Not only has the decline in non-Christians’ regard for Christianity been severe, but Barna results also show a rapid increase in the number of people describing themselves as non-Christian. One reason may be that the study used a stricter definition of “Christian” that applied to only 73% of Americans.
Well, duh, if you use a stricter definition of “Christian” than you should get fewer “Christians.”
It’s a good thing Barna and Time weren’t around in the first century. Paul and his colleagues might have just packed it all in and given up. Why bother? Oh, I guess they could have watered down the Gospel, to make it more palatable to the culture. Or, maybe not?
You can be sure those in TEC’s highest offices are taking notes on this article. After all, TEC bases all of it’s theology and teaching on polls and public opinion!
It is time for relective and analytic Christians to look back into time and try to define what has been happening to Christianity within the United States. The resourceas are available. The media archives and various serious analyses and anti-Christian spins exist in large numbers.
What is the common thread?
Who, groups and individuals, seem to have had the greatest effect in diminishing and debasing Christianity?
What are their goals? Outside of pure anti-Christian deconstruction and nihilism.
What are their motives and what is the source of their antimosity?
Answering these questions is essential if we who adhere “to the Faith once given” are to be able to go forth within our immediate communities and fulfill the Great Commission.
The time has passed for passivity when we encounter the anti-Christians and the negatively misinformed among us. We need to be assertive and kind and loving in our dealings with them, but ‘in no way’ will a submissive attitude enable us to carry forth the Great Commission.
Of course we should care. I think that, like it or not, among nonbelievers and skeptics, the visibility of people such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other TV Preachers has turned many away. To those people, the TV evangelists define what Christianity is and who Christians are. Their vision of who Christians are are, to many, unattracive and repellent. The injection of evangelical Christianity into partisan politics drives away those who don’t share the political beliefs.
The proliferation of an a-religious point of view in the popular media has doubtless contributed to this as well.
Hey bob, remember this?
“Beware when all mean speak well of you”
and
“You will be hated and persecuted for my sake”
I do care. And it seems we must be doing something to make more people not like us. Could it be that we are preaching a Gospel they no longer want to hear?
Naaahhhh. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should tailor our Gospel to what pleases the most people. After all, itching ears can’t be wrong.
Christians in the first century were despised because they had an integrity that was inconvenient.
Christians these days are disliked because they are judgmental and anti-gay.
Anti-Christians then had no love of a suffering God.
Anti-Christians now give high marks to Jesus.
This is a very different context.
Now, add to that the problem that all these conservative American Anglicans are getting together. The culture will consider them, not first as people propagating the gospel, but as people who united in being anti-gay. This shouldn’t bother them, as it is… what the culture thinks that most Christianity is.
Good luck to them in clarifying and calibrating what they really think. It’s going to be a lot of work [A reasserter might say, “we’re not anti-gay. We just don’t trust them – I mean, Jesus doesn’t trust them – in positions of authority.” The culture: “??… this is Christian thinking? who needs it?”]. But best to them on it.
Churchgoers of the same age share several of the non-Christians’ complaints about Christianity. For instance, 80% of the Christians polled picked “anti-homosexual” as a negative adjective describing Christianity today.
This poll proves what some of us have been saying all along: That the hatred and anti-gay discrimination espoused by those calling themself Christian is a turn-off to young people today. So, there is hope for the future: that bigotry will die out with the older generations who are perpetuating it! Now, there’s some good news!
What should define Christianity is what others think about it…
don’t remember that one being in Scripture, Tradition or anything else.
I feel sorry for those who define all our troubles as ‘anti-gay’ because they simple DON’T get it – and it is sad.
God is NOT defined by what He is NOT but who he is – Holy and Perfect.
That is what WE are called to be “Be ye perfect as the Father and I are perfect.”
Christ wanted us not as we presently ARE who who HE created us to be… holy, perfect, like Christ.
So, to get there, one must forsake the sin of one’s life and come and follow him.
I find it so sad that instead of embracing the new life that is the BASIS the FOUNDATION of what a Christian is – there are those who would rather stay in the mire and never understand the height, breadth and reality of what it is to truly follow Christ.
Actually do that – actually DIE to self and selfishness – and the polls will change – people can see the reality of change – they can also see when it is merely talk, talk talk talk – obfuscation – hiding and more talk… like a certain HoB report I know of…
I’m having to get used to being a loser on the world’s terms. This has not been comfortable – as Barna points out, the change has been rapid.
I’m learning to read the Scriptures better as a result, and to have more consistency in faith and practice. Comment #8 is on target.
And if the litmus test of one’s value and acceptance is now, “Be pro-homosexual”, then I don’t need to be a Christian. I can hold almost any worldview and glom onto that bit of peer-pressure and self-justification.
Dallasite [#7] makes very good points. Both elite culture and pop culture play on anti-Christian stereotypes. Professional televangelists stoke those stereotypes. And negative views of the Christian Right have become so strong and widespread that many evangelical leaders shy away from the label “evangelical.”
Think about it: not long ago political and cultural pundits were chattering about the “decade of the evangelical” and the like. Now we see an increasing number of evangelical leaders finding the label loaded with negative associations and an impediment to evangelism. Something has gone badly wrong, and part of that something has involved mismating the gospel with right-wing secular politics. Conflating the gospel with secular politics is bad regardless of whether it happens on the left, on the right, or in the middle. Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, and we conflate the two at our peril.
The thing I love about conservative Christians is that they live in this win-win fantasy world. If they get praise then they are doing Gid’s work and He’s rewarding them. If they get criticized then they are doing God’s work and being persecuted for it, which is biblical and wonderful, etc. They get some succor from believing that they are “in” while those that criticize them are “out.” It’s really just another form of Gnosticism parading as truth. But then I’m not one of them, so my opinion doesn’t really matter.
According to a Barna survey in 2001 only 28% of Episcopalians believe that Jesus was without sin. In other words 72% don’t believe the Nicene creed when they say “of one being with the Father”. Which means only 28% of Episcopalians are Christian. Now, before you say “Who are you to define Christianity?”, I am only pointing out that believing that Jesus sinned makes nonsense of the creeds and about two thirds of the Eucharist. What is the point of the confession or eating his body and blood if Jesus is merely a fellow sinner?
My problem is that I agree with Bob, John, Brian and Fred. Christians are hypocritical, unloving and irrelevant too much of the time. We cannot turn back the clock but we must enter the “listening process” of listening to God to learn where to go.
The Evangelical alpha males don’t help much when it comes to making the case for Christian sexual ethics. But if this poll means anything, I suspect our loss of popularity has as much to do with the “cool kids” i.e. the financially and culturally privileged elites, who have turned on Christianity and are using the old reliable slander that we’re nerds, immature, uncool, socially and sexual defective — you name it. Works every time.
Now all the wannabe cool kids in TEC can’t wait till the nerds leave so that they can finally get a chance to sit at the cool kids’ table.
The dynamics are no different than in 8th grade. The only difference is that our cultured despisers have become more sophisticated at camofluaging their malice as indignation and passing off sexual libertinism as a search for personal authenticity.
Our best response was charted out by our predessors in late antiquity. When early Christians were accused of being enemies of society (most persecutions of Christians have been justified by charges that Christians are hateful and anti-social) they responded by producing apologetics that matched the sophistication of the their accusers. But their most effective rebuttal was the graciousness and charity they displayed in their lives.
Charming Billy [#20]: Good analogy to the 8th grade cool kids. They’re at us from two sides: on the one side, the secular intelligentsia; on the other side, the forces of mass entertainment (e.g., the film, television, and music industries) and consumer culture.
[A reasserter might say, “we’re not anti-gay. We just don’t trust them – I mean, Jesus doesn’t trust them – in positions of authority.†The culture: “??… this is Christian thinking? who needs it?”]
