Ranting to /dev/null

Ryan -- I always put a google alert on long articles like this one so I can see what kind of conversation is happening. The main question I'd ask is: What makes you think I believe in "objectivity"? As you say, I write from a very critical perspective. I thought that was screamingly obvious.

Thanks for dropping by.

Though I would certainly concede that you do not suggest you are attempting an objective perspective, I would maintain that your conclusions about the groups you are describing are assumed, not argued for.

I would argue that the fundamentalists' self-aware proclamation of their biases and intentions displays a degree of intellectual honesty absent from your piece. The fundamentalists are quite explicit about their goals and the kind of society they think their project will create. You clearly don't like this, but present no alternatives, nor do you show how their project endangers society. The fact that you are being critical of fundamentalism is indeed "screamingly obvious", but the nature and source of your criticism is not obvious at all. I can tell you don't like them, but you haven't articulated why. As such, your article probably amounts to a brilliantly constructed ad hominem abusive, but little else.

I am not content to simply let authors be "critical" without exposing the nature of their critique. It does justice neither to the object of criticism nor the position of the author. All your piece can really accomplish is back-slapping and choir-preaching, as your position is not sufficiently articulated to be grounds for dialog.

Sharlet's article shows him to be nothing more than a liberal with an axe to grind. He has one thing in common with those he hates so much: he prefers ideology to history. Otherwise why call Tim LaHaye a disciple of Francis Schaeffer, and L'Abri a "Christian madrasah"? He probably won't be back on here to answer you, Ryan, but if he is, I'd like to see him respond to the latter part of my post on the difference between theonomists and the mainstream of orthodox Christians.

When I read that article a few weeks back, it put me in something of a funk. I grew up knowing many of the folks mentioned in that article, personally. The fact that they were kind/good/nice me to me, doesn't make their views any less distasteful to me now.

That being said, my biggest problem with the article was that it inaccurately described the intellectual genealogy of this supposed "new" fundamentalism. There may be similarities, at points, but Schaeffer would never have a thing to do w/ LaHaye, or even Rushdooney, who wouldn't have liked either of them, and many (if not most) of those persons mentioned, had fundamentally opposing ideas about what it meant to be a Christian.

A secondary problem is that many in the fundamentalist and Reformed-fundamentalist camps often times claim to be the intellectual successors of persons who would wholeheartedly disagree. Would Van Til, for example, recognize the claims of Harry Seabrook and Little Geneva to be his successors? I think not.

I have no problems with an "outsider" (and what would that make me? an "apostate" from the theonomic camp?) offering analysis and critiques of Christianity, but with even with a meager amount more research the article could have been far more insightful and more importantly, accurate.

I mean heck, you can google around and find the connections between these people, and it's easy enough to make a few phone calls to relatives and co-workers. At the most we're a generation removed, after all.

Schaeffer did study Rushdoony, as Schaeffer's more informed defenders confirm. I'll say this in a matter-of-fact way and hope it doesn't sound snotty: magazines like Harper's pay full time fact checkers who's whole job is to spend weeks trying to prove EVERY single detail of the article wrong. What makes it through that process has been confirmed.

As for intellectual genealogy, it's the same as real genealogy -- we may choose our heirs, but not our descendents. Schaeffer found something worthwhile in Rushdoony. And LaHaye found something worthwhile in Schaeffer. My source? LaHaye himself, and Christianity Today.

Since Evan can't tell the difference between a liberal and an ideologically messy lefty (that's me), I won't bother to spend time on his careful explication of the difference between theonomists and "orthodox Christians," a rather ahistorical term, indeed.

But Ryan raises a good point. I don't present alternatives. Why not? In part, because I can't think of any -- the argument of the story is that fundamentalist historiography is hard to beat. (The original last line, in reference to prayers for Pastor Rusty's wife, was, "That's a hard story to beat, especially when morning is dawning and the revolution is at hand"). In part because I usually find journalism that offers solutions facile -- my job is report on what I found, not fix it. And in part because the real jab of the piece -- which I'm surprised you folks, of all people, missed -- is at the liberal historiography mirrored by that of fundamentalism, a narrative that obscures the power and appeal of fundamentalist historiography.

"nor do you show how their project endangers society" -- the fundamentalist version of history may be more compelling than the liberal myth, but it's still crappy fiction, built on deus ex machinas (orthodox Christians: can I pluralize that?), and to me, that's bad enough. Then there's the part where they insist this is a Christian nation and try to legislate that -- no matter how splendid Christians are, that's just not cool for non-Christians. Oh, yeah -- there's the part where shmucks in the Pentagon declare sperading the gospel more important than doing their job. That doesn't make me feel too safe. I have plenty of problems with liberalism, too, but that should do for a start.

Jeff, I have no doubts that Schaeffer read Rushdooney, but implying that Schaeffer (who actually died before Rushdooney) was an intellectual descendant of Rushdooney without a substantive and clear theological or philosophical argument for why and how (despite passing the "fact checkers"), is suspect at best, and irresponsible journalism in the worst. Harper's fact checkers that "Schaeffer read Rushdooney" hardly counts as a sufficient reason for why Schaeffer is Rushdooney's intellectual and cultural heir.

Problems of this type abound in your article. Federer/Rusty don't have a thing to do with Schaeffer and Rushdooney. Randall Terry was a disciple of Rushdooney, not Schaeffer (just read "The Sword", which is a straight take off of Rushdooney's Institutes). Tim LaHaye, while familiar w/ Schaeffer, has an utterly different theology than Schaeffer (simplistically put: Baptist v. Presbyterian). And the Vision Forum cats, they're purposely disassociated from any of the theological camps that LaHaye, Rushdoonery, or Schaeffer are/were considered to be part of.

