The considerable contrast between Russell Moore and Richard Land

The Wall Street Journal has an article on Russell Moore, our new guy as head of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission which Richard Land headed for a quarter century.

Evangelical Leader Preaches Pullback From Politics, Culture Wars, Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention says it is time for evangelicals to tone down the rhetoric.

For years, as the principal public voice for the Southern Baptist Convention, the country's biggest evangelical group, Richard Land warned of a "radical homosexual agenda" and pushed for a federal ban on same-sex marriage.

His successor, Russell Moore, sounded a different note when the Supreme Court in June struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. "Love your gay and lesbian neighbors," Mr. Moore wrote in a flier, "How Should Your Church Respond," sent to the convention's estimated 45,000 churches. "They aren't part of an evil conspiracy." Marriage, he added, was a bond between a man and a woman, but shouldn't be seen as a "'culture war' political issue."

Quite a contrast. From my viewpoint as a hacker and plodder in the SBC hinterlands, Land took his Oxford PhD brilliance and turned it into that of a third tier talk show host. Inappropriate comments led to his retirement.

Now we swap a baby boomer for someone much younger, Moore is 42, and unlikely to be identified as a culture warrior spouting the tired battle cries of "Take back America" and "We've got to wake up!" which have rallied old white dudes to the cause, helped elect Republicans who have subsequently ignored us, and accomplished very little other than to establish our segment of evangelicals as always being in an unholy snit over the state of our country.

Needless to say, the groups that make a living fighting the culture wars are, well, in an unholy snit over Moore's new approach.

Silver-maned Bryan Fischer, one of the old dude culture warrior talk show hosts for American Family Association reacted with this article: Southern Baptists sounding full-scale retreat in culture war? 

Writes Fischer: "We cannot and must not surrender when our most deeply cherished values and the Constitution itself are being shredded. This is no time for the sunshine soldier and the summer patriot.

According to the Journal, Moore says we must "tone down the rhetoric and pull back from the political fray," largely because of what he calls the "visceral recoil" to conservative positions on social issues among younger evangelicals. 

But this is to allow the least mature, least experienced, and least wise among us to shape our message to the culture. Moore in this instance seems prepared to follow rather than lead, to go with the flow rather than swim against the current. But leaders do not follow public opinion, they shape it, especially when the issues are matters of biblical morality.

Seems to me that the culture wars as have been displayed in the past thirty years haven't done much politically or theologically.

Fischer: "Moore warns that we must not be "co-opted" by the political process. But this seems to be what has happened to him."

If any concise phrase describes the culture war, politically "co-opted" would be my top candidate. We have an entire culture war industry that engages an aging fraction of the populace politically and through which not a few evangelicals make a pretty good living...and we've lost all the major battles of the culture war. The grizzled old white dude warriors, naturally, blame the apathetic evangelical masses. 

Perhaps a message to the culture that is less politically motivated and more evangelically motivated, as in, "In Christ there is redemption", would yield more positive results. 

Just a thought.

The alternative universe of some evangelicals

I understand and value the fact that believers are citizens of heaven but wonder sometimes if some of the brethren and sistren spend too much time and thought in an alternative universe where the bizarre is normal,  the outlandish is true, and facts need not apply.

The country has Todd Akin, Missouri Republican senatorial candidate, to thank for a glimpse into that alternative universe. His comments on "legitimate rape" and on how a "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole [conception] thing down" have made him a household name.

Oh my.

I have heard both of these things in conservative Baptist circles for decades, especially the latter. If one values life, all life, even that of a child conceived as a result of rape, then it is quite natural seek an approach to the idea that the state should require rape victims to carry the child and give birth.

Most of our fellow citizens are repelled by such laws. I do not foresee the political stars aligning, ever, on such laws ever being passed.

What's a pro-life purist to do?

See Todd Akin. He posits that (a) some rape is not legitimate, and (b) that there are very, very few conceptions as a result of legitimate rape so we should not be too concerned about that.

Could we have the data behind the "shutting down" thing, please? I've heard that for years offered as an ex cathedra statement. 

And, legitimate and illegitimate rapes? This would be the belief that  if the state attempted to prohibit abortion save for the exceptions of health of the mother and rape then numbers of women would lie and claim rape to end a pregnancy. How the state would sort through such things should be pondered. In Todd Akin's America would such a woman be put on trial or  investigated to see if she really was legitimately raped and allowed to have that abortion?


But, in an alternative universe, who needs data driven facts and who needs to worry about the details of public policy implementation?

But Todd Akin's problem moves, I hate to say it, from the foolish ("stupidity" as Charles Krauthammer and others put it) to the unethical. His explanation and apology which included the usual 'I misspoke' and 'used the wrong words' belie what he actually said. He didn't just foul up the syntax and vocabulary and his backtracking is simply not credible.

Aside from what abortion policy support we want from candidates, do the people of Missouri want a candidate who does not own up to his own words and who offers the usual attempt at political doubletalk?

Also dwelling in the alternative evangelical universe are David Barton, now in freefall, and some young earth creationists but unlike the rape comment these are secondary issues. If one selectively quotes Jefferson or believes that dinosaurs coexisted with humans, a la the Flintstones, no lives are lost, no freedoms are lost.

