A Model for Christians: In Fond Memory of Ron Sider

You may find it hard to believe, but I once was a member of the KKK. Well, not that KKK. Not long after moving to Fukuoka City on the Japanese island of Kyushu, I became a member of the Kyushu Kenkyu Kai (kenkyu = study; kai = meeting).*

A little over ten years later, our KKK’s monthly meeting discussed Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (1977). That was my introduction to author Ron Sider, and I was one of his many admirers who was saddened by his sudden death in July. 

Ron Sider (1939~2022) in 2019

Ronald James Sider was born in Canada on Sept. 17, 1939. Following the completion of his Ph.D. studies at Yale in 1969, Sider took a position teaching at Messiah College’s Philadelphia campus and then in 1977 became a professor at what is now Eastern University’s Palmer Theological Seminary.

Sider was an Anabaptist, reared in the Brethren in Christ Church in Canada. He was ordained to the Christian ministry by both that Church and by the Mennonites.

Sider had a long and fruitful career as a professor, author, and activist. He published over 30 books and wrote over 100 articles for both religious and secular magazines.

By far, his most widely-read book was Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. Hailed by Christianity Today as one of the one hundred most influential books in religion in the 20^th century, it has sold over 400,000 copies in nine languages.

Ron Sider was “a model for an evangelical Christianity committed to social justice.” That is how Tish Harrison Warren, an Anglican priest, describes Sider in her Aug. 7 New York Times opinion piece. I heartily agree.

When he was still 34 years old and before moving to Eastern, in 1973 Sider helped convene a group of evangelical Christians in Chicago. They issued “The Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern.”

Writing about that document in 2012, one author explained that “Sider and his colleagues condemned American militarism, sexism, economic injustice, and President Nixon’s ‘lust for and abuse of power.’”** (Sider and his fellow evangelicals then were quite different from many evangelicals today.)

It was because of “The Chicago Declaration,” which in addition to Sider was signed by over 50 progressive evangelicals, including Art Gish and Jim Wallis as well as James Dunn and Foy Valentine, two Southern Baptists I highly respected, that I was able to long self-identify as an evangelical.

Then, under Sider’s leadership, “The Chicago Declaration” became the founding document for Evangelicals for Social Action, a progressive group organized in 1978. (In 2020 the ESA changed their name to Christians for Social Action.)

I did not agree with all of Sider’s positions, such as his unwavering anti-abortion stance. Nevertheless, I appreciate the emphasis he made in his 1987 book titled Completely Pro-Life: Building a Consistent Stance on Abortion, the Family, Nuclear Weapons, the Poor.

Despite some disagreements, Sider was clearly a model for Christians, especially for those in the evangelical tradition, who take the teachings of Jesus seriously.

Ron Sider was an active Christian model into his 80s. In 2020, his succinct book Speak Your Peace: What the Bible Says about Loving Our Enemies articulated his Anabaptist understanding of Christianity and summarized the biblical case for pacifism and active nonviolence.

Also in 2020, Sider was the editor of The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump: 30 Evangelical Christians on Justice, Truth, and Moral Integrity. In addition to the Introduction and Afterword, he also authored chapters 8 and 11 of that book.

His last blog post, a 900-word article titled “Advance Both Religious Liberty and LGBTQ Civil Rights,” was made on May 29 before his death of cardiac arrest on July 27.

So, I post this in fond memory of Ron Sider, who as Warren wrote “helped birth a movement and blaze a trail. And though at times it seems that trail has been hidden under Christian political partisanship . . . many Christians are still trying to walk the narrow path he left behind him.”

Thank God for faithful Christian scholars and disciples such as Ron Sider!

_____

* One of my first blog posts, made here on 7/21/09, was titled “James Cone at a KKK Meeting.” Up to this point, there have been only 24 pageviews of it, but many of you would find that brief post about the black liberation theologian to be of interest.

** The words are from Asbury University professor David Swartz’s book  Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism (2012, 2014).

“The Touch of the Master's Hand”

Last month, a Facebook friend posted the poem “The Touch of the Master’s Hand,” a poem I remember reading and using in sermons, in the 1950s. Now, sixty-five years later, I have mixed emotions about that once-popular poem penned a hundred years ago.

Rather than take the space to paste the poem here, I am giving you this link to read it online. Or you can listen to it impressively recited on YouTube—and here is the link (with subtitles) to it being sung in 2017. 

The Poet

Myra Brooks Welch was best known for the poem introduced above. Myra (1877~1959) was born in Illinois, but in 1920 she and her family moved to La Verne, Calif. They were members of the Church of the Brethren, the Anabaptist denomination that was prominent in that city.