I appreciate that you post on this site, but I’m often confused by your comments. Do you actually construe the reasserting position on sexual ethics this way?
I know of no reasserter who would agree to this position. In fact, I’ve never heard a reasserter make the case against gay ordination in anything remotely like these terms.
Thanks. But I have to admit that I was first made aware of the theological significance of 8th grade social hierarchies by William Placher’s (my favorite liberal) 1999 essay “Christ Takes our Place”.
I’m basically in line with nos. 7 and 17. There’s a corollary that I think hasn’t been mentioned but which may be important.
As conservative evangelical Protestantism has ascended, the Protestant mainline has descended. (I’m not saying there’s a simple cause and effect there, but at least a temporal assocation.)
Young people, developmentally, tend to be simple black-white thinkers (e.g., when they start college as freshmen). So they see, at one pole “Christian,” and at the other pole “tolerance/pluralism/diversity.” At the Christian pole, they see conservative evangelical–because the mainline has fallen not only in visibility and numbers but also in stature across the culture. In the old days–the postwar era, for example–Protestant mainline clergymen and theologians were THE spokespersons for American religion, with few exceptions (Billy Graham, Fulton Sheen). And in many communities, particularly on the East Coast, the local religious leaders who were often the most prominent, and therefore the spokespersons for the Protestant community in general, were Episcopal bishops, like Noble Powell of Maryland, whom I’ve written about at length.
The Anglican tradition–and mainline Protestantism–was perceived to be thoughtful, tolerant, etc. But, for various reasons, it declined and lost its appeal. At the same time, the other pole also became more extreme in its relativistic values. The two poles may now be farther apart than they’ve been in probably 200 years. And mainline Protestantism must accept some blame for that.
[blockquote] The thing I love about conservative Christians is that they live in this win-win fantasy world. If they get praise then they are doing Gid’s work and He’s rewarding them. If they get criticized then they are doing God’s work and being persecuted for it, which is biblical and wonderful[/blockquote]
Don’t you know your Scripture?
“For we know that ALL things work to the common good for those who know and love the Lord and are called according to His Purpose.”
So, sorry to disillusion you there, boy, but Christianity teaches that following God is what is paramount – what is worth pursuing and “the wisdom of God is foolishness to those who are perishing” –
I mean that’s like a basic truth there, Brian – where have you been?
Yes, I agree, Christians bear much blame for their declining popularity. My observation was more about the tactics our critics use than assigning all responsibility to them.
No. 27, Charming Billy:
“Dr. Hein, you misspelled assocation (sic)!”
You’re right: sorry! I really do know how to spell the word.
You also wrote:
“William Placher (my favorite liberal)”
Yes, he’s excellent. For many years, I’ve used his intro. to Christian thought in my basic theology course.
But is he a “liberal”? I’d never thought of him that way. But I guess you’re right. To me he’s simply mainstream and orthodox. But in the old days, “liberal” Protestant simply meant not conservative, in the sense of conservative evangelical. But because of the shifts that have taken place, a mainstream Protestant liberal (in, say, the 1950s) now looks fairly traditional, even conservative. I don’t think of Placher as being liberal in the sense that liberal or reappraiser is often used by us on this blog.
Anyway, I’m not quibbling with you or presenting myself as any kind of authority on Placher’s own place on the theological spectrum (to me he looks like a Yale neo-liberal but with some strong realist affinities and principles as well, if you know what I mean). I’m just musing aloud on the way mainline Protestantism has shifted pretty far to the left, at least in its Episcopal form, placing today’s “liberals” pretty far out there. It may be too much to use Tom Reeves’s phrase and talk about “the suicide of liberal Christianity,” but I confess that that phrase does occur to me from time to time as I read the latest carryings-on of TEC.
Perhaps the Anglican Communion can somehow maintain the middle and thereby restore the essential Anglican tradition of “thoughtful holiness,” to use Robert Runcie’s phrase.
Rodney Stark and George Marsden both view the decline of Mainline Protestantism and the rise of conservative evangelicalism as closely intertwined. As Mainline churches became increasingly more revisionist, they didn’t satisfy their members’ needs—and many members voted with their feet.
One of the “criminals” here is scienticism, the religion that contemporary science and technology have created. The issue is not merely secularity, it is the kind of secularity. Men cannot live without the value system created by religion, though they say they can. Science, because of its laboratory structure, cannot survive in a world in which the Real cannot be measured and replicated. Accordingly, it has generated a religion of its own. You know its terms: Man’s dysfunctions are all curable by science and technology; this is a core article of belief. Science will enable mankind to live ever longer and longer, and then, perhaps, forever, hence the belief in immortality defined by science. Heaven, then, can be created here on earth, and we may yet live to enjoy it. (Schori herself has said this) Sin is not meaningless, but it is punished by social shunning, there being no hell. The worst of the sins is exclusivity because S&T;tell us that we are all essentially the same. Evil is meaningless, or at least, that which we called evil in the past can now (or soon will be) remediable.
Why the failure of Christianity? Because (a) the young already have a religion and (b) Christianity is irrelevant. Science promises and produces on those promises again and again. Christianity promises and can produce nothing but words. The evidence is clear: Science can cure some cancers and more as time goes on; God can’t. Technology produces money; God doesn’t This is undeniable and inctrovertible.
At its root, the present failure of Christianity arises from the shift from an agrarian to an industrial society, partly because an agrarian society is always in the hands of a power greater than itself, and an industrial society manufactures its own power; and we have made it all ourselves.
The time mag article is important, and I hope some of youread the article on NO in the new Newsweek I cited. I will tell you again: The outside, real world is watching us all the time and we act as if it doesn’t exist. Wake up, boys and girls. Recess is over. We had better learn how to make the old truths speak a new language. But this is not an admonition to despair. Hear an old truth from Robert Frost, and this ought to be part of the Christian gospel. (From “The Black Cottage”)
“For, dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favor….”
No. 29:
Yes, thanks. I didn’t want to make a straightforward assertion of cause and effect, as if a simple seesaw relation obtained, but there is indeed a connection.
It’s more complicated, as you know: we’d also have to factor in, among other things, the transformation of the content and packaging of evangelical Protestantism, making it more appealing to up-and-coming junior executives and all the others who a few decades before would have responded enthusiastically to (for example) Episcopal evangelist Sam Shoemaker’s winning ways in Pittsburgh. By the 1970s, neo-evangelicalism had become a respectable alternative to the Protestant mainline.
And, frankly, I hate to say it but I think another factor in the decline of the mainline has been a loss of intellectual vigor. The best and the brightest have not gone into the Episcopal ministry for some decades. Of course there are many exceptions, but I am looking at the whole and the average. Thus, as many have remarked, the quality of preaching has declined, and, in my view, the quality not only of writing (read these letters by Episcopal bishops) but also of thought (consider the “puzzling and bizarre” process by which recent decisions have been made) has been mediocre in far too many cases.
No. 30: You raise a good question, but I don’t find myself reaching for “science” or even scientism as the villain in this story quite as quickly as you do.
In fact, I think of the best scientists as being rather humble in their assertions, ready to acknowledge the limitations of the empirical approach to finding truth.
Also, we tend, perhaps mistakenly, to think of religion and science not only as antagonists but also as direct opposites. But take another look at H. Richard Niebuhr’s excellent chapter on the faith of science in his Radical Monotheism. You will never forget the affinities he remarks between the incomplete but admirable faith of a scientist and the faith of the radical monotheist.
#32. The issue isn’t wht the best scientists think. The issue is what our culture, broadly and deeply, have made out of what science does, and the belif system that arises therefrom. T he culture’s attitude is: If you can do it, you deserve to be believed.
However, your point about the loss of intellectual vigor is also important.
The dichotomy is false when looked at sub species eternitatis, but in daily life, the gap is very real and vital. Christianity only controls religion, S&T;controls your health, your income and your entertainment and y our physical comfort.
