As an evangelical pastor and fledgling theologian, I find myself increasingly at odds with American Evangelicals on a wide range of topics. In 2006, at the end of my last term in the Maine State House of Representatives, I published this about the Christian Right and its various agents of political dominion:
You will not be welcome in the Promised Land of America envisioned by the Christian Right. That is not a place that welcomes believers in the sovereignty of God…Nor will you be welcome in the evangelical Church. That is not a place that welcomes broken people.
Since that time, I have become increasingly alarmed at the disdain for critical thinking among “people of the book” and the social impact of the Christian Right on our nation. A “good-vs-evil” ethic has emerged that feeds the worldview of the self-righteous, Christian or otherwise.
Middleclass Con Job:
This may best be summed up with a random thought from my book, “I’ve Met the Enemy”: Journey of an All-American Sinner: 1
We of the great evangelical American experiment have lost our way in the pursuit of the cross by way of the American Dream. It is a middleclass con job that views job security and financial comfort as God’s blessing on a faithful people that must be defended against a liberal plot to remove God from our public life. To believe that is to elevate the most successful among us as the most favored of God. Where that leaves the balance of folks mired in survival seems quite the opposite of Kingdom values, although most of us give it little reflective thought. What if it all were a mass deception to lull us into a false sense of eternal security and spiritual pride (and divert our attention away from the suffering servant motif of the Gospel)?
Meandering Through the Pleasant Pathways of Original Sin:
It may have begun in little country churches, where the faithful gathered around a Jesus whose love was conditional and whose highest honor belonged to the self-disciplined separatist from all things worldly. Or, it may have begun in earnest when, armed with hope and sometimes even college degrees but with virtually no moral defenses against a crafty dog-eat-dog culture, millions of evangelical kids settled into a utopian version of the merger of God and Caesar. Whatever triggered it, generations have left behind an ecclesiastical trail that comfortably meanders through the pleasant pathways of original sin – “I want to be somebody”. An impotent God might best employ somebodies to implement His plan, provided His plan does not conflict with ours.
Pogo had it right – “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”2
Moral Cleansing:
In 2004, I crossed the Maine House of Representatives aisle from Republican to Democrat, not because I thought the Democrats were any purer than Republicans but because I held the conviction that political parties as the distinguishing feature of anybody’s life conflict with citizenship in the Kingdom of God. My falling-out had centered on having been the only Republican in either chamber to vote in favor of a non-binding resolution asking the president of the United States to exhaust all means of diplomacy before invading Iraq. Oh, those “weapons of mass destruction!”
Democrats at that time were in charge, hence a better deal for my constituents, whose access to state resources is restricted by which party is on top. The retort from several of my evangelical constituents was that my congregation obviously had never heard the Gospel. One professing sister in Christ and politically prominent in my district published that sentiment in the regional newspaper. It is a label that has followed me since, and, if measured by the pop-Christian gospel we know today, is correct. One church was holding prayer meetings, pleading with God to initiate my defeat. From the results and for reasons known only to Him, God apparently answered, “No.”
So What?
Best said by Francis Schaeffer, referenced in the epilogue of my book, “I’ve Met the Enemy”:
It is not enough merely to say, “I am a Christian,” and then in practice to live as if present contact with the supernatural were something far off and strange. Many Christians I know seem to act as though they encounter the supernatural twice – once when they are justified and become Christians and once when they die. The rest of the time they act as though they were sitting in the materialist’s chair.3
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1 "I've Met the Enemy": Journey of an All-American Sinner: Stan Moody: 9781732931916: Amazon.com: Books
3Schaeffer, Francis, Death in the City, Downers Grove: IVP, 1969, p. 134.
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