FYI, mainline Protestant churches associated with the National Council of Churches have been radicalized to the Left at least since the early 80s, and African American churches have actively boosted the Democratic Party in urban areas since the 60s. Perhaps the author just forgot to mention this, or maybe his notes were left in disarray by the cleaning staff. I'm sure it was unintentional.
Another article in Persuasion dumping on Christianity, though Rauch seems to have spent time learning something about the religion, all the while signalling his distance. Passing over hypothetical reactions on the part of adherents of other faiths to a professed unbeliever's "lecturing" them on the congruence of their conduct and beliefs, I will say that Rauch's take on some basic Christian principles seems accurate. Having done Buddhist practice for years, I've had occasion to object to Christian characterizations of that tradition, all the while emphasizing that I did Theravadan practice and can't really speak about Zen or Tibetan Buddhism. The scope of Christianity is equally wide. The headline on this piece ignores that fact, and Rauch focuses on right-wing evangelicals. All too often Christianity in this country is reduced to the most extreme forms of evangelicalism or fundamentalism, and caricatured.
Part of that caricature lies in the emphasis on "white" evangelicals. The word "white" seems to have become a pejorative, but with unclear referent. Not all people one would think of as white (of European descent) are included in the adjective "white." To whom does it refer? My guess is those of British descent, perhaps also those of northern or northwestern European heritage, whose ancestors arrived on these shores in the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Another guess is that the "white" evangelicals about whom Rausch writes mostly come from those same groups. Are they under threat? Not violent threat, but surely a cultural threat. I haven't taken the Trump route and am holding out (without much hope) for a renewed Left that acknowledges its working class roots, but I've become totally alienated from a progressive Left that stigmatizes people like me as inherently racist, condemns my humble ancestors (indentured servants even) as racist, imperialist colonialist invaders, mocks their religion (in my case Puritan/Calvinist rather than evangelical), and rewrites American history so that they and their like are the villains of an endless morality play in which they can only be booed off the stage.
There's a way of telling the story of this country, both past and present, that includes everybody, acknowledges wrongs and also achievements. Trump doesn't offer it. Nor does the progressive Left. Until that story is found (or rediscovered), people on both sides will feel threatened, and will think of politics as a battle.
While the tone of this article seems to me to be generally sympathetic (if also a tad patronizing) toward Christianity, the remark that, "My understanding of Christianity . . . is that the Christian’s eyes should focus on the next world", can be very misleading. While the next life may be the focus for some, for many others it is on making the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity (with charity meaning goodwill toward others) a reality of life on this earth, here and now.
How many Christians display this “battlefield mindset?” In much that I’ve read (like Tim Alberta’s book), one finds only dramatic anecdotes, not reliable statistics.
From my perspective as a nonpartisan activist (fighting money in politics), among Democrats in Manhattan, the contempt which secular liberals display toward religion seems automatic and intense.
Having witnessed so much bigotry against the devout, it doesn’t surprise me that many Christians feel besieged.
That said, much of this antagonism comes, in my view, from a politics of divide and conquer that benefits heavy campaign donors. Unable to meet our economic needs, both parties play upon our prejudices to distract us from their failures and keep their respective bases in line.
I’m sure it would be convenient for atheists like Rauch if Christians simply disengaged their faith from politics, or, even more conveniently, concluded that, amazingly, Christianity actually requires exactly what modern left-liberalism proposes as the content of morality. But it is rather ironic to propose that American evangelicals are the ones leaving Christianity, when their understanding of Christianity and politics is, if anything, tame compared to all of Christian political theology throughout history.
Go ahead, ask your Catholic theologian friend about it.
This essay reminds me of tourists who believe that they know a culture because they saw the countryside from the bus window. Who has never endured the person who doesn’t speak a foreign language telling them that he or she knows all about a place because they spoke to a waitress when they got off the cruise ship? She is probably not a local, but hey, all accents sound the same to an American.
The « I don’t know anything about this subject but I am going to opine about it anyway » routine is unconvincing. Amazingly, the essay proves that those being condescended upon are justified. The message that Christians are racist rubes afraid of losing their privilege, which is the entire point of the piece, is the commonplace chatter of the faculty lounge.