Mind you, I myself do not find Christianity irrelevant (quite the reverse), only unfashionable, and have tried to point out one reason why. Since fashion rules what we think and do – and TEC is the perfect case in point – we must deal with fashion.
Larry
possibly the people who have a poor view of Christianity have visited blogs where Christians debate the Truth; as in” You are stupid”. “Well, you are stupider”. “ok, but you are the stupidest of all” etc etc
No. 40: Undoubtedly true. But the discerning eye will occasionally discover some gold in there along with the dross, don’t you think?
Also, many of us have found–haven’t you?–that blogs provide hard information along with a range of inquiry and comment that is simply missing from (or skewed in) the daily media.
As a number of bloggers have observed, the mainstream media’s coverage of the recent HoB meeting is very much a case in point: the coverage was all over the map. Those events in New Orleans really did require some sorting out. Reading just one newspaper article–which is what we might have done in the old days–wouldn’t have come close to helping us accomplish that sorting out and could have been seriously misleading.
Also, have you ever been interviewed by and quoted in a newspaper? There’s nothing like being involved in an event or otherwise being part of a story to make the participant realize how hard it is for reporters to provide full and even-handed coverage of something.
I too regret the many unhelpful and uncharitable and shoot-from-the-lip “contributions” to blogs, but I do think that on the whole the better Web logs, like Kendall’s, provide a real service and are also frequently fun (as well as frustrating) to read.
In brief, we’re in a real crisis time in TEC and the AC, and getting the news from the traditional sources is no longer enough for anyone who really wants to keep up and stay current.
#28, William Placher consistently refers to himself as a “liberal”. I was surprised by this as I would classify him as a mainline moderate. I think his self characterization is a little out of date but still roughly accurate. Like a lot of mainline reasserters he’s not a classical evangelical — well, maybe I should speak for myself — he’s thoughtfully critical and liberal with respect to questions of biblical inerrancy and inspiration but more or less conservative with respect to classical Christian teachings on the person and work of Christ.
It seems to me that this “conservative liberal” consensus was representative of the mainline churches up until the 80s but it has now collapsed. I don’t know if it fell apart because it was inherently unstable or simply because the “conservative liberals” didn’t articulate and defend their position vigorously enough. From what I can tell the “post liberal” movement attempts to rearticulate this position for a later generation.
At any rate, as a mainliner who has as much in common with William Placher was with J. I. Packer and John Stott I feel like an orphan sometimes.
David; I agree with all of that; but we need to be conscious of our witness; we are to be in the world but not of the world
and I can be the worst offender
“William Placher consistently refers to himself as a ‘liberal.’ I was surprised by this as I would classify him as a mainline moderate. I think his self characterization is a little out of date but still roughly accurate. Like a lot of mainline reasserters he’s not a classical evangelical … he’s thoughtfully critical and liberal with respect to questions of biblical inerrancy and inspiration but more or less conservative with respect to classical Christian teachings on the person and work of Christ.”
Yes, I was thinking of Nicea and Chalcedon, too, when I characterized Placher–thinking of that more than of recent controversies.
“a little out of date”
Yes. I guess it’s more or less fair to say that the “liberal-conservative” designation(s) we’re dealing with goes back at least to the denominational battles of the 1920s; so, yes, “liberal” just came to mean something that you and I have sketched above.
Btw, I always seem to confuse reporters when I tell them that I am a theological liberal (in the Placher sense) but one who thinks that TEC went too far (in respect of both the decision and the process) at GC 2003 and ’06.
Reporters, as T19 readers all know by now, like to see this conflict in simple liberal (i.e., open-minded) vs. conservative (ossified, benighted; a diminishing minority) terms.
“Scientism” as a religion? What is this? Look, I’m willing to discuss the post-modern critique of science generally, but in general, the empirical method that is easily disdained here – works. We’re on computers. We have medical advances. Due to science.
Mainline protestantism has fewer members because it won a lot of the battles, and has a lack of identity.
Re #12, – just rolling eyes, well, yes, that is exactly the problem. I’m osmeone who is on these bords often – and people spend a lot of time trying to explain it to me: [its about the bible; its about God being perfect, etc] but in the end, it just seems like reasserters are equally as selective as everyone else about scripture. And I work hard to say – reasserters are not on the wrong side of God. If anything, I think the amazing grace is about letting ourselves act even though we might all be wrong.
This makes Christianity very different than other faiths, which are based on purity and punishment. But who cares about being thought of as unloving by other people? My point is merely that reasserters and conservatives MAY be really loving of gay people. But they’re going to have to work extra hard to represent themselves as loving. I wish we all had the time to ensure that our theology was accurate, precise and… comprehensible to everyone else.
“Mainline protestantism … has a lack of identity.”
I’ve been pondering that subject lately.
Consider mergers. Didn’t some of those churches have more identity before the mergers? The German Reformed Church and the Congregational Church, for example, which eventually became, after various combinations (the E and R Church and the Congregational Christian Church), the UCC.
Or consider the fascinating history of the United Brethren in Christ, later merged with the Evangelical Church; and then of course in 1968 the EUB merged with the Methodist Church to become the UMC.
I suppose that all this has been for the good, but I do wonder about the sharpness of their subsequent profiles on the ecclesiastical horizon–i.e., their identities.
I agree that reasserters are as selective as anyone. However, the scriptures are clearer on sexual ethics than they are on other matters about which conservatives and liberals traditionally disagree; e.g. the atonement. That’s why reasserters won’t budge on the gay ordination issue. It’s clear to us that scripture doesn’t permit us to bless or condone sexual activity outside heterosexual marriage, even though many of us are prepared to respect and honor the devotion and love that so many same sex couples exhibit. Indeed I am prepared to welcome this aspect of same sex relationships into the life of the church.
Mainline protestantism has fewer members because it won a lot of the battles, and has a lack of identity.
And it’s also declining because it rested on its laurels. It’s gotten fat and lazy.
John: “My point is merely that reasserters and conservatives MAY be really loving of gay people”
Well, will wonders never cease? You’re actually open to the possibility that reasserters could be something other than slack-jawed bigots? That makes you a little more open minded than 99.999% of reappraisers on here. Congrats.
# 47; John; I would be intersested in scripture that is selectively ignored by reasserters; seriously. Just a few examples. As one who sees Biblical Unity.
As far as loving a particular group of people; it is meaningless to talk about a group loving another group. Real Christian fellowship is person to person; usually in some kind of small group. It does seem truth would be important in any meaningful relationship; as in the woman at the well’s encounter with Jesus
50 – Rolling, I just wish you could provide me with more evidence that they aren’t as bigoted as everyone thinks they are. Look – I’m the one who will take communion from Akinola. From the outside vantage point, that he can’t even take communion with someone who will take communion with someone who will take communion from someone who supported +Gene’s consecration just seems…. bigoted to me. Look- bigotry is often a matter of principle and conscience.
51 Jimmy – you are perfectly correct, which is why it is meaningless to discuss “gay relationships” generally. It is about two individual people who see the image of God in each other. Just as a Man doesn’t marry generic woman. It’s This Man and This Woman. A generic man/woman theology of complementarity simply justifies serial monogamy, not marriage.
[blockquote]it is meaningless to discuss “gay relationships†generally. It is about two individual people who see the image of God in each other. Just as a Man doesn’t marry generic woman. It’s This Man and This Woman. A generic man/woman theology of complementarity simply justifies serial monogamy, not marriage.[/blockquote]
I am absolutely going to use that as a pickup line. Has it worked well for you?
A generic man/woman theology of complementarity simply justifies serial monogamy, not marriage.
I think Plato is tearing his hair out. Aristotle’s not too happy either.
By this logic, John, one could not think of any species as a class and make rules for them accordingly. I could not formulte a generic theory of the proper relationship to a dog, just to this dog or that dog, because I won’t have a relationship to a generic dog but to a specific one.