Ms. Welch reported that she heard a speaker address a group of students on the power of God to bring out the best in people. She said that she was inspired by what she heard and wrote “The Touch of the Master’s Hand” in just 30 minutes!

Her poem was published in the February 26, 1921, issue of The Gospel Messenger, the Church of the Brethren’s official church paper (now known as just Messenger).

The Poem

Myra Welch’s poem spread across the country, and I heard it and was favorably impressed by it, while still a teen-aged Southern Baptist in Missouri—and as some of you know, I started preaching in 1954 at age 16.

Wikipedia (here) gives a good, succinct summary: “The poem tells of a battered old violin that is about to be sold as the last item at an auction for a pittance, until a violinist steps out of the audience and plays the instrument, demonstrating its beauty and true value.”

Then comes the primary point: “The violin then sells for $3,000 instead of a mere $3. The poem ends by comparing this instrument touched by the hand of a master musician to the life of a sinner that is touched by the hand of God.” (Myra, though, no doubt considered Jesus Christ to be the Master.)

The Problem

While I have no doubt that there are many people whose lives have been significantly changed by having been touched by “the Master’s hand," sadly, there seems to be far too little evidence of such change in far too many people who claim to be followers of Jesus.

Those who are evangelicals, as I was in the 1950s, are the Christians most likely to resonate with the message of Ms. Welch’s poem. But now it seems that some conservative evangelicals are prominently pushing policies that seem opposed to the teachings of Jesus.

There are unfortunate moral lapses evident in the lives of some Christians in all denominations, as well as people of other religions and of no religion. But I am writing here not about personal piety but about problematic positions on public policy, of which there are many.

The problem is not just one in this country, however. Think of the situation in Ethiopia, for example. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is said to be (here) “a devout Evangelical Pentecostal Christian of the Full Gospel Believer’s Church.”

The Ethiopian PM reportedly attends church regularly and “occasionally ministers in preaching and teaching.” Further, “he frequently underscores the importance of faith.” By his public religiosity, he seems to be an example of a man who has been “touched by the Master’s hand.”

To the great chagrin of many, though, in the past year the policies of Abiy Ahmed have led to what is being called “war crimes.” While garnering little news coverage in this country, the civil war in Ethiopia has been marked by military atrocities as well as by a huge humanitarian crisis.

The Oct. 9 issue of The Economist reports that “Ethiopia is deliberately starving its own citizens.” Some 400,000 people in the northern part of the country are facing “ catastrophic hunger.”

How could such problems possibly result from the policies of a man who has been “touched by the Master’s hand?”

_____

** For a broader description of the current civil war in Ethiopia, see this article by Philip Jenkins in the Oct. 8 issue of The Christian Century.

Remembering Rachel

Some of you know the name Rachel Held Evans well; others, not so much. Regardless, it seems appropriate to take some time to remember Rachel now, just before the 40^th anniversary of her birth on June 8. I'm greatly saddened that she didn’t live to celebrate the big 4-0, as she died on May 4, 2019.

Who Was Rachel Held Evans?

Rachel Grace Held was born in Alabama but moved with her birth family to Dayton, Tennessee, when she was 14. Dayton, you may remember, is where the (in)famous Scopes Trial was held in 1925.

Five years later, Bryan College, named for William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor at the 1925 trial, was founded in that small city. Rachel’s family moved to Dayton because her father got a job at the college there.

Rachel graduated from Bryan College in 2003 and married Dan Evans, her college boyfriend, that year. Rachel and Dan’s two children were three and one when Rachel died.

During her much-too-brief life, Rachel Held Evans (RHE) became a prominent Christian blogger, author, and speaker. But because of her faith in Jesus, she regularly rejected the biblicism, patriarchalism, and homophobic ideas of the conservative Christianity of her youth.

What Did Rachel Write?

RHE wrote four books published between 2010 and 2018, the year before her untimely death. The first was Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions. Four years later it was republished as Faith Unraveled with the same subtitle.

Her 2012 book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, became a New York Times bestseller in e-book non-fiction, and her Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church (2015) also became a New York Times bestseller nonfiction paperback.

Rachel’s only book I have read is her last one, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again, published less than a year before her death. I was much impressed by it.

Here is just one of the many statements I liked in that book: “The apostles remembered what many modern Christians tend to forget—that what makes the gospel offensive isn’t who it keeps out but who it lets in” (Kindle ed., p. 186). 

Those words embody her central emphasis. 

Goodreads.com has nearly 700 quotes from Rachel’s books that have been placed on their website by her readers (see here). There have also been over 10,500 ratings of Inspired posted on Goodreads—which is far fewer than those for her previous two books!

Why Remember Rachel?

