The previous posting was about an event ten months old.
This is a link to breaking news.
Jerry Falwell was discovered unconscious in his office. He's in a hospital and described as gravely ill.
We have been pretty frank in our negative appraisal of Dr. Falwell. But we pray for his recovery.
UDPATE: AP now reports that Dr. Falwell didn't make it. We pray for God's comfort for his family and friends. Time will tell whether the various ministries that relied so heavily on his personality will survive or, like so many others similarly situated, gradually slip away.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query falwell. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query falwell. Sort by date Show all posts
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Falwell's Educational Philosophy Versus SWNID's
Browsing Falwell news, we came across this portion of his biography at his web site (emphasis inserted):
SWNID finds it hard not to be dismissive, if not contemptuous, of this justification for a Christian university. We are personally in the business of Christian higher education for an entirely different reason: to enable Christians to understand their faith and their world so that they can actively, creatively, effectively minister in it and transform it, not so that they can be in a safe place away from secular influences, as if such a place existed. We expect our students to get roughed up, so we are not much for cocooning.
In 1967, Falwell implemented his vision to build a Christian educational system for evangelical youth. He began with the creation of Lynchburg Christian Academy, a Christ-centered, academically excellent, fully accredited Christian day school providing kindergarten, elementary and high school. In 1971, Liberty University was founded.
Today, over 21,500 students from 50 states and 80 nations attend this accredited, liberal arts Christian university. Falwell’s dream has become a reality. A pre-school child can now enter the school system at age 3, and 20 or more years later, leave the same campus with a Ph.D., without ever sitting in a classroom where the teacher was not a committed follower of Jesus Christ.
SWNID finds it hard not to be dismissive, if not contemptuous, of this justification for a Christian university. We are personally in the business of Christian higher education for an entirely different reason: to enable Christians to understand their faith and their world so that they can actively, creatively, effectively minister in it and transform it, not so that they can be in a safe place away from secular influences, as if such a place existed. We expect our students to get roughed up, so we are not much for cocooning.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Jeremiah Wright or Wrong
We respond at last to the clamor of our gentle readers for our take on Barak Obama's pastor problem. We warn our readers that we are likely to frustrate their desire for red meat.
In short, we think that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and especially his parishioner Senator Obama should be given a pass on this one. Mostly, that is. We don't deny that Wright has made multiple statements that are highly provocative, even offensive, and sometimes just silly. We don't deny that Obama has some explaining to do about his relationship with Wright. We just aren't as exercised about this as are many of those who share our wish that a candidate besides Obama be the next POTUS.
But here's the deal (and we say it with massive love and respect for the profession we are about to characterize, as we are one ourself): Wright is a preacher. Saying stuff like this is what preachers do.
OK, now that most of our readers are as mad at us as they were at Wright, we will hasten to explain our intemperate remark.
Preachers orate. Oratory involves highly charged, provocative rhetoric, intended less to describe or inform than to summon to commitment and action. When Wright referred to the US of KKKA or said that America deserved the 9/11 attacks for its own terrorism or suggested that because of the country's many sins of oppression the appropriate song would be "God Damn America," he was doing what preachers do as they reach the emotional climax of their messages: having gained the congregation's trust and carried them to the point of decision, he was crystalizing the message in sharply ironic language that left no room for indifference.
It has been widely observed that Wright's remarks on 9/11 were similar to Jerry Falwell's except that their cited proximate causes were on different sides of the political spectrum (for Falwell it was abortion and homosexual behavior that left America deserving what it got). Let's say further that (a) the same could be said for thousands of obscure sermons preached in the wake of 9/11 from varying political perspectives; (b) any of Wright's other remarks could find parallels from various preachers on the religious right (e.g., "United States of Infanticide" has probably been uttered in more than one American pulpit). These observations have been widely employed to argue whether a politically conservative candidate would be called to account for his pastor's similar remarks (and the obvious answer is yes). We cite them merely to illustrate that there's nothing unique about Wright's language.
Further, many of Wright's remarks were particularly expressive of frustrations about racial issues in the United States. We are not terribly shocked that an African-American preacher would be so blunt on the subject. It is not so long ago that rampant racism produced lynchings, Jim Crow laws and various other acts of systematic exploitation of African-Americans. Though the worst of racism blessedly is now history, its legacy is hardly erased in the day-to-day experience of many. By definition, SWNID is not an object of racist attitudes, but we find it hard to imagine that our being otherwise would be less than a source of outrage for our otherwise placid self.
All that having been said by way of excusing the Rev. Wright, we nevertheless offer some less charitable evaluations.
By all accounts, Jeremiah Wright is an enormously talented preacher, powerfully charismatic (in the non-theological sense). In our experience, preachers of exceptional talent are sometimes seduced by their talent into a habit of intemperate and inconsiderate expression. Seeing only a glimpse of Wright through media reports and clips of recordings, he might just fit that category.
What's obvious about the Rev. Wright, however, is that his commitment to making the gospel relevant in the here and now is a commitment to the political agenda of the radical left. For that, we find fault. The failures of American society are many, but the solutions of the left can only deepen those failures. When concern for the plight of the oppressed glibly equates to pacifism and socialism, critical judgment has failed.
Some of Wright's failures of critical judgment are pretty obvious. While it's not at all outrageous to suggest that the higher legal penalties for the usage of crack cocaine over powder cocaine have had a disproportionate impact on African-Americans, it's silly to suggest that the government created crack to oppress blacks. Same goes for suggesting that the government created AIDS for the same reason. And giving an award to Louis Farrakhan is the epitome of silliness.
So we SWNIDishly judge Jeremiah Wright guilty of being an uncritical thinker who lets his talent get the better of him, but in largely harmless ways. That's a venial sin, not a mortal one. We absolve him. Preachers do that kind of thing. We reserve the privilege of nominating him as Most Embarrassing Christian, but that's about the worst of it.
Now, where is Obama in all this? He's been a member of Wright's church for 20 years, is reported to have donated $20,000 to the church in that period (a figure that Thomas Sowell cites as considerable but which should be a source of shame for someone with Obama's family income), and names Wright as his spiritual mentor. Why is Jeremiah Wright's church Barak Obama's church? Should Obama be castigated for his long-time association with Wright?
Well, we ask SWNIDishly, why is your church yours? We suspect that the answer is more complex than we are inclined to admit. It always has to do with much more than our agreement with what we hear from the pulpit. People choose churches for all kinds of reasons, but in general I suspect that most would say "It feels like a place where I can belong."
For the Obama family, prominent and ambitious members of Chicago's African-American community, Wright's church would present a place where they could "belong" in many respects. It was a church where being black is the norm (those who think it reprehensible that Wright's church is avowedly "Afrocentric" should consider how "Eurocentric" are other churches, without their admitting it openly). It had plenty of members like them, black folk on the move to power and prestige. It was big enough that their celebrity would not be an enormous distraction. There are lots of churches in Chicago, but probably not many that offered all that.
And Wright's church was a place where the Obamas could network with other members and with the church's powerful pastor. If Barak Obama wanted a mentoring relationship with an older man of color who had used his talent to gain influence and who could help him think about how to process his life in politics from the perspective of faith, he could have that relationship by joining Jeremiah Wright's church.
In making that move, Obama was in no sense endorsing or agreeing with everything that his pastor might say, let alone his offensive-to-many way of saying it. He took the bad Wright with the good Wright. And SWNID actually thinks that's typical and decent. Leaving a church every time you have a disagreement with the preacher is not exactly what we call good churchmanship.
We actually wonder whether Obama hasn't all along realized that to accomplish what he seeks to accomplish, he will need a very different rhetoric than his pastor's. As Lincoln was to Garrison, so perhaps is Obama to Wright.
Still, it's hard to believe that Obama didn't see this one coming. How could any professional politician with national ambitions expect not to be called to account for his pastor's incendiary remarks? Perhaps Obama's habit of mind, week by week filtering Wright's rhetoric, was so deeply established for him that he couldn't hear what others would hear. Perhaps his loyalty to a friend was so strong that he ignored an issue that he should have at least thought through in advance. Perhaps he thought that anything that didn't come up in a Chicago or Illinois political campaign, where political hardball was perfected, wouldn't come up in a national election. Whatever the cause, not having a planned-in-advance response to the pastor problem was a political mistake that any good politician shouldn't have made.