Don’t all dogs share a common nature which can be treated as one thing, and by that we judge our behavior with them? Don’t all men have a common nature as men that can be judged in its relationship to the common nature of women?
Ofcourse, I am aware that you might very well argue the last point. Straight-Gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered etc… There is no set form of the sexes, no natural order,, even though, as I learned in Kendrgarten Cop; boys have a penis and girls have a vagina. But why shoul elementary biology mean that their is a commonality behind the common physcal features?
It is not just Christianity you are jetisoning, it is the entire history of Western thought. I think it is thought itself Reason, that is being rejected. You seem to be reasonable. But that is only the lagacy of what you are rejecting. It’s effects linger for awhile. But your “reason” is no more rational than a plane that has run out of fuel midair is truly flying rather than just falling.
I just wish you could provide me with more evidence that they aren’t as bigoted as everyone thinks they are. Look – I’m the one who will take communion from Akinola. From the outside vantage point, that he can’t even take communion with someone who will take communion with someone who will take communion from someone who supported +Gene’s consecration just seems…. bigoted to me. Look- bigotry is often a matter of principle and conscience.
I think piling on these degrees of separation exaggerates Akinola’s position, but maybe that’s your humorous intention. In which case I’ll come to my main point.
In declining to share communion with VGR, Akinola can cite reputable, well-established, and widely held theological and scriptural precedents. That’s not to say you’re obliged to agree with his decision. (For the record, I’m not sure I do.) It does mean, however, that if you choose to disagree with Akinola, you’ll have to provide a more convincing objection than the ad hominem it “just seems…. bigoted to me.â€
Attributing Akinola’s motives to bigotry isn’t only demeaning of the man, it’s demeaning to the tradition which he cites – a tradition you both share. With respect, it seems to me that you are far from being “outside the vantage point†of Akinola. As Christians you have much common ground.
Furthermore, if you believe that you can explain Akinola’s “vantage point†simply in terms of his bigotry, what’s to prevent Akinola from responding in kind? Akinola might reply that your willingness to take communion from him isn’t based on your principled understanding of the sacraments or your Christian duty, but rather springs from some hidden depravity in your soul. Having stated that “matters of principle and conscience†are reducible to a character flaws, you would have no way to reply to this charge.
My point is about perception, not about reason. Plainly, probably after creating a logical sequence of propositions, Akinola could justify his intuition, just as reappraisers justify their own. I’ve stated, for example, that I believe the understanding of sexuality in scripture is tightly linked with (pre-) scientific beliefs about blood and semen that have direct consequences for the abundance God desires. Sex and the cosmos (always linked in religion) thus change under scientific scrutiny. The complementarity theory of bodies just doesn’t hold. Tobias Hallar has a better exploration. But then we get into debates about where do we begin with the bible and where not. Reappraisers still believe that grace, covenant, creation and these foundations are true. Then we get accused of baby-killing and polygamy, where it is demonstrated that dyads (either heterosexual or homosexual) are best for maintaing social peace (which seems to be a part of what scripture seems to want).
But this is not the issue. Conservatives will have to always start from the point “no, we’re not gay hating” and have to perpetually explain themselves to people who don’t begin with scripture. Don’t worry about me, Charming Billy. I’m aware its more about principle for some of you. But good luck not being conflated with Fred Phelps and his ilk when the rubber hits the road.
well, I do take communion, in part, because I am depraved. But to be honest, I don’t take communion for any theological reason. To me, that relies a bit too much on the intellect for an experience that is a bit thicker than whatever logic can justify. For it is not even Akinola I care about when he distributes. It is the presence of God. And in His presence, it is depravity, conscience, despair, hope, absence, presence, tears and joy that I come before his altar. Sometiems it is in gratitude, and sometimes it is out of fear. But I come before Him, not before Akinola. Alas, it is unfortunate that if Akinola were to come before Robinson, the he would be unable, it seems, to recognize the almighty in the body and blood.
#57, John WIlkins,
I never meant to suggest that you were in fact depraved. I used it as a hypothetical ad homimen accusation that Akinola might use to call into question your motives. Heck, I’m depraved too. Like, totally, dude.
Conservatives will have to always start from the point “no, we’re not gay hating†and have to perpetually explain themselves to people who don’t begin with scripture.
Christians have had to perpetually explain themselves to people who don’t begin with scripture for the past 2000 years. It’s part of the price of admission, I’m afraid.
Yes- but instead of beginning with the passion or resurrection, you’ll have to begin with how you don’t hate gays. Look – most people in Christianity never read to begin with. And second, Christians have always had a hard time explaining themselves to other Christians. It’s one thing to say Christ was resurrected because a book says so (of course, then the question arises, why should we believe in such a book) and another to say Gays are abominations and should be stoned, which is another thing the book clearly says. Do we believe in the book? Sort of, but no we don’t stone gays (ah, then, do we really believe in the book?) and let me give you a complicated argument about why we don’t. It’s against the law.
Where do you stand on supralapsarianism and Arminianism? These are important doctrines. And, now, convince me why my 16 year old confirmand should care. Will such a decision determine the nature of God’s judgemnt? Then, perhaps, once we’ve settled some of the reasons Christians have fought amongst themselves about human history, we can then get to the most important thing, which is gay sex, and why those who do it can’t be trusted as spiritual leaders.
Yes- but instead of beginning with the passion or resurrection, you’ll have to begin with how you don’t hate gays.
Well, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. The charge that Christians are anti-social is the oldest anti-Christian slander. Luke, for instance, felt obliged to portray Christians as law abiding in order to combat the popular misconception that Christians couldn’t be good citizens of the Empire. Nowadays Christians who adhere to traditional Christian sexual ethics have to contend with the charge that they’re homophobes.
True, this latest variation on an old theme is an impediment to evangelization. But we have been assured that there will always be impediments. In this present case, we must, like Luke, resist the temptation to become defensive and strive to make our case with all the grace we can muster. When our opponents point to cases where Christians have been genuinely homphobic, as opposed to simply upholding Christian teaching, we must repent and acknowledge this. We can do no more.
I still don’t have supra/infralapsawhatever straight in my mind, but with respect to Arminianism, I lean more toward Calvinism. In any case, the doctrines involved in these debates are indeed important. However, the fundamental ideas involved, like ideas behind traditional Christian sexual ethics, are clear and simple. Your 16 year old confirmand can easily grasp the notion that our estrangement from God can only be overcome by God’s action and initiative. Once that’s been established then you two can debate whether or not we cooperate in our santification.
Similarly, I’m certain your confirmand can easily understand that the NT, like the OT, makes it clear that sex ought to be confined to (male-female) marriage. Once that’s clear, you can discuss how NT sexual ethics are less legalistic and punitive, yet more challenging, than OT sexual ethics.
Well, duh, if you use a stricter definition of “Christian” than you should get fewer “Christians.”
It’s a good thing Barna and Time weren’t around in the first century. Paul and his colleagues might have just packed it all in and given up. Why bother? Oh, I guess they could have watered down the Gospel, to make it more palatable to the culture. Or, maybe not?
You can be sure those in TEC’s highest offices are taking notes on this article. After all, TEC bases all of it’s theology and teaching on polls and public opinion!
Yes, and the large upward blip in attendance at ECUSA/TEC churches is due to young people attending in swarms because they are jiggy with it.
It is time for relective and analytic Christians to look back into time and try to define what has been happening to Christianity within the United States. The resourceas are available. The media archives and various serious analyses and anti-Christian spins exist in large numbers.
What is the common thread?
Who, groups and individuals, seem to have had the greatest effect in diminishing and debasing Christianity?
What are their goals? Outside of pure anti-Christian deconstruction and nihilism.
What are their motives and what is the source of their antimosity?
