The Sorry State of Evangelical Rhetoric - Sovereign Nations

The Sorry State of Evangelical Rhetoric - Sovereign Nations

Stephen Wolfe writes:

"The social justice talk in evangelicalism is remarkable for the absence of systematic thinking on the pertinent questions of justice. One rarely encounters precise and detailed theories of justice and careful applications.... The actual moral conclusion or determination precedes the moral principle. So their reasoning has a two-step sequence:

"1) Have a negative, moral reaction to something, a reaction that one is socialized to perform (perhaps on social media) upon encountering some event.

"2) Christianize the moral impression by confidently stating an extremely broad principle or statement from the Bible ('love your neighbor') or some other Christian-like statement without any attempt to make distinctions or qualifications or systematize or consider competing goods....

"...it is irrelevant that a consistent application of the principle would lead to all sorts of absurd outcomes, policies, actions, etc. For example, if one were to react to a restrictive immigration policy by affirming, without any distinctions or nuance, "the universal dignity of all people" or by saying that Christians ought to "love your neighbor," then how can any immigration restriction or even the illegality of border crossing stand up to the demands of Christian morality? But the logical consequences of the supplied principle are irrelevant, because it doesn't function in their reasoning as the determinate of their moral conclusions....

"...It is effective and expedient rhetoric, but wholly unprincipled. Even worse, it forms habits of thinking among evangelicals that are bad for them. Indeed, it is an abuse of the mind. The social justice evangelicals use and enforce rhetoric that harms people...."

"The two-step process of evangelical moral reasoning does very little, and perhaps nothing, that enables evangelicals to resist the world's moral influence. They will shift and progress with the moral doctrines of the world; and the superstructure of christianizing devices, which are extremely broad in the possibilities of their application, will always fulfill its purpose, regardless of the impression--it will always christianize and elevate moral conclusions into Christian morality. "

Pastor Steven Wedgeworth offers a pithy summary, a pattern I've noticed in articles that seem aimed at dislodging Christians from their support for conservative politicians:

"1) Decry a position that no one holds, 2) Affirm a position everyone supports, 3) Declare that this proves a different, more contentious point."