The Myth of the Apolitical Evangelical

This morning's New York Times features a front-page story on the members who have left Woodland Hills Church in suburban St. Paul over Pastor Greg Boyd's denunciation of "politics."

Some of the things Boyd renounces in the article and well worthy of renunciation. Some churches have too closely aligned the Kingdom community with one particular nation-state or political party, that is true. But the article also leaves murky, as does Boyd's new book on the subject, how the church plans to challenge prophetically such social and state-sponsored evils as abortion. If Pastor Boyd wants his church not to be seen as "Republican," many of us can agree with him. If he wants his church to be silent on theological issues, such as abortion and religious liberty, that the ambient culture deems "political," then he is now just what he fears about the flag-waving megachurch pastor down the street: a dupe for the powers-that-be.

It is interesting that the Times chose to interview postmodernist "emerging church" leader Brian McLaren about this. McLaren, of course, lambasted the politicization of evangelical Christianity. Again, some of this critique is called for. Voting guides with a "Christian" position on the Balanced Budget Amendment and the line item veto right next to a Christian view of partial birth abortion tend to trivialize the importance of issues about which the church should rightly speak.

But McLaren and the seeming political isolationists on the evangelical left and the postmodern ooze are hardly apolitical. They constantly call the church to a Kingdom view of sustainability or opposition to global warming or, with Bono in tow, debt relief for Africa. Many of these things are quite worthy of Christian proclamation and action. But how is opposition to legal abortion "political" while economic, energy, and liberal foreign policy statements are not? The ambient culture applauds a position on third world debt relief or automobile emissions controls. It doesn't applaud legal protection of the unborn. Herod doesn't mind John the Baptist calling for cleaner and safer aqueducts. Just leave my naked dancing girls alone.

I would cheer movements like Boyd's if they were saying, don't think the Republican Party is the Kingdom of God. Evangelicals shouldn't be anyone's voting bloc, and we shouldn't give a blank check of support to any party's policies because they agree with us on some important ones. That's true. Some pastors and Christian leaders on the right will support any program and endorse any agenda, so long as it keeps the White House door open to them.

It just seems disingenuous when they tell us not to talk about some issues from a biblical perspective while rallying around other issues from a biblical perspective, and those issues just happen to be consonant with the Democratic Party platform. We're as duped as we want to be.

One aspect of Boyd's critique is absolutely true, and is borne out in the New York Times article. Evangelicalism has taken on a political identity while shedding a theological one. A thousand people left Boyd's church. They held a "conservative" stance on issues such as the church's role in society. And yet, for years, Boyd has taught that God does not know the future free actions of people. He has preached that the universe is a democracy rather than a monarchy, and that God's purposes are thwarted by human and angelic decisions he didn't anticipate and he can't overturn. He has articulated an egalitarian view of men and women fully in line with the feminist movement and fully out of step with the biblical canon. Where were the thousand "conservatives" then?

Comments

[Bobby Winters]

Russell,

If I'd seen more Baptist preachers like you, I might not have left. Nicely done as always.

[Ethan Cordray]

The end of the article also raises a question that has bothered me: why is it that certain political concerns that Christians ought to be very involved in seem so often to be monopolized by theological liberals? I can't honestly see the connection between, say, denying the authority of the scriptures and wanting to defend the poor from oppression. This is the sort of thing that has bothered me about Jim Wallace-types. Perhaps a zeal for action can often lead to a sloppiness and hastiness in thinking, but I think that a well thought out orthodox theological critique of politics would not only be possible, but would be more effective. Honestly, I think it's the liberalism of such movements that really drives orthodox Evangelicals away from taking greater action for economic righteousness, as much or more than out ingrained American tendency for selfishness.

I realize that Catholics have a lot better track record on such things, and that's a point in their favor in my opinion.

And is it just me, or can Brian McLaren be counted on to applaud anything that seems new?

[Phil Jamieson]

I agree. This was a very well written response to the Times piece. Why do evangelicals insist on jumping from the political "frying pan" into the "fire?"

[Russell D. Moore]

Mr. Winters,

Thank you for your kindness. Baptists are always glad to welcome a wanderer back. We'll leave the water running for you.

[Matt Self]

Anyone who wants to raise the fundamental Gospel to levels above politics should receive a lot of grace in their eschatology, IMO. I realize Calvinists have legitimate beefs with Boyd, but he is attempting to protect the very thing Calvinists have been defending from liberals since the Reformation. Perhaps Boyd gets sidetracked by his own theological nuances. I still think he arrives at the same approximate conservative position. It's a little ironic to me Calvinists see Boyd as their polar opposite, and yet the actual division is over a single issue we will never have fully resolved until we get to heaven: the sovereignty of God.

[Russ]

Matt: Though, of course, if Boyd is right, then God doesn't really know if the issue of his sovereignty will be worked out in the future or not.

[Jeff Newlin]

Matt-

Perhaps I am too naive; are you talking tongue-in-cheek when you refer to the sovereignty of God as a single issue of division. Why, I always thought the Sovereignty of God was undisputable fact of both creation and Christian Orthodoxy. Are we talking here about the kind of debate that Luther and Erasmus were having over so-called "Free Will" back in the early Reformation Days?

