After a week or so of basking in the afterglow of the presidential election, I am starting to get a little grumpy. It’s not about President-elect Obama. Like many other Americans I wept tears of joy when he addressed the nation on the evening of November 4. What is irritating me is much of the post-election analysis, especially as it focuses on religious issues.
Lisa Miller’s Newsweek piece, “A Post-Evangelical America,” is one of the things that has put me in a foul mood. As an evangelical I hadn’t realized that I had been “post-ed” as a result of the Obama victory. Miller seems to think that the election returns have reminded us all of something that had been forgotten by many in the media–that we white Evangelicals are not the only significant religious presence in American life.
I follow the media quite carefully, and had not noticed that we evangelical types were being treated as if we were the only game in town. Nor have I been aware that my fellow white evangelicals have been under any delusions on this point. I, for one, have been deeply involved in interfaith dialogue–an activity that has become increasingly important in recent years at Fuller Seminary, the school that I help to lead. We have been building friendships with many folks with whom we disagree on issues of faith: Jews, Mormons, Muslims, as well as people who claim no faith at all. And, with a student body representing a hundred or so denominations, we have been working hard to keep the dialogue going on the tough issues being debated within the Christian community.
Lisa Miller isn’t the only one who has caused my irritation. In his column in the New York Times on the weekend after the election, Frank Rich exulted over all of the wonderful things he saw in the election returns: no “Bradley effect,” large Hispanic turnout for the Democrats, Jews who helped Obama’s cause in Florida, and so on. There is only one serious matter still to work on, said Rich. We have to continue to combat those horrible folks in California and elsewhere who, having been duped by the Bush administration’s “demagogic exploitation of homophobia” (did the Cheney family know about this?), supported the ban on same-sex marriages –with the help, Rich acknowledges, of 70 percent of the African-American voters.
Were these commentators really listening when President-elect Obama called for the kind of civility that really listens to folks with whom we disagree? Do they really think that the sober tone of his victory speech was a declaration that it is time to ridicule those of us who hold to some conservative values on the so-called “social issues,” in the hope of silencing our voices in the public debates?
I am an evangelical who does not always get very high marks from the Religious Right for the stands that I take. But I do share some of their views on some key issues of public policy. If there is a lesson to be learned about evangelicalism these days, it is not that we have been banned from the public square because of the Obama election, but that we are not as easily stereotyped as the Lisa Miller and others want to think. We have come to an evangelical faith as people from a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and economic levels. We reside in urban and rural areas, and we live in countries across the globe. We represent every “tribe and tongue.”
This means too that we do not all occupy the same place on the political spectrum. To be sure, a vast majority of evangelicals (myself included) are concerned about abortion-on-demand and “traditional family values.” But we are also involved in a rich variety of causes that promote the common good. While the liberal commentators stereotype us as single-issue theocrats, the young people from Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan are in Rwanda working on clean-water projects, the Saddleback folks are addressing issues of HIV/AIDS, inner-city rescue missions are preparing beds and meals for the homeless, and our Fuller Seminary students are advocating for a “greener” campus. And there are many more stories to tell about peacemaking, economic empowerment, and efforts to liberate the victims of the sexual slave trade.
Many of the world’s efforts to care for others have been initiated by evangelicals, often times working in partnerships with people of other faith communities. These efforts and more are motivated by a desire to respond obediently to the call of the Gospel: to love our neighbors regardless of any boundaries.
In my part of the evangelical world, folks have been celebrating the election of Barack Obama. This is true even for those who voted for his opponent–there are many Republican evangelicals who see his leadership as a symbol that America is taking great steps forward from our too-often racist past. Folks like us are praying for our president-elect. And even in my grumpy mood I am praying for some of the same things that Lisa Miller and other commentators have been wishing for. In my prayers I am asking the Almighty to enable us, evangelicals included, to engage in the kind of probing national dialogue that will set aside the polarizations and incivilities that continue to plague us.