One main reason I remember Rachel and encourage you readers to do the same is because her central emphasis, as indicated above, expresses the truth of one of my favorite old Christian hymns, “There’s a Wideness in God’s mercy.”**

Here is what others said about her shortly after her death.

Writing for Religious News Service on May 4, 2019, journalist Kately Beaty lauded RHE for preaching “the wildly expansive love of God.”

Two days later, Eliza Griswold’s article in The New Yorker was titled, “The Radically Inclusive Christianity of Rachel Held Evans.” (Griswold was a Pulitzer Prize winner in 2019.)

Also on May 6, Emma Green’s article in The Atlantic referred to RHE as a “hero to Christian misfits.”

Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans’s piece about RHE in the June 5, 2019, issue of Christian Century was titled “Apostle to outsiders.” Journalist Evans (no relation to Dan) wrote in the last paragraph, “Christianity in America is more lively, loving, generous, and honest because of Rachel Held Evans.”

Journalist Green concluded her May 6 article with these words: “Evans spent her life trying to follow an itinerant preacher and carpenter, who also hung out with rejects and oddballs. In death, as that preacher once promised, she will be known by her fruits.”

Yes, let’s fondly remember Rachel now and give thanks for the many fruits her much-too-short life is still producing.

_______

** There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy (1862) by F. W. Faber

1 There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea.
There’s a kindness in God’s justice,
which is more than liberty.

3 But we make God’s love too narrow
by false limits of our own,
and we magnify its strictness
with a zeal God will not own.

4 For the love of God is broader
than the measures of the mind,
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.

(From Voices Together, 2020)

Michael Gerson: An Evangelical with Integrity

Today (May 15) is the 57^th birthday of Michael Gerson, the well-known columnist for The Washington Post. Happy Birthday, Mr. Gerson! And thank you for being an evangelical Christian with integrity.

Michael Gerson, the Evangelical

As I have noted a number of times, there has been, and continues to be, considerable criticism of white evangelical Christians (WECs)—and for good reason. But, as I often have said to my “old codger” friends, not all WECs are the same. We must acknowledge significant differences among them. 

There is little question but that Michael Gerson has been a lifelong evangelical Christian. As he himself explained in “The Last Temptation,” an April 2018 article in The Atlantic, he “was raised in an evangelical home, went to an evangelical church and high school, and began following Christ as a teen.”

In that same article, included in full in a 2020 book titled The American Crisis, Gerson states that his experiences as a Christian through the years make him “hesitant to abandon the word evangelical. They also make seeing the defilement of that word all the more painful” (p. 258).

Gerson was named by Time magazine in 2005 as one of “The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals In America.”

Michael Gerson, the Writer

Although he has done other things, Gerson is chiefly known as a writer. For example, he was a speechwriter for Bob Dole and a ghostwriter for Charles Colson. Then from Inauguration Day in 2001 to June 2006, he was the White House Director of Speechwriting. As such, he helped write the second inaugural address of Pres. George W. Bush.

After leaving the White House, Gerson wrote for Newsweek magazine for a time, and then in May 2007 he began his tenure as a columnist for The Washington Post.

In 2010, Gerson also was the co-author of the book City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era. The Foreword was written by Timothy Keller, the well-known evangelical pastor, and it was issued by Moody Publishers.**

Michael Gerson, a Man of Integrity

In his opinion pieces for The Washington Post, it seems quite clear that Gerson writes as a man of integrity. Here are examples of what I mean.

On October 28, 2019, Gerson’s WaPo opinion piece was titled, “White evangelical Protestants are fully disrobed. And it is an embarrassing sight.” In that article, he writes, “Rather than shaping President Trump’s agenda in Christian ways, they [=WECs] have been reshaped into the image of Trump himself.”***

Gerson’s opinion piece for January 7 of this year, the very next day after the ill-fated events of Jan. 6, Gerson’s piece was titled, “Trump’s evangelicals were complicit in the desecration of our democracy.”

He pointed out in that piece, “As white nationalists, conspiracy theorists, misogynists, anarchists, criminals and terrorists took hold of the Republican Party, many evangelicals blessed it under the banner ‘Jesus Saves.’” Further on in that article, Gerson wrote,

It is tempting to call unforgivable the equation of Christian truth with malice, cruelty, deception, bigotry and sedition. But that statement is itself contradicted by Christian truth, which places no one beyond forgiveness and affirms that everyone needs grace in different ways. There is a perfectly good set of Christian tools to deal with situations such as these: remorse, repentance, forgiveness, reformation.

And then on May 3, Gerson’s opinion piece was “Elected Republicans are lying with open eyes. Their excuses are disgraceful.” (More about this later.)

