The American Spectator : Irrepressible Culture Wars, Past and Present

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Special Report

Irrepressible Culture Wars, Past and Present

By Mark Tooley on 6.7.12 @ 6:09AM

Many young evangelicals today shun conflict — a posture at odds with evangelical history.

A new generation of evangelical elites is imploring evangelicals to step back from the culture wars. Mostly they want to escape polarizing strong stances on same-sex marriage and abortion, and perhaps also contentious church-state issues, like the Obamacare contraceptive mandate.

Purportedly the evangelical church is failing to reach young, upwardly mobile professionals because evangelicals, who now broadly comprise perhaps one third of all Americans, are seen as reactionary and hateful. On their college campuses, at their coffee shops, and in their yoga classes, among other venues, some outspoken hip young evangelicals want a new public image for their faith.

One such prominent voice is Jonathan Merritt, a progressive Southern Baptist and son of a former Southern Baptist Convention president. His new book, A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars, has earned him many recent bookings on cable talk shows.

A popular young evangelical blogger echoing Merritt’s theme is Rachel Evans, who conveniently grew up in the Tennessee small town famous for the Scopes Monkey Trial. Her 2010 book was Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions. “We are tired of the culture wars,” she explained in a recent interview. “We are tired of politics.” Lamenting the church’s preoccupation with “shame and guilt,” she urged evangelicals to reconsider their opposition to same-sex unions.

Other young evangelicals complaining about culture wears don’t go so far and remain faithful to historic church teachings while still yearning for new emphases that they think would earn evangelicals a helpfully upbeat persona.

Most of these young evangelicals, and many of their older supporters, often seem to forget that culture wars are not new for Americans or its churches. America has had dozens of them, all of them with intense religious involvement. And some of them have exemplified some of religion’s finest moments in shaping America. Across several decades, the Civil Rights Movement, led primarily by clergy, was intensely gut wrenching and sometimes precipitated violence. Some churches, black and white, lost members over it. The push for women’s rights of the 1960s and 1970s that closely followed was also deeply controversial and was at least initially often rooted in faith before secular feminists took the fore.

Prohibition was one of America’s most intense culture wars, pitting mostly Anglo Protestant small town and rural America against more ethnic and Catholic urbanites. Churches were its chief champions. Women’s Suffrage, closely aligned with Prohibition, and nearly as divisive, was also touted by many Protestant churches and leaders, such as the Methodist suffragist Anna Howard Shaw. And during Reconstruction and afterwards, many northern church activists tried to help southern black freedmen, often amid violence, with even many northerners preferring to avoid the struggle.

Early in the republic, frontier evangelical religion aligned with Thomas Jefferson against the Federalist Party and its East Coast supporters in the established churches. Some feared the transition from Federalist to Jeffersonian rule might lead to war. Later in the mid-19th century, many Protestants mobilized against Catholic immigrant influence through the Know Nothing movement. They prompted Abraham Lincoln’s famous retort that he preferred the purity of Russian czarist tyranny to hypocritical democracy in America that disputed the citizenship of Catholics. Lincoln’s own eventual Republican Party was partly the creation of northern evangelical revivalists, many of them abolitionists, and all of them steadfast against slavery’s expansion. Lincoln’s 1860 election, of course, transitioned the slavery issue from a culture war to a Civil War.

Last year, David Goldfield of the University of North Carolina wrote America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation, in which he argued that anti-slavery northern evangelicals, with their ostensible refusal to compromise, ensured the Civil War and over 600,000 dead. He specifically faulted the Second Great Awakening, which ostensibly made politics not about compromise but matters of good and evil, worthy of sacrificing human life. Goldfield clearly intended his argument also to reflect on today’s evangelical political activism.

Recently I visited central New York to visit the home of William Seward, abolitionist, Republican Party founder, and most famously Lincoln’s secretary of state. Central and western New York in the early 19th century was called the “burned over” district, having boiled over with revivalism and social reforms, including abolitionism. Seward’s home in Auburn, New York, also served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Mrs. Seward was especially a fervent abolitionist, having been raised a Quaker. Sometimes she chided her politically pragmatic husband, an Episcopalian, for not being sufficiently zealous.

But Seward’s anti-slavery speeches as a U.S. Senator about “irrepressible conflict” and a “higher law” helped to inflame the nation. Seward had been influenced toward abolitionism by the religious college he attended, headed by a Presbyterian clergy. The Sewards were close to freed slave and abolitionist leader Harriett Tubman, who bought land from the Sewards and built her home down the street. Besides religious influences, the Sewards’ anti-slavery stance was reinforced early in their marriage when they visited Virginia, witnessing young slave boys chained together and herded like cattle, later crying themselves to sleep when locked in a barn.