I don't have a problem with your general thesis that all of these people were (and are) involved with re-writing history (and consequently, us, out of it) and even that they share some common goals. It's your ideological anthropology that I have a problem with, because it seems to do the same thing you're accusing them of; and why I agree with your thesis is because I knew Rushdooney, have corresponded w/ Terry, am 6 feet from the complete works of Schaeffer, have (unfortunately) read The Left Behind series (what utter crap, both in theology and prose), have seen churches split over the Vision Forum crap, and on and on.

Jeff: Josiah wasn't necessarily denying that Schaeffer studied Rushdoony, but is asserting that Schaeffer's theories and positions are not friendly to Rushdoony's. Here I am inclined to agree, though the distinctions are probably only appreciable from within the tradition. Josiah, Evan, and I attended a college - Covenant - that Schaeffer was instrumental in launching, and many of the people who heavily influenced us, such as our parents, were heavily influenced by Schaeffer. Most of those would testify to Shaeffer and Rushdoony representing drastically different ends of the Presbyterian spectrum. I am not inclined to question Harper's fact-checking competency, but am inclined to believe that though perhaps not factually incorrect as stated, your linkage of Schaeffer with Rushdoony does justice to neither. Schaeffer never advocated the kind of triumphalist, America-centric historiography described throughout most of your piece and would have found it quite offensive and antithetical to his project, as do all of us who have commented thus far.

Still, there is a way in which Schaeffer and Rushdoony are similar, though their individual historiographies are quite different. Christian culture has picked up on the fact that the collapse of modernity into post-modernity has pretty much eviscerated any viable attempt at meta-narrative, from either side of the aisle, and the one thing Christianity is good at is telling stories. Whether or not you believe the story of the Bible - and I take it you don't - I would hope that you would recognize the inherent drama therein and how one might find that kind of thing compelling. Though Schaeffer and Rushdoony tell radically different stories, they are alike in that they do believe that history is, in fact, a single story, with a single Author. Christian culture has, for the past 50 years or so, been quite self-conscious about developing this strength into culturally effective tools, and this kind of historiography goes a long way towards explaining the ascendent strength of the Right in this country, just as the lack of any coherent story goes a long way towards explaining the Left's repeated and consistent failures. (There isn't any way the Democrats could have one the recent election if the Republicans hadn't botched things so badly.)

Finally, I can easily see how this historiography is dangerous, but I do think that your essay is weakened by not pointing them out. Still, your last comment identifies two rather different kinds of threat. One is that historiography founded on narrative, something which plagues both the Left and the Right (Marxism being a Christian heresy after all), might be inherently dangerous. But the other is far more concrete, and has to do with rather specific policy and security questions (legislating a Christian nation etc.). I find the former far to be more interesting, and would be interested to hear your take on the dangers of ideologically-motivated historiography to both sides of the aisle, as well as why the Right seems so much better at coming up with compelling stories than the Left. The more overtly political stuff isn't worth rehashing: we all know that already.

Ryan I think that you are accurate insofar as distinguishing Rushdooney and Shaeffer on two ends of one presbyterian spectrum. But I think there is a larger confusion in the article. Mr. Sharlet conflate evangelicalism and fundamentalism in an unhelpful way. Evangelicalism is a much larger tent than fundamentalism. To define them clearly, considering oneself an evangelical commits that person to particular theological positions. On the other hand considering oneself a fundamentalist commits that person to both theological and political positions. I know evangelicals that are card-carrying democrats. I don't know any fundamentalists I can say the same thing of.

Now the reason this relatively small distinction needs to be clear is that Mr. Sharlet's article gives good cause for secular thinkers to be very afraid of theonomists, fundamentalists, and other shades of extreme, politically conservative Christianity. But secularists don't need to be afraid of all evangelicals. Such fears will probably do disservice to both camps in our national, political discourse.

Ok, I stand corrected - I don't know the difference between a liberal and an "ideologically messy lefty." In my defense, however, I don't see how I was supposed to tell the difference between the two. Liberal may have become a slur word in our culture, but, then again, so is the name "Rushdooney" to those who know who he is (I think the Reason magazine article on him was the first to bring his movement out of the shadows).

Jeff, I do think it was insightful for you to see Rushdooney's influence on the homeschooling
movement's portrayal of history. His ideas remain dangerous for that reason - but not because there's some kind of apostolic succession from him to Francis Schaeffer to Tim LaHaye.

If I had the time, I would elaborate on how eschatology marks the critical difference between Rushdooney's disciples (Gary North, Randall Terry, George Grant, D. James Kennedy, Douglas Wilson, etc.), Francis Schaeffer's disciples (C. Everett Koop, Charles Colson, Nancy Pearcey), and Tim LaHaye (who, being still active today, doesn't have disciples so much as he has a reading public). Rushdooney's view of history ends with the "visible saints" bringing in the millennium through their work of Reconstruction. Schaeffer's, by contrast, is amillennial - the Church will go through cycles of relative victory and relative failure; a Christian culture is not guaranteed. LaHaye's, finally, is premillenial, as was earlier fundamentalism generally (before the word started to shift meaning, with the rise of the Christian Right). LaHaye's theology leads his followers to expect ultimate defeat for Christians in history even though they may be active in politