Friday, May 30, 2003

The Pasteurized and Homogenized Community

Eric Alterman's Weblog on MSNBC yesterday (May 29) briefly discussed the Christian Right's campaign against distributing condoms to teenagers. He asks the rhetorical question, "Can’t they just teach their own children what they want to, and leave the rest our kids free to learn how to protect themselves_"

Alterman's question appeals to the common sense of liberals and progressives whether or not they are Christians. We are puzzled not by the fact that the Christian Right has a set of moral precepts but that they insist on imposing them on everyone else. Especially when combined with their curious insistence on "freedom" when it comes to many harmful things like gun ownership and polluting, rapacious corporations, the seeming inconsistency of their positions bewilder us.

George Lakoff provides the best explanation for the Christian Right mindset that I've seen. Approaching the problem from the disciplines of linguistics and cognitive science, he describes what he calls a "Strict Father" metaphor that many of those in the Christian Right use to understand their family life, their communities and even national politics. The "Strict Father" metaphor considers it a matter of common sense that the world is a dangerous place held together only by the exercise of authority, discipline and a system built on reward and punishment. Included within this overall metaphor are "sub-metaphors" (my term) of morality as wholeness, essence, purity and health. Understood this way, behavior that is outside moral bounds "corrupts" the entire society, "taints" the community and is "contagious." It is necessary to be on the lookout constantly for signs of moral "decay" so that it can be purged before it spreads. People, even kids, who do not share the same moral precepts, or, even worse, do not understand the world by way of the "Strict Father" metaphor are a great danger. While it may be difficult for some of us to empathize with such a worldview, it becomes possible to better understand why people who hold it would be so opposed to distributing condoms.

It must be admitted that there is plenty of the "Strict Father" worldview in the Bible. In particular, it is easy to find a great deal of concern for the "purity" of the community. The Holiness Code found in Leviticus (Chapters 17-25) presents a whole list of both offenses and conditions for which banishment from the community is required. The offenses include not only murder and theft as in the Ten Commandments but a number of sexual offenses including adultery, incest, homosexuality, bestiality and sexual relations between man and wife during the wife's menstrual period. Conditions requiring being cut off from the community, at least temporarily, include common skin problems and emissions of bodily fluids especially those associated with sexual functions. Women in post-childbirth are excluded from participation in worship, presumably because of post-delivery bleeding.

The purpose of these laws of purity was to preserve the community's relationship with God and the land:

"You shall keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and observe them, so that the land to which I bring you to settle in may not vomit you out. You shall not follow the practices of the nation that I am driving out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. But I have said to you: You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God; I have separated you from the peoples." (NRSV)

The community's welfare, under this Priestly theology, was dependent upon the community's holiness.

Of course, the land was lost and the temple destroyed. With the restoration, a concern for the purity of the community was renewed. In the time of Jesus, the Pharisees were the most outspoken proponents of community purity. Jesus himself disputed with them about honoring the Sabbath and associating with "sinners."

Outside of the Gospels, however, the context is very different. Christians are not in a position to enforce any kind of purity. In fact, they are more likely to be the objects of any societal attempt at "purification." Paul, John and Peter are concerned about maintaining Christian ethics and morals in a hostile setting. Christians are characterized as sojourners and those who must overcome the world to emphasize their status as aliens in the surrounding culture. Nowhere in view is the goal of taking over society and imposing values on others.

Thursday, May 29, 2003

Hallelujah! The Church is One!

Every Sunday, Christian congregations pray for concord in the Body of Christ and an end to schisms. Apparently, our prayers have been answered. This joyous occasion did not come about because of the centuries of debate over biblical interpretation and doctrine. It was not accomplished by the decades of effort of dedicated ecumenists. Instead it has been brought into being by reporters and columnists covering not Christianity but politics.

Yesterday I commented on "Mixed Marriage," an article in the latest Newsweek by Howard Fineman and Tamara Lipper. They reported on the political impact of the Christian Right's alliance with fervent Jewish supporters of Israel and the Sharon government. Their article briefly noted some disagreement over whether Jesus was waiting on Israeli territorial expansion before returning; otherwise they completely ignored the raging debate within even the Evangelical community over premillenial dispensationalism and support for Israel. Last week (May 22) we discussed the tendency of writers like Bill Keller and Gordon Livingston to ascribe to all Christians a kind of certainty they attribute to George W. Bush.

Fineman has posted yet another article on Bush and Christians on the MSNBC website. I suppose I'm being picky but two things reinforced my impression that Fineman has been writing a great deal about the Christian Right and the Republican party lately, but he hasn't bothered to learn much about the complexities hidden in the term "Christian." He writes this about Bush's play for Roman Catholics:

"In foreign policy, the rising role of Eastern Europe in a new global coalition happens to dovetail nicely with Rove’s strategy of attracting conservative Catholics. It’s not an historical accident: Catholic intellectuals for decades were staunch anti-Communists in part because the Soviets so brutally repressed the Church; Bush saw a kindred soul in Vladimir Putin in large part because the Russian leader proudly confided that his mother had taught him to pray."