So for us, the rap on Obama coming out of the Wright imbroglio is not that Obama might be as radical as his pastor. It's that it may show him to be as naive as his opponents suggest he is.
In short, we think that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and especially his parishioner Senator Obama should be given a pass on this one. Mostly, that is. We don't deny that Wright has made multiple statements that are highly provocative, even offensive, and sometimes just silly. We don't deny that Obama has some explaining to do about his relationship with Wright. We just aren't as exercised about this as are many of those who share our wish that a candidate besides Obama be the next POTUS.
But here's the deal (and we say it with massive love and respect for the profession we are about to characterize, as we are one ourself): Wright is a preacher. Saying stuff like this is what preachers do.
OK, now that most of our readers are as mad at us as they were at Wright, we will hasten to explain our intemperate remark.
Preachers orate. Oratory involves highly charged, provocative rhetoric, intended less to describe or inform than to summon to commitment and action. When Wright referred to the US of KKKA or said that America deserved the 9/11 attacks for its own terrorism or suggested that because of the country's many sins of oppression the appropriate song would be "God Damn America," he was doing what preachers do as they reach the emotional climax of their messages: having gained the congregation's trust and carried them to the point of decision, he was crystalizing the message in sharply ironic language that left no room for indifference.
It has been widely observed that Wright's remarks on 9/11 were similar to Jerry Falwell's except that their cited proximate causes were on different sides of the political spectrum (for Falwell it was abortion and homosexual behavior that left America deserving what it got). Let's say further that (a) the same could be said for thousands of obscure sermons preached in the wake of 9/11 from varying political perspectives; (b) any of Wright's other remarks could find parallels from various preachers on the religious right (e.g., "United States of Infanticide" has probably been uttered in more than one American pulpit). These observations have been widely employed to argue whether a politically conservative candidate would be called to account for his pastor's similar remarks (and the obvious answer is yes). We cite them merely to illustrate that there's nothing unique about Wright's language.
Further, many of Wright's remarks were particularly expressive of frustrations about racial issues in the United States. We are not terribly shocked that an African-American preacher would be so blunt on the subject. It is not so long ago that rampant racism produced lynchings, Jim Crow laws and various other acts of systematic exploitation of African-Americans. Though the worst of racism blessedly is now history, its legacy is hardly erased in the day-to-day experience of many. By definition, SWNID is not an object of racist attitudes, but we find it hard to imagine that our being otherwise would be less than a source of outrage for our otherwise placid self.
All that having been said by way of excusing the Rev. Wright, we nevertheless offer some less charitable evaluations.
By all accounts, Jeremiah Wright is an enormously talented preacher, powerfully charismatic (in the non-theological sense). In our experience, preachers of exceptional talent are sometimes seduced by their talent into a habit of intemperate and inconsiderate expression. Seeing only a glimpse of Wright through media reports and clips of recordings, he might just fit that category.
What's obvious about the Rev. Wright, however, is that his commitment to making the gospel relevant in the here and now is a commitment to the political agenda of the radical left. For that, we find fault. The failures of American society are many, but the solutions of the left can only deepen those failures. When concern for the plight of the oppressed glibly equates to pacifism and socialism, critical judgment has failed.
Some of Wright's failures of critical judgment are pretty obvious. While it's not at all outrageous to suggest that the higher legal penalties for the usage of crack cocaine over powder cocaine have had a disproportionate impact on African-Americans, it's silly to suggest that the government created crack to oppress blacks. Same goes for suggesting that the government created AIDS for the same reason. And giving an award to Louis Farrakhan is the epitome of silliness.
So we SWNIDishly judge Jeremiah Wright guilty of being an uncritical thinker who lets his talent get the better of him, but in largely harmless ways. That's a venial sin, not a mortal one. We absolve him. Preachers do that kind of thing. We reserve the privilege of nominating him as Most Embarrassing Christian, but that's about the worst of it.
Now, where is Obama in all this? He's been a member of Wright's church for 20 years, is reported to have donated $20,000 to the church in that period (a figure that Thomas Sowell cites as considerable but which should be a source of shame for someone with Obama's family income), and names Wright as his spiritual mentor. Why is Jeremiah Wright's church Barak Obama's church? Should Obama be castigated for his long-time association with Wright?
Well, we ask SWNIDishly, why is your church yours? We suspect that the answer is more complex than we are inclined to admit. It always has to do with much more than our agreement with what we hear from the pulpit. People choose churches for all kinds of reasons, but in general I suspect that most would say "It feels like a place where I can belong."
For the Obama family, prominent and ambitious members of Chicago's African-American community, Wright's church would present a place where they could "belong" in many respects. It was a church where being black is the norm (those who think it reprehensible that Wright's church is avowedly "Afrocentric" should consider how "Eurocentric" are other churches, without their admitting it openly). It had plenty of members like them, black folk on the move to power and prestige. It was big enough that their celebrity would not be an enormous distraction. There are lots of churches in Chicago, but probably not many that offered all that.
And Wright's church was a place where the Obamas could network with other members and with the church's powerful pastor. If Barak Obama wanted a mentoring relationship with an older man of color who had used his talent to gain influence and who could help him think about how to process his life in politics from the perspective of faith, he could have that relationship by joining Jeremiah Wright's church.
In making that move, Obama was in no sense endorsing or agreeing with everything that his pastor might say, let alone his offensive-to-many way of saying it. He took the bad Wright with the good Wright. And SWNID actually thinks that's typical and decent. Leaving a church every time you have a disagreement with the preacher is not exactly what we call good churchmanship.
We actually wonder whether Obama hasn't all along realized that to accomplish what he seeks to accomplish, he will need a very different rhetoric than his pastor's. As Lincoln was to Garrison, so perhaps is Obama to Wright.
Still, it's hard to believe that Obama didn't see this one coming. How could any professional politician with national ambitions expect not to be called to account for his pastor's incendiary remarks? Perhaps Obama's habit of mind, week by week filtering Wright's rhetoric, was so deeply established for him that he couldn't hear what others would hear. Perhaps his loyalty to a friend was so strong that he ignored an issue that he should have at least thought through in advance. Perhaps he thought that anything that didn't come up in a Chicago or Illinois political campaign, where political hardball was perfected, wouldn't come up in a national election. Whatever the cause, not having a planned-in-advance response to the pastor problem was a political mistake that any good politician shouldn't have made.
So for us, the rap on Obama coming out of the Wright imbroglio is not that Obama might be as radical as his pastor. It's that it may show him to be as naive as his opponents suggest he is.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Fundamentalism of the Secular Left
Here's something that we've mostly ignored in this blog because it's so obvious. But today's news has a story that so perfectly epitomizes it, we must take note.
The big picture is this: secular leftists have an extraordinarily large and powerful tendency toward their own kind of "fundamentalism."
What is "fundamentalism" in this sense? It is a doctrinaire approach to issues that allows no dissent and reacts harshly to any questioning (as Lucy does with Linus in this classic Peanuts strip). It is a quest for purity that will allow no association with anything or anyone that even remotely represents departure from established orthodoxies. It's the closed-mindedness for which the left routinely condemns the right.
Our timely example is the campaign at New School University in New York to disinvite Senator John McCain as commencement speaker. What is McCain's great sin per New School's leftist fundies? There are two:
The nerve of some people!
Says one student:
Says another:
SWNID loves this progressive educational philosophy: "we're taught . . ." like sheep. And be careful which leaders you question, by all means.
We can only compare the moral outrage at McCain's invitation to the outrage at a certain blogger's support for Rudy Giuliani.
Nevertheless, it will certainly burnish McCain's conservative image to be heckled at one of higher education's most notoriously liberal institutions. Don't think that he didn't calculate that when he took dueling invitations at New School and Liberty.
The big picture is this: secular leftists have an extraordinarily large and powerful tendency toward their own kind of "fundamentalism."
What is "fundamentalism" in this sense? It is a doctrinaire approach to issues that allows no dissent and reacts harshly to any questioning (as Lucy does with Linus in this classic Peanuts strip). It is a quest for purity that will allow no association with anything or anyone that even remotely represents departure from established orthodoxies. It's the closed-mindedness for which the left routinely condemns the right.
Our timely example is the campaign at New School University in New York to disinvite Senator John McCain as commencement speaker. What is McCain's great sin per New School's leftist fundies? There are two:
- supporting a gay marriage ban in Arizona
- speaking at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University
The nerve of some people!
Says one student:
I think the thing that bothers me the most is him speaking at Jerry Falwell's school.