And please note: Gerson still is listed as a Republican, so he not only is an evangelical Christian with integrity but also a Republican with integrity. This country badly needs more WECs and more Republicans like Michael Gerson.

_____

** A good reminder in a May 7 tweet by Tim Keller: “Less than 2/3 of evangelicals in the US are white and less than 10% of evangelicals in the world are American. (And not all white US evangelicals are the same). So, when you say, 'evangelicals have done this' or 'claim this'--keep this variety in mind.”

*** For those who cannot access The Washington Post articles by Gerson because of a paywall, click here to see those opinion pieces by Gerson. (If you don’t have time to read all three, at least see the first one, which was posted on May 3.)

“Good” White Evangelical Politicians

There has been considerable criticism of white evangelicals—and I have posted critical remarks myself (such as in my 2/4 blog post). But putting labels on people and saying everyone with that label is the same is a problem—and I wrote about “evangeliphobia” in my 1/30/16 blog post.

In this article, I am thinking particularly of two white evangelical politicians: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.). I am referring to them as “good” because of their taking politically unpopular stances partly or largely because of their Christian faith.

Applauding Rep. Kinzinger

Adam Daniel Kinzinger (b. 1978) has served as a U.S. Congressman from Illinois since 2011. Recently, he has been in the news largely because he was one of the ten Republicans in the House to vote for the impeachment of President Trump.

A Jan. 29 piece posted on Christianity Today’s website is entitled “Meet the Republican Congressman Who Says His Faith Led Him to Vote for Impeachment.” 

According to this Jan. 28 article in The Atlantic, Kinzinger was a kid who grew up in a Baptist Church, and now, they write,

As someone who identifies as a born-again Christian, he believes he has to tell the truth. What has been painful, though, is seeing how many people who share his faith have chosen to support Trump at all costs, fervently declaring that the election was stolen.

“The courage of Adam Kinzinger,” an article in the Feb. 6 issue of The Economist, reports on the “angry pushback” Kinzinger is getting and even how a “fellow evangelical Christian accused him of being possessed by the devil.”

Surely, though, many evangelical Christians—and most of those who are not—have to be impressed with not only the courage but also the integrity of Rep. Kinzinger.

Applauding Sen. Sasse

Benjamin Eric Sasse (b. 1972) is the junior U.S. Senator for Nebraska, having won his second term in the Nov. 2020 election.

Born in Nebraska as the son of a high school teacher and football coach, Sasse graduated from Harvard in 1994 and went on to earn a Ph.D. degree (in history) from Yale University. Currently, he is the only Republican Senator with a Ph.D. (There are three Democrats with that degree.)   

Sasse was baptized in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. As a college student in the 1990s, he began to embrace the "reformed faith" (Calvinism). And during his college years, Sasse was active in Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru). Later he became an elder in the United Reformed Churches.

Sen. Sasse has long been a critic of the 45^th POTUS, and on Tuesday (Feb. 8), Sasse was one of only six Republicans (out of 50) who voted that the second impeachment trial of Trump is constitutional. And (perhaps today) he is likely to vote for Trump’s conviction.

His opposition to the Republican President has led to him being censured by Republicans in Nebraska, but he has persisted in doing and saying what he thinks is right.

Like Rep. Kinzinger, Sasse’s faith has led him also to be a man of courage and integrity.

Criticizing Rep. Kinzinger and Sen. Sasse

Applauding the evangelical Christian faith which has led Rep. Kinzinger and Sen. Sasse to be men of courage and integrity—and, as such, outspoken in their opposition to DJT—does not mean general agreement with their political ideas.

It is possible to respect and to admire people of integrity who embody and express goodwill while still disagreeing with their ideas and their political position on important issues.

And it is unfair to allow dislike for some white conservative evangelical politicians, such as Sen. Josh Hawley and Sen. Ted Cruz, to lump all conservative evangelical politicians together and to castigate them all.

Thankfully, there are “good” white evangelical politicians, and even though I am critical of some or many of their political positions, I am thankful for Rep. Kinzinger and Sen. Sasse.

Which Christian Values Do You Endorse?

Jack Hibbs, whom I have not known of until recently, is the founder and senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in Southern California and has a daily half-hour program on Bott Radio. This post was sparked by a Jan. 21 article by Hibbs on The Christian Post’s website.  

The “Christian Values” of Conservative White Evangelicals

In the just-mentioned piece, titled “What’s next for evangelicals post-Trump,” Hibbs (b. 1958) declares that “President Biden is clearly not interested in the concerns of evangelicals.”

“So,” Hibbs asks, “what are we to do, now that Trump is leaving office and we have a new president who goes against our values?”

The “we” he refers to, I assume, are most of the readers of The Christian Post and those who attend his church, said to be about five thousand adults each Sunday, not including teens and children.