The Pharisees are the recurring bad guys of the New Testament, and it's important to remember that they were animated by a desire to be the very best Jews they could be. Their misplaced zeal is what Jesus fought against. Passionate evangelicals want to be the very best Christians they can be. We are Pharisees. We have become the bad guys.
The reality is that all world religions can be used for war and peace, love and hate and other behaviors by combining religions with different ideas. That is why for example, Buddhism has been used for terror and crimes in Sri Lanka.
These days, I find myself especially inspired and challenged by the quote that author Madeleine L'Engle ascribed to Emmanuel Célestin Cardinal Suhard, Archbishop of Paris during the Second World War:
"To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist."
There is less and less room for hate in the heart of anyone trying to live that principle, or will to support politicians who include hate as a component of their platforms.
"Forgiving each other as God has forgiven us, and letting God settle our accounts, is the beating heart of Jesus’s ministry; of late, though, white evangelicals have not been in a very forgiving mood. In 2023, Trump told a thrilled conservative audience, “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.” One might ask: is this doctrine not a root-and-branch repudiation of the ministry of Jesus?"
I don't think so. I think they are just rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's--which isn't tough for them right now because Caesar is, superficially at least, on their side.
Anyway, evangelicals are analytical and calculating only up to the border between rationality and mysticism. It's extremely easy to see what's going on here: Trump is not a good man, or even really a mortal figure at all. He's a mystical force, a divine deliverance, one of the mysterious ways in which God works in this brutal and God-less world.
It's not that he gives power to them--the little people in the West Texas oil fields etc.. It's that he wields it on their behalf so they don't have to bear the moral burden of it.
Which is *exactly* what Jesus called upon his believers to do in their relationship with God.
I’d recommend Matthew Taylor’s The Violent Take It By Force, and Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory.
There’s mighty good reason for the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Founders were far closer to the turmoil unleashed in the wake of the Reformation and the Muslim assault on Europe.
FYI, mainline Protestant churches associated with the National Council of Churches have been radicalized to the Left at least since the early 80s, and African American churches have actively boosted the Democratic Party in urban areas since the 60s. Perhaps the author just forgot to mention this, or maybe his notes were left in disarray by the cleaning staff. I'm sure it was unintentional.
Another article in Persuasion dumping on Christianity, though Rauch seems to have spent time learning something about the religion, all the while signalling his distance. Passing over hypothetical reactions on the part of adherents of other faiths to a professed unbeliever's "lecturing" them on the congruence of their conduct and beliefs, I will say that Rauch's take on some basic Christian principles seems accurate. Having done Buddhist practice for years, I've had occasion to object to Christian characterizations of that tradition, all the while emphasizing that I did Theravadan practice and can't really speak about Zen or Tibetan Buddhism. The scope of Christianity is equally wide. The headline on this piece ignores that fact, and Rauch focuses on right-wing evangelicals. All too often Christianity in this country is reduced to the most extreme forms of evangelicalism or fundamentalism, and caricatured.
Part of that caricature lies in the emphasis on "white" evangelicals. The word "white" seems to have become a pejorative, but with unclear referent. Not all people one would think of as white (of European descent) are included in the adjective "white." To whom does it refer? My guess is those of British descent, perhaps also those of northern or northwestern European heritage, whose ancestors arrived on these shores in the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Another guess is that the "white" evangelicals about whom Rausch writes mostly come from those same groups. Are they under threat? Not violent threat, but surely a cultural threat. I haven't taken the Trump route and am holding out (without much hope) for a renewed Left that acknowledges its working class roots, but I've become totally alienated from a progressive Left that stigmatizes people like me as inherently racist, condemns my humble ancestors (indentured servants even) as racist, imperialist colonialist invaders, mocks their religion (in my case Puritan/Calvinist rather than evangelical), and rewrites American history so that they and their like are the villains of an endless morality play in which they can only be booed off the stage.