Seward’s own Episcopal Church never formally divided over slavery. But America’s then largest denominations, the Methodists and Baptists, both split over slavery in the 1840s, foreshadowing the nation’s split. Originally themselves anti-slavery, southern Methodists and Baptists over time accommodated to their local culture. Methodism’s founding bishop, Francis Asbury, was anti-slavery but stopped talking about it lest he lose access to southern audiences, black and white.

Today’s culture wars over marriage, abortion, and domestic religious freedom seem terribly tame compared to the supreme culture war over slavery that concluded with Civil War. Even before the war, abolitionists, including Seward, often risked mobs and lynching, even in the north. In the interest of social harmony, should they have relented?

Evangelical Left icon Jim Wallis, who often appeals to young evangelicals with his message of supposed post-partisanship, likes to compare himself to 19th century evangelicals such as evangelist Charles Finney. Wallis often recounts that Finney, at his revivals, enlisted converts into the abolitionist cause. Unmentioned by Wallis is that Finney mailed abolitionist tracts into the South, where they were often gathered into bonfires and fomented rallies against intrusive northern preachers. Finney did not foster social harmony. He and other evangelicals of their era were the ultimate culture warriors.

The non-confrontational, therapeutic evangelicalism that some young evangelicals, and their older mentors, seemingly advocate today as they denounce culture war is at odds with much of evangelical history, which has always thrived on conflict. No less important, it’s also at odds with much of American history, dating to the 17th century New England Puritan divines, who envisioned a righteous nation. Even supposed secularists of today often walk in that tradition as they demand contentious social reforms, including, in their view, same sex marriage.

Hoping evangelicals and other serious religious believers in America will en masse shun social controversy as they retreat to quiet cafes to read the New York Times is not realistic. The antebellum Methodists and Baptists who abandoned earlier convictions to accommodate their culture’s acceptance of slavery purchased only a temporary peace. Today’s evangelicals who hope they can delete marriage, abortion, and religious freedom from their political menu might be similarly outflanked by irrepressible historical tides rooted in four centuries of American religion.

About the Author

Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. You can follow him on Twitter @markdtooley.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (91) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Appleby| 6.7.12 @ 6:45AM

TheKids want a church that will focus 100% on sex, 24/7, day and night, without let or hindrance. And they'd really like a church that met only on line so they don't have to put on any clothes.

Get out your copy of "Brave New World" and turn to the section titled "Orgy-Porgy". This is the church substitute among the perpetual 14 and 15 year olds who make up the proletariat of the Brave New World. It is hte fever dream of the sex-driven kiddies who want to be in charge of themselves .... until the old guard die off and suddenly the wheels stop turning and they show up at the office one afternoon to find the doors locked and the blinds closed and all the Moms and Dads gone away....

TLP| 6.7.12 @ 4:33PM

I disagree that Evangelicals have thrived on Confrontation with the "If it feels good, do it" mantra of the Left.

The Bible is not a Gordian Knot. It's really quite simple, if you think about it.

The Ten Commandments is hardly a Rubics Cube.

They are GUIDE POSTS, for a better life.

These "Young Evangelicals" seem more like USEFUL IDIOTS, than they do, people to be taken seriously.

Truly, these are The End of Days.

C. Vernon Crisler | 6.7.12 @ 7:27PM

Not a good thing to imitate the Abolitionists. They were fanatics who hated the Constitution and wanted it destroyed (a covenant with death, said one of them). Their extremism prompted an equal and opposite form of extremism in the South, the fire-eating secessionists.

A pox on both their houses.

Jack in Wi| 6.7.12 @ 7:34AM

The worst abolishionist exremists were not evangelicals but Congregationalists and Unitarians from New England. They are the kind of people who gave us John Brown and the Civil War. the present trend of young people toward liberality on sexual matters has been happening for decades. That is why we have huge increases in unwed births and abortions. It is also why homosexuality is being put forth as normal. All these sins have to be fought if this country is to survive. The 10 Commandments are still the basis of a sane and civil society.

Alej| 6.7.12 @ 8:56AM

Abraham Lincoln, who gave us the War of Northern Aggression, wasn't from New England.

DTOM| 6.7.12 @ 10:00AM

The South seceded, the South fired first, and Abraham Lincoln "gave" us your so-called "War of Northern Aggression?"

The South declared that war - no one else.

Grow up. I will not respond to any thing you may post. Facts are facts.

Don't Tread On Me

Derek Leaberry| 6.7.12 @ 1:42PM

I hate to have the middle ground anywhere politically yet that is where I fit on the question on who started the Civil War. It is true that the South fired on Fort Sumter. It is also true that the South did a poor job engaging with the national government on working out a secession arrangement. But it is also true that the North did not work out an arrangement suitable to both the South and the North. Not withdrawing from Sumter was an act of provocation. With the call for 75000 volunteers, Lincoln essentially made it clear that he would not negotiate with the South and would put it to the sword. Lincoln's attitude made war a certainty.