Hibbs concludes that “we need to look to 2024 with an eye towards finding the next president whose policies will be in line with our values.”

What, though, are the values of this conservative evangelical pastor? Well, we have some clue in the last five of the 15 points in Hibbs’s church’s “statement of faith” (see here).

Those “Christian values” were succinctly expressed in a Facebook post of West Virginia singer David Ferrell (shared by one of my FB friends earlier this week): “No pastor can support same sex marriage, homosexuality, transgender, abortion and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

But, where in the Gospels do we find Jesus condemning same-sex marriage, homosexuality, transgender, or abortion? The values that Jesus emphasized seem to be quite different.

Jesus’ values are largely affirmed by progressive Christians, including many prominent Black pastors, most of whom were strongly opposed to President Trump—in spite of his being extensively supported by conservative White evangelicals because of his championing “Christian values.”

The Values of Progressive Christians

Last month I read The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope (2017), a powerful book by Wendell Griffen, who is both a pastor and a circuit judge in Arkansas. He also wrote a provocative Jan. 21 article titled “The end of Trump’s presidency does not end America’s root problem.”

In stark contrast to Pastor Hibbs, Pastor Griffen asserts,

Trump will forever be remembered as the most vicious, politically incompetent and corrupt president in U.S. history. He left office dishonored, defeated and despised by most people who value justice, truth, integrity, peace and hope.

Griffen also extols the Christian values of MLK, Jr., including his condemnation of racism, materialism, and militarism.

The same emphasis on the Christian values articulated by Griffen—and ignored by Hibbs—is prominently seen in other noted Black pastors, such as William Barber, Jr., of North Carolina; Raphael Warnock, our new Senator from Georgia; and Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry, among many others.

What gall to suggest that these Black pastors—and the many progressive Christians, White and Black, who agree with them—all of whom spoke out in opposition to President Trump, are opposed to Christian values!

Which Christian Values Do You Endorse?

In his January 3 sermon, a prominent Southern Baptist pastor of a church near Dallas said that President-elect Biden would be a “cognitively dysfunctional president” and then asked: “what if something happens to him and Jezebel has to take over? Jezebel Harris, isn’t that her name?”

According to this 1/29 article, that pastor, Steve Swofford, also said that the Biden-Harris administration would not likely be “doing things our way,” so he urged his congregation to maintain their “convictions for Christ”—or, in other words, to stand firm for the “Christian values” of evangelicals.

On the other hand, in the Conclusion of his book Griffen challenges his hearers to “prophetic citizenship,” which, he says, focuses “on the needs of the people God cares most about.” That is, “people who are hungry, thirsty, homeless, frail, imprisoned, and unwelcomed.”

So, in reflecting on these different sets of values, which do you endorse as the more important and most in harmony with the teachings of Jesus?

Hawley with Blood on His Hands

This is not the blog article I intended to post on January 10, but little did I know when I made my Jan. 5 post, partly about the end of the election season in the U.S., that it was going to end so violently.

Hawley, the Embarrassing Missouri Senator

In that Jan. 5 post I wrote, “Embarrassingly for many of us Missourians, last Wednesday Sen. Josh Hawley announced his intention to object to the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college victory, which will lead to hours of debate tomorrow on what should be merely a routine matter.”

On Jan. 6, Hawley (b. 12/31/79) not only persisted in calling the presidential election into question, even after the insurrectionist mob stormed the Capitol, he cheered that mob on as DJT had done in his inflammatory speech at the “Save America” rally earlier in the day.

Here is the photo of Hawley taken early on Wednesday afternoon by Francis Chung, a photojournalist for E&E News:  

As Katie Bernard wrote for the Kansas City Star this morning, this image “seemed to crystallize Hawley’s week-long role as the face of the Electoral College challenge to Biden—and the chaos it unleashed.”

Again, this is highly embarrassing to many of us Missourians—and adds to our ongoing and deep disappointment that he defeated Claire McCaskill, the highly qualified incumbent, in the 2018 senatorial election.

Hawley, the Outspoken Evangelical Christian

Senator Hawley is also an embarrassment for those of us who identify as Christians—as is much of the conservative evangelicalism with which he has long associated.

As John Fea, a university professor and prolific blogger,  pointed out yesterday, “The U.S. Senators who objected to the Electoral College results were almost all evangelicals.”

Described as “a conservative, evangelical Presbyterian,” for many years Josh Hawley has been clear in his support of the issues most important to the Christian Right: a strong advocate for “religious freedom” and strong in his opposition to abortion and gay rights.

Back in 2015 at the beginning of his campaign to become the Attorney General of Missouri, he was lauded by Don Hinkle, the editor of The Pathway, Missouri’s conservative Southern Baptist newspaper.

