A recent article by Tim Alberta in the Atlantic about “How Politics Poisoned the Evangelical Church” has been making the rounds. There are a lot of criticisms that could be leveled at this. For example, it ignores the even greater levels of political involvement in the black church and the Christian left movement.
It’s surreal to read that article. My organization had a run-in with Bolin. He (and others) helped sink a major prolife initiative in Michigan while pushing their own petition effort. He was utterly wrong on a critical legal point, but people just ate it up and ran with it. Damage done and they move on like locusts. The problem with populism is there are quickly new “elites” who appear, ready to ride the people to ruinous ends for personal benefit.
Public schools, mass media, publishers, and government agencies have proven themselves untrustworthy. They have proven they care more about manipulating the people than telling the truth, and they drip with disdain for non-elite Americans. The people are therefore looking elsewhere for guidance, and non-woke churches are the few credible institutions left.
I want to push back on the idea that politics is outside the authority of the church. Politics is inherent to human community, and as such, the church needs to teach us how to do politics in keeping with faith in Christ. Theology must govern our politics. The church needs to teach that just like it needs to teach how to be married as a Christian, how to do business as a Christian, etc.
Churches are being torn apart by politics because they don't have a shared politics. This is deeply problematic for the mission of the church, as we are beginning to see. Politics deals directly with the question of how we define our community and what is the acceptable range of behavior within that community. If churches take up their full role as communities of faith, instead operating as narrow functional organizations, they will have to describe the politics the community shares.
Alternatively, they can let the larger society define the politics, and when the society splits, so will the churches. But, I assert that this alternative is not fully faithful to Christ. If it is within the power of the ministers and the churches to do better, they really must do so.
This idea that a pastor shouldn't overtly support a political candidate. I get it, but, what if there are two candidates - one supports abortion up to birth for any reason, the other wants to severely restrict the practice? Should the pastor say something?
How do we reach them? One of the problems with social media is that anyone can find reinforcement for their kooky ideas. In the past, the threat of being ostracized from your social circle would have kept a lot of these things in check. That no longer works now.
As Charles Murray documented over 10 years ago in Coming Apart, they really are living lives of dysfunction. How do you talk them out of it? They can see numerous groups eligible for victimhood in our culture get short term benefits out of pursuing it. It makes sense that the response for so many working class whites has been to pursue victim status as well. Scott Yenor has some good points in that column, but how do you get people who haven't been thinking ahead more than a few days to start thinking in terms of not just years ahead, but generations?
Schools - as a teacher, we need conservatives and orthodox Christians in the schools. I connect to "our" people all the time via the schools. Volunteer, help, serve - even if your kids are grown or you are a home-schooler.
It’s surreal to read that article. My organization had a run-in with Bolin. He (and others) helped sink a major prolife initiative in Michigan while pushing their own petition effort. He was utterly wrong on a critical legal point, but people just ate it up and ran with it. Damage done and they move on like locusts. The problem with populism is there are quickly new “elites” who appear, ready to ride the people to ruinous ends for personal benefit.
Public schools, mass media, publishers, and government agencies have proven themselves untrustworthy. They have proven they care more about manipulating the people than telling the truth, and they drip with disdain for non-elite Americans. The people are therefore looking elsewhere for guidance, and non-woke churches are the few credible institutions left.
I want to push back on the idea that politics is outside the authority of the church. Politics is inherent to human community, and as such, the church needs to teach us how to do politics in keeping with faith in Christ. Theology must govern our politics. The church needs to teach that just like it needs to teach how to be married as a Christian, how to do business as a Christian, etc.
Churches are being torn apart by politics because they don't have a shared politics. This is deeply problematic for the mission of the church, as we are beginning to see. Politics deals directly with the question of how we define our community and what is the acceptable range of behavior within that community. If churches take up their full role as communities of faith, instead operating as narrow functional organizations, they will have to describe the politics the community shares.
Alternatively, they can let the larger society define the politics, and when the society splits, so will the churches. But, I assert that this alternative is not fully faithful to Christ. If it is within the power of the ministers and the churches to do better, they really must do so.
This idea that a pastor shouldn't overtly support a political candidate. I get it, but, what if there are two candidates - one supports abortion up to birth for any reason, the other wants to severely restrict the practice? Should the pastor say something?
How do we reach them? One of the problems with social media is that anyone can find reinforcement for their kooky ideas. In the past, the threat of being ostracized from your social circle would have kept a lot of these things in check. That no longer works now.
As Charles Murray documented over 10 years ago in Coming Apart, they really are living lives of dysfunction. How do you talk them out of it? They can see numerous groups eligible for victimhood in our culture get short term benefits out of pursuing it. It makes sense that the response for so many working class whites has been to pursue victim status as well. Scott Yenor has some good points in that column, but how do you get people who haven't been thinking ahead more than a few days to start thinking in terms of not just years ahead, but generations?
Schools - as a teacher, we need conservatives and orthodox Christians in the schools. I connect to "our" people all the time via the schools. Volunteer, help, serve - even if your kids are grown or you are a home-schooler.