Says another:
In all of our classes we're taught the value of inclusion of all people, and we're taught to question our leaders.
SWNID loves this progressive educational philosophy: "we're taught . . ." like sheep. And be careful which leaders you question, by all means.
We can only compare the moral outrage at McCain's invitation to the outrage at a certain blogger's support for Rudy Giuliani.
Nevertheless, it will certainly burnish McCain's conservative image to be heckled at one of higher education's most notoriously liberal institutions. Don't think that he didn't calculate that when he took dueling invitations at New School and Liberty.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Robertson Leading in Most Embarrassing Christian Standings
Remarks yesterday by televangelist Pat Robertson moved him back into sole possession of first place in the standings for Most Embarrassing Christian Ever.
Robertson's call for the assassination of the president of Venezuela placed him ahead of Jerry Falwell, with whom he has been in a statistical dead heat for several months.
Robertson enjoyed several years alone in first place after his comical bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988. Falwell, who dropped in the standings during a period of near sanity as a frequent guest on ABC's Nightline, has more recently put together a string of outrageous statements to challenge Robertson for supremacy.
The two have been tied for first place since just after September 11, 2001, when both stated that the terrorist attacks were a form of divine judgment on America for abortion, homosexuality and other immoralities.
Robertson's statement yesterday is regarded by some analysts as his most outrageous ever. "At least with the 9/11 remarks, he had some grounding in theological tradition for making such a claim," remarked one pundit, who asked not to be named. "But to hear a self-styled Christian leader calling for the assassination of a democratically elected president, even if he is a Marxist, achieves a new level of brainless, un-Christian lunkheadedness."
Robertson's call for the assassination of the president of Venezuela placed him ahead of Jerry Falwell, with whom he has been in a statistical dead heat for several months.
Robertson enjoyed several years alone in first place after his comical bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988. Falwell, who dropped in the standings during a period of near sanity as a frequent guest on ABC's Nightline, has more recently put together a string of outrageous statements to challenge Robertson for supremacy.
The two have been tied for first place since just after September 11, 2001, when both stated that the terrorist attacks were a form of divine judgment on America for abortion, homosexuality and other immoralities.
Robertson's statement yesterday is regarded by some analysts as his most outrageous ever. "At least with the 9/11 remarks, he had some grounding in theological tradition for making such a claim," remarked one pundit, who asked not to be named. "But to hear a self-styled Christian leader calling for the assassination of a democratically elected president, even if he is a Marxist, achieves a new level of brainless, un-Christian lunkheadedness."
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Purpose-Driven Presidential Campaign
Both Obama and McCain will appear at the Saddleback Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion at Saddleback Church on August 16.
Rick Warren will ask questions of each for an hour, with McCain (age over beauty? no, winner of a coin toss) going first.
What does SWNID think about this?
Rick Warren will ask questions of each for an hour, with McCain (age over beauty? no, winner of a coin toss) going first.
What does SWNID think about this?
- We commend Warren for managing this in a nonpartisan way. It makes us continue to think that he's a closet Campbellite.
- We think the one-at-a-time format is likely more enlightening than the so-called debates that preoccupy campaigns as decisive events.
- We don't know whether this will have any salutary effect on the public image of evangelical Christians or not, but it has to be better than something managed by the usual suspects (Rev. Robertson, Dr. Dobson, the late Rev. Falwell).
- But at times all the churchy political hullabaloo makes us tire of politics altogether. Yes, even us, the perpetually opinionated political blogger.
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Willimon, Invoking Jesus, Exposes Moral Bankruptcy of Pacificism
It's presently only in print, not online, but CT's "Village Green" feature for September 2010 is as apt a representation of the vacuity of Christian pacifism that we can imagine.
The question for the symposium-style column is, "Should the US stay militarily involved in Afghanistan?" The contributors are Jean Bethke Elshtain, ethicist from the University of Chicago; Chris Seiple, president of the Institute of Global Engagement; and fabled Methodist pulpiteer and bishop Will Willimon.
Elshtain and Seiple both argue eloquently for the inevitability and moral necessity of ongoing military engagement. Their moral reasoning is clear: not to be engaged is to consign Afghanistan's people and perhaps others to brutal oppression. The victims who would suffer most are those least powerful and most vulnerable.
Willimon, like his Duke Divinity buddies famously influenced by Anabaptists, argues for disengagement, or at least seems to. Asking, "how should American Christians think about this war?" he answers with an anecdote about the late Jerry Falwell, then invokes Jesus, and finally accuses some ill-defined object of having greater loyalty to Caesar than to Christ.
We take his answer to the actual question asked as, "No, because Jesus was a pacifist." We infer that answer from his insistence that we ask "What would Jesus say about this war?"
That we take as a question baiting us to offer a dominical saying as a proof-text that Jesus' disciples can go to war. Surely, Willimon prods tacitly, the Jesus who urged love for enemies and turning the other cheek cannot be invoked to justify all the killing in Afghanistan.
Well, we rise to the challenge. Here, Bishop Willimon, is our proof: Jesus told us to love our neighbors, love our enemies, and serve at the cost of our own lives.
It is not love to let my neighbor suffer oppression, whether my neighbor is the family next door whose home is invaded by brigands or a wife abused by her husband or a nation across the world terrorized by totalitarians with a perverse ideology. The fact that I haven't acted until the danger threatens me only heightens my own fallenness; it does not obviate my responsibility. The fact that in trying to do good I may do some harm, even much harm, does not excuse me from making the best effort I can. Choosing not to act--excusing passivity by saying I can't impose my views on others because I am not perfect, despairing of action because I cannot bring about an ideal outcome by acting--does not make me righteous. It does not love my neighbor to turn the other cheek when my neighbor is being victimized.
It isn't even love for my enemy to let him brutalize someone. My shameful recognition of my own fallenness tempers my view of my actions, so I aim as best I can to put a stop to the immediate evil and bring a modicum of peace to the victims, not to satisfy my viscerally distorted view of retribution (though the retributive element always remains in the act of intervention). I intervene with a mournful sense of grim necessity, not a triumphant sense of self-righteousness. But I still intervene, mindful that letting evil operate unchecked does not demonstrate love, even for those who do the evil. They need to be stopped, even with force if force alone will stop them. One did not show love for Pol Pot by letting him massacre fellow Cambodians.
Further, I act knowing full well that it is not the coercive power of "the good" that will transform the evil enemy. Force can only restrain evil. Something else, the self-sacrificial power of the Incarnate Son of God, transforms. Still, I cannot sit by if I have some limited power to liberate, however imperfectly, with the sword that Jesus' apostle Paul spoke of more directly than did the Lord himself.
Bishop Willimon, what do I say to those in my pastoral care who have volunteered to bear arms to liberate Afghanistan? Do I call them dupes of the corrupt, Christless military-industrial complex? Failures in Christian discipleship who have traded their birthright for a mess of patriotic pottage? Or do I affirm what their understanding of the gospel has led them to: that in playing a dangerous part in ending oppression, they are loving their neighbors and their enemies and so should proceed with caution, thought, care--indeed with reluctance and sorrow--but with determination to see the thing through to the best outcome that lies within the power entrusted to them in a fallen world still awaiting the arrival of the New Jerusalem?
Pacificism kills. It doesn't make me pure. Choosing not to act is not the action of love.
The question for the symposium-style column is, "Should the US stay militarily involved in Afghanistan?" The contributors are Jean Bethke Elshtain, ethicist from the University of Chicago; Chris Seiple, president of the Institute of Global Engagement; and fabled Methodist pulpiteer and bishop Will Willimon.
Elshtain and Seiple both argue eloquently for the inevitability and moral necessity of ongoing military engagement. Their moral reasoning is clear: not to be engaged is to consign Afghanistan's people and perhaps others to brutal oppression. The victims who would suffer most are those least powerful and most vulnerable.
Willimon, like his Duke Divinity buddies famously influenced by Anabaptists, argues for disengagement, or at least seems to. Asking, "how should American Christians think about this war?" he answers with an anecdote about the late Jerry Falwell, then invokes Jesus, and finally accuses some ill-defined object of having greater loyalty to Caesar than to Christ.
We take his answer to the actual question asked as, "No, because Jesus was a pacifist." We infer that answer from his insistence that we ask "What would Jesus say about this war?"