As Hinkle pointed out, Hawley had worked on the Becket legal team that “won two of the most important religious liberty cases of our time.” One of those was the highly publicized Hobby Lobby case refusing to include abortion drugs in the insurance provided for their employees.

Hawley has also taught at Blackstone Legal Fellowship, a program seeking to train (conservative) Christian lawyers. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has labeled that organization “an extremist group.”

 Blackstone is an arm of Alliance Defending Freedom, which SPLC has designated as a hate group since 2016. That is largely because the “freedom” they defend is the freedom to discriminate against LGBTQ people and to block legal abortion activities.

Hawley, the Co-instigator of Sedition

It seems manifestly obvious that DJT instigated the insurrection of January 6. But more than anyone else, Hawley was the leading co-instigator.

On the afternoon of that fateful day, the editorial board of the Kansas City Star declared, “No one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible for Wednesday’s coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol other than one Joshua David Hawley.”

The headline for that editorial unequivocally stated their assessment of Hawley’s involvement in the chaos at the Capitol: “Assault on democracy: Sen. Josh Hawley has blood on his hands in Capitol coup attempt.”

Accordingly, Heather Cox Richardson wrote yesterday, Hawley “watched his star plummet today.” Former Senator John Danforth (R-MO), his key mentor, said supporting Hawley was the “worst mistake of my life.”*

In addition, one of Hawley’s major donors called him “an anti-democracy populist” who provoked the riots. And Simon & Schuster canceled Hawley’s new book contract.

What Hawley did, most probably intending it to greatly enhance his viability as the 2024 Republican candidate for the presidency, may, in stark contrast, have essentially ended his political career.

And perhaps the terrible events at the Capitol on January 6 will mark the beginning of the end of Trumpism and of the conservative evangelical Christian support of a very flawed President.

+++++

* Part of my 11/15/17 blog post was a positive assessment of former Senator Danforth. And here is what Fea posted this morning about Danforth and Hawley.

What is Fundamentalism? (Redux)

As I indicated last month (here), this year I am planning to update my book Fed Up with Fundamentalism (2007) and to re-publish it at year’s end. In that connection, here are highlights from the (slightly) updated first chapter.

Beginnings of Christian Fundamentalism

In the first main section of the chapter, I explain that fundamentalism was originally “a sincere movement to preserve or to restore the true faith.” That is, it was not militant—and it certainly was not political as the Christian Right has been in recent years.

Even though there were some precursors, the actual beginning of what came to be called fundamentalism was the publishing of twelve small books between 1910 and 1915. The overarching title of the twelve volumes was The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth.

In June 1920, the Northern Baptist Convention held a conference on “The Fundamentals of Our Baptist Faith” in Buffalo, New York. Writing about that conference in the Baptist publication The Watchman-Examiner, C.L. Laws, the editor, proposed that those “who mean to do battle royal for the fundamentals shall be called ‘Fundamentalists.’”

Laws’s proposed term seems to be the first public use of the word “fundamentalist.”

Changes in Christian Fundamentalism

During its first 25 years, from 1915 to 1940, there was a considerable shift from being the kind of “mainstream” movement it was in the beginning to being a separatist and a more militant movement.

The Scopes Trial of 1925 marked a definitive change in attitudes toward fundamentalism—thanks mainly to the daily newspaper reports written by reporter H.L. Mencken of the Baltimore Sun. By the end of that “trial of the century,” for most in the general public, and for many even in the churches, fundamentalism was largely discredited. 

The picture is a scene from "Inherit the Wind," a movie about the Scopes Trial.

For the next several decades, then, fundamentalism was “alive and well” only among the militant “biblical separatists.” Four of the most influential proponents of this new type of fundamentalism were J. Frank Norris, J. Gresham Machen (to whom I referred in a recent blog article), Bob Jones, and John R. Rice.

Of these four, Norris (1877~1952) was the most colorful—and the best example of militant fundamentalism. Barry Hankins of Baylor University published his biography of Norris under the title God’s Rascal.

Hankins writes, “While some became militant because they were fundamentalists, Norris became a fundamentalist, in part at least, because he was militant by nature” (p. 176).

Earlier in his book, Hankins states: “Militancy was the indispensable characteristic of fundamentalism—the one that distinguished fundamentalists from other conservative evangelicals” (p. 44).

In this regard, it is important to remember the words spoken before 1925 by the early anti-fundamentalist leader Harry Emerson Fosdick: “All Fundamentalists are conservatives, but not all conservatives are Fundamentalists.”