Answering these questions is essential if we who adhere “to the Faith once given” are to be able to go forth within our immediate communities and fulfill the Great Commission.
The time has passed for passivity when we encounter the anti-Christians and the negatively misinformed among us. We need to be assertive and kind and loving in our dealings with them, but ‘in no way’ will a submissive attitude enable us to carry forth the Great Commission.
The reactions to this among the commenters here is truly surreal. Clearly the answer to “The question is whether to care.”
Is – we do not care, we are right, you are wrong.
Of course we should care. I think that, like it or not, among nonbelievers and skeptics, the visibility of people such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other TV Preachers has turned many away. To those people, the TV evangelists define what Christianity is and who Christians are. Their vision of who Christians are are, to many, unattracive and repellent. The injection of evangelical Christianity into partisan politics drives away those who don’t share the political beliefs.
The proliferation of an a-religious point of view in the popular media has doubtless contributed to this as well.
Hey bob, remember this?
“Beware when all mean speak well of you”
and
“You will be hated and persecuted for my sake”
I do care. And it seems we must be doing something to make more people not like us. Could it be that we are preaching a Gospel they no longer want to hear?
Naaahhhh. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should tailor our Gospel to what pleases the most people. After all, itching ears can’t be wrong.
Christians in the first century were despised because they had an integrity that was inconvenient.
Christians these days are disliked because they are judgmental and anti-gay.
Anti-Christians then had no love of a suffering God.
Anti-Christians now give high marks to Jesus.
This is a very different context.
Now, add to that the problem that all these conservative American Anglicans are getting together. The culture will consider them, not first as people propagating the gospel, but as people who united in being anti-gay. This shouldn’t bother them, as it is… what the culture thinks that most Christianity is.
Good luck to them in clarifying and calibrating what they really think. It’s going to be a lot of work [A reasserter might say, “we’re not anti-gay. We just don’t trust them – I mean, Jesus doesn’t trust them – in positions of authority.” The culture: “??… this is Christian thinking? who needs it?”]. But best to them on it.
Churchgoers of the same age share several of the non-Christians’ complaints about Christianity. For instance, 80% of the Christians polled picked “anti-homosexual” as a negative adjective describing Christianity today.
Says it all.
what is says is the propoganda has been believed and they really have no clue what most Gospel believing Christians think.
John: “Christians these days are disliked because they are judgmental and anti-gay.”
“A reasserter might say, “we’re not anti-gay. We just don’t trust them – I mean, Jesus doesn’t trust them – in positions of authority.â€
You really are clueless, aren’t you…
This poll proves what some of us have been saying all along: That the hatred and anti-gay discrimination espoused by those calling themself Christian is a turn-off to young people today. So, there is hope for the future: that bigotry will die out with the older generations who are perpetuating it! Now, there’s some good news!
What I want to know is, did they poll anyone who had been molested by a priest, and was “not anti-homosexual enough” an option that could be checked?
So, let’s think about this:
What should define Christianity is what others think about it…
don’t remember that one being in Scripture, Tradition or anything else.
I feel sorry for those who define all our troubles as ‘anti-gay’ because they simple DON’T get it – and it is sad.
God is NOT defined by what He is NOT but who he is – Holy and Perfect.
That is what WE are called to be “Be ye perfect as the Father and I are perfect.”
Christ wanted us not as we presently ARE who who HE created us to be… holy, perfect, like Christ.
So, to get there, one must forsake the sin of one’s life and come and follow him.
I find it so sad that instead of embracing the new life that is the BASIS the FOUNDATION of what a Christian is – there are those who would rather stay in the mire and never understand the height, breadth and reality of what it is to truly follow Christ.
Actually do that – actually DIE to self and selfishness – and the polls will change – people can see the reality of change – they can also see when it is merely talk, talk talk talk – obfuscation – hiding and more talk… like a certain HoB report I know of…
I’m having to get used to being a loser on the world’s terms. This has not been comfortable – as Barna points out, the change has been rapid.
I’m learning to read the Scriptures better as a result, and to have more consistency in faith and practice. Comment #8 is on target.
And if the litmus test of one’s value and acceptance is now, “Be pro-homosexual”, then I don’t need to be a Christian. I can hold almost any worldview and glom onto that bit of peer-pressure and self-justification.
Dallasite [#7] makes very good points. Both elite culture and pop culture play on anti-Christian stereotypes. Professional televangelists stoke those stereotypes. And negative views of the Christian Right have become so strong and widespread that many evangelical leaders shy away from the label “evangelical.”
Think about it: not long ago political and cultural pundits were chattering about the “decade of the evangelical” and the like. Now we see an increasing number of evangelical leaders finding the label loaded with negative associations and an impediment to evangelism. Something has gone badly wrong, and part of that something has involved mismating the gospel with right-wing secular politics. Conflating the gospel with secular politics is bad regardless of whether it happens on the left, on the right, or in the middle. Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, and we conflate the two at our peril.
The thing I love about conservative Christians is that they live in this win-win fantasy world. If they get praise then they are doing Gid’s work and He’s rewarding them. If they get criticized then they are doing God’s work and being persecuted for it, which is biblical and wonderful, etc. They get some succor from believing that they are “in” while those that criticize them are “out.” It’s really just another form of Gnosticism parading as truth. But then I’m not one of them, so my opinion doesn’t really matter.
According to a Barna survey in 2001 only 28% of Episcopalians believe that Jesus was without sin. In other words 72% don’t believe the Nicene creed when they say “of one being with the Father”. Which means only 28% of Episcopalians are Christian. Now, before you say “Who are you to define Christianity?”, I am only pointing out that believing that Jesus sinned makes nonsense of the creeds and about two thirds of the Eucharist. What is the point of the confession or eating his body and blood if Jesus is merely a fellow sinner?
My problem is that I agree with Bob, John, Brian and Fred. Christians are hypocritical, unloving and irrelevant too much of the time. We cannot turn back the clock but we must enter the “listening process” of listening to God to learn where to go.
#7 and 17, I think you’re right.
The Evangelical alpha males don’t help much when it comes to making the case for Christian sexual ethics. But if this poll means anything, I suspect our loss of popularity has as much to do with the “cool kids” i.e. the financially and culturally privileged elites, who have turned on Christianity and are using the old reliable slander that we’re nerds, immature, uncool, socially and sexual defective — you name it. Works every time.
Now all the wannabe cool kids in TEC can’t wait till the nerds leave so that they can finally get a chance to sit at the cool kids’ table.
The dynamics are no different than in 8th grade. The only difference is that our cultured despisers have become more sophisticated at camofluaging their malice as indignation and passing off sexual libertinism as a search for personal authenticity.
Our best response was charted out by our predessors in late antiquity. When early Christians were accused of being enemies of society (most persecutions of Christians have been justified by charges that Christians are hateful and anti-social) they responded by producing apologetics that matched the sophistication of the their accusers. But their most effective rebuttal was the graciousness and charity they displayed in their lives.
Charming Billy [#20]: Good analogy to the 8th grade cool kids. They’re at us from two sides: on the one side, the secular intelligentsia; on the other side, the forces of mass entertainment (e.g., the film, television, and music industries) and consumer culture.
Brian: “The thing I love about conservative Christians is that they live in this win-win fantasy world.”
The thing I love about reappraisers is how they never miss an opportunity to get it ALL wrong, and prove their astonishing ignorance.
John Wilkins, you wrote,
[A reasserter might say, “we’re not anti-gay. We just don’t trust them – I mean, Jesus doesn’t trust them – in positions of authority.†The culture: “??… this is Christian thinking? who needs it?”]
I appreciate that you post on this site, but I’m often confused by your comments. Do you actually construe the reasserting position on sexual ethics this way?
I know of no reasserter who would agree to this position. In fact, I’ve never heard a reasserter make the case against gay ordination in anything remotely like these terms.