There's a way of telling the story of this country, both past and present, that includes everybody, acknowledges wrongs and also achievements. Trump doesn't offer it. Nor does the progressive Left. Until that story is found (or rediscovered), people on both sides will feel threatened, and will think of politics as a battle.
While the tone of this article seems to me to be generally sympathetic (if also a tad patronizing) toward Christianity, the remark that, "My understanding of Christianity . . . is that the Christian’s eyes should focus on the next world", can be very misleading. While the next life may be the focus for some, for many others it is on making the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity (with charity meaning goodwill toward others) a reality of life on this earth, here and now.
How many Christians display this “battlefield mindset?” In much that I’ve read (like Tim Alberta’s book), one finds only dramatic anecdotes, not reliable statistics.
From my perspective as a nonpartisan activist (fighting money in politics), among Democrats in Manhattan, the contempt which secular liberals display toward religion seems automatic and intense.
Having witnessed so much bigotry against the devout, it doesn’t surprise me that many Christians feel besieged.
That said, much of this antagonism comes, in my view, from a politics of divide and conquer that benefits heavy campaign donors. Unable to meet our economic needs, both parties play upon our prejudices to distract us from their failures and keep their respective bases in line.
www.savedemocracyinamerica.org
I’m sure it would be convenient for atheists like Rauch if Christians simply disengaged their faith from politics, or, even more conveniently, concluded that, amazingly, Christianity actually requires exactly what modern left-liberalism proposes as the content of morality. But it is rather ironic to propose that American evangelicals are the ones leaving Christianity, when their understanding of Christianity and politics is, if anything, tame compared to all of Christian political theology throughout history.
Go ahead, ask your Catholic theologian friend about it.
This essay reminds me of tourists who believe that they know a culture because they saw the countryside from the bus window. Who has never endured the person who doesn’t speak a foreign language telling them that he or she knows all about a place because they spoke to a waitress when they got off the cruise ship? She is probably not a local, but hey, all accents sound the same to an American.
The « I don’t know anything about this subject but I am going to opine about it anyway » routine is unconvincing. Amazingly, the essay proves that those being condescended upon are justified. The message that Christians are racist rubes afraid of losing their privilege, which is the entire point of the piece, is the commonplace chatter of the faculty lounge.
The Pharisees are the recurring bad guys of the New Testament, and it's important to remember that they were animated by a desire to be the very best Jews they could be. Their misplaced zeal is what Jesus fought against. Passionate evangelicals want to be the very best Christians they can be. We are Pharisees. We have become the bad guys.
The reality is that all world religions can be used for war and peace, love and hate and other behaviors by combining religions with different ideas. That is why for example, Buddhism has been used for terror and crimes in Sri Lanka.
These days, I find myself especially inspired and challenged by the quote that author Madeleine L'Engle ascribed to Emmanuel Célestin Cardinal Suhard, Archbishop of Paris during the Second World War:
"To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist."
There is less and less room for hate in the heart of anyone trying to live that principle, or will to support politicians who include hate as a component of their platforms.
Christian nationalism is right-wing collectivism
"Forgiving each other as God has forgiven us, and letting God settle our accounts, is the beating heart of Jesus’s ministry; of late, though, white evangelicals have not been in a very forgiving mood. In 2023, Trump told a thrilled conservative audience, “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.” One might ask: is this doctrine not a root-and-branch repudiation of the ministry of Jesus?"
I don't think so. I think they are just rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's--which isn't tough for them right now because Caesar is, superficially at least, on their side.
Anyway, evangelicals are analytical and calculating only up to the border between rationality and mysticism. It's extremely easy to see what's going on here: Trump is not a good man, or even really a mortal figure at all. He's a mystical force, a divine deliverance, one of the mysterious ways in which God works in this brutal and God-less world.
It's not that he gives power to them--the little people in the West Texas oil fields etc.. It's that he wields it on their behalf so they don't have to bear the moral burden of it.
Which is *exactly* what Jesus called upon his believers to do in their relationship with God.
I’d recommend Matthew Taylor’s The Violent Take It By Force, and Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory.
There’s mighty good reason for the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Founders were far closer to the turmoil unleashed in the wake of the Reformation and the Muslim assault on Europe.