Profound: November 2019 Archives
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."
The Importance of 'No-Men' - Daily Signal - Cal Thomas
Cal Thomas writes of a meeting with disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker after Bakker's release from prison:
"'When did you start to go wrong?' I asked Bakker.
"His answer was instructive: 'When I began to surround myself with people who told me only what I wanted to hear.'...
"The key to great leadership is to not overly regard yourself, to understand you don't know everything, realize that, like everyone else, you are flawed and can make bad judgments, and to surround yourself with people who think well enough of you to tell you the truth from their perspective, even when it disagrees with yours.
"As long as the objective is to help you succeed with your agenda, such advice can be valuable and even humbling, humility being one of humanity's better characteristics and a grace that appears in short supply in Washington."