#21
Thanks. But I have to admit that I was first made aware of the theological significance of 8th grade social hierarchies by William Placher’s (my favorite liberal) 1999 essay “Christ Takes our Place”.
I’m basically in line with nos. 7 and 17. There’s a corollary that I think hasn’t been mentioned but which may be important.
As conservative evangelical Protestantism has ascended, the Protestant mainline has descended. (I’m not saying there’s a simple cause and effect there, but at least a temporal assocation.)
Young people, developmentally, tend to be simple black-white thinkers (e.g., when they start college as freshmen). So they see, at one pole “Christian,” and at the other pole “tolerance/pluralism/diversity.” At the Christian pole, they see conservative evangelical–because the mainline has fallen not only in visibility and numbers but also in stature across the culture. In the old days–the postwar era, for example–Protestant mainline clergymen and theologians were THE spokespersons for American religion, with few exceptions (Billy Graham, Fulton Sheen). And in many communities, particularly on the East Coast, the local religious leaders who were often the most prominent, and therefore the spokespersons for the Protestant community in general, were Episcopal bishops, like Noble Powell of Maryland, whom I’ve written about at length.
The Anglican tradition–and mainline Protestantism–was perceived to be thoughtful, tolerant, etc. But, for various reasons, it declined and lost its appeal. At the same time, the other pole also became more extreme in its relativistic values. The two poles may now be farther apart than they’ve been in probably 200 years. And mainline Protestantism must accept some blame for that.
Brian – this is sad:
[blockquote] The thing I love about conservative Christians is that they live in this win-win fantasy world. If they get praise then they are doing Gid’s work and He’s rewarding them. If they get criticized then they are doing God’s work and being persecuted for it, which is biblical and wonderful[/blockquote]
Don’t you know your Scripture?
“For we know that ALL things work to the common good for those who know and love the Lord and are called according to His Purpose.”
So, sorry to disillusion you there, boy, but Christianity teaches that following God is what is paramount – what is worth pursuing and “the wisdom of God is foolishness to those who are perishing” –
I mean that’s like a basic truth there, Brian – where have you been?
#25
Dr. Hein, you misspelled assocation (sic)!
Yes, I agree, Christians bear much blame for their declining popularity. My observation was more about the tactics our critics use than assigning all responsibility to them.
No. 27, Charming Billy:
“Dr. Hein, you misspelled assocation (sic)!”
You’re right: sorry! I really do know how to spell the word.
You also wrote:
“William Placher (my favorite liberal)”
Yes, he’s excellent. For many years, I’ve used his intro. to Christian thought in my basic theology course.
But is he a “liberal”? I’d never thought of him that way. But I guess you’re right. To me he’s simply mainstream and orthodox. But in the old days, “liberal” Protestant simply meant not conservative, in the sense of conservative evangelical. But because of the shifts that have taken place, a mainstream Protestant liberal (in, say, the 1950s) now looks fairly traditional, even conservative. I don’t think of Placher as being liberal in the sense that liberal or reappraiser is often used by us on this blog.
Anyway, I’m not quibbling with you or presenting myself as any kind of authority on Placher’s own place on the theological spectrum (to me he looks like a Yale neo-liberal but with some strong realist affinities and principles as well, if you know what I mean). I’m just musing aloud on the way mainline Protestantism has shifted pretty far to the left, at least in its Episcopal form, placing today’s “liberals” pretty far out there. It may be too much to use Tom Reeves’s phrase and talk about “the suicide of liberal Christianity,” but I confess that that phrase does occur to me from time to time as I read the latest carryings-on of TEC.
Perhaps the Anglican Communion can somehow maintain the middle and thereby restore the essential Anglican tradition of “thoughtful holiness,” to use Robert Runcie’s phrase.
David Hein [#25]: Good points.
Rodney Stark and George Marsden both view the decline of Mainline Protestantism and the rise of conservative evangelicalism as closely intertwined. As Mainline churches became increasingly more revisionist, they didn’t satisfy their members’ needs—and many members voted with their feet.
One of the “criminals” here is scienticism, the religion that contemporary science and technology have created. The issue is not merely secularity, it is the kind of secularity. Men cannot live without the value system created by religion, though they say they can. Science, because of its laboratory structure, cannot survive in a world in which the Real cannot be measured and replicated. Accordingly, it has generated a religion of its own. You know its terms: Man’s dysfunctions are all curable by science and technology; this is a core article of belief. Science will enable mankind to live ever longer and longer, and then, perhaps, forever, hence the belief in immortality defined by science. Heaven, then, can be created here on earth, and we may yet live to enjoy it. (Schori herself has said this) Sin is not meaningless, but it is punished by social shunning, there being no hell. The worst of the sins is exclusivity because S&T;tell us that we are all essentially the same. Evil is meaningless, or at least, that which we called evil in the past can now (or soon will be) remediable.
Why the failure of Christianity? Because (a) the young already have a religion and (b) Christianity is irrelevant. Science promises and produces on those promises again and again. Christianity promises and can produce nothing but words. The evidence is clear: Science can cure some cancers and more as time goes on; God can’t. Technology produces money; God doesn’t This is undeniable and inctrovertible.
At its root, the present failure of Christianity arises from the shift from an agrarian to an industrial society, partly because an agrarian society is always in the hands of a power greater than itself, and an industrial society manufactures its own power; and we have made it all ourselves.
The time mag article is important, and I hope some of youread the article on NO in the new Newsweek I cited. I will tell you again: The outside, real world is watching us all the time and we act as if it doesn’t exist. Wake up, boys and girls. Recess is over. We had better learn how to make the old truths speak a new language. But this is not an admonition to despair. Hear an old truth from Robert Frost, and this ought to be part of the Christian gospel. (From “The Black Cottage”)
“For, dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favor….”
Larry
No. 29:
Yes, thanks. I didn’t want to make a straightforward assertion of cause and effect, as if a simple seesaw relation obtained, but there is indeed a connection.
It’s more complicated, as you know: we’d also have to factor in, among other things, the transformation of the content and packaging of evangelical Protestantism, making it more appealing to up-and-coming junior executives and all the others who a few decades before would have responded enthusiastically to (for example) Episcopal evangelist Sam Shoemaker’s winning ways in Pittsburgh. By the 1970s, neo-evangelicalism had become a respectable alternative to the Protestant mainline.
And, frankly, I hate to say it but I think another factor in the decline of the mainline has been a loss of intellectual vigor. The best and the brightest have not gone into the Episcopal ministry for some decades. Of course there are many exceptions, but I am looking at the whole and the average. Thus, as many have remarked, the quality of preaching has declined, and, in my view, the quality not only of writing (read these letters by Episcopal bishops) but also of thought (consider the “puzzling and bizarre” process by which recent decisions have been made) has been mediocre in far too many cases.
No. 30: You raise a good question, but I don’t find myself reaching for “science” or even scientism as the villain in this story quite as quickly as you do.
In fact, I think of the best scientists as being rather humble in their assertions, ready to acknowledge the limitations of the empirical approach to finding truth.
Also, we tend, perhaps mistakenly, to think of religion and science not only as antagonists but also as direct opposites. But take another look at H. Richard Niebuhr’s excellent chapter on the faith of science in his Radical Monotheism. You will never forget the affinities he remarks between the incomplete but admirable faith of a scientist and the faith of the radical monotheist.
I’m late to this party but did I read it right…the sampling was about 900 respondents…very small sample.
And…what # 20 said…
Has it occurred to anyone to study Time‘s image problem among the 73% of Americans who regard themselves as Christians?
The first Alpha Talk is titled “Christianity: Boring, Untrue and Irrelevant”. That’s what most non-Christians think.
#35 Charles. You forgot the all important question mark!
“Christianity: Boring, Untrue and Irrelevant?†😉
I mean that’s like a basic truth there, Brian – where have you been?