By the time I was born, the Great Depression was only a memory. It was an extremely vivid memory, though, for the adults in my extended family. Their ongoing sense of uncertainty, rooted in their experience of economic disaster, was given expression regularly in a sentence that was typically appended to any serious comment they would utter about financial matters: “But, of course, you never know!” That sentence had the status of a kind of liturgical response in ordinary conversations. My grandmother would tell her neighbor that my grandfather might be getting an hourly wage hike at the factory where he worked—“but, of course, you never know,” she would quickly add. Business at my two uncles’ auto repair shop seemed to be picking up—“but, of course, you never know.” Maybe, just maybe, my parents would say, our family would have enough money saved up to take a week’s vacation in the Adirondacks next summer—“but, of course, you never know.”
That sentence did not manage to get embedded in my own financial discourse, nor have I heard it much from others who came after my parents’ generation. But I have no doubt that it, or some equivalent expression, is coming back. We have been learning the “you never know” lesson in a dramatic fashion in recent months. And this learning experience has been a traumatic one.
I once wrote an essay in which I was mildly critical of what I called “pious agnosticism.” This is an attitude that makes so much of God’s mysterious workings in human history that believers decide not to try to influence the course of events—especially when it comes to working for justice and peace. We may think that some apparent social practice is so evil that we must work to change things, but it may be that God is using that practice for his own mysterious providential purposes to bring about some good—“you never know.”
I still think that that kind of pious agnosticism is often a serious defect. But I am becoming a little more of a pious agnostic myself, in at least two ways. One is that I am now aware that when it comes to economic history, I have been too uncritical in accepting the myth of progress. From here on in, if and when we experience some better days in the financial markets, I will remind myself often that “you never know.” But I will also try to nurture the faith that there might even be some providential good in what has been happening. It looks like we are in for some bad times financially—but you never know, maybe the Lord will use this for some greater good. It may even be that we are being given an opportunity to think more deeply about what human flourishing is all about. It may also be that we are being taught something about what it means to trust more deeply in God’s mysterious purposes. At least all of that is a possibility. You never know.
In an interview the other day I was asked where some of the “unknown” leaders are right now—folks whose leadership is thus far a well-kept secret, but are people who the rest of the Christian world should know about.
Instead of naming names, I talked in general terms about a whole generation of presently “unknowns.” While I spend most of my time at Fuller, I also make many visits to college and university campuses, as well as to other seminaries, both in North America and elsewhere. I am extremely optimistic about what the emerging generation of Christian students are going to bring to the global church. They are creating a new agenda. They are enthusiastic about worship. They care deeply about the issues of justice, peace, and the care of creation. They are passionate about leading people to Christ. They have deep convictions, while also having a strong commitment to engaging in dialogue with folks from other faith communities. We are soon going to see a new spirit of leadership in the Christian community as these emerging leaders take over!
But we also need to wait for another kind of “unknown” leader to show up. I was once asked by a magazine what I thought was the most important religious event of the previous year. I gave the kind of example they wanted, but I also added a further thought. It may be, I said, that the most important religious event of the previous year occurred in a bedroom at three o’clock in the morning in an inner-city apartment, when a young black woman, struggling with complex issues in her life, got down on her knees and yielded her will to Jesus Christ—and in doing so set herself on a course that would bring about amazing things for the cause of the gospel.
I am excited by the new generation of soon-to-be leaders in the Christian community. But I am even more excited by the thought that the Spirit is raising up leaders right now who are unknown to any of us but who are being prepared for leadership by the One who is at work also—and perhaps even especially—in the secret places.
In some of the speeches I have been giving recently, I have taken to quoting a line from the Epistle to Diognetus. The scholars do not know exactly when this lengthy letter was written, or who wrote it. But we do know that it was composed not long after the apostolic period, by a Christian who wanted to explain to a non-Christian, perhaps an important official in the Roman empire, the beliefs and practices of the followers of Jesus Christ. At one point in the document the writer is explaining how Christians understand their role as citizens of the societies in which they live. “Every foreign country is their homeland,” he says, “and every homeland is a foreign country.”