That we take as a question baiting us to offer a dominical saying as a proof-text that Jesus' disciples can go to war. Surely, Willimon prods tacitly, the Jesus who urged love for enemies and turning the other cheek cannot be invoked to justify all the killing in Afghanistan.
Well, we rise to the challenge. Here, Bishop Willimon, is our proof: Jesus told us to love our neighbors, love our enemies, and serve at the cost of our own lives.
It is not love to let my neighbor suffer oppression, whether my neighbor is the family next door whose home is invaded by brigands or a wife abused by her husband or a nation across the world terrorized by totalitarians with a perverse ideology. The fact that I haven't acted until the danger threatens me only heightens my own fallenness; it does not obviate my responsibility. The fact that in trying to do good I may do some harm, even much harm, does not excuse me from making the best effort I can. Choosing not to act--excusing passivity by saying I can't impose my views on others because I am not perfect, despairing of action because I cannot bring about an ideal outcome by acting--does not make me righteous. It does not love my neighbor to turn the other cheek when my neighbor is being victimized.
It isn't even love for my enemy to let him brutalize someone. My shameful recognition of my own fallenness tempers my view of my actions, so I aim as best I can to put a stop to the immediate evil and bring a modicum of peace to the victims, not to satisfy my viscerally distorted view of retribution (though the retributive element always remains in the act of intervention). I intervene with a mournful sense of grim necessity, not a triumphant sense of self-righteousness. But I still intervene, mindful that letting evil operate unchecked does not demonstrate love, even for those who do the evil. They need to be stopped, even with force if force alone will stop them. One did not show love for Pol Pot by letting him massacre fellow Cambodians.
Further, I act knowing full well that it is not the coercive power of "the good" that will transform the evil enemy. Force can only restrain evil. Something else, the self-sacrificial power of the Incarnate Son of God, transforms. Still, I cannot sit by if I have some limited power to liberate, however imperfectly, with the sword that Jesus' apostle Paul spoke of more directly than did the Lord himself.
Bishop Willimon, what do I say to those in my pastoral care who have volunteered to bear arms to liberate Afghanistan? Do I call them dupes of the corrupt, Christless military-industrial complex? Failures in Christian discipleship who have traded their birthright for a mess of patriotic pottage? Or do I affirm what their understanding of the gospel has led them to: that in playing a dangerous part in ending oppression, they are loving their neighbors and their enemies and so should proceed with caution, thought, care--indeed with reluctance and sorrow--but with determination to see the thing through to the best outcome that lies within the power entrusted to them in a fallen world still awaiting the arrival of the New Jerusalem?
Pacificism kills. It doesn't make me pure. Choosing not to act is not the action of love.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Snow Job?
Years ago, a much younger family of SWNIDs lived in a community with a very large Baptist church famous for its fleet of buses that brought people to its services each Sunday. While the buses were nationally famous, locally the church was famous for offering various extrinsic motivators for attendance. On various Sundays, visitors could be gifted with various geegaws as an incentive/reward for going to church and being invited to accept Jesus (and for men, get a haircut, but that's another subject).
In our sojourn in that community, this saga came to its climax when a few hundred baby chicken carcasses were found in the dumpster of a Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge not far from the church's building, just a few days after Easter Sunday. The local press asked around and heard a story that the church had offered a free baby chick to every child who rode the bus to church on Easter.
As the selling or giving of baby chickens was forbidden by law in the state where the church was located, an intrepid reporter asked the church for a statement on the event. The church's spokesman (not spokesperson, we note) indicated that he had no knowledge of any contraband chicks. Local police chose not to investigate.
All this is prelude to the story in today's Inside Higher Ed detailing Liberty University's opening of a ski park and lodge for its students, featuring Snowflex, an artificial snow that never melts (eternally secure?). The story notes that the $4 million facility is one of several on the campus founded by the late Dr. Jerry Falwell--pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia--as an incentive for students to enroll and a substitute for the more nefarious recreations common on non-Baptist campuses.
We make the connection between these two events not to suggest that Snowflex is as illegal in Virginia as pet chicks are in other jurisdictions. Rather, we note, as did the alert reporter for Inside Higher Ed, that the educational philosophy of baiting individuals with extrinsic offers is a well-established one among a particular set of Baptists.
SWNID is not down with such extrinsics. Recognizing that college life entails more than study--that a campus must provide sufficiently pleasant housing, food, socialization and recreation for its students mental and physical health and that such can be experiences that enhance educational outcomes--we balk at the point that a recreational facility is seen more as an incentive to recruitment than an aid to purposeful student development.
The latter is always the former: good student life makes it easier to recruit. The line between these two is not drawn with a bold, thick marker. But when the core life of an institution is not the primary means of drawing a student to the institution, the institution takes on a battle for not just the soul of the student but the soul of the institution. Once they've been induced, students have to be kept. If they came for the pet chicks, will they stay for Jesus? What resources will the institution devote to the next offer? For what might those resources have been used otherwise?
Unlike churches, who can extrinsically induce prospects and bear no public responsibility for them if they refuse to return, universities are supposed to retain students who enroll. If they don't, one suspects that the students were induced to enroll under false pretenses and left in disappointment when they discovered the truth. We therefore deem Liberty's strategy a bad one.
We add to this observation a second, that Christian colleges that highlight their difference with secular counterparts as the absence of sex, booze and drugs, are missing an opportunity. Christian campuses, even poorly managed ones, have dramatically less partying than others. But in our view the mission of Christian higher ed ought to be more than the preservation of old-school in loco parentis. There's a world to be changed and a people to be equipped for the changing. Staying sober and chaste is a part of that, but it isn't the only part or even the first. Schools that put that first are aiming low.
In our sojourn in that community, this saga came to its climax when a few hundred baby chicken carcasses were found in the dumpster of a Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge not far from the church's building, just a few days after Easter Sunday. The local press asked around and heard a story that the church had offered a free baby chick to every child who rode the bus to church on Easter.
As the selling or giving of baby chickens was forbidden by law in the state where the church was located, an intrepid reporter asked the church for a statement on the event. The church's spokesman (not spokesperson, we note) indicated that he had no knowledge of any contraband chicks. Local police chose not to investigate.
All this is prelude to the story in today's Inside Higher Ed detailing Liberty University's opening of a ski park and lodge for its students, featuring Snowflex, an artificial snow that never melts (eternally secure?). The story notes that the $4 million facility is one of several on the campus founded by the late Dr. Jerry Falwell--pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia--as an incentive for students to enroll and a substitute for the more nefarious recreations common on non-Baptist campuses.
We make the connection between these two events not to suggest that Snowflex is as illegal in Virginia as pet chicks are in other jurisdictions. Rather, we note, as did the alert reporter for Inside Higher Ed, that the educational philosophy of baiting individuals with extrinsic offers is a well-established one among a particular set of Baptists.
SWNID is not down with such extrinsics. Recognizing that college life entails more than study--that a campus must provide sufficiently pleasant housing, food, socialization and recreation for its students mental and physical health and that such can be experiences that enhance educational outcomes--we balk at the point that a recreational facility is seen more as an incentive to recruitment than an aid to purposeful student development.
The latter is always the former: good student life makes it easier to recruit. The line between these two is not drawn with a bold, thick marker. But when the core life of an institution is not the primary means of drawing a student to the institution, the institution takes on a battle for not just the soul of the student but the soul of the institution. Once they've been induced, students have to be kept. If they came for the pet chicks, will they stay for Jesus? What resources will the institution devote to the next offer? For what might those resources have been used otherwise?
Unlike churches, who can extrinsically induce prospects and bear no public responsibility for them if they refuse to return, universities are supposed to retain students who enroll. If they don't, one suspects that the students were induced to enroll under false pretenses and left in disappointment when they discovered the truth. We therefore deem Liberty's strategy a bad one.
We add to this observation a second, that Christian colleges that highlight their difference with secular counterparts as the absence of sex, booze and drugs, are missing an opportunity. Christian campuses, even poorly managed ones, have dramatically less partying than others. But in our view the mission of Christian higher ed ought to be more than the preservation of old-school in loco parentis. There's a world to be changed and a people to be equipped for the changing. Staying sober and chaste is a part of that, but it isn't the only part or even the first. Schools that put that first are aiming low.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Anti-Apocalyptic Apocalyptism
The Gray Lady gives space to one Matthew Avery Sutton, associate professor of history at Washington State University and author of Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America to suggest that Christian apocalyptic expectation may fuel the rise of a seriously libertarian candidate who could receive the GOP nomination for POTUS and actually win the election.