A festering hate between North and South and the respective peoples of both was fifty years in the making by 1860. This intensified in the 1840s and 1850s. It would have been wiser to allow a peaceful secession with the South assuming its share of whatever national debt there was at the time. The North would have still been a continental power. The South would have had the agrarian backwater most of its people desired.

TLP| 6.7.12 @ 4:38PM

This sounds awfully close to the belief that Japan was PROVOKED into Bombing Pearl Harbour, because the United States put an Embargo on shipments of Steel, to the Japanese Empire.

Methinks, you haven't really thought this out.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 5:06PM

Nor have you. That's a given...

TLP| 6.7.12 @ 5:24PM

Wow.

What a comeback.

Shouldn't you be giving you Mother a sponge bath, right now?

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 6:21PM

Maybe.

I hear her ringing the bell, but making you look foolish is too much fun. She can wait.

Bill84728| 6.7.12 @ 10:29AM

"The War of Northern Aggression?" Wow, a blast from the past!

It's true that Northern troops marched into Virginia; it's also true that the first shots were fired by Southerners (Citadel cadets Haynesworth and Pickens, to be exact) at a federal installation in Charleston Harbor.

Bill84728| 6.7.12 @ 10:55AM

Not a federal installation, but a ship, the Star of the West. My error. I know I'm going to catch hell from the Civil War buffs, who will say that there was some other brawl that was the first incident of the Civil War.

Derek Leaberry| 6.7.12 @ 10:20AM

Excellent post. When the antecedents of the Puritans turned their backs on religion, they adopted a myriad of perverse particular notions. Shakers. Mormonism. Feminism. The Free Love Movement of the Oneida Society. Abolitionism. Socialism.

Bill84728| 6.7.12 @ 10:30AM

None of the groups you mention were generated by Puritans, either in following their example or in rebelling against them.

Derek Leaberry| 6.7.12 @ 12:11PM

Those of Puritan heritage who turned their backs on religion were of English New England heritage which sprang from Puritan East Anglia. When people abandon a religion, something else is often found to replace the religion. Thus New England, northern New York and northern Ohio, places where those of Puritan heritage settled, became hotbeds of bizarre cults. A quote of C.K. Chesterton might be apropros. "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing- they believe in anything."

Bill84728| 6.7.12 @ 10:49AM

Puritans were Congregationalists who agreed that the Anglican Church was a legitimate Protestant sect.

Separatists began as Puritans, but split from them when they denied the legitimacy of the Anglican Church. The were non-Puritan Congregationalists.
Both Separatists and Puritans settled in New England, the Separatists in Plimouth Plantation and the Puritans a few years later in Boston. Because Boston had its harbor, the Puritans became politically dominant. However, by the end of the 17th Century, both Puritans and Separatists had been vastly outnumbered by non-Congregationalists. Many of them converted around that time (c. 1700) to the Presbyterian Church.

Seek| 6.7.12 @ 3:42PM

I can't imagine a more distorted view of American history. As for abortions, they've declined by about 25 percent in absolute numbers over the last two decades and by even more in relative terms.

Bill84728| 6.7.12 @ 4:13PM

So instead of killing 6 million babies, we're only killing 4.5 million babies, is that what you're saying? Sounds like progress to me, all right.

Von Mises Jr| 6.7.12 @ 8:15AM

This is another example of socialist thought in the youth. The issue is not for the Church or conservatives to loosen up and get with it. It is a question of who the hell do these punk kids think that they are to make collectivist modifications to religion and culture that include me?
If these little commie bastards want to have sex on the Alter of their new Denomination, be my guest. I will stay with my Parish and I refuse to pay for their rubbers, birth control pills and abortions.
This is about religious freedom, not changing mores. Perhaps these feel-good socialist should go to see "For Greater Glory" this week that I understand is about the Mexican socialist hanging Catholics from telegraph poles in the 1930 era.
You would think that these young pups that have had their Social Security and Medicare systems bankrupted by socialist would be less inclined to put them in charge of their religious freedom and freedom of conscience?

CJW| 6.7.12 @ 8:45AM

Von
They sound like Howard Dean who switched churches/denominations because of the bike path policy of his church. Their beliefs is about bike paths, social events, and not about religious freedom.

Von Mises Jr| 6.7.12 @ 9:22AM

Perhaps they will understand when their wife or daughter is commanded to take a pregnancy test to see if it is a boy or girl whom has been slated for abortion.

Chochim| 6.7.12 @ 8:47AM

Evangelicals are supposed to,well,evangelize. Frequently this means taking firm unpopular stands. I do not quite understand "feel-good" "don't make waves" Evangelicals. IN times past some have withdrawn from politics because the world was unredeemable. The current activism was caused by confrontation with militant secularism.
I don't understand why so called evangelicals want to retreat now.

DTOM| 6.7.12 @ 9:39AM

"Tired of shame and guilt..."

Everybody would go to church if we would just stop all that boring, irritating, uncomfortable talk about sin.