Shifts in Terms for Fundamentalism

Because of the negative connotations of the term fundamentalism, in the 1940s under the leadership of Carl F.H. Henry, among others, a group of “moderate fundamentalists” formed the National Association of Evangelicals and the movement came to be known by the name “neo-evangelicalism” instead of fundamentalism.

Gradually, the “neo-“ part of the new term was dropped, and conservative Christianity came to be known as just evangelicalism. Still, there were differences in their ranks: there were those who were more progressive, such as people like Jimmy Carter. Time magazine declared 1976, the year Carter was elected President, as the “year of the evangelical.”

Unlike the more progressive evangelicals such as Carter, there were still many conservatives who formed a large part of that wing of the church—and so it remains today. Accordingly, “conservative evangelical” is now largely a synonym for “fundamentalist.”

Criticism of American Christianity

A Jan. 25 article (here) titled “American ‘Christianity’ Has Failed” caught my eye. It was by Stephen Mattson, a young Christian writer whose name I had not remembered seeing before, but now he is one of my Facebook friends.

I was interested in reading Mattson’s article partly because of something I came across last week. One of my (very few) New Year resolutions is to go through and dispose of accumulated “stuff,” much of it in boxes piled in the back of our garage.

MY 1972 CHAPEL TALK

In going through a box last week I came across a brief summary of a Chapel talk I had given at Seinan Gakuin University (in Fukuoka City, Japan) in October 1972. The title of that talk was “Criticism of American Christianity.”

That English summary was probably distributed to those in attendance. (Most Japanese students can understand written English far better than they can understand spoken English.)

As I often did during my first several years in Japan, I may have used (read) a Japanese manuscript for the talk I wrote in English. If so, it would have been translated by Miss Kumiko Otsuka, who is celebrating her 83^rd birthday today.

MY 1971-72 FURLOUGH

June and I (and our three children at the time) came back to the U.S. in the summer of 1971 after nearly five full years in Japan as Southern Baptist missionaries. During that year of “furlough,” as it was called then, I had the opportunity of preaching in seven or eight states, beginning with a sermon at the First Baptist Church in Anchorage, Alaska, on our way back to Missouri.

During that year we lived in southwest Missouri, but I spoke in churches in many parts of Missouri as well as in nearby states to the east. Almost all of those churches were Southern Baptist churches, and the majority of them were small town (or rural) churches rather than large city churches.

In the summer of 1972 we went back to Japan and I began teaching Christian Studies again at Seinan Gakuin University where I had joined the faculty as a full-time teacher four years before.

MY CRITICISM THEN AND NOW

Here is the beginning of that Chapel talk:

Last year in America I found myself very critical of Christianity as practiced by most churches and Christians that I saw. I was critical of what appeared to be much more concern for self than others. I was critical because there seemed to be too little concern for four of the great problems of our day: war, poverty, racism, and pollution. I was critical because I felt that American Christianity is too often too much a supporter of the status quo. 

(To read the transcription of the full summary, click here.)

“In reflecting upon these criticisms, I have come to the following conclusions:

“(1) I can understand why many Japanese university students have doubts about Christianity. There is not much attractiveness in Christianity as it is demonstrated by many of its adherents.

“(2) In spite of the obvious hypocrisy of some Christians and the limited concern of most, I am still convinced that most of the best, the most genuine, the most conscientious people in America are Christian people.”

Now, nearly 45 years later, I know more about the diversity of American Christians and know that some Christians are very concerned about what are still four of the great problems of our day. But overall, I still have negative feelings toward much of American Christianity, especially of white “evangelicals.”

Sadly, I am inclined to agree with my new FB friend Stephen’s contention that to a large degree American Christianity has failed.

What about Pence for VP?

Donald Trump was scheduled to announce his pick for a running mate this morning, but that has reportedly been postponed. Assuming Trump will be confirmed as the Republican nominee in Cleveland next week, the person he announces, whenever that is, will become the nominee for Vice President.

Although he may surprise many people, including me, Trump will most likely announce Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his VP choice. And this seems to be a good pick, better than the others said to be on his short list.

Yesterday the Washington Post posted an online article titled “Mike Pence is everything Donald Trump is not.” The article is by Andrew Downs, director of the non-partisan Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at Indiana University-Purdue University. 

In Downs’s opinion, Pence would balance the Republican ticket in almost every way. I think that is an accurate assessment.

Quite clearly, Pence is at least many of the things Trump is not: youngish (he turned 57 in June just a week before Trump turned 70), the husband of one wife (as opposed to Trump’s three wives), an articulate speaker (here is the C-Span link to this year’s “State of the State” address), and a seasoned politician with 12 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and now in his fourth year as a state governor.

In addition, while Trump’s Christian, and especially his evangelical, credentials are somewhat questionable, Pence is clearly a committed Christian believer. He self-identifies as a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican—and “in that order,” he says.