SWNID responds, "Hmm!"
Sutton offers a history of American apocalyptism that's in the SWNIDish view just fair enough to be noted and just imprecise enough to leave the impression that super-strong end-time speculation is a serious part of many evangelicals' daily lives and decision-making. As an example, Sutton offers:
Graham? Really? Yes, Graham believes in the return of Christ and has often stated that it could be imminent. But we defy Sutton to offer any repeated example of Graham indulging in speculation that this or that move might presage the end. More specifically, we defy him to show that Graham held to the notion that the return of Christ is connected to the rise of one-world government. One must observe the differences before drawing conclusions on the similarities.
We emphasize that point because it appears to us that Sutton routinely assumes that all expectation of Christ's return among evangelicals is somehow subject to the concomitant belief that one-world government will arise and that all moves toward the same must be opposed. This is, of course, nonsense.
It's especially nonsense because even those who profess to believe as much don't believe it enough to act on the belief in a serious, panicky kind of way. SWNID asserts that most evangelical Christians who take seriously the idea that a one-world government will arise near the end, and who even wonder whether this or that political development is the prelude to such, nevertheless are unwilling to stake a significant decision on that outcome. To wit: few liquidate their assets and households to acquire gold, rural land and firearms. To wit: few act differently about financial and career planning than do others in their social group. To wit: few in the end decide to back a political candidate because that political candidate seems least likely to cooperate with a one-world government.
An example: Years ago, we were at one of those academic meetings that we are blessed to attend, this one populated entirely by leaders of Christian IHEs. A person leading a session was talking about changes in federal regulations for IHEs, mostly stuff about steps of compliance for continued good standing to receive Title IV student-aid funds, the lifeblood of American higher ed. In the Q&A, someone asked this gentleman where he thought everything was headed. He replied, "Well my answer is determined by my eschatology. I believe that we're headed toward a one-world government." So he said, things will get more stringent, and eventually all of us Christian IHEs will be made illegal. The remark garnered the kinds of grunts that signify grudging assent to an inconvenient truth.
SWNID guarantees that not a single officer of a single IHE at that meeting went home to develop a contingency plan for keeping some kind of leadership training operation going through the tribulation, and that includes those who don't believe in a pre-tribulational rapture. And these folks are about as hard-core as they come.
Granted some folks do have their decisions dictated by specifics of apocalyptic speculation, and maybe a few more will in 2012, thanks to the miserable state of the economy. But last we checked, Mitt Romney still had a lot of political support, more than Michelle Bachmann and Ron Paul put together. And Rick Perry's sudden rise (and fall?) can hardly be explained as the apocalyptic libertarian vote finally having found a voice.
In other words, this stuff plays virtually no role in political decision-making.
The end of Professor Sutton's essay is, we believe, the best explanation for the anxiety that it presents:
There it is! The rise of a libertarian-minded conservative would be The End of the World as We Know It. There's the secular, liberal version of Armaggedon: a world in which Bible-thumpers are in charge and the welfare state is systematically dismantled. The main prop of their smaller-government message is a bunch of hooey about a one-world government and the rise of the antichrist. How quaint, but how pernicious and ignorant! Pray to the God who isn't there that this doesn't happen!
OK, here we go on the SWNIDish big picture.
First, why do so many Christians listen to and seem to take seriously the warnings that this or that political thingie means that the end is near? Well, largely because such announcements are presented by people who seem knowledgeable, who appeal to deeply held respect for God and fear of his judgment, and who prey on the average American Christian's ignorance of the Bible and unease about her or his relative comfort. Folks want to believe these talented preachers, don't want to be unprepared for judgment, don't really know much about the Bible, and don't feel that they are entitled to the prosperity that they enjoy, though they can't really contemplate life without it.
Second, why do so few Christian act on these warnings? First, because they're at least unconsciously hedging their bets to preserve their prosperity in the present. Second, because acting on the hard things that belief demands is, well, hard. But thirdly, and here we're going out on a limb, in their heart of hearts they know there's something fishy about what they're being told. They realize that per the typical dispensational-premillennial description of the "rapture" and the "tribulation," the God who is Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is going to do weird, inexplicable stuff before he brings his world to his intended goal. So they're holding out some unconscious skepticism about the conclusion.
Which brings us to another conclusion: most Christians, whatever they claim, functionally are "pan-millennialists," including our apocalyptically minded colleagues at the aforementioned academic conference. That is, they trust God to take care of the future and don't worry much about the details (except their personal details, about which they worry as most people worry, as in "will I keep my health and wealth?"). Apocalyptic hucksters may sell books and gain a following in the media, but they don't influence the substantial decisions of more than a handful of tragically misled people.
Which is why the Republicans, evangelicals and all, will nominate a relatively mainstream conservative, who will be able to govern only as conservatively as Congress and the judiciary and the body politic allow him to govern. And why people like Dr. Sutton should be ignored by their prospective audience of lefty seculars, who shouldn't be taken in by his prophecy that somehow the weirdos are taking over.
Without realizing it, though, Sutton has indirectly raised a point of theology that does impinge on political decision-making for thoughtful Christians. The Bible's apocalyptic imagery portrays the fall of the autocratic human empire to the reign of God. Along the way and especially in the end, God, not overweening humans who build kingdoms and empires and towers to make a name for themselves and become like God, will rule all. Humans, when they try to rule all, always fail in the end. Utopian claims are inherently and fatally flawed.
That observation cautions Christians against the hope that their government can do bunches of stuff for them. They look for incremental progress in human affairs that's grounded in the transformation of the human character. They don't look for geniuses to take over and make things better.
That means that they don't expect a utopia to emerge by means of smaller government, either. They just don't want a government that makes things worse by trying to do what government inherently can't do because of the inherent weakness of all people who govern and who are governed.
So chill, Dr. Sutton. Wild-eyed masses of people who read Left Behind for instructions on voting--they're just not out there. And the world won't collapse if the Bismarkian experiment with welfare statism happens to gently be reversed to a more appropriate point of deployment.
SWNID responds, "Hmm!"
Sutton offers a history of American apocalyptism that's in the SWNIDish view just fair enough to be noted and just imprecise enough to leave the impression that super-strong end-time speculation is a serious part of many evangelicals' daily lives and decision-making. As an example, Sutton offers:
Conservative preachers, evangelists and media personalities of the 20th century, like Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple McPherson, Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell, shared these beliefs.
Graham? Really? Yes, Graham believes in the return of Christ and has often stated that it could be imminent. But we defy Sutton to offer any repeated example of Graham indulging in speculation that this or that move might presage the end. More specifically, we defy him to show that Graham held to the notion that the return of Christ is connected to the rise of one-world government. One must observe the differences before drawing conclusions on the similarities.
We emphasize that point because it appears to us that Sutton routinely assumes that all expectation of Christ's return among evangelicals is somehow subject to the concomitant belief that one-world government will arise and that all moves toward the same must be opposed. This is, of course, nonsense.
It's especially nonsense because even those who profess to believe as much don't believe it enough to act on the belief in a serious, panicky kind of way. SWNID asserts that most evangelical Christians who take seriously the idea that a one-world government will arise near the end, and who even wonder whether this or that political development is the prelude to such, nevertheless are unwilling to stake a significant decision on that outcome. To wit: few liquidate their assets and households to acquire gold, rural land and firearms. To wit: few act differently about financial and career planning than do others in their social group. To wit: few in the end decide to back a political candidate because that political candidate seems least likely to cooperate with a one-world government.
An example: Years ago, we were at one of those academic meetings that we are blessed to attend, this one populated entirely by leaders of Christian IHEs. A person leading a session was talking about changes in federal regulations for IHEs, mostly stuff about steps of compliance for continued good standing to receive Title IV student-aid funds, the lifeblood of American higher ed. In the Q&A, someone asked this gentleman where he thought everything was headed. He replied, "Well my answer is determined by my eschatology. I believe that we're headed toward a one-world government." So he said, things will get more stringent, and eventually all of us Christian IHEs will be made illegal. The remark garnered the kinds of grunts that signify grudging assent to an inconvenient truth.
SWNID guarantees that not a single officer of a single IHE at that meeting went home to develop a contingency plan for keeping some kind of leadership training operation going through the tribulation, and that includes those who don't believe in a pre-tribulational rapture. And these folks are about as hard-core as they come.
