Reflections on Liberal Christianity in Illiberal Times.
The Christian faith is, perhaps, best known for what it isn’t as much as what it is. And by what it isn’t I focus first on a method for implementing Christ’s actual teaching in the four Gospels. What with Christ being a Jew seeking to save Jews from their own apostacy, Paul’s interpretations of Christ’s preaching – and his extension of Christianity to Gentiles – are a hard driver for nearly all Christian denomination and traditions, including the liberal arm of the Presbyterian Church where I was raised.
Sadly, too many American Christians seem to have run away screaming from both Christ’s initial teachings and Paul’s interpretations of them for a Gentile Church. Take the duty to care for the sick and injured – both Christ (via the good Samaritan parable) and Paul (in 1 Timothy 5 and elsewhere) exhort Christians to care for those less fortunate. Christ goes so far as to mandate that His followers do so in the tradition of a non-believer, as if perhaps he was suggesting that we do so in the way Muslims or Buddhists might today. And yet modern fundamentalist American Christians recoil politically from the notion that they should care for those who don’t look or worship or love or vote like they do, and they actively oppose pooling resources under the auspices of government to that end – even though Christ said absolutely nothing about the mechanism of that care. Interestingly they also seem to think that a lot of their personal, faith-based spending should be directed to Africa.
These fundamentalist Christians also seem to believe that while humans are made in God’s image, LGBTQA+ humans are not. Take the now well-known case of Kim Davis, who used her faith to try and deny marriage licenses as a matter of secular state function – while working for the state – to gay and lesbian couples. More recently, Texas has a state policy that parents working with physicians and psychologists (both required reporters) to help transgendered youth are committing child abuse (which blessedly has been enjoined by the courts). And in Kansas, a teacher is claiming her faith PREVENTS her from displaying compassion to children by calling them by their preferred names and pronouns.
Now yes, we live in an open society. And yes, we have a First Amendment that protects speech. It also says that Congress shall make no law regarding state imposition of religion.
And yet in Texas, Georgia, and elsewhere, “believers” are seeking to use the law (or high state office) to impose allegedly religiously based bigotry on segments of society that Christ would most certainly recognize as oppressed – the very people He was referencing when he said:
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me … Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:35-36, 40)
Those words grow from the Great Commandment where Christ told us to love God with all our heart, soul mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Christ, and Paul, were calling for liberal, leftist, socialist things to be done in God’s name for the benefit of the community, not the individual. They were radically reaffirming human dignity – Christ chose as female disciples former hookers, ate publicly with tax collectors, and healed lepers. And his resurrection was revealed first to those women, which strongly suggests they should be seen as equal to if not above their male counterparts.
Yet sadly, much of American Christianity has gotten away from that message and its obligations as they seek to preserve the status quo ante politically where they are “in charge.” They prefer to keep the trappings of Christianity as a performative shell to wrap their hard prejudices in, so that they can both keep their allegedly superior economic and political positions intact. Much like their patriotism, they are hoping for the wrappings of their “faith” will prevent anyone noticing they are running 180 degrees away from the actual things – hard things – they are called to do in the world. And they do this with sincerity and surety that they will be saved, because they follow a tradition that says simply repenting and claiming the yoke and mantle is all that is required to get into heaven.
Unfortunately, Christ makes His views on this well knows in John Chapter 8:
“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
Meaning that those committing the sin of bigotry have little likelihood of achieving His kingdom, especially when that bigotry is in the service of human politics.
Receipts, please.
Much! Many! Seem to believe! You know I’m down with a good generalization about overall trends but as I read this article I am deluged, positively deluged with examples that I have personally witnessed firsthand, to the contrary.
“Christians aren’t perfect” is not a basis for a generalization-based argument. There are bad Christians, mistaken Christians, false Christians, etc but you are saying that MANY and MOST Christians are a certain way and using an example of one person in isolation to “prove” your assertion. Isn’t this playing the Chinese Robbers game? https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chinese-robbers/
Just because people don’t agree that GOVERNMENT is the best mechanism by which to help the poor (and at this point honestly I don’t even get how any of you can believe this, as lousy a job as it does, and how much corruption there is, and how much misery produced in the recipients of this “help”) that doesn’t mean that those of us in that category (including Christians, but not only Christians) don’t believe in helping the poor, and aren’t doing exactly that in many ways that you would find some reason to handwave away, but are more real and more effective than any government program.Report
I find it fascinating that you honed in on the charity point and not the larger issue about many Christians becoming more interested in the performative aspects of the faith and not the hard work of the faith. There are many successful church based charity approaches in the world – the church I grew up in is well known locally for them. But they can not tackle the issues at scale. And government does do a lot more good then it gets credit for.Report
I will grant that the performative aspect is grating. Or, the whole charity, but only for people that are deemed acceptable or deserving.
The problem Kristin touches on is that you don’t really present any data suggesting that such is really a problem within the faith as a whole.
Is there some polling data to suggest that people feel that way and are willing to be honest about it?Report
This is in response only to your third paragraph. I do believe the government is the best mechanism by which to help the poor. Yes, the United States often does not do a good job of assisting the poor; but much of that is due to Americans’ profound ambivalence (at best) or hostility (at worst) to addressing poverty. Much of the waste and misery you mention comes down to our strident efforts to exclude the “undeserving” poor from assistance.
However, when we look at programs like Medicare and Social Security retirement, we find efficient and profoundly effective anti-poverty programs. It’s difficult for me to imagine any of the multitude of religious organizations in the US implementing something as effective as either Medicare or Social Security have been in reducing poverty among the elderly in the US.
As to the rest, I have no horse in the race as to whether Christians are being Christian. I’m always wary of those who argue they hold universal truth and use their power to oppress people like me and mine.Report
Er, I guess that should read “your fourth paragraph.” I missed that initial sentence the first time.Report
I found this episode on Hidden Brain interesting:
https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/our-better-angels/
The theme is that by focusing on catching “cheats”* for welfare programs, we seriously damage the programs ability to do good.
*Cheats covering everything from outright fraud to people who are not deemed worthy enough.Report
Oscar Gordon: I’m only 30 minutes through the episode, but it’s great! Thanks for recommending it.Report
No problem.
I can’t say I’m completely sold on the point, but I’m certainly open to the idea that we should focus less on self-interest and pay more attention to “better angels”.Report
As someone who does not believe in a deity, I see complaints about Christians not acting Christian as not particularly surprising.
I mean, if someone said “Those Muslims aren’t behaving particularly Islamic” or “Those Jews aren’t behaving particularly Jewish” or “Those Buddhist Monks sure spend a lot of time bragging about their fighting styles and beating each other up which doesn’t seem particularly Buddhist to me based on the 3 credit hours I got for Buddhism back in 1996”, we’d know to say “that’s kind of effed up… what the hell do you mean?” as a starting point.
But when it comes to our ability to criticize Methodists, it all makes sense.
“Maybe they let out early for a reason”, some say.Report
Heck, a lot of atheists get pretty damned religious about certain things in absence of religious belief.Report
How does your church address these concerns?
Or is there a chance you’re throwing stones from inside a glass house?Report