I'll admit that there's no specific factual error here. But do you suppose Fineman understands that Putin's mother was Orthodox and that the Orthodox and Roman Catholics--e.g. the Serbs and the Croats--don't necessarily get along well together.

Fineman also finds that Rove and company were very clever in handling a Department of Interior grant:

"The most recent example came this week: a new program by the Department of the Interior to funnel historic preservations grants to places of worship. Just to stick it in Democratic eyes, the first site is none other than the Old North Church in Boston—home of the Kennedys and the ’04 Democratic convention."

Again, there's no factual error per se. It's just that Old North Church is Congregationalist and the Kennedys are Catholic.

My real complaint is that so many of the media who cover politics act as if the Christian Right of Falwell, Robertson, Reed, Bennett and the rest were the spokespersons for a monolithic Christianity. This is true whether the topic is a "moral issue" like abortion, a foreign policy issue like Iraq or Israel, or an issue touching on social justice like tax cuts or judicial appointments. The noisiest, most reactionary (and best-funded_) members of the Christian community are given prominent coverage. The WCC and heads of real church bodies (even the Pope) are buried in the print press if they're quoted at all.

There are people who want to hear from us. They're not interested in what a politician thinks is "moral." They're not wanting to hear what social science thinks is "moral." They want to hear from theologians, pastors and believers. The Christian Right is happy to supply its people, and the media is willing to let them be the spokespersons. We must be bold enough to answer the challenge.

Obscure Bible passage of the day: Jeremiah 26:12-19

Then Jeremiah spoke to all the officials and all the people, saying, "It is the Lord who sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the words you have heard. Now therefore amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will change his mind about the disaster that he has pronounced against you. But as for me, here I am in your hands. Do with me as seems good and right to you. Only know for certain that if you put me to death, you will be bringing innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city and its inhabitants, for in truth the Lord sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears." Then the officials and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, "This man does not deserve the sentence of death, for he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God." And some of the elders of the land arose and said to all the assembled people, "Micah of Moresheth, who prophesied during the days of King Hezekiah of Judah, said to all the people of Judah: "Thus says the Lord of hosts, Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.' Did King Hezekiah of Judah and all Judah actually put him to death_ Did he not fear the Lord and entreat the favor of the Lord, and did not the Lord change his mind about the disaster that he had pronounced against them_ But we are about to bring great disaster on ourselves!"

John Darby, a 19th century Englishman, tried to develop a grand interpretation of Daniel 9 and history that would indentify the Anointed One as Christ while explaining why the world had not ended at the end of the seventy weeks, i.e. within seven years of Christ's death on the cross. Darby's answer was "dispensationalism," an hypothesis that God dealt with different people under different dispensations. The seventy weeks of Daniel described God's dealings with the Jews. That dispensation had been interrupted by the Jews' rejection of Jesus which in turn had given birth to a new dispensation: the era of the Church populated primarily by Gentiles. According to Darby, we are now in a great "parenthesis" that will end with the bodily removal of Christians from the face of the earth in the Rapture. This miracle will be performed by Christ Himself in His prophesied Second Coming. Christ will then depart and the calendar of the seventy weeks will begin again as the week, i.e. seven years, of Tribulation passes until the final great climax and the return of Christ (Third Coming_) to initiate a 1000 year rule of peace, the Millenium.

Darby's theory is thus called premillenial because Christ's Second Coming occurs prior to a Millenium. It is dispensationalism because of its assertion that God deals with different peoples in discrete time periods. PD initially found little acceptance even among the Protestants who were the theological progenitors of Evangelicals. It eventually found a nitch, however, especially among evangelists like Moody and fundamentalists. More recently, it has proved very commercial for writers like Hal Lindsey and LaHaye and Jenkins of the "Left Behind" series. It is PD that drives a portion of the Evangelical community to support the Sharon government under any circumstances.

If Graham and company eventually go to Iraq without restrictions, what would they be saying and teaching_ I picked up a little $2 booklet at my local "Christian bookstore" just to get an idea. The book is titled It's Who You Know and was written by Franklin Graham in 2002. It amounts to an expansion of the typical tract handed out by Evangelical evangelists on street corners and door-to-door with sections on Jesus' identity as the Son of God, sin and Jesus' death for sin. Finally, he brings us to the critical "decision" point:

"'How do I do that_', you may ask. 'How can I trust this Name above all names and experience a new and vibrant life, free from guilt and shame_' It is simple. First, you must be willing to confess your sins to God, ask Him for forgiveness, and tell Him that you want to change and turn from the sinful life you have been living. Next, by faith, ask Jesus Christ to come into your life, take control of your life, and to be the Lord of your life. Then, follow Him from this day forward by obeying Him and reading His instructions found in His Word, the Holy Bible. If you are willing to do this, God will forgive and cleanse you."

A wise old doctor of the Gospel once counselled his seminarians about the dangers of such preaching:

"You may spend a lot of time telling men that they must believe if they wish to be saved, and your hearers may get the impression that something is required of them which they must do. They will begin to worry whether they will be able to do it, and when they have tried to do it, whether it is exactly the thing that is required of them...That explains why people talk in uncertain strains about their salvation. You can tell that they are driven to and fro with doubts and become awfully frightened and distressed when they are told that they are at death's door. Whose fault is it_ the preacher's, because he preached wrong about faith."