[Nick]

Only too true. Christianity contains within itself a certain level of socialism. It is not an aggressive socialism, but it is socialism. The problem is the abortion debate and the 60's liberal culture caused a rift in Western politics that is still being felt. I can't vote for even moderate and well thought out social problems without funding evil.

[ralphg]

Much of what Christ advocated was ignored by government in his time. Today, government does all that: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc. For Christians to be involved in these areas automatically makes them political (and I've deliberately left "them" vague).

As government increasingly increases its coverage over the land, anti-religiousists can increasingly demand/lie that Christians must be banned from public involvement -- until there is no area of life left for Christians to work in.

Unless the lie is exposed.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Only too true. Christianity contains within itself a certain level of socialism. It is not an aggressive socialism, but it is socialism.<<<

There is a difference between "socialism" and "communitarianism". Socialism is the ownership of the means of production by the state, and by extension, state direction of the economy. Which, as I hope we will all concede, was one of the dumber ideas of the last two hundred years. As it involves the state, participation in the system is not voluntary, and in fact must be coercive, since human nature being what it is, people naturally object to having their goods and their ideas transferred gratis to someone else.

Christianity, on the other hand, is communitarian. That is, people enter voluntarily into a eucharistic society in which all members are considered brothers and sisters within an extended family, in which all defer to all in Christ. The Church in Jerusalem initially held all goods in common, but that turned out to be disasterous--necessitating Paul's collection for the "Poor"--the bretheren in the Jerusalem Church. It is noteworthy that Paul never insisted that his churches share all goods in common, and there is no evidence that this was normal in the sub-apostolic Church, either. Rather, all believers were exhorted to give alms to the poor as a charitable and eschatological act. And it was through the sponsorship of the wealthier members of the community that most charitable institutions--as well as the great churches themselves--were endowed. Thus, if you look at the charitable work of the Church from the third through the tenth centuries (the first millennium being both the formative and normative period of Church history), there is no evidence of socialism whatsoever (socialism being a 19th century intellectual construct, even speaking of socialism in the Church is stunningly anachronistic), but there is very strong evidence for a communitarian approach to both economic and social issues.

[kfgray]

If we are embracing a political party's platform, we're in trouble. On the flip side, here is what can happen when a church resolves not to be "political":

1. An issue -- say, marriage -- is taken up by politicians. It is controversial.

2. Marriage is then considered a political issue.

3. Accordingly, the apolitical church avoids deep theological teaching on marriage. Is Genesis 1-3 the next topic in the SS literature? Maybe it's best to skip that, or just touch on it lightly. No "male and female He made them"! No taking Eve out of Adam's side! No helpmate! No bride of Christ, or marriage supper of the Lamb! No politics!!

4. This ensures that God's people, particularly young/new Christians, don't learn God's word on the high-profile cultural issues of the day. At least not at church.

Works like a charm. It's far worse than keeping God's word out of the public square. It is self-imposed censorship: keeping God's word out of the CHURCH via an ever-expanding definition of what is "political." The apolitical church could end up with a very limited slate of topics! Maybe this kind of thing couldn't happen in your church. But I think it is happening some places.

[Heinrich Volmink]

I'm a South African and so probably have a different perspective on Dr. Gregory Boyd's new work. I have listened to his 'Cross and Sword' sermons and am currently reading 'Myth of a Christian Nation.' Much of what Boyd says is profoundly prophetic and deeply resonates with me. However, while I fully agree that no political structure will ever be able to extend the Kingdom of God, I do believe that the principles of the Kingdom can have an impact on public ethics. For example, the fact that Nelson Mandela was prepared to forgive those who, through gross injustice, robbed him of nearly 30 years of his life reflected a Kingdom-like public ethic that served as a source of great healing in our land (there are of course other examples such a public ethic- Martin Luther King, Jr, William Wilberforce, etc). Again, we are not talking about politics being used to extend the Kingdom of God, but rather politics being used to help create a condition in which the Kingdom of God can more easily flourish (see 1 Timothy 2:1-4 ). Perhaps some work should be done, therefore, on how to develop a common Biblical public ethic, based on Kingdom-values, that can be broadly applied (and I assure you, such an ethic would be neither conservative nor liberal).

PS. Open Theology does not question the omniscience of God, it merely questions the nature of what can be known (i.e. it proposes that God knows everything that CAN be known). I honestly don't see how an alternative model in which the future is partially settled and partially open is being perceived as such a threat-especially when the common denominator between Open Theology, Arminianism and Calvinism is that they all affirm that God is sovereignty in control. Furthermore, Open Theology is not in contradiction with any of the ancient creeds (e.g. Apostles, Nicene) and helps to explain difficult texts such as Jeremiah 18:1-10 . Brothers and sisters, is it not time that we stopped dividing over such theological nuances and rather focus on carrying the life-giving Kingdom of God to a dying world???