Granted some folks do have their decisions dictated by specifics of apocalyptic speculation, and maybe a few more will in 2012, thanks to the miserable state of the economy. But last we checked, Mitt Romney still had a lot of political support, more than Michelle Bachmann and Ron Paul put together. And Rick Perry's sudden rise (and fall?) can hardly be explained as the apocalyptic libertarian vote finally having found a voice.
In other words, this stuff plays virtually no role in political decision-making.
The end of Professor Sutton's essay is, we believe, the best explanation for the anxiety that it presents:
Barring the rapture, Mrs. Bachmann or Mr. Perry could well ride the apocalyptic anti-statism of conservative Christians into the Oval Office. Indeed, the tribulation may be upon us.
There it is! The rise of a libertarian-minded conservative would be The End of the World as We Know It. There's the secular, liberal version of Armaggedon: a world in which Bible-thumpers are in charge and the welfare state is systematically dismantled. The main prop of their smaller-government message is a bunch of hooey about a one-world government and the rise of the antichrist. How quaint, but how pernicious and ignorant! Pray to the God who isn't there that this doesn't happen!
OK, here we go on the SWNIDish big picture.
First, why do so many Christians listen to and seem to take seriously the warnings that this or that political thingie means that the end is near? Well, largely because such announcements are presented by people who seem knowledgeable, who appeal to deeply held respect for God and fear of his judgment, and who prey on the average American Christian's ignorance of the Bible and unease about her or his relative comfort. Folks want to believe these talented preachers, don't want to be unprepared for judgment, don't really know much about the Bible, and don't feel that they are entitled to the prosperity that they enjoy, though they can't really contemplate life without it.
Second, why do so few Christian act on these warnings? First, because they're at least unconsciously hedging their bets to preserve their prosperity in the present. Second, because acting on the hard things that belief demands is, well, hard. But thirdly, and here we're going out on a limb, in their heart of hearts they know there's something fishy about what they're being told. They realize that per the typical dispensational-premillennial description of the "rapture" and the "tribulation," the God who is Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is going to do weird, inexplicable stuff before he brings his world to his intended goal. So they're holding out some unconscious skepticism about the conclusion.
Which brings us to another conclusion: most Christians, whatever they claim, functionally are "pan-millennialists," including our apocalyptically minded colleagues at the aforementioned academic conference. That is, they trust God to take care of the future and don't worry much about the details (except their personal details, about which they worry as most people worry, as in "will I keep my health and wealth?"). Apocalyptic hucksters may sell books and gain a following in the media, but they don't influence the substantial decisions of more than a handful of tragically misled people.
Which is why the Republicans, evangelicals and all, will nominate a relatively mainstream conservative, who will be able to govern only as conservatively as Congress and the judiciary and the body politic allow him to govern. And why people like Dr. Sutton should be ignored by their prospective audience of lefty seculars, who shouldn't be taken in by his prophecy that somehow the weirdos are taking over.
Without realizing it, though, Sutton has indirectly raised a point of theology that does impinge on political decision-making for thoughtful Christians. The Bible's apocalyptic imagery portrays the fall of the autocratic human empire to the reign of God. Along the way and especially in the end, God, not overweening humans who build kingdoms and empires and towers to make a name for themselves and become like God, will rule all. Humans, when they try to rule all, always fail in the end. Utopian claims are inherently and fatally flawed.
That observation cautions Christians against the hope that their government can do bunches of stuff for them. They look for incremental progress in human affairs that's grounded in the transformation of the human character. They don't look for geniuses to take over and make things better.
That means that they don't expect a utopia to emerge by means of smaller government, either. They just don't want a government that makes things worse by trying to do what government inherently can't do because of the inherent weakness of all people who govern and who are governed.
So chill, Dr. Sutton. Wild-eyed masses of people who read Left Behind for instructions on voting--they're just not out there. And the world won't collapse if the Bismarkian experiment with welfare statism happens to gently be reversed to a more appropriate point of deployment.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Why Voters Can't Choose "Normalcy" in 2008
In the 1920 election, Warren Harding, an undistinguished senator from Ohio who somehow gained the Republican presidential nomination, ran with a pledge to restore "normalcy" (a word that apparently was coined for his campaign, or so we have heard) after the tumult of the Great War and Wilson's crusade for the League of Nations. Of course, the results were disastrous. Harding proved to be a president whose incompetence has only been exceeded by the dismal Andrew Johnson. In uneventful times, he managed to make a mess of things.
The times we live in are far from uneventful, and they are likely to get worse before they get better. That means that 2008 cannot be another election in which voters pine for "normalcy" after difficulty. They must steel themselves for the struggle ahead.
Nothing illustrates the nature of that struggle better than an opinion article in the Sunday Telegraph by Amir Taheri, a former Iranian newspaper editor now living in exile in Europe. Taheri argues with considerable persuasiveness that Iran's president Ahmadinejad sees George W. Bush as an aberration--an American president willing to fight rather than flee when faced with difficulty. So he's waiting for Bush to retire from the scene, meanwhile preparing a nuclear weapons program that will allow Iran to lead a long, twilight struggle in which American military supremacy will be checked by atomic weapons and Islam's advantages of oil, population and devotion will prove decisive.
Taheri's piece is a disturbing must-read, a chilling glimpse into the mind of the Iranian president's vision of the future.
And if he's right, the only way to foil Ahmadinejad's plans is to elect an American president willing to carry on the struggle as Bush has. And that person would be ...
Any Democrat? Please!
John McCain? He's been rattling his saber lately, but his record of mercurial posturing doesn't promise much by way of decisive military leadership. He could do it, but do we know he will?
Mitt Romney? The governor of Massachusetts has no foreign policy bona fides. He's a different kind of unknown from McCain, but still very much unknown.
George Allen? Bill Frist? We're getting nervous here.
Condi? Not running.
So that leaves ...
Rudy Giuliani. He's the only one whom we can imagine has the intestinal fortitude to face down Ahmadinejad and his Shiite head cases.
So we say it yet again: the republic needs the decisive leadership of a successful federal prosecutor and mayor who cleaned up America's biggest city and led it through the worst of times.
UPDATE: Here's one more good reason to back Rudy in '08: Jerry Falwell today said, "I couldn't support him for president."
The times we live in are far from uneventful, and they are likely to get worse before they get better. That means that 2008 cannot be another election in which voters pine for "normalcy" after difficulty. They must steel themselves for the struggle ahead.
Nothing illustrates the nature of that struggle better than an opinion article in the Sunday Telegraph by Amir Taheri, a former Iranian newspaper editor now living in exile in Europe. Taheri argues with considerable persuasiveness that Iran's president Ahmadinejad sees George W. Bush as an aberration--an American president willing to fight rather than flee when faced with difficulty. So he's waiting for Bush to retire from the scene, meanwhile preparing a nuclear weapons program that will allow Iran to lead a long, twilight struggle in which American military supremacy will be checked by atomic weapons and Islam's advantages of oil, population and devotion will prove decisive.
Taheri's piece is a disturbing must-read, a chilling glimpse into the mind of the Iranian president's vision of the future.
And if he's right, the only way to foil Ahmadinejad's plans is to elect an American president willing to carry on the struggle as Bush has. And that person would be ...
Any Democrat? Please!
John McCain? He's been rattling his saber lately, but his record of mercurial posturing doesn't promise much by way of decisive military leadership. He could do it, but do we know he will?
Mitt Romney? The governor of Massachusetts has no foreign policy bona fides. He's a different kind of unknown from McCain, but still very much unknown.
George Allen? Bill Frist? We're getting nervous here.
Condi? Not running.
So that leaves ...
Rudy Giuliani. He's the only one whom we can imagine has the intestinal fortitude to face down Ahmadinejad and his Shiite head cases.
So we say it yet again: the republic needs the decisive leadership of a successful federal prosecutor and mayor who cleaned up America's biggest city and led it through the worst of times.
UPDATE: Here's one more good reason to back Rudy in '08: Jerry Falwell today said, "I couldn't support him for president."
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Defying Odds, Robertson Embarrasses Christians Even More
Experts said he couldn't possibly say something more awful than his remarks about Hugo Chavez, but now he has.