Pence was raised Catholic, but in the spring of 1978, while in college and still 18, he had a deep spiritual conversion that eventually led him to become an evangelical Christian.

He was also a Democrat when a young man. In 1980 when he voted in his first presidential election at age 21, he voted for Jimmy Carter.

Pence as the VP candidate should help Trump snare most of the white evangelical vote—although a Pew Research article posted yesterday indicated that already 78% of such registered voters would vote for Trump—5% more than said at this time four years ago that they would vote for Romney.

He has been called “a favorite hard-core conservative.” He takes a very strong anti-abortion rights position and in 2011 he led the federal government to the brink of shutdown in a failed attempt to de-fund Planned Parenthood.

Pence is also strongly anti-gay and was a supporter of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in Indiana—at least until it became necessary for him to waffle because of economic considerations.

He signed RFRA on March 26, 2015, and there was an outcry that the bill was discriminatory against gays and lesbians. So a week later he signed a bill that acted as an amendment intending to protect LGBT people.

Signing the first bill angered many Hoosiers who are not evangelicals, and signing the second bill angered many who are conservative Christians. Partly because of that issue, Pence doesn’t have a high approval rating in Indiana at this time (only about 40%).

Last week at the Dearborn [Mo.] Christian Church I led the adult Sunday School class discussion about “Christians and the 2016 elections.” One woman remarked that she thinks it is important for people to consider carefully who the candidates for Vice President are as well as who the nominees for President are. I agree.

Even though I wouldn’t vote for Trump regardless of who he picked for VP, Governor Pence is probably a good choice for the Republican Party.

What about Evangeliphobia?

At the Vital Conversations meeting that I mentioned in my previous blog article, one of the participants asked if anyone had read the novel Christian Nation. No one had—but I have now been reading it for the last several days. It is an intriguing book.

That 2013 novel by Frederic C. Rich is based on the author’s speculation of what might have happened if McCain and Palin had been elected in 2008. You will likely see me refer to Rich’s novel again in future blog articles.

As I began to read the absorbing book, though, it dawned on me that it was doing the same sort of thing that books and movies have done with regard to Islam. That is, it exacerbates fear and enmity toward people whom the author clearly dislikes and distrusts.

So, author Rich may be guilty of encouraging what might be called “evangeliphobia.” When I thought of that term, I thought that I was perhaps coining a new word. But, alas, there is nothing new under the sun.

I found use of that term as far back as 1998. And in a 2005 article posted online by The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, “Who’s Afraid of Evangelicals?” refers to “the recent rash of ‘evangeliphobia’.”

In his book The Fear of Islam, Todd Green explains that Islamophobia is closely linked to essentialism, which is the idea that the characteristics of some individuals in a group apply to all the people in the same group.

Isn’t that sort of thing happening to evangelicals (as well as Muslims) in this country (and elsewhere)? In some circles aren’t all evangelicals being looked down upon because of the outrageous statements and questionable activities of some evangelicals?

As most of you know, I am highly critical of Christian, as well as other types of, fundamentalism. My first book was titled Fed Up with Fundamentalism (2007). In that book, though, I differentiated between being a fundamentalist and being a conservative: all fundamentalists are conservatives, but not all conservatives are fundamentalists.

And, of course, the word “evangelicals” could be used in place of conservatives in the previous sentence. Often, however, all evangelicals/conservatives/fundamentalists get lumped together as if they are all the same. That clearly seems to be the case in the novel Christian Nation.

And that is the reason for using the word “evangeliphobia.”

One of the ways to combat Islamophobia is by pointing out that there is much diversity among Muslims. All should not be judged and condemned because of the outrageous behavior of a few. That is a point insisted on by moderate/liberal Christians—such as those who gathered for the discussion of Green’s book at Central Seminary on Monday evening.

But some of these same Christians—and I don’t mean to be critical of my friends at Central—are guilty of this same sort of problematic thinking when it comes to conservative evangelical Christians.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to tell you that I (still) consider myself an evangelical—but one who is on the far left of the evangelical spectrum, one who is a Jim Wallis or a Tony Campolo or even a Jimmy Carter type of evangelical.

However, I have many friends (and family members) who are evangelicals and far to my right theologically and politically/socially. But they are not political extremists and don’t deserve to be lumped in with the evangelicals who are exposed/condemned in Christian Nation.

Let’s beware of the unfairness of evangeliphobia as well as of Islamophobia.

_____

RECOGNIZING THE DIVERSITY AMONG EVANGELICALS

      For a recent article that clarifies the diversity among evangelicals, see “7 types of evangelicals — and how they’ll affect 2016.”