This account of Christian “belonging” speaks powerfully to a topic that has dominated my think ever since the era of South African apartheid. It was hard to claim a Calvinist identity in those days without being aware of the fact that in many minds the racial segregation in South Africa was intimately linked to Calvinism—particularly the Dutch Reformed brand.
One discussion of apartheid in the 1970s stands out for me as an important spiritual experience. I was attending a conference of educators from various Reformed institutions of higher education around the world, including both black and white delegates from South Africa. A decision had been made to devote one evening of the conference to a debate about apartheid. The discussion was very heated and at one point the president of a white South African university was trying to defend his school’s racial policy’s. He told us that he hoped that apartheid would soon come to an end, but in the meantime his university was going along with the racial practices of the larger society. It was difficult to convince the majority of the white Dutch Reformed constituency that change must take place, he said. And then he added, with obvious pain in his voice, “We cannot get too far ahead of our people.”
A black South African theologian stood up to respond. Addressing the white leader by his first name he said, “You keep talking about your people. You have to educate your people. You cannot get too far ahead of your people. Well, I want to say as a black African that I too love my people. But I also have to say this: as diffiicult as it would be, I would forsake my people in order to be obedient to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And that is because belonging to Jesus is more important to me than my racial identity. So I want to ask you, my friend: Are you willing to forsake your people if the Gospel demands it of you?” Sadly, the white leader never directly answered his question.
This was an important moment in my spiritual and theological journey. The black African’s testimony brought home to me in a powerful way the demands of the Gospel with as they challenge the other factors that tempt me when I think of my identity—race, class, nation, gender, denomination, political persuasion. The opening line of the answer to the first question of the Heidelberg Cathechism is radical stuff: “My only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.”
Recently I was talking with a friend who is a part of a “breakaway” Anglican congregation whose members are in a property dispute with their former Episcopal diocese. He complained bitterly about the large amounts of money both sides are spending in the ongoing litigation, to say nothing of the loss of property that the losers will experience. “What a travesty!” he said. “With all of the real problems in the world, here we are, both sides, spending so much on legal proceedings!” Then he made a fascinating suggestion. Wouldn’t it be better, he said, to work out some sort of mutually acceptable compromise that includes an estimate of what both groups would otherwise be paying for legal fees and property losses, and together contribute that to a fund devoted to ministering to AIDS orphans in Africa?
That strikes me as a promising model for other denominations as well. The mainline Presbyterian (PCUSA) denomination to which I belong is experiencing many property disputes right now, as some congregations are leaving for what they see as greener ecclesiastical pastures. When you look at the issue historically, it is a bit ironic that the leaders of major Protestant denominations are so adamant in their right to hold onto church properties, against the claims of the dissenters. At the time of the Reformation the Protestants grabbed hold of Catholic properties with abandon—monasteries and convents as well as places of worship—and they also simply destroyed much of the contents of those buildings: statues, altars, and the like. And all of this was done without any respect for the claims of those who had strong moral and legal claims to ownership of those properties. To the “breakaway” groups belonged the spoils.
But back to my Anglican’s friend’s proposal. Suppose both sides in these disputes were to set up a fund for a project, agreeable to both sides, and determine together a reasonable fee for the majority group in any congregation that wants to leave the denomination, to pay in exchange for keeping the property and settling with the voting minority and the local adjudicatories. Since our arguments these days focus primarily on sexuality, maybe the fund could be devoted to helping release children and others who are victims of sexual trafficking.
Such an arrangement would have important spiritual benefits. It would help both sides to see themselves as using our disagreements to accomplish something together for the Lord’s work. And it could help to reduce our anger toward each other, presenting all parties with an opportunity to be gracious toward our opponents.
Back in 1994 I joined a number of other evangelicals in endorsing a document called “Evangelicals and Catholics Together.” It was a good group with whom to be associated; it included Father Richard Neuhaus and Father (now Cardinal) Avery Dulles on the Catholic side and Bill Bright, Chuck Colson, and J. I. Packer from the evangelical camp. The group has issued some other documents since, and when I have been asked to sign on I have eagerly agreed.