Yeah right...

If you go to church, you believe in God. The God who made you and me and everything else that has, does, or will ever exist. The God who made all this stuff sets the rules. He gave it to us in the Bible. If you don't like what the Bible says, you don't like God.

So forget about church if you want to set you own rules. God made man and woman, stuck them together, called it marriage, and gave them the gift of children.

What in the world would repeated sexual acts between two men or two women have to do with marriage?

Nothing.

Legalizing gay "marriage" is as logical as saying 'it's not fair that my driver's license does not let me fly airplanes and helicopters.'

Writing your own rules for your church? Psst...you are not in God's house, you are at the Rotary, or on Facebook. Oops, even the Rotary and Facebook have rules!

Oh, yeah, and God has an especially deep place in Hell for those who pretend to lead the folk to Him and actually lead them away!

Good luck with that - eternity is a really, really long time - even longer than an Obama presidency...

Don't Tread On Me!!!

PS Apologies to the Rotary and Facebook....

Fiscal| 6.7.12 @ 11:03AM

God made marriage? Really? Is that the same God than gave men multiple wives in the Bible? Why change what the Bible says? The Church used to be against interracial marriage. Hmmmm.... The "gift" of children? Please...

Look up the history of marriage -- it is not religious. It was formed to define heirs and monetary compensation. It didn't become a sacrament until the middle ages.

Besides, I didn't think this country was supposed to be a theocracy, like, let's say, Iran.

Religion did a great number of horrendous acts in the name of God. Some of the people who are religious have also done some great things. You know those in the Mafia are highly religious as are skinheads.

I really don't blame those who actually think for themselves for questioning religion and doing what they think is right -- even if their religion says otherwise. That's what liberty is all about -- so I thought.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 11:21AM

Watch as I shoot your theory right out of the water:

1 Corinthians 7: 2-5

2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

That took all of 5 seconds to Google. There's about a zillion other verses in the Bible on marriage.

To imply that marriage is "not religious" is to deny reality.

Fiscal| 6.7.12 @ 2:14PM

Just look into the history of marriage. What you have named as "marriage" is YOUR interpretation.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 2:58PM

No, it's God's.

And don't kid yourself; gay marriage has NEVER been aceptable to any major religion, and pretty much all of the minor ones, too.

That's what people can't stand about gay activists; live the way you want, it's a free country, but stop distorting the TRUTH.

Ryan| 6.7.12 @ 11:25AM

Actually, God NEVER condoned polygamy in scripture - it was ALWAYS a result of man's sin in one way or another, and NEVER had a good result.

Examples: Abraham; Isaac; Jacob; David; Solomon - all polygamists - and all their multiple marriages had bad results.

Able Dog| 6.7.12 @ 1:21PM

The Old Testament has numerous references to God not only condoning p0lygamy but actually giving multiple wives. For example, see 2 Samuel 12:8:
"And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things."

DTOM| 6.7.12 @ 1:27PM

And if God comes down and gives you multiple wives, you should say, "Thank you, sir."

DTOM| 6.7.12 @ 1:28PM

On second thought, that might actually be God punishing you for something....

TLP| 6.7.12 @ 4:41PM

That's better.

Ryan| 6.7.12 @ 1:53PM

That's an incorrect interpretation. See http://precepts.wordpress.com/.....auls-wife/

David did not marry Saul's wives, they were placed, in a sense, into his protection.

Seek| 6.7.12 @ 3:44PM

So why did God pick them as exemplars for their people? You think He could have done better?

Ryan| 6.7.12 @ 4:18PM

Because the examples we need are of imperfect men; and He DID "do better" eventually, by providing His Son.

TLP| 6.7.12 @ 4:42PM

Indeed.

DTOM| 6.7.12 @ 1:33PM

Fiscal,

You say, " I really don't blame those who actually think for themselves for questioning religion.." seems to imply that those who accept God are not "those who actually think for themselves..."

Is that what you meant?

Any room inside your world for people who question their faith and their religion and come to the conclusion that their religion is basically correct?

Doesn't sound like it...Say what you mean.

Don't Tread On Me...

Fiscal| 6.7.12 @ 2:16PM

As long as YOUR belief results in limitations for me, it can never be correct for the society we both live in. You should be able to live YOUR OWN LIFE with your religious limitations and leave other people to their own beliefs. That is what "liberty" is all about.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 3:04PM

Sorry, but your belief is imposing limitations on me. I will NOT adjust or retreat from my beliefs simply because they conflict with your hedonistic, secular worldview.

And society has been doing JUST FINE for thousands of years before the ridiculous idea of "gay marriage" existed.

Frankly, I don't care what you do in the privacy of your own home, or who you do it with. But when you start insisting that society should simply discard a bedrock principle that has existed for thousands of years because you want to play house with another guy then we're going to have a problem.

It's time for the malcontents to follow the examples of the Pilgrims. In other words, if you hate it here so much, go off and establish your own country somewhere else.