C. F. W. Walther, The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel, Thesis XIII.

Graham mentions the Holy Spirit once in his little book by my count. Nowhere is the Spirit's role in creating faith discussed. Everything is left up to the reader's choice. Everything, Graham's big "if," hangs on the reader's will.

No one will be surprised that Franklin Graham, like his father, is an Arminian. Why should any of this matter in a discussion of Christianity and politics_ I believe the bad theology of Graham and like-minded Evangelicals is linked to their bad politics. Walther's earlier comments were directed at the danger that confusing the Law and Gospel of conversion and making faith a work of human beings will both inhibit the creation of faith and make it weak and uncertain in times of testing. But Walther would also warn us about the danger of Graham's "if" as applied to the believer's obeying Christ after conversion:

"Hence the way to salvation is this: We are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, towards our salvation, but Christ has already done everything for us, and we must merely cling to what He has done, draw consolation from His finished work of redemption, and trust in it for our salvation...If a person wants to do everything himself to get to heaven, he is lost. No; he must first be made an heir of heaven and be saved; after that he begins to live a life filled with gratitude to God. That is why Luther says that the Christian religion is, in a word, a religion of gratitude. All the good that Christians do is not done to merit something. We would not know what to take up for the purpose of acquiring merit. Everything has been given us; righteousness, our everlasting heritage, our salvation. All that remains for us to do is to thank God."

Walther, Thesis X.

Graham has taken Luther's religion of gratitude and turned it into a religion of works. He has taken grace and turned it into reward. Christ is no longer Savior but mere Enabler satisfying the prerequisites of a holy God so that we can finish the task by force of will. No longer is it:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast." Ephesians 2:8-9

For Graham, it's:

"For by: 1) confessing your sins; 2) accepting Jesus as Lord; and 3) obeying his commandments from this day forward are you saved, and this is your own responsibility; Jesus has made it possible. Good luck. At lot is at stake for you."

George Lakoff describes Graham's understanding of Christianity as "Strict Father Christianity:"

"So Jesus offered sinners a deal. If they would truly repent, accept him as their Lord, join his church, and follow his teachings for the rest of their lives, he would pay off their moral debts with the moral credit from his crucifixion and wipe their slate clean. It would be as if they were born again, with no moral debits. That way he would save them from hell; he would be their Savior. The contract was made available to all sinners at any time. As their part of the deal, the former sinners would have to accept the authority of God and follow his commandments for the rest of their lives. This would be hard. It would require a character one did not have before being born again, a new moral essence--not being rotten to the core, but being rock solid. To acquire this moral essence, you have to take Jesus into your heart."

George Lakoff, Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don't, Chap. 14.

This distorted understanding of Christianity is tied by a common conceptual metaphor to a "Strict Father Family," "Strict Father Morality" and "Strict Father Politics." In all of them, everything is dominated by reward and punishment. In none of them is there much place for gift or grace. The primary image of God is a lawgiver and judge--all Law and no Gospel.

This is not Christianity as I know it, believe it or preach it. (In fact, I would quarrel with Lakoff's inclusion of an "earnings" requirement even in his "Nurturant Parent" model of Christianity.) Salvation is gift not reward. This is not to say that one can, at the same time, have faith and be an intentional sinner. Nor is this to say that Christians do not perform "good works." What the Gospel says is that neither refraining from sin nor performing good works contributes in any way to a believer's salvation. A Christian can cling only to grace and Christ not to what she or he has done or not done.

Such a Christianity leads in a far different direction from the "Strict Father" model. When my faith is pure gift of the Holy Spirit, I have no reason to condescend to the non-Christian. When my primary images of God are of a merciful parent and self-sacrificing sibling, I will be less likely to be fearful and judgmental toward those who are different from me. When I comprehend how precious each human being is to a God who dies on the cross for them, I will be more likely to care about those regarded by the world as insignificant or without value.

Theology matters. "Strict Father Christianity" does not deserve to be called Christian. Salvation is a gift not a reward. And Christianity is a religion of gratitude not judgment. The Christian Right and its influence on politics in our country could not stand if Law and Gospel were being properly distinguished in our pulpits.

Obscure Bible verse of the day: Isaiah 57:14-21

"It shall be said, "Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove every obstruction from my people's way." For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite. For I will not continually accuse, nor will I always be angry; for then the spirits would grow faint before me, even the souls that I have made. Because of their wicked covetousness I was angry; I struck them, I hid and was angry; but they kept turning back to their own ways. I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; I will lead them and repay them with comfort, creating for their mourners the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace, to the far and the near, says the Lord; and I will heal them. But the wicked are like the tossing sea that cannot keep still; its waters toss up mire and mud. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked." (NRSV)

Comment

No Gospel in the Hebrew Bible_ Just some of the most poetic. It would be nice for us Lutherans though if the prophets and Jesus would always preach Law first and end with Gospel.

Personal Note

Today's entry is two days' worth. Sorry about the length but I wanted to tie the Lakoff material in as well. I'll be away tomorrow and will be back at it Wednesday.

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