The anti-Catholic crowd in the evangelical world continues to try to get some mileage out of this phenomenon by posting blogs that list the names of those of us who are viewed as culprits who are willing to betray the evangelical cause by trying to be “nice” to Catholics. We are even at times identified as allies of the Anti-Christ.
As my own small contribution to keeping the polemics going, I want to rehearse here two items that I have written about on other occasions, just to keep reminding the critics that those of us who have promoted friendlier relations with Catholics have a pretty good evangelical pedigree.
My first appeal is to the example of the great American evangelist Dwight L. Moody, who in 1875 received a letter from a Catholic monk in Wales. “I must send you one word of affectionate greetings in our Precious Redeemer’s name,” the monk wrote, “to say how rejoiced I am to hear and read of your powerful gifts from ‘The Father of Lights.’” The monk went on to assure Moody that while his community engaged in “the perpetual adoration of the Holy Sacrament”—a practice that he knew would make the evangelist nervous—he and his fellow monks also preached “Jesus only as perfect, finished, and present salvation to all who are willing to receive Him. And the only work of the evangelist is to give knowledge of salvation to His people.”
Moody was pleased to receive this letter; he seemed to have no doubt that the prayers of these monks were offered up by fellow Christians who had a deep commitment to the cause of the gospel. Indeed, as Lyle Dorsett reports in his biography of Moody, while living in New England, the evangelist even made a personal contribution to the building fund in a local Catholic parish.
My other authority is J. Gresham Machen, certainly never one to gloss over important theological differences. In his 1923 book Christianity and Liberalism, surely one of the classics of American evangelical thought, Machen wrote:
How great is the common heritage which unites the Roman Catholic Church, with its maintenance of the authority of Holy Scripture and with its acceptance of the great early creeds, to devout Protestants today! We would not indeed obscure the difference which divides us from Rome. The gulf is indeed profound. But profound as it is, it seems almost trifling compared to the abyss which stands between us and many ministers of our own Church.
Both of these reachings-out to Roman Catholics took place well before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. I can’t imagine that Moody and Machen would take a harder line on the subject today.
I have often puzzled about a comment made by Dr. Samuel Johnson, as reported by his biographer James Boswell. He had often tried to be a philosopher, Johnson said, “but cheerfulness kept breaking in.”
It makes me wonder what philosophers Dr. Johnson had been reading. I certainly know of a lot of gloomy philosophers—Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to name two obvious cases—to say nothing of many of the thinkers today who claim the “postmodern” label. But I don’t see gloominess as somehow intrinsic to philosophy. Some philosophical perspectives are gloomy, and others cheerful. Still others try to cultivate a healthy tension between the two moods.
The same holds for theology. I have to admit that I tend a little too much at times toward theological cheerfulness. My kind of Calvinism has to be constantly on guard against triumphalism. My theological hero, Abraham Kuyper, is famous for having declared that “there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” I basically endorse that manifesto. It acknowledges the reigning Kingship of the ascended Christ, who is above all principalities and powers and who has guaranteed the ultimate victory over the forces of evil.
But the cheerful disposition that this perspective encourages needs regularly to allow some gloominess to break in. I cultivate this, not only by making sure that I pay close attention to the horrific realities of human suffering, but also by occasionally reading, among others, Martin Luther.
My favorite Luther essay is his “On Secular Authority,” where he discusses, among other things, the calling of “the Christian prince.” If a Christian leader is to be assured that his exercise of authority is pleasing to God, Luther says, the leader “must anticipate a great deal of envy and suffering. As illustrious a man as this will soon feel the cross lying on his neck.”
This is good advice to all of us who want to serve the cause of Christ in the present age—a time when the ultimate victory over evil has not yet been made manifest. Not that we should be masochists, reveling in suffering. But we should, as Luther puts it, anticipate that some degree of suffering will be our lot. And we should not refuse to accept that lot when it comes our way.
