Month: January 2019

Evangelicals and Trump

Apparently I’m not completely free, because I still have more to say about evangelicals. It’s a process, y’all.

Previously I’ve talked about how the election of Trump was a watershed moment for my faith with respect to evangelicalism, but I’m only now able to put into words why that is.

You see, evangelicals voted for Trump not in spite of their beliefs, but because of them. At its core, evangelicalism is really just fundamentalism with a pretty face. It is the direct descendant of the modernist need to create a dualistic alternative to science. The whole concept of inerrancy is a reaction to Biblical criticism and scientific fact. Well, once you jettison the tradition of the church, and the Patristic teachings, and you put the Bible in a straightjacket of inerrancy and literalism, funny things happen.

This is how you end up with complementarianism, with its corollary “no women in leadership.” This is how you end up cherry picking a few verses in scripture outside of the entire context of the revealed character of Christ, and saying that some people are going to hell just because of who they love or who they are. This is how you create a militaristic God to support your country’s foreign adventures. This is how you support a culture of incarceration (primarily of the race you are not) because of a need to submit to authority. And this is how you end up with health and wealth theology that has more in common with magic than with the teachings of Jesus.

Because if everything in the Bible is perfect, you have to take the most out-of-context scriptures seriously and come up with some sort of zany theology to match it.

Which leads us back to Trump. When evangelicals looked at Trump and Hillary through the lens of their theology, there really was no choice for them. Hillary was a woman, so she can’t lead the country because complementarianism. And Mike Pence was the kind of guy who will really put the “homosexual agenda” in its place. And Trump waves the flag and promises to protect us from the infidels. And “All Lives Matter,” after all, and the people going to jail really deserve it anyway, and Trump says he’s going to get tough with them. And the Republicans are really God’s party because they acknowledge that the really rich are blessed by God and those who aren’t are just poor slackers who deserve what they get. And Trump is super rich, so he must be super blessed.

And one more thing. Fundamentalism is at its core a deeply insecure belief system. It basically says that the Christian faith is not strong enough to weather the challenges of modernity, and so we must build a “wall around the law” like the Pharisees did to keep people inside. And this insecurity encourages racism, because it encourages a fear of people different than yourself. It encourages misogyny, because once you empower women, what’s next? It encourages homophobia, because that’s one “sin” most evangelicals don’t feel is relevant to them so it’s easy for them to cast the first stone.

So, long story short, the 2016 election was really a clarifying moment for me. It allowed me to see that not only did I not really believe evangelical theology on many key points, but in fact the consequences of adhering to that theology are in fact, dangerous to my relationship with God.

Free

2016 was a watershed moment for my faith. After years of trying to hold onto the tension between my obviously non-evangelical theological views and my desire to stay within the evangelical tradition I belonged to my entire Christian life, the election forced me to jump completely off that train. But it wasn’t until this week that I finally viewed myself as being fully outside of the tent of evangelicalism.

And I have to tell you, I feel free.

I really don’t know WHAT I am yet, and perhaps a label is just reductive and should be avoided anyway. But it ain’t evangelical. And it feels great.

I no longer have to care what evangelicals think of my theology. I no longer have to just go with the flow in a church where the majority of the people I see on Sunday somehow think that it’s okay to vote for white supremacy because abortion or Hillary or lols or whatever. I no longer have to keep looking for an evangelical church that will support me as I am in my spiritual journey because I’ve realized that construct is the mythical unicorn.

Maybe I will end up in a mainline church, or maybe I will find a group of like-minded people and start something new. But the days of pretending and worrying are over.

I’m free.

Clarifying my re-imagining

After reading back my previous post, I feel like there are a couple things that need to be clarified, for myself.

1. This is not a church that’s against anybody. It’s a church for people. Mainline, Catholics, Orthodox, and yes, even evangelicals are still our brothers and sisters, even though we would prefer to worship in an environment different from all of those. And of course, we are more than happy to reach across doctrinal boundaries to advance God’s reign.

2. It’s political but not partisan. The way of Jesus is by its very nature political. When you assert that you are a part of the vanguard of a new reign, you are necessarily political. When you come to bring justice for the oppressed, to raise up the poor, and to break down barriers based on race and gender; you are inherently political. But Jesus never sided with the Zealots, or the Saducees, or the Herodians, or Caesar. Because his reign judges all of those things. For 1700 years the church has been held captive by Christendom. And evangelicals are the latest to cozy up to power and its institutions of oppression in a drastic attempt to hold onto Christendom. And while we may be Republican or (more likely) Democrats politically, we must always be a prophetic voice to both parties and all other centers of power, and must never seek to impose our theological perspective on others through abuse of that power. We may march for black lives, but we shouldn’t lobby or desire access to the politicians themselves.

Re-imagining

At what point does a re-imaged successor to evangelicalism just become a mainline church?

Let me back up a bit first before I get to that question.

After becoming a Christian in college and being for the most-part a standard issue evangelical (albeit with a liberal political bent), around 2006 God made me some new wineskins. With the help of a faith-altering message by Richard Rohr, the brutal honesty of the Internet Monk, Michael Spencer, and a bit of toe-dipping into the emerging church, God showed me that my faith to that point could not be trusted to hold the new wine that he was about to pour into me.

Now, assuming there are any readers of this blog (which is not an assumption I will make), I’m just going to assert what some of those readers are probably thinking. Yes, I know you think I’m a heretic. Yes, I understand you think I’m going straight to hell. No, I don’t really care what you think. Trolls go away. This isn’t for you. Enjoy whatever church you belong to.