Televangelist and professional Christian embarrassment Pat Robertson today attributed the stroke suffered by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as God's judgment against him for withdrawing from Gaza. CNN quotes Robertson further as saying:
In response to criticisms of Robertson's remarks from various quarters, Robertson spokeswoman Angell Watts said:
Robertson's lead in the standings for Most Embarrassing Christian for 2006 now appears insurmountable, though the year is only five days old. Rumors are circulating that Jerry Falwell may announce his retirement from ministry in despair of ever overtaking Robertson.
Meanwhile, at SWNID headquarters, the prognostication department has issued the following bulletin:
We predict that Mr. Robertson will himself expire in the not too distant future of some physical ailment that some will find justification in attributing to divine judgment against him for every stupid thing he's said in the name of God on his nutty television program.
Televangelist and professional Christian embarrassment Pat Robertson today attributed the stroke suffered by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as God's judgment against him for withdrawing from Gaza. CNN quotes Robertson further as saying:
He was dividing God's land, and I would say, "Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the [European Union], the United Nations or the United States of America."
God says, "This land belongs to me, and you'd better leave it alone."
In response to criticisms of Robertson's remarks from various quarters, Robertson spokeswoman Angell Watts said:
What they're basically saying is, How dare Pat Robertson quote the Bible!"
This is what the word of God says. This is nothing new to the Christian community.
Ms. Watts is noted by observers as apparently training to succeed Robertson as Most Embarrassing Christian when he is removed from the scene (see futher below).
Robertson apparently did not comment on whether overweight men in their late 70s and under enormous stress can be expected to suffer debilitating or fatal strokes. One source, who shall remain unnamed, suggested that his medical insight rivals his theological understanding.Robertson's lead in the standings for Most Embarrassing Christian for 2006 now appears insurmountable, though the year is only five days old. Rumors are circulating that Jerry Falwell may announce his retirement from ministry in despair of ever overtaking Robertson.
Meanwhile, at SWNID headquarters, the prognostication department has issued the following bulletin:
We predict that Mr. Robertson will himself expire in the not too distant future of some physical ailment that some will find justification in attributing to divine judgment against him for every stupid thing he's said in the name of God on his nutty television program.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Robertson Scores Again in Most Embarrassing Christian Competition
Televangelist and erstwhile Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson has scored again in the competition to be named Most embarrassing Christian ever.
Noting the recent spate of earthquakes and hurricanes, Robertson said on CNN's late edition, "These things are starting to hit with amazing regularity."
Robertson could not say whether hurricanes and earthquakes have been irregular in the past.
Continuing, he opined,
Such a text does not exist in the "the letter of the apostle Paul to the church of Thessalonia," that is, in either letter to the church in Thessalonica. Robertson was apparently trying to recall the statement of Jesus in Matthew 24:7-8 and parallels, actually quoted in the article linked above, though not by Robertson. He further assumes that Jesus' statement is about increased frequency or more regular occurrence of such disasters, even though the text says nothing of any increase, rather than simply their ongoing occurrence despite the coming of God's kingdom, an idea that coheres with the context of Jesus' remarks.
Robertson denied himself additional points in the Most Embarrassing standings by not claiming oracular powers of interpretation in this instance. WorldNet Daily notes:
Robertson also received a few points for chauvinism with the clause "for anybody who knows what it's like to have a wife going into labor." Alert judges noted that this selection of words implies that men with wives who have experienced labor can understand a text about the onset of labor pains while women who have actually experienced labor are excluded.
Robertson's remark has prompted some observers of the Most Embarrassing Christian competition to call for a quick end to it. "Robertson is so far ahead, it's impossible to see how anyone could ever pass him," offered one informed fan. "Finding someone in bed with a live boy or a dead girl wouldn't be enough to pass Robertson now, as Jimmy Swaggert proved twenty years ago." But backers of Jerry Falwell insist that he may still have a bon mot left that can bring him back within striking distance.
Noting the recent spate of earthquakes and hurricanes, Robertson said on CNN's late edition, "These things are starting to hit with amazing regularity."
Robertson could not say whether hurricanes and earthquakes have been irregular in the past.
Continuing, he opined,
If you read back in the Bible, the letter of the apostle Paul to the church of Thessalonia [sic], he said that in the latter days before the end of the age that the Earth would be caught up in what he called the birth pangs of a new order. And for anybody who knows what it's like to have a wife going into labor, you know how these labor pains begin to hit. I don't have any special word that says this is that, but it could be suspiciously like that.
Such a text does not exist in the "the letter of the apostle Paul to the church of Thessalonia," that is, in either letter to the church in Thessalonica. Robertson was apparently trying to recall the statement of Jesus in Matthew 24:7-8 and parallels, actually quoted in the article linked above, though not by Robertson. He further assumes that Jesus' statement is about increased frequency or more regular occurrence of such disasters, even though the text says nothing of any increase, rather than simply their ongoing occurrence despite the coming of God's kingdom, an idea that coheres with the context of Jesus' remarks.
Robertson denied himself additional points in the Most Embarrassing standings by not claiming oracular powers of interpretation in this instance. WorldNet Daily notes:
Robertson was awarded some additional points for this statement, which, while not claiming divine revelation to interpret the Bible in this instance, does indicate that he expects such revelation occasionally and is willing to claim it publicly. Misnaming a biblical book and mis-citing a text while at the same time claiming oracular interpretation would constitute an embarrassment trifecta seldom achieved in international Christian Embarrassment competition.When asked if the world was approaching that [final] moment, Robertson said, "It's possible. I don't have any special revelation [emphasis inserted] to say it is but the Bible does indicate such a time will happen in the end of time. And could this be it? It might be."
Robertson also received a few points for chauvinism with the clause "for anybody who knows what it's like to have a wife going into labor." Alert judges noted that this selection of words implies that men with wives who have experienced labor can understand a text about the onset of labor pains while women who have actually experienced labor are excluded.
Robertson's remark has prompted some observers of the Most Embarrassing Christian competition to call for a quick end to it. "Robertson is so far ahead, it's impossible to see how anyone could ever pass him," offered one informed fan. "Finding someone in bed with a live boy or a dead girl wouldn't be enough to pass Robertson now, as Jimmy Swaggert proved twenty years ago." But backers of Jerry Falwell insist that he may still have a bon mot left that can bring him back within striking distance.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Robertson Follows Clinton Example, Widens Lead in Embarrassment Standings
Responding to criticism of his remarks about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, professional Christian embarrassment Pat Robertson has issued an apology coupled with the remark:
Observers note that Robertson's claim to have been misinterpreted is seriously weakened by the context of his original remark, which included: "If he [Chavez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it."
Inside sources reveal that Robertson's inspiration for this pallid equivocation was President Bill Clinton's famous remark, "It depends on the definition of is." Those sources refuse to speculate whether Robertson will continue to imitate the two-term Democrat president.
Robertson's apology and equivocation have moved him further ahead of rival Jerry Falwell in the standings as Most Embarrassing Christian Ever.
(Hat tip to Son of SWNID for the idea. See also, SWNID is loath to admit, the fine satirical piece on the Brown Daily Squeal.)
"I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him
out.' And 'take him out' can be a number of things, including kidnapping;
there are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing
him. I was misinterpreted by the AP [Associated Press], but that happens all
the time."
Observers note that Robertson's claim to have been misinterpreted is seriously weakened by the context of his original remark, which included: "If he [Chavez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it."
Inside sources reveal that Robertson's inspiration for this pallid equivocation was President Bill Clinton's famous remark, "It depends on the definition of is." Those sources refuse to speculate whether Robertson will continue to imitate the two-term Democrat president.
Robertson's apology and equivocation have moved him further ahead of rival Jerry Falwell in the standings as Most Embarrassing Christian Ever.
(Hat tip to Son of SWNID for the idea. See also, SWNID is loath to admit, the fine satirical piece on the Brown Daily Squeal.)
Sunday, June 25, 2006
The Coming Buzz: Balmer's Thy Kingdom Come
You heard it here first: Randall Balmer's new book, Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical's Lament, is going to be a big subject of buzz for the coming months. Expect to see Balmer on many programs and his book cited by many commentators. Cool Christians in the coffeehouses will be talking about nothing but this.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, which like all higher-education-associated operations jealously guards its revenue sources, has uncharacteristically provided free access on the web to its recently-published excerpt from the forthcoming book. Another excerpt is available from NPR, which generally operates for free except for the incessant begging.
SWNID has utter respect for Balmer. He is a careful scholar whose work generates ideas instead of just recycling them. We have met him at the annual Stone-Campbell Journal Conference, shared with him a meal at a local Chinese buffet, and also judge him to be a fine fellow.