More importantly, we should actively take on the suffering of others. If we do not regularly feel the cross on our necks we should worry about our spiritual state. Abraham Kuyper was right about how all of those square inches are under the rule of Christ. But a lot of human beings are pretty miserable these days as they live out their lives on those square inches. Cheerfulness about the ultimate outcome is certainly appropriate–indeed it can be an important motivating factor in keeping at the work of the Kingdom. But we should not be afraid to allow some gloominess about human suffering to break in during the here and now, particularly when that gloominess leads us to action.
I’m not going to jump into the fray about Senator McCain’s choice of a vice presidential running mate. But I am concerned about at least some of the flak she is taking for her religious views. This is not the first time we have seen the hypocrisy that characterizes the treatment of believers who speak out about issues of public life. I remember talking with a reporter who was trying to get me to say that the leaders of the Religious Right should not quote the Bible in defending their views on public policy. When I asked him whether he also thought that Martin Luther King should not have quoted Isaiah in calling for racial justice, there was a long silence, and then he said, “That was different.” When I pushed him to explain the difference, he suddenly had to move on to another interview. The most blatant example was when Senator John Kerry, who had appreciated what the pope had to say when he criticized American military efforts, responded to the same pope’s criticism of gay marriage by observing that the Vatican failed to understand “the separation of church and state.”
So here goes on Governor Palin’s theology.
The September 24 issue of The New Republic has a one-page piece entitled “The Case Against Sarah Palin.” It consists of nothing but comments that she herself has made in various public settings. The clear implication is that all one needs to do in order to declare her unfit for national leadership is to read her own words on a number of different subjects. Here is one of those comments quoted without comment by The New Republic, from a talk that the Governor gave at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church on June 8 of this year:
Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [American soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that is God’s plan.
I do appreciate the fact that The New Republic actually offers us this expanded comment. I have read other reports about the same talk where she has simply been quoted as saying that Christians should pray for our military in Iraq because they are serving “God’s plan.” If that is what she had said, I would have quickly joined her critics. I publicly opposed the invasion of Iraq before it was launched, and I have never modified my view that the whole thing was a huge mistake.
Having said that, though, I do not find much fault with the Governor’s prayer request as embodied in this paragraph. I too can pray that our leaders are sending our troops on “a task that is from God.” And I agree with her that instead of telling God what he ought to think about American policies, “we have to make sure we’re praying… that there is a plan and that that is God’s plan.” I would hate to think that, in addition to having made the mistake of going into Iraq, we also have gone in without any clear plan. And even more important, I certainly would pray that somehow God will take the mess we have gotten ourselves in and make it serve his overall purposes in the world.
The fact is that on this particular point she is being ridiculed for expressing beliefs that many of us share as Christians, wherever we might be on the political spectrum. Suppose, for example, that Senator Obama were speaking to a United Church of Christ congregation and said something like this:
I think we ought to send an army of medical and social workers to the African continent to work diligently in serving the needs of HIV/AIDs victims. And we should pray for these folks and for the national leaders who send them there, that in striving to do what is right that they will be performing a task from God. That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan, and that that is God’s plan.
I would find no fault with this. Nor would many of the others, I suspect, who are criticizing Governor Palin for asking people to pray that what we are doing militarily would be a means of furthering God’s plan for humankind. Christian politicians should not be faulted for speaking to their fellow Christians in church settings about the need to seek God’s will for public policy. Jimmy Carter did that all the time in his Sunday school classes, as he explained to his Christian congregants how his public policy efforts drew on his Christian convictions. The real question is whether a leader has made the right connections theologically. We Christians can and should challenge each other on those matters. But we ought not to criticize a fellow Christian—or put up with it when others lodge those criticisms—simply for trying to make the connections, especially when they also urge people to pray that God’s will be done.
Here is a passage that I often return to, from the inaugural address of one of my presidential predecessors, Edward John Carnell:
Whoever meditates on the mystery of his own life will quickly realize why only God, the searcher of the secrets of the heart, can pass final judgment. We cannot judge what we have no access to. The self is a swirling conflict of fears, impulses, sentiments, interests, allergies, and foibles. It is a metaphysical given for which there is no easy rational explanation. Now, if we cannot unveil the mystery of our own motives and affections, how much less can we unveil the mystery in others?