Fiscal| 6.7.12 @ 3:39PM

I suppose that if your particular religion prevented women from being equal, or blacks for that matter, the society should follow your lead? My particular beliefs do not impose any limitations on you. You don't have to marry someone of the same sex nor do you have to get abortions. That is a specious argument.

And by the way, it was thought that blacks being the equal of whites was a ridiculous idea for centuries. I'm sure you would have made the same argument then.

What this amounts to is that you want to impose your particular religious LIMITATIONS, on me. On the other had, I have no desire to limit you.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 4:52PM

"I suppose that if your particular religion prevented women from being equal, or blacks for that matter, the society should follow your lead?"

Suppositions are a waste of time when they bear no relation to reality.

It's also a waste of time to try and equate your "struggle" with Civil Rights or women's suffrage, and insulting to both of those movements. The fact that women or minorities were once considered less than equal in this country is irrelevant.

For the record, I have no desire to "limit" you.

If you want to live with another guy, sleep in his bed, and fiddle with his genitals, go ahead. I could not care less.

Want to legally divide your assets, and make him your insurance beneficiary? Again...go ahead. Who cares?

Want to attend a Church and get "married", and consider yourselves as such according to your beliefs? I don't care.

But when you start forcing your marriage agenda onto the rest of society as a legal issue that threatens liberty and religious freedom, then we have a problem.

TLP| 6.7.12 @ 4:55PM

Nobody wants to IMPOSE anything on you.

If you want to live your life, on your own, in the belief that we are just like the animals, and the insects, and the Sh*t in your toilet, that's your business.

Just tell the rest of us why SCIENTISTS no longer say that the Big Bang was started by a single Hydrogen Atom, but now call it THE GOD PARTICLE?

And, tell us why no other species has EVOLVED, in the last 100,000 yaers, in comparison to MAN.

Even Charles Darwin said that he believed in GOD.

Explain how one Man - JESUS - started a World Wide Religion, out of whole cloth, and how ROME, who once Killed CHRISTAINS in the Colosseum, took on Christianity as their Religion.

I'll wait.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 5:11PM

They call it the "God particle" because they believe it negates the existence of a Creator, not because they think it supports one.

Duh.

TLP| 6.7.12 @ 5:26PM

Yeah.

That makes sense.

Idiot.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 6:24PM

It does make sense if you can think in more than one dimension...

...Or if you know what you're talking about.

Oops! Looks like you lose on both counts.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 3:05PM

And "liberty" is not synonymous with "libertine."

TLP| 6.7.12 @ 4:56PM

Idiot.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 5:09PM

So you're saying it is synonymous?

And while you're down there...Can you write a 10-paragraph diatribe about how the horrible blacks are destroying America?

That would be real cool...and full of genuine insight, to be sure.

TLP| 6.7.12 @ 5:29PM

The Green Monster of Jealousy, suits you to a tee.

I shit bigger'n you.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 6:26PM

Yes, I'm sooooooooooo jealous.

One of my goals in life has always been to bloviate on tiresome topics and pretend that makes me smart.

It works for you, I guess...

Bill84728| 6.7.12 @ 10:26AM

Has any writer or historian done a work that gives a comprehensive account of the Underground Railway?

Lately, I come upon this house or that church as a place where escaping slaves were sheltered as they made their way from the slaveholding states up to Canada. It seems like, if every place that claims to have been a stop on the Underground Railway were actually such a place, the slaves had to be escaping from the South in mass waves. I find that a bit hard to believe, even though I know it was enough of an issue to prompt Congress to pass the Fugitive Slave Act.

THKrupp| 6.7.12 @ 11:08AM

Culture wars and cultural evolution have been going on since time began. Most of the commenters here probably believe in something that would have gotten them burned at the stake at one time or another. Im not sure you can make broad statements about youth today. That is one thing that is very different from when I was growing up. There is a much larger variety of thought in todays youth than there was in the past. I think alot of it has to do with the lack of shared experiences. In the past there was the draft where most young men had a very similiar experience. Now the closest thing we have to that is going to college or university although you can have vastly different experiences depending on where you go. Younger people today have vastly wider cultural options open to them. The internet has thrown the door open wide to the many different styles of music as well as philosophies. Young people today have a much larger pool of options consequently that familiararity makes them much more accepting of differences in other people. There is a much more live and let live attitude among todays youth than there was when I was growing up. Granted I only have exposure to my friends kids and dont spend a lot of time around OWS encampments so my opinion may be biased.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 11:15AM

What these young, hipster "Christians" really want is to feel cool hanging-out with their agnostic and atheistic friends at Starbucks, and not like a bunch of anti-intellectual fuddy-duddys who actually believe (Guffaw!!) the Bible!

As if!

TLP| 6.7.12 @ 5:30PM

Pathetic.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 6:29PM

Perhaps.

