to criticize Pre-Modernism because of its reliance on revelation, his, and our failure to own up to our and our forefather's mistakes is not just a problem in the video, it is our modus operandi. It is not until we address our mistakes that we will start to answer the questions that Post-Modernists are asking. And it is not until we address our mistakes that we have a chance to restore credibility to the Gospel.

We should note that many who refuse to own up to mistakes often do so in order to avoid accountability and to establish or maintain a position of authority. And perhaps this is why some Christians, especially American Christians, find it difficult to give Post-Modernism the full credit it is due. For as wrong as Post-Modernism is in embracing relativity, it is trying to challenge the presumption of some who believe that they, because they are exceptional or have a monopoly on some truth, are entitled to rule over others. Such people view attacks on their right to rule as attacks on the truths they hold dear. That is because they equate their right to rule with the facts as they see them and the principles they practice.

If America and American Christians want to experience a growing influence on their worlds rather than a diminishing one, they need to be upfront with their past and present sins. And to identify their sins they must listen to the complaints of those with whom they disagree in order to find the truths in what they say. Failure to do so will only mean that we follow the same flawed course that we are on now. And though while we will feel persecuted because we are losing our influence on others, the truth will be that as others will gain more and more power, they will treat us as we have treated them.

There Are 50 Shades Of Gray But Only 6 Types Of Atheists

George Yancey, a sociology professor from the University Of North Texas, has just teamed up with David Williamson to write the book, There Is No God: Atheists In America. What we are commenting here on is an opinion piece of his that appeared in Christianity Today called, What The 'Six Types Of Atheists' Mean For Christian Outreach. The classification of these six types come from the work of Christopher Silver, a researcher at the University Of Tennessee At Chattanooga. 

The stated purpose for discussing the different kinds of atheists is both ethical and evangelical. It is ethical in that Christians should extend to atheists the same courtesy that they expect from others. In short, just as Christians do not want to be stereotyped, neither should they stereotype others. It is evangelical because Yancey emphasizes that we should share the Gospel with others and should do so in ways that are appropriate to the situation and to the people we are talking to.

The six different kinds of atheists are: the Intellectual, the Activist, the Seeker-Agnostic, the Anti-Theist, the Non-Theist, and Ritual Atheist/Agnostic. The names of the different types pretty much summarizes what each group is about except, perhaps, for the last group. The Ritual Atheist/Agnostic is one who holds to the same non-beliefs about God that atheists do but do attend worship services in order to meet non-spiritual needs.

Yancey uses a passive-aggressive model to organize the different kinds of atheists into two groups. Aggressive atheists consist of the Intellectuals, the Activists, and the anti-Theists. They are classified as aggressive because of the almost search and destroy mentality they exercise toward Christian beliefs. Part of this is because they, according to Yancey, believe in the "rightness of nonbelief." We could add that they also think that, in contrast to belief, nonbelief makes a positive difference in the world. 

On the other hand, we have the passive atheists. They have a "live and let live" disposition toward believers according to Yancey. In other words, they do not feel as threatened, if at all, by the faith of others. We could add that though they themselves don't believe, they would have an easier time attributing positive characteristics and contributions to society to believers. The passive atheists consist of the Seeker-Agnostic, the Non-Theist, and the Ritual Atheist/Agnostic. 

One of the good things about this opinion piece is how Yancey identifies with the atheists, something we should learn to do with all who are different from us. He relates to them in that, like himself, atheists can realistically see themselves as having a "status inconsistency." Yancey says that that is true about himself because he sometimes enjoys male privileges but then he has to deal with the problems caused by the status society still assigns to him because of his race. The inconsistency that Yancey sees the atheists as suffering through is that while enjoy more privileges and power because they tend to be White, they are also "under the suspicions," as Inspector Clouseau would say. They feel mistreated by society.

What causes the hostility between the aggressive atheists and Christians? There is not a simple answer here because the animosity that can flows both ways to the extent that aggressive atheists and Christians sometimes provide mirror images of each other. Each will accuse the other of having a worldview that leads to dangerous and destructive decisions and both will claim that the other is immoral. Perhaps, this is why Yancey referred to some atheists as being "fundamentalists" in their own right. 

Now, what will be written here will probably extend past Yancey though I do not know how much it will do so. I have not read enough of him to know for sure though I plan to read more of his work in the future.