Others have also focused on the mystery of self-knowledge. In one of his rare love-poems, Matthew Arnold wrote: “What heart knows another? Ah! Who knows his own?” And commenting on St. Paul’s “Who has known the mind of the Lord?,” Gregory of Nyssa observed:“For my part I also ask: Who has known his own mind?Those who think themselves capable of grasping the nature of God would do well to consider whether they have looked into themselves.”
Carnell’s application of this realization is the right one.The awareness of the difficulty of self-knowledge ought to inspire in each of us a good dose of humility. If we have a hard time getting clear about our own motives and desires, we ought to hang a little loose in speculating about the inner life of others.
Even a non-Calvinist Christian should be able to affirm what John Calvin argues in the opening sections of his Institutes: the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self are intimately connected. We can’t grasp the one without the other. More specifically, Calvin says, we get a sense of our own inner life only when we view it in the “mirror” of God’s law.And, needless to say, that lesson is not learned by a one-time glance in the mirror. We need to keep looking, and even so, the best we can hope for is that we will see ourselves in a glass darkly, until the Day comes when our vision will be aided by a perfect Light. Which means that for now, humility is a virtue that needs to be cultivated on a daily basis.
In my last blog I discussed cremation. I’ll stick with death-related thoughts for another time around.
In a presentation I gave to an Oxford philosophy symposium recently, I talked about possible links between philosophical and theological discussions of the metaphysical composition of the human person. I gave some attention particularly to an excellent essay—it has become a classic of sorts—by the theologian Oscar Cullmann, where he discusses the New Testament treatment of the ideas of “soul,” “body,” and what is labeled by theologians as “the intermediate state.”
Cullmann has a dramatic way of introducing these topics. He illustrates what he sees as the clear difference between the Greek view of immortality and the Christian view of resurrected bodily life by presenting a stark contrast between the deaths of Socrates and Jesus. After a calm philosophical discussion with his friends, Socrates takes the poisonous hemlock in a seemingly cheerful anticipation of the separation of his soul from his body. Jesus, on the other hand, sweats drops of blood in Gethsemane as he pleads with the Father to allow the cup of suffering to pass from him. And then on the cross he cries out in agony over his experience of abandonment. The underlying issue here, says Cullmann, has to do with radically differing conceptions of the meaning of death. For Socrates, death is the welcome release of the spiritual from the physical. For Jesus, death is an enemy that threatens the destruction of the whole person.
After my lecture I was pushed by a couple of pastors who were in the audience about what all of that means when we minister to Christians who are struggling in a very personal way with the proper way to face death. They pointed out that some believers they know experience great fear about dying, while others accept death with calm confidence.
My own sense is that there is no “right” way for a Christian to face death. Indeed, Cullmann’s portrayal of the contrast between Socrates and Jesus leaves a lot of room for differing Christian attitudes toward death. The one thing we can be certain of theologically is that Jesus encountered death in a way that none of us have to. His was the encounter with sin and death. He faced death knowing that his dying was to be the once-for-all struggle with death. Because of the victory that he accomplished on the Cross we no longer have to face death as the Great Enemy.
At the same time, though, this does not make death into a friend. Cullmann is right to point to Socrates’ view of death as a clear example of how we are not to view death. Jesus did not make death into a friend, he made it into a defeated enemy. Think of a very dangerous person who has been captured. Those who have been seriously threatened by him now see him lying bound and gagged in a corner. He has been defeated. But this does not make him into a friend. He is a defeated enemy. Some may emphasize his defeat, and thereby gain confidence that he has been rendered harmless—he is a defeated enemy. Others may reflect on the dangers that he has posed, and continue to be wary of him—he is a defeated enemy.
Both emphases capture important aspects. Different personalities will react differently to the fact that Christ has defeated death. The important thing is to be clear about our theology of death. Once we have that clarity, we can allow for different ways in which Christians will encounter the Great Enemy that Jesus has decisively conquered.