Then again, they've actually had original thoughts, so there's hope for you, too.

Maybe.

Naaaah.

Ryan| 6.7.12 @ 11:28AM

Taking a step back, there is a point to be made about political disengagement; however, the other side of the problem is that political disengagement - to focus on the spread of the Gospel - needs to actually address the Gospel - man's sin, our inability to come to God, and God's Answer.

What the modern thought of the "youth" is to divorce the sin part and attempt to be nice people.

I DO believe that a Christian can step away from political advocacy and focus on discipling and other evangelical issues - we don't have to rant and rave against homosexuality or abortion to prove we are Christians; however, to run away from sin is to run away from the reason we need Christ.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 3:08PM

I don't agree that Christians can or should "step away" from political advocacy. The minute we do, our rights as citizens will begin to erode.

We cannot afford to be complacent or silent anymore; there is too much at stake.

Ryan| 6.7.12 @ 3:37PM

It's not about complacency or silence. It's about a re-adjustment of priorities, and it doesn't have to be general throughout Christendom.

I'm just not going to speak ill of anyone who is concentrating on the spread of the Gospel over protesting gay marriage.

And, frankly, the spread of the Gospel will fix the problem over homosexuality anyway.

Petronius| 6.7.12 @ 12:24PM

I recall a Senator from New York of all places speak of "defining deviancy down." Ergo, nothing is wrong anymore when enough people do it and nobody moves to halt the practice or even voice disapproval. Churches have doors. None need to enter. If they do, none need to listen. Why? Because Absolute is Gone. Nihilism has negated Principle and turned it to mush. And the resulting mess matters not. The Teletubbies know that Nunu will clean it up. I have one thing to tell this lot. When you say "oh oh," don't look in my direction or try to send me the bill.

THKrupp| 6.7.12 @ 12:47PM

When I was in college I remember there was a guy who would stand in the quad and scream at every woman that walked by that she was a slut. He would shout fornicators at all the guys. Mostly he seemed to be off his nut. I doubt very much that he had a single convert the entire time I was there. Being confrontational and forcing people to live the way you want them to usually isnt a very effective way of being evangelical. In effect by seeking a political solution, people are forcing others to live the way they want them to at the point of a gun. Its probably much more effective to be a good role model and actively promoting the correct path rather than just threatening folks. Religious belief is a very personal thing to most people and most people are not going to agree on exactly what the Bible or any other spiritiual script means or says.

Fiscal| 6.7.12 @ 2:17PM

Then why try to force your particular belief on a secular society? That's the problem.

THKrupp| 6.7.12 @ 2:40PM

That was my point....perhaps I didnt communicate it very well.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 3:14PM

This is not a "secular society," and it never has been.

The 1st Amendment was designed to protect religion from the government, NOT the other way around as it is often misinterpreted.

The first settlers were Christians who were seeking a home where they could worship as they pleased, not be "secular."

The Founding Fathers were practically all Christians. Some were more fervent than others, but the vast majority of them reflected the views of the people of their day - they believed in God (or, a God), natural law, and a higher order to the universe. That's why they mentioned it in the Declaration of Independence; that's why our money says "In God We Trust." The mere idea that the Founders would have fought a revolution for a distinctly secular nation is ludicrous.

You fail to understand that the very freedoms you enjoy as a citizen, and which are enshrined in the Constitution have their origins in Christianity, do you? If you don't, then you need to learn some history.

Fiscal| 6.7.12 @ 3:44PM

So your argument boils down to one of "logical causality". You say that since the "origins" of the Constitution is based on Christianity, that our society should be Christian. Interesting, since our founders wanted to come here for religious freedom. You seem to want to codify your particular religious beliefs into our government the same way England did. I'm afraid that you need the history and logic lessons.

Seek| 6.7.12 @ 3:49PM

The purpose of the First Amendment is to protect individuals from coercion in the name of religion, regardless of whether a religious body or government is doing the coercing. And yes, I do have freedom from religion as well as freedom of religion. It works both ways. As for that crap about the Founders being the Pat Robertsons of their time, you ought to read some serious accounts instead of Glenn Beck/David Barton's fantasies. I owe NONE of my liberties to orthodox Christianity.

CJW| 6.7.12 @ 4:45PM

But you do owe your liberties to Christianity. The history of Europe and Christianity is interwined, and is the only area of the world and only religion that has the individual liberties we have.

We have the rule of law to protect individuals which is ultimately based on the belief that a person is created in the image of God.

Alan Dershowitz wrote a terrrific book about how our laws are based on the Old Testament.

Skip the arguments about slavery because the West/Christianity led the fight to abolish slavery.

Skip the arguments about Nazis because the Nazis and Commies were atheists who believe in the State as their god.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 4:58PM

"The purpose of the First Amendment is to protect individuals from coercion in the name of religion."

NO, it isn't.