...all of which is why the idea of political salvation is foolish and futile and that Christians who are pursuing such with gusts are chasing a chimera.

We should have learned better after a generation and a half of the hyper-politicalization of religious conservatives, with precious few results.

In contrast, there are no flaws in the Gospel, no need to finesse the truth, and individual changed lives are the surest way to achieve a better citizenry. 

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness

What Many SBC Pastors Cannot Say

Ed Stetzer puts his finger on it in his blog, Why I Have No Difficulty Helping "Issue Christians" to Move On.

What most pastors cannot say is that sentence that burns a bridge with a prospective or present church member:

Our church probably isn't the place for you.

Stetzer describes a visitor to his church who started talking prophecy and Israel on his way through the receiving line after worship one Sunday. After a few minutes he had heard enough and said, "We are not one of those churches that you would think talks about prophecy enough-- this would not be the right church for you, but I do hope your search for a church home goes well."

Gold star for Stetzer.

Many pastors cannot train their lips to say such a thing and lose a member, a family, or a group of people from their church. It is almost one of those things not done. After all, aren't 80% or so of SBC pastors in churches that are plateaued or declining? Do we really want to run folks off?

Yes, indeed, if we know what's good for us and for our churches.

I think I am a decent listener. I don't mind listening to single issue people, or obsessed people, or folks who have an intense interest in something that I am ambivalent about. But I also know that if I play with a hand grenade it will eventually explode and hurt me.

Over the years I run across people whose interest was focused on American foreign policy with regard to Israel, with homeschoolers, with national politics and policy issues, with charismatic gifts, with the eschatological positions, with abortion and other things.

While all of these are important (e.g. we are against abortion but don't feel compelled to picket abortion clinics, a thrust of many 15 years ago), I understand that some are drawn to one of these with such a focus that all else is secondary and where those of us who do not share this intense interest are unspiritual or disobedient. Hogwash.

On occasion, I've said, "You probably will not be happy in this church." Better to get it out and be done with it.

Who knows how much grief I've avoided by training my lips to say such things. I highly recommend it.

[Postscript: I once had a young man come very early one Sunday, 30 minutes before Sunday School was to start, to ask me about doctrine. Early on in the conversation I could see that Calvinism was his, uh, intense interest and, while I might have enjoyed spending time with him on another occasion when I had the time, I just said, 'We're probably not the kind of church you would be happy in but come and worship with us this morning. We will welcome you.' He left and didn't come back.]

[Another postscript: Stetzer has a day job. Most of us do not. Would I be wrong to say that sending a prospective family down the road, with their tithes and faithful attendance, is a degree or two harder for us?]

Still searching for that political messiah

One would think that the lesson of the apostles would be sufficient to cure the followers of Christ from hungering and thirsting for a political messiah. But no, it seems to be an endless search at least for American evangelical Christians.

Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann are the latest incarnations. I'm getting emails touting the fervor of the faith of Perry, as if one should go ahead and apply the term parousia to him.

Plodder was a bit put off by the Perry prayer project, er rally, with both eyebrows raised over the confluence of his political and spiritual aspirations (my humble offering on it here). There is an evangelical vote. He's after it.

Madam Titanium will uncompromisingly confront the culture. One need not be the leader of the free world to do that.

Count me as having learned the lesson that (a) there will always be those who are looked upon as political messiahs and saviors, and (b) that they will always disappoint.

Jimmy Carter was the most godly president I know of. Unsuccessful president.

Reagan never went to church, nor talked up the evangelicals, but did well as president.

Bush the First: Good Episcopalian, decent president.

Clinton/Gore: Our two Southern Baptists; we had the board covered with Southern Baptists, but few of us voted for them.

Bush the Second: Great testimony, greatly expanded the welfare state and deficit spending.

And no one did anything with the social agenda.

The solution is spiritual, not political.

I have ceased to eagerly await a political messiah but remains steadfast in expectation of the Blessed Hope, the one who is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."

He may come the first Tuesday in November 2012, but will not be on the ballot.

Rick Perry playing evangelicals with prayer rally?

Rick Perry may run for president. I may vote for him if he does. He would be preferable to many of the GOP candidates and infinitely preferable to the present occupant of the White House.

But my radar is up on politicians who start marshalling the evangelical Christian vote and I'm getting a pretty strong reading on Perry. Not that other politicians aren't capable of the same but I just hate to get the feeling that evangelical Christians are just another voting bloc to be wooed, cajoled, and romanced into one politician's camp.

I started getting fwd:fwd:fwd emails last week about Perry's big prayer meeting - evangelical notables pumping 'our kind of guy' and all that. I'm all for prayer. I'm perfectly willing to grant the benefit of the doubt to him. I'm not questioning his sincerity in the prayer meetin'. Maybe it just looks like the governor has started to strum the evangelical strings as a prelude to declaring his candidacy.

There are critics. Some far more harsh than anyone quoted in this article: Perry's upcoming prayer event draws sharp criticism

So, this is merely Plodder pondering on the Perry prayer pow wow. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Perry, if he had thought of it, would have called for a mass prayer meeting back when Obamacare was passed, or when the Congress was furiously spending our grandchildren's trillions rather than when it's time to fish or cut bait on running for president in 2012.

Maybe the funny feeling I'm getting over this is too much sun, sugar, and cholesterol.

Hope so...