So we offer the following critique with some reticence, as it is based only on the reading of these two excerpts and not on the book as a whole and as we will be rather sharp in one aspect of our assessment.
We say that Balmer is probably offering the best critique so far of the excesses of the so-called "religious right." Insofar as he finds evidence of its impotence on its signature issue (abortion), inconsistency in many of its pronouncements, what appears to be a lust for power on the part of many of its leaders, and an overall co-option by its political allies (libertarian and pro-business conservatives among the Republicans), he is on the mark.
The book's most important contribution looks like it will be the historical analysis that supports such characterizations. In the excerpts Balmer notes early, pro-abortion remarks by evangelical leaders and certain patterns of early engagement that suggests that the movement's leaders came late to the antiabortion movement, instead responding to a threat to their power in the government's removal of Bob Jones University's tax-exempt status.
More broadly, Balmer is saying what Stephen Carter in God's Name in Vain said several years ago about both the religious right and the religious left: when religious people take up partisan politics--as opposed to speaking to political issues from a prophetic stance--they inevitably compromise their principles and lose their ability to effect genuine change.
So where's the aspect of the SWNID critique for which we stated reticence? Here goes:
Balmer looks to have sullied his book by parroting at points the partisan positions and rhetoric of the religious left. For example (from the Chronicle):
What this riposte and others like it do is not so much enliven what could be a dull exposition as engage in the same thing that Balmer decries on the other side. Essentially Balmer's rhetoric identifies Christian morality to one side of the issues of economics and national security. It assumes, despite considerable debate on the subject and considerable evidence to support those who differ with Balmer, that lower tax rates for the rich are a bad thing for the poor, that a higher minimum wage would be good for the poor, and that human economic activity is by definition bad for the environment. Elsewhere, Balmer assumes that the justification for the Iraq War patently violated Christian just-war doctrine, again a widely debated point with substantial arguments on the others side. Worse, Balmer at points assumes that the Bush administration has tortured prisoners, a point for which less evidence exists than existed for Saddam's possession of WMD, and so evangelical organizations' failure to make deliberate pronouncement against said torture was an egregious sin.
Note that we don't fault Balmer for being, apparently, a Democrat. He lives in Connecticut and teaches at Barnard College of Columbia University, for goodness sake. He hasn't been to a public toilet in five years that didn't have "Bush Lied, People Died!" written on the walls. His colleagues and neighbors probably think that he's a radical right-wing nutcase for even calling himself an evangelical. The body of Christ is more than big enough for his political views. And the opposition party, as we note just about every day, could use some responsible minds in it.
What we fault him for is not acknowledging that there are serious arguments on the other side. They may not be made by the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Donald Wildmon and James Dobson. Check that: they are not made by those guys. But some of us believe in keeping the minimum wage where it is or in waging war in places like Iraq precisely because of our commitment to help the poor and oppressed. We've seen the failures of socialistic and pacifistic approaches and the successes of free markets and sagacious use of military force. So we're ready to try something different from Johnson's War on Poverty and Sweden's foreign policy.
Balmer's rhetoric, however, doesn't invite a reopening of debate on these issues. It assumes that all the truth is on the religious left.
That's unfortunate. If true of the whole book, it will make the book less than it could be. Stephen Carter's book may not have as rich a historical canvas as Balmer's (though the law professor Carter does pretty well with history too). But he notes the faults of both sides in absolutizing the rhetoric of their positions versus absolutizing the principles that motivate them. Balmer may not have made this critical move (the Chronicle's excerpt contains the problematic rhetoric; NPR's does not; so perhaps the book as a whole will stay above water).
Christianity is about release for the captives. That's an absolute. What that looks like politically, however, is always open to debate. Balmer may have just missed the opportunity to reopen the debate among evangelicals. On this point we hope that the rest of the book is better than the one excerpt suggests.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, which like all higher-education-associated operations jealously guards its revenue sources, has uncharacteristically provided free access on the web to its recently-published excerpt from the forthcoming book. Another excerpt is available from NPR, which generally operates for free except for the incessant begging.
SWNID has utter respect for Balmer. He is a careful scholar whose work generates ideas instead of just recycling them. We have met him at the annual Stone-Campbell Journal Conference, shared with him a meal at a local Chinese buffet, and also judge him to be a fine fellow.
So we offer the following critique with some reticence, as it is based only on the reading of these two excerpts and not on the book as a whole and as we will be rather sharp in one aspect of our assessment.
We say that Balmer is probably offering the best critique so far of the excesses of the so-called "religious right." Insofar as he finds evidence of its impotence on its signature issue (abortion), inconsistency in many of its pronouncements, what appears to be a lust for power on the part of many of its leaders, and an overall co-option by its political allies (libertarian and pro-business conservatives among the Republicans), he is on the mark.
The book's most important contribution looks like it will be the historical analysis that supports such characterizations. In the excerpts Balmer notes early, pro-abortion remarks by evangelical leaders and certain patterns of early engagement that suggests that the movement's leaders came late to the antiabortion movement, instead responding to a threat to their power in the government's removal of Bob Jones University's tax-exempt status.
More broadly, Balmer is saying what Stephen Carter in God's Name in Vain said several years ago about both the religious right and the religious left: when religious people take up partisan politics--as opposed to speaking to political issues from a prophetic stance--they inevitably compromise their principles and lose their ability to effect genuine change.
So where's the aspect of the SWNID critique for which we stated reticence? Here goes:
Balmer looks to have sullied his book by parroting at points the partisan positions and rhetoric of the religious left. For example (from the Chronicle):
I went to Sunday school nearly every week of my childhood. But I must have been absent the day they told us that the followers of Jesus were obliged to secure even greater economic advantages for the affluent, to deprive those Jesus called "the least of these" of a living wage, and to despoil the environment by sacrificing it on the altar of free enterprise. I missed the lesson telling me that I should turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, even those designated as my enemies.
What this riposte and others like it do is not so much enliven what could be a dull exposition as engage in the same thing that Balmer decries on the other side. Essentially Balmer's rhetoric identifies Christian morality to one side of the issues of economics and national security. It assumes, despite considerable debate on the subject and considerable evidence to support those who differ with Balmer, that lower tax rates for the rich are a bad thing for the poor, that a higher minimum wage would be good for the poor, and that human economic activity is by definition bad for the environment. Elsewhere, Balmer assumes that the justification for the Iraq War patently violated Christian just-war doctrine, again a widely debated point with substantial arguments on the others side. Worse, Balmer at points assumes that the Bush administration has tortured prisoners, a point for which less evidence exists than existed for Saddam's possession of WMD, and so evangelical organizations' failure to make deliberate pronouncement against said torture was an egregious sin.
Note that we don't fault Balmer for being, apparently, a Democrat. He lives in Connecticut and teaches at Barnard College of Columbia University, for goodness sake. He hasn't been to a public toilet in five years that didn't have "Bush Lied, People Died!" written on the walls. His colleagues and neighbors probably think that he's a radical right-wing nutcase for even calling himself an evangelical. The body of Christ is more than big enough for his political views. And the opposition party, as we note just about every day, could use some responsible minds in it.
What we fault him for is not acknowledging that there are serious arguments on the other side. They may not be made by the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Donald Wildmon and James Dobson. Check that: they are not made by those guys. But some of us believe in keeping the minimum wage where it is or in waging war in places like Iraq precisely because of our commitment to help the poor and oppressed. We've seen the failures of socialistic and pacifistic approaches and the successes of free markets and sagacious use of military force. So we're ready to try something different from Johnson's War on Poverty and Sweden's foreign policy.
Balmer's rhetoric, however, doesn't invite a reopening of debate on these issues. It assumes that all the truth is on the religious left.
That's unfortunate. If true of the whole book, it will make the book less than it could be. Stephen Carter's book may not have as rich a historical canvas as Balmer's (though the law professor Carter does pretty well with history too). But he notes the faults of both sides in absolutizing the rhetoric of their positions versus absolutizing the principles that motivate them. Balmer may not have made this critical move (the Chronicle's excerpt contains the problematic rhetoric; NPR's does not; so perhaps the book as a whole will stay above water).
Christianity is about release for the captives. That's an absolute. What that looks like politically, however, is always open to debate. Balmer may have just missed the opportunity to reopen the debate among evangelicals. On this point we hope that the rest of the book is better than the one excerpt suggests.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)