Please read the Constitution before you spout ignorance.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

There's NOTHING in there about the "coercion" of religion.

If you understood American and British history, you'd understand that people did not consider religion to be the problem. They considered Government the problem because they weren't allowed to worship as they pleased.

And no one mentioned Pat Robertson but you.

And YES...You owe ALL of your liberties to Christian principles. Think not? Then name another society that has developed the idea of the Rights of Men and doesn't exist in the Western World.

Go ahead.

Doctor Right| 6.7.12 @ 3:16PM

So you equate the actions of a disturbed individual with Christianity?

How sad...

THKrupp| 6.7.12 @ 6:51PM

I didnt say that at all. I didnt go into all the details but that was this persons way of evangelizing. He would often stand in the quad screaming at people that he had no idea what they were like and accusing people of being fornicators and sluts without a shred of evidence. He would often cite scripture while he was doing this. My whole point was that he probably turned more people off of Christianity than were gained. If any were gained at all. I dont equate him with Christianity at all I think he was probably mentally disturbed.

Mick Lee| 6.7.12 @ 1:04PM

In my experience, most young people (particularly ages 14-21) leave the church for two reasons: sex and intoxicants. They engage in sexual intercourse and drinking (and much of the time drugs as well) which they understand very well the church teaches against. Unlike older church members, they cannot deal well with the disparity between what they do and what they are supposed to believe. So they drift away.

Older believers learn to accept they hypocrites in so many ways and for that very reason in the church they need to be. Overcoming hypocrisy is part of the lifelong journey of faith--a battle which will never be completely won. But it is in the church where we can seek forgiveness and hear and request God give us a purer heart for Him. That is a truth most us take a long time to hear and understand.

Politics and the "culture wars" are the least of what bothers the young evangelicals.

THKrupp| 6.7.12 @ 3:00PM

I have often reflected back on my own experiences and I think part of the problem is that churches today always treat young adults (anyone older than 10 but younger than 30) as some sort of special case. If you want to keep young people, integrate them into the adult world. I think thats something thats wrong with society as well. We keep thinking that we have to segregate young people from older people.

gazinya | 6.7.12 @ 2:27PM

In my reading of the Bible, God is consistant in this point, "I am God and you shall have no other gods before Me." The Bible gives more than a few examples of those that accepted that principle and those that rationalized or just rejected that principle. Chruchs today are thick in rationalizations and thin on principle. If I am asked to 'bow to the statue of humanism' I will decline. If asked why, I will respond. If asked to vote for idolitry, I will vote no. If asked why, I will respond. If forced, by law or threat, I will respond. No one will ask why because either I or they will know soon enough.

Fiscal| 6.7.12 @ 3:46PM

You miss the entire point. If you don't want to worship idols, that's your choice. We shouldn't be asked to give up our personal rights to the state and that means we would never vote on that particular issue as it is one of personal belief.

gazinya | 6.9.12 @ 12:54PM

I believe you missed my point. It is my faith in God and my belief that the Constitution was 'given' us through the prayerful actions of our Founders. These men and women looked to God for Wisdom and Understanding. Today it is only knowledge that is promulgated in our nation. A knowledge that has no wisdom. The government takes from me a liberty I had 65 years ago and gives it to other groups that dispise that liberty. In God We Trust is mocked and the mention of ANY biblical text is a hate crime. Tell me how I can vote out of my community a sin that is given 'constitutional', though a lie, protection?

nathan| 6.7.12 @ 2:39PM

The election five months from now doesn't matter. Who you marry or what job you have doesn't matter. 50 years from now the only thing that will matter for all of us is did we accept or reject Jesus as our personal Savior. Because only by accepting Him, His one time sacrifice on the cross do we get to heaven, not through good works, not by attending church not by any other means. Reject Him and you still have eternity it's just in a very real horrible hell.

I start with this because for evangelicals, real ones, the great commission that Christ gave was what, go into the world and get republicans elected? No. Go into the world and get ACA reversed? No. "Go into the world and preach the gospel." For Christians their primary task is not just to personally "make it home" but to bring as many others with them as possible because again if you aren't a Christian then Romney's election 50 years from now when you die will be of no consequence.

One line of thought for evangelicals is that if we bring the lost to Christ, then many of these issues "go away". Christians aren't perfect but are not overly likely to have a same sex marriage, have abortions, that we win the culture wars one "conversion" at a time. That perhaps by gettting "obsessed" with politics to the detriment of the great comission, we lose sight of what our priorities really are.

The floor is open for discussion.

THKrupp| 6.7.12 @ 2:45PM

very well said Nathan.

Fiscal| 6.7.12 @ 3:51PM

The problem is that you start with a premise of superiority, i.e., that your religion is the right one. Perhaps when you get to that mythical after death experience, you'll find out that God was an Hispanic Buddhist married to someone of his same sex. Whoops....