Isn’t that exactly what I said you would say?
And now see todays NYTimes Humanists vs Evangelicals. LM
#32. The issue isn’t wht the best scientists think. The issue is what our culture, broadly and deeply, have made out of what science does, and the belif system that arises therefrom. T he culture’s attitude is: If you can do it, you deserve to be believed.
However, your point about the loss of intellectual vigor is also important.
The dichotomy is false when looked at sub species eternitatis, but in daily life, the gap is very real and vital. Christianity only controls religion, S&T;controls your health, your income and your entertainment and y our physical comfort.
Mind you, I myself do not find Christianity irrelevant (quite the reverse), only unfashionable, and have tried to point out one reason why. Since fashion rules what we think and do – and TEC is the perfect case in point – we must deal with fashion.
Larry
possibly the people who have a poor view of Christianity have visited blogs where Christians debate the Truth; as in” You are stupid”. “Well, you are stupider”. “ok, but you are the stupidest of all” etc etc
No. 40: Undoubtedly true. But the discerning eye will occasionally discover some gold in there along with the dross, don’t you think?
Also, many of us have found–haven’t you?–that blogs provide hard information along with a range of inquiry and comment that is simply missing from (or skewed in) the daily media.
As a number of bloggers have observed, the mainstream media’s coverage of the recent HoB meeting is very much a case in point: the coverage was all over the map. Those events in New Orleans really did require some sorting out. Reading just one newspaper article–which is what we might have done in the old days–wouldn’t have come close to helping us accomplish that sorting out and could have been seriously misleading.
Also, have you ever been interviewed by and quoted in a newspaper? There’s nothing like being involved in an event or otherwise being part of a story to make the participant realize how hard it is for reporters to provide full and even-handed coverage of something.
I too regret the many unhelpful and uncharitable and shoot-from-the-lip “contributions” to blogs, but I do think that on the whole the better Web logs, like Kendall’s, provide a real service and are also frequently fun (as well as frustrating) to read.
In brief, we’re in a real crisis time in TEC and the AC, and getting the news from the traditional sources is no longer enough for anyone who really wants to keep up and stay current.
#28, William Placher consistently refers to himself as a “liberal”. I was surprised by this as I would classify him as a mainline moderate. I think his self characterization is a little out of date but still roughly accurate. Like a lot of mainline reasserters he’s not a classical evangelical — well, maybe I should speak for myself — he’s thoughtfully critical and liberal with respect to questions of biblical inerrancy and inspiration but more or less conservative with respect to classical Christian teachings on the person and work of Christ.
It seems to me that this “conservative liberal” consensus was representative of the mainline churches up until the 80s but it has now collapsed. I don’t know if it fell apart because it was inherently unstable or simply because the “conservative liberals” didn’t articulate and defend their position vigorously enough. From what I can tell the “post liberal” movement attempts to rearticulate this position for a later generation.
At any rate, as a mainliner who has as much in common with William Placher was with J. I. Packer and John Stott I feel like an orphan sometimes.
#37, but is he wrong?
What a worthless exercise. I don’t think anything would be lost if Kendall decided to shut down all comments for good.
David; I agree with all of that; but we need to be conscious of our witness; we are to be in the world but not of the world
and I can be the worst offender
No. 42:
Yes, I think you’re right.
“William Placher consistently refers to himself as a ‘liberal.’ I was surprised by this as I would classify him as a mainline moderate. I think his self characterization is a little out of date but still roughly accurate. Like a lot of mainline reasserters he’s not a classical evangelical … he’s thoughtfully critical and liberal with respect to questions of biblical inerrancy and inspiration but more or less conservative with respect to classical Christian teachings on the person and work of Christ.”
Yes, I was thinking of Nicea and Chalcedon, too, when I characterized Placher–thinking of that more than of recent controversies.
“a little out of date”
Yes. I guess it’s more or less fair to say that the “liberal-conservative” designation(s) we’re dealing with goes back at least to the denominational battles of the 1920s; so, yes, “liberal” just came to mean something that you and I have sketched above.
Btw, I always seem to confuse reporters when I tell them that I am a theological liberal (in the Placher sense) but one who thinks that TEC went too far (in respect of both the decision and the process) at GC 2003 and ’06.
Reporters, as T19 readers all know by now, like to see this conflict in simple liberal (i.e., open-minded) vs. conservative (ossified, benighted; a diminishing minority) terms.
No. 44:
Yes, and I’d also say, simply:
We need to be considerate, gracious, and polite.
We need to reject self-righteousness (a particularly unattractive characteristic of TEC these days), recognizing that we could very well be wrong.
And we all need to do a better job of proofreading.
“Scientism” as a religion? What is this? Look, I’m willing to discuss the post-modern critique of science generally, but in general, the empirical method that is easily disdained here – works. We’re on computers. We have medical advances. Due to science.
Mainline protestantism has fewer members because it won a lot of the battles, and has a lack of identity.
Re #12, – just rolling eyes, well, yes, that is exactly the problem. I’m osmeone who is on these bords often – and people spend a lot of time trying to explain it to me: [its about the bible; its about God being perfect, etc] but in the end, it just seems like reasserters are equally as selective as everyone else about scripture. And I work hard to say – reasserters are not on the wrong side of God. If anything, I think the amazing grace is about letting ourselves act even though we might all be wrong.
This makes Christianity very different than other faiths, which are based on purity and punishment. But who cares about being thought of as unloving by other people? My point is merely that reasserters and conservatives MAY be really loving of gay people. But they’re going to have to work extra hard to represent themselves as loving. I wish we all had the time to ensure that our theology was accurate, precise and… comprehensible to everyone else.
No. 47:
“Mainline protestantism … has a lack of identity.”
I’ve been pondering that subject lately.
Consider mergers. Didn’t some of those churches have more identity before the mergers? The German Reformed Church and the Congregational Church, for example, which eventually became, after various combinations (the E and R Church and the Congregational Christian Church), the UCC.
Or consider the fascinating history of the United Brethren in Christ, later merged with the Evangelical Church; and then of course in 1968 the EUB merged with the Methodist Church to become the UMC.
I suppose that all this has been for the good, but I do wonder about the sharpness of their subsequent profiles on the ecclesiastical horizon–i.e., their identities.
#47
I agree that reasserters are as selective as anyone. However, the scriptures are clearer on sexual ethics than they are on other matters about which conservatives and liberals traditionally disagree; e.g. the atonement. That’s why reasserters won’t budge on the gay ordination issue. It’s clear to us that scripture doesn’t permit us to bless or condone sexual activity outside heterosexual marriage, even though many of us are prepared to respect and honor the devotion and love that so many same sex couples exhibit. Indeed I am prepared to welcome this aspect of same sex relationships into the life of the church.
Mainline protestantism has fewer members because it won a lot of the battles, and has a lack of identity.
And it’s also declining because it rested on its laurels. It’s gotten fat and lazy.
John: “My point is merely that reasserters and conservatives MAY be really loving of gay people”
Well, will wonders never cease? You’re actually open to the possibility that reasserters could be something other than slack-jawed bigots? That makes you a little more open minded than 99.999% of reappraisers on here. Congrats.
# 47; John; I would be intersested in scripture that is selectively ignored by reasserters; seriously. Just a few examples. As one who sees Biblical Unity.
As far as loving a particular group of people; it is meaningless to talk about a group loving another group. Real Christian fellowship is person to person; usually in some kind of small group. It does seem truth would be important in any meaningful relationship; as in the woman at the well’s encounter with Jesus
50 – Rolling, I just wish you could provide me with more evidence that they aren’t as bigoted as everyone thinks they are. Look – I’m the one who will take communion from Akinola. From the outside vantage point, that he can’t even take communion with someone who will take communion with someone who will take communion from someone who supported +Gene’s consecration just seems…. bigoted to me. Look- bigotry is often a matter of principle and conscience.