So, fast forward twelve years. Life happened, the fire died down from that initial rush of contemplation/joining with the historic church in its traditions/voraciously devouring all of the books outside of the evangelical safe and approved list. In the midst of all of this smoldering faith, I grumbled.

You see, 2016 had done it for me. Evangelicalism had sold its soul for political power and elected perhaps the worst human being to ever hold the office of the Presidency. I was done with it. A church that does not believe that black lives matter, that casts off all compassion toward immigrants, and that is casually accepting of white supremacy is not the church for me. Yes, I understand that not all or even most evangelicals believe these things. But they do. Their actions speak louder than their professed beliefs.

So, anyway, I’m out. I never really was on board with the inerrancy thing, or the whole eternal conscious punishment thing, or the fact that it has to be PENAL substitutionary atonement. But I was willing to kind of stick around because there are a lot of things about evangelicalism that I will miss if I leave. But I can’t abide the racism, even though evangelicals deny they are racist. But they are. They had no problem voting for an openly racist, misogynist, I will stop now because of the Thumper rule.

But there are things about evangelicalism that I will really miss. I actually like good evangelical worship. And while most of it is quite bad, when done well, not as entertainment but as the work of the people, it can really draw us closer to God. And while I’m big on not making the Bible into our idol and respecting the democracy of the dead of church tradition, I really like the evangelical focus on scripture. Also, while I’m not really a charismatic, God has used charismatic experiences to strengthen my faith in ways that could not have been done otherwise.

So back to my original question. Let’s say we start something new. Something that looks like this:

1. The statement of faith simply references the historic creeds and nothing else. That’s all you need in order to sign on the dotted line and become a member.

2. Mercy and justice. Stand in solidarity with the marginalized, be compassionate to those in need, and advocate for a just transformation of the power structure.

3. Communion. Every week. Being open to the idea that maybe Christ is really present in the elements in some way, but being okay with people believing that it’s just a symbol too. Oh, and it’s open. Jesus shared meals with everyone, including a first communion with the one who had already chosen to betray him. Why shouldn’t we?

4. Read the scripture in church. Maybe three of them. And say things like “A reading from…”, “The word of the Lord…” and “Thanks be to God…” Oh, and stand for the reading of the word.

5. Preaching from the lectionary is great.

6. Liturgy! Maybe not Anglican/Lutheran/Catholic levels of liturgy, but worship songs shouldn’t be the only work of the people.

7. Everybody who is willing to put up with us is welcome. Yes, everybody. In case that isn’t clear enough, that means especially LGBT people. Oh, and did I say they can take communion?

8. Back to communion. No plastic cups, and everyone comes up to the front to take it. We don’t have to drink from the same chalice – lets just dip it, because hygiene and microbial science, but still. And did I say it should be every week?

9. Contemplatives welcome! Lets learn from the historic practices of the church so we can grow deeper in our relationship with Christ, which is really what this is all about, right? And you’re welcome to make the sign of the cross, bring your rosaries, kiss icons, and kneel at the foot of the cross as needed.

10. Hymns! A lot of hymns. Much better theology than in most contemporary praise music.

But along with off this “new” old stuff, lets keep:

1. Good, creedal, contemporary worship songs.

2. An extremely high view of the scripture. Again, we’re not talking that we make everyone believe the Bible is inerrant/infallible/whatever. But we should probably accept that the Bible is the one that God gave us, so there’s probably a reason for that. And we can keep the “inspired” part.

3. Bible studies. Lots of bible studies. But maybe also lets mix in some church fathers and church tradition teaching too. We can even study systematic theology as well, but lets not hit each other over the head with it. It’s pretty rigid.

4. And hey, lets still be the church outside of our walls. Everyone can’t be welcome if we have no one to welcome.

5. A reasonable length, gospel-based message. I can never get enough of the gospel. It wasn’t called the “good news” for nothing!

So, back to the original question. Is this just a mainline church? Is this just Catholicism or Eastern Orthodox? Or is there something in this formulation that could be the starting point of a new movement of the church?

I know what you’re thinking. “You damn Protestants, always need to come up with something new.” And I get that. But what if the reason the church has so many different facets is because God is really creative and created a whole bunch of different people? And maybe, just maybe, rather than pushing millennials (and don’t forget post-millennials) and people of color, and people who just are tired of all the culture wars and heresy hunting out of the existing church, it’s time for a new expression of the church?

Mercy and Justice

Mercy and Justice.

Mercy. And Justice.

Mercy. And. Justice.

We tend to think of those two things as being separate, and perhaps even opposites.

Mercy. Forgiveness. Love.

Justice. Wrath. Punishment.

But what if we’re looking at it wrong? What if in fact mercy and justice are really just two sides of the same coin? What if the mercy that liberates the oppressed and the justice that judges the oppressor are really the same thing? What if in fact oppression oppresses both the oppressor and the oppressed and they both are really in need of mercy and justice? What if injustice prevents mercy from flowing in either direction?

Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about the “beloved community.” The Hebrew scriptures talk about shalom. Mercy and justice kiss.

And what if the church, especially the American evangelical church, in its zeal to save souls from eternal death, has missed the point of grace and mercy by failing to understand that it is intertwined with justice.

Not the justice that casts into hell, but the justice that frees first the oppressed, and then the oppressor to receive the mercy of God.

There is no message of grace in a world where black lives don’t matter. Where refugees are made to wait years for asylum in a place that is only marginally safer than the one they left. Where billionaires are free to suck up the vast majority of the world’s wealth while the vast majority struggle to even survive. Where people are shunned and shamed because of who they love and how they were made.

There is no gospel that does not tackle mercy and justice together. As one. At the same time.