THKrupp| 6.7.12 @ 7:00PM

Fiscal,

None of us know for sure one way or another. There is no material proof one way or another that God in any form exists...its based on faith. Any person that professes any religion that does not think their way is superior isnt much of a religious person. We need to get to a point where its ok to agree to disagree. We all have the right to believe what we want to. That extends to not believing if we so wish. In that vein we shouldbe able to tolerate others beliefs or lack there of. None of it can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Rich D| 6.7.12 @ 10:04PM

Well, I don't have a religion - I have faith engendered by a copious amount of evidence of the Truth, which is always superior.

What evidence do you have that after-death experiences are "mythical"?

Jeamar| 6.7.12 @ 3:50PM

Confession: I didn't read the whole article because I don't know which "evangelicals" Mr. Tooley is talking about. Southern Baptists, Evangelical Lutheran, Evangelical Free church, Bible-believing Chrisitans, etc. I only know two sects of Evangelicals personally, one of which tells me to my face I am not a "real" Christian and don't believe in the "real" Jesus. I don't know what that means either but it doesn't inspire me to inquire further.

Rich D| 6.7.12 @ 10:06PM

I'll answer anyway - evangelicals are all those who heed the Great Commission. Period.

THKrupp| 6.7.12 @ 11:06PM

I wish I had a nickle for every time someone told me that my baptism didnt count because of the age at which it was performed. LOL

David T| 6.7.12 @ 4:17PM

Evangelicals may be stepping back from the culture wars, but in the Catholic Church the bishops are finally speaking out against the moral outrage. As a result, the laity are becoming emboldened and invigorated. I relish the fight.

Mark| 6.7.12 @ 9:41PM

I liked the piece, and acknowledge that sadly, the point must be made. Christians are called to confront injustice, reject violence, and pray for enemies (and even forgive them). Following Christ doesn't exclude attending dinner parties, but probably leads to being excluded from any more dinner parties. Afflicting the comfortable is not terribly popular. Perhaps a follow-up article can elaborate on deploying skillful and effective Christ-centered confrontation.

Mark| 6.7.12 @ 9:47PM

Georgia's Koinonia Farm project is an excellent example of skillful change. The founder's story is preserved on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g1Z-v-TpI0

THKrupp| 6.7.12 @ 10:24PM

Mark,

I believe you are correct. There are however many different ways to go about doing this. Each person has different callings in life, different strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes the best thing a person can do is merely to be an example what a christian should be. Sometimes it means you need to speak up and say things that make people uncomfortable. This can be done without being offensive or aggressive. Its not up to us to turn a persons heart toward God. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. Our job is merely to spread the word. I dont believe that it should be a confrontation. You catch more flies with honey as the old saying goes.

Mick Lee| 6.8.12 @ 7:37AM

Yes. Yes. Yes. "Afflict the comfortable". The problem is that too often afflicting those we think are comfortable is that it makes us feel comfortable and self-satisfied--smug even. All too often, "afflicting the comfortable" isn't done in faithfulness to Christ. It is done for the covert purpose of advancing our politics. Not that there is anything wrong with advancing our political beliefs. But using faith as a platform to launch them when the well-spring of your advocacy comes from a different place is dishonest and takes advantage of fellow brothers and sisters when their prudential judgment brings them to a different politics.

Quartermaster| 6.7.12 @ 10:06PM

From inside I don't see Evangelicals withdrawing from the culture war. Simply promulgating the Gospel involves one in the culture war.

Finney's tracts against slavery called the Christians in the south out for their hypocrisy. Others, such as the Unitarians, were utterly irresponsible and ran Christians out many of the abolition organizations. Garrison and Brown were typical of the irresponsible extremists that are the spiritual fathers of the current crop of leftists that are so troublesome today. Combined with Lincoln's corporate handlers, they gave the country a devastating war with a million or more deaths, and the destruction of the Confederacy and near economic death of the north.

Yeah Lincoln provoked the war. His corporate handlers needed their economic colony, and Lincoln knew what would bring the war the northeastern moneymen wanted.

lambsev | 6.8.12 @ 3:23AM

Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. And we want to be hip? pffft.

Beware when all men speak well of you...

The comparison between gay sex and slavery is just laughable, but it is a lie told so often it is being believed. Truth be told, gay sex IS slavery.

John 8:34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin.

gazinya | 6.9.12 @ 12:35PM

If one were to leave out of their sermons those things spoken of by the prophets, Jesus, and the New Testamont writers what would remain? The Obama said 'I am a Sermon on the Mount Christian but I have found "obscurities" in the Bible which I can not abide by.'

Everything in the Bible is a study of 'what is rightous in Gods' eyes and what is not'. It would seem that todays', even yesterdays', preachers are woefully ignorant of scripture and a desire to turn toward God. Jesus said to each and every INDIVIDUAL "Seek first the Kingdom of God and all these other things will be given unto you." I have chosen to be on Gods' food stamp rolls that todays' preachers roll.