51 Jimmy – you are perfectly correct, which is why it is meaningless to discuss “gay relationships” generally. It is about two individual people who see the image of God in each other. Just as a Man doesn’t marry generic woman. It’s This Man and This Woman. A generic man/woman theology of complementarity simply justifies serial monogamy, not marriage.
[blockquote]it is meaningless to discuss “gay relationships†generally. It is about two individual people who see the image of God in each other. Just as a Man doesn’t marry generic woman. It’s This Man and This Woman. A generic man/woman theology of complementarity simply justifies serial monogamy, not marriage.[/blockquote]
I am absolutely going to use that as a pickup line. Has it worked well for you?
A generic man/woman theology of complementarity simply justifies serial monogamy, not marriage.
I think Plato is tearing his hair out. Aristotle’s not too happy either.
By this logic, John, one could not think of any species as a class and make rules for them accordingly. I could not formulte a generic theory of the proper relationship to a dog, just to this dog or that dog, because I won’t have a relationship to a generic dog but to a specific one.
Don’t all dogs share a common nature which can be treated as one thing, and by that we judge our behavior with them? Don’t all men have a common nature as men that can be judged in its relationship to the common nature of women?
Ofcourse, I am aware that you might very well argue the last point. Straight-Gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered etc… There is no set form of the sexes, no natural order,, even though, as I learned in Kendrgarten Cop; boys have a penis and girls have a vagina. But why shoul elementary biology mean that their is a commonality behind the common physcal features?
It is not just Christianity you are jetisoning, it is the entire history of Western thought. I think it is thought itself Reason, that is being rejected. You seem to be reasonable. But that is only the lagacy of what you are rejecting. It’s effects linger for awhile. But your “reason” is no more rational than a plane that has run out of fuel midair is truly flying rather than just falling.
#50, John Wilkins you wrote:
I just wish you could provide me with more evidence that they aren’t as bigoted as everyone thinks they are. Look – I’m the one who will take communion from Akinola. From the outside vantage point, that he can’t even take communion with someone who will take communion with someone who will take communion from someone who supported +Gene’s consecration just seems…. bigoted to me. Look- bigotry is often a matter of principle and conscience.
I think piling on these degrees of separation exaggerates Akinola’s position, but maybe that’s your humorous intention. In which case I’ll come to my main point.
In declining to share communion with VGR, Akinola can cite reputable, well-established, and widely held theological and scriptural precedents. That’s not to say you’re obliged to agree with his decision. (For the record, I’m not sure I do.) It does mean, however, that if you choose to disagree with Akinola, you’ll have to provide a more convincing objection than the ad hominem it “just seems…. bigoted to me.â€
Attributing Akinola’s motives to bigotry isn’t only demeaning of the man, it’s demeaning to the tradition which he cites – a tradition you both share. With respect, it seems to me that you are far from being “outside the vantage point†of Akinola. As Christians you have much common ground.
Furthermore, if you believe that you can explain Akinola’s “vantage point†simply in terms of his bigotry, what’s to prevent Akinola from responding in kind? Akinola might reply that your willingness to take communion from him isn’t based on your principled understanding of the sacraments or your Christian duty, but rather springs from some hidden depravity in your soul. Having stated that “matters of principle and conscience†are reducible to a character flaws, you would have no way to reply to this charge.
Charming Billy,
My point is about perception, not about reason. Plainly, probably after creating a logical sequence of propositions, Akinola could justify his intuition, just as reappraisers justify their own. I’ve stated, for example, that I believe the understanding of sexuality in scripture is tightly linked with (pre-) scientific beliefs about blood and semen that have direct consequences for the abundance God desires. Sex and the cosmos (always linked in religion) thus change under scientific scrutiny. The complementarity theory of bodies just doesn’t hold. Tobias Hallar has a better exploration. But then we get into debates about where do we begin with the bible and where not. Reappraisers still believe that grace, covenant, creation and these foundations are true. Then we get accused of baby-killing and polygamy, where it is demonstrated that dyads (either heterosexual or homosexual) are best for maintaing social peace (which seems to be a part of what scripture seems to want).
But this is not the issue. Conservatives will have to always start from the point “no, we’re not gay hating” and have to perpetually explain themselves to people who don’t begin with scripture. Don’t worry about me, Charming Billy. I’m aware its more about principle for some of you. But good luck not being conflated with Fred Phelps and his ilk when the rubber hits the road.
well, I do take communion, in part, because I am depraved. But to be honest, I don’t take communion for any theological reason. To me, that relies a bit too much on the intellect for an experience that is a bit thicker than whatever logic can justify. For it is not even Akinola I care about when he distributes. It is the presence of God. And in His presence, it is depravity, conscience, despair, hope, absence, presence, tears and joy that I come before his altar. Sometiems it is in gratitude, and sometimes it is out of fear. But I come before Him, not before Akinola. Alas, it is unfortunate that if Akinola were to come before Robinson, the he would be unable, it seems, to recognize the almighty in the body and blood.
#57, John WIlkins,
I never meant to suggest that you were in fact depraved. I used it as a hypothetical ad homimen accusation that Akinola might use to call into question your motives. Heck, I’m depraved too. Like, totally, dude.
Conservatives will have to always start from the point “no, we’re not gay hating†and have to perpetually explain themselves to people who don’t begin with scripture.
Christians have had to perpetually explain themselves to people who don’t begin with scripture for the past 2000 years. It’s part of the price of admission, I’m afraid.
Yes- but instead of beginning with the passion or resurrection, you’ll have to begin with how you don’t hate gays. Look – most people in Christianity never read to begin with. And second, Christians have always had a hard time explaining themselves to other Christians. It’s one thing to say Christ was resurrected because a book says so (of course, then the question arises, why should we believe in such a book) and another to say Gays are abominations and should be stoned, which is another thing the book clearly says. Do we believe in the book? Sort of, but no we don’t stone gays (ah, then, do we really believe in the book?) and let me give you a complicated argument about why we don’t. It’s against the law.
Where do you stand on supralapsarianism and Arminianism? These are important doctrines. And, now, convince me why my 16 year old confirmand should care. Will such a decision determine the nature of God’s judgemnt? Then, perhaps, once we’ve settled some of the reasons Christians have fought amongst themselves about human history, we can then get to the most important thing, which is gay sex, and why those who do it can’t be trusted as spiritual leaders.
#59,
Yes- but instead of beginning with the passion or resurrection, you’ll have to begin with how you don’t hate gays.
Well, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. The charge that Christians are anti-social is the oldest anti-Christian slander. Luke, for instance, felt obliged to portray Christians as law abiding in order to combat the popular misconception that Christians couldn’t be good citizens of the Empire. Nowadays Christians who adhere to traditional Christian sexual ethics have to contend with the charge that they’re homophobes.
True, this latest variation on an old theme is an impediment to evangelization. But we have been assured that there will always be impediments. In this present case, we must, like Luke, resist the temptation to become defensive and strive to make our case with all the grace we can muster. When our opponents point to cases where Christians have been genuinely homphobic, as opposed to simply upholding Christian teaching, we must repent and acknowledge this. We can do no more.
I still don’t have supra/infralapsawhatever straight in my mind, but with respect to Arminianism, I lean more toward Calvinism. In any case, the doctrines involved in these debates are indeed important. However, the fundamental ideas involved, like ideas behind traditional Christian sexual ethics, are clear and simple. Your 16 year old confirmand can easily grasp the notion that our estrangement from God can only be overcome by God’s action and initiative. Once that’s been established then you two can debate whether or not we cooperate in our santification.
Similarly, I’m certain your confirmand can easily understand that the NT, like the OT, makes it clear that sex ought to be confined to (male-female) marriage. Once that’s clear, you can discuss how NT sexual ethics are less legalistic and punitive, yet more challenging, than OT sexual ethics.