The worldview held by many aggressive atheists is one that is discovered and ruled by science and reason. It is the worldview of the modernist. The worldview of the Christian, the Conservative Christian to be precise, is that of the pre-modernist. It is the one that is ruled by faith and revelation. The morality of the aggressive atheist is dominated by social and environmental issues--Yancey does say that atheists have their own morality. In contrast to that, the morality of the Conservative Christian revolves around personal decision making, it is an individual morality. Since each group judges the other by its own strong suit, each group finds the other so lacking that one could swear that both groups are deliberately working on cultivating phobias of each other which leads to the scapegoating of each other. Scapegoating is at the heart of many an unnecessary conflict.

In an interview with the Christian Post, Yancey points out that atheism, and here we could focus on aggressive atheism, is a reaction to the Christian Right and its politics. The politics of the Christian Right syncretically combines an embracing of the Capitalism du jour and American Exceptionalism with the whatever is in the Bible which survives from the merging. With a religion that stresses the individual, including salvation and morality, along with self-congratulatory politic values, is it any wonder why the Intellectual and Activist Atheists look down on the Conservative Christian? Both of these types of Atheists, especially the Activist, look outwardly--note that we didn't include the Anti-Theists in this group because they scored the highest for narcissism. The Intellectual and Activist Atheist appear to have more concern with what goes on in the outside world than in one's own inside world (see the post on Innie and Outie Christians).

At the same time, calling some Conservative Christians to pay more attention to the immediate and the outside world is to go against the grain. For Conservative Christians have been trained to focus on their own internal state, especially their spiritual state, and to minimize the importance of the here and now because it cannot compare with the eternal. For some Christians, this focus on the inner self has caused them to lean toward experiencing a self-inflicted, spiritual autism. Christians living in such a state become highly agitated by the external stimuli of the world around them and prefer to be able to shut it out. We should note that Conservative Christians are not the only ones suffering from some kind of self-inflicted, spiritual autism. Regular Americans who enthusiastically embrace consumerism suffer from a similar state. That is their happiness, which is born of materialism, becomes the focus used to shut out the rest of the world.

So while aggressive atheists upset Conservative Christians with their call to wake up and smell the world around them, Conservative Christians provoke some aggressive atheists by their call to minimize what is going on in the here and now to stare at their current spiritual state. Such a call can be interpreted as a resigning to the fates and an escaping to an idealistic, imaginary friend and world. Such calls the aggressive atheist to shirk their social responsibility to others and to justice. Added to that is the Conservative Christian's call for atheists to curb their all natural fleshly appetites. 

In the end, there are some Conservative Christians and aggressive atheists who talk to each other in ways that say one has everything to teach and nothing to learn -- a variation of one of my favorite Martin Luther King quotes. It is this very attitude that is at the heart of the conflict between some aggressive atheists and Conservative Christians as well as between many groups that wage actual war against each other.

There is another source of conflict between aggressive atheists and Conservative Christians that has not been mentioned yet. That source is the paybacks are not pleasant motif. Yancey acknowledges that we no longer live in a society where Christianity dominates society's mores and social conventions. And here, dominate is the key word because in the past, Christian values were coerced on all. This was not just because we had more people then who identified themselves as some kind of Conservative Christian, it was because Christian values were legislated in the laws. The aggressive stand that some atheists take toward Christians as well as our society's move away from Conservative Christian values can be seen, in part, as a response to a suffocating domination of society that Conservative Christians once exercised.

Yancey's point in this article is if the Conservative Christian wants to more effectively reach out to the atheist, then he or she must tailor their witness according to the situation and audience. We will add here that this means that the Conservative Christian must be willing to admit to the wrongs Conservative Christians committed in the past. This also means that the Conservative Christian must listen to atheists and consider whether we unnecessarily and even dangerously minimize the here and now. Such a consideration does not require us to compromise how we evangelize.

One final note, when one compares how I have probably extended past George Yancey's description of atheists with what Yancey writes and how he comes to conclusions, one can easily observe a major difference between us. Yancey is a real social scientist who uses a careful collection of data, statistics, and peer-reviewed methodologies, whatever they are, to make assessments while I am a blogger. My methodology requires that I read what others write and then reflect on that and my personal experiences. And to the extent that you agree with what is written here is the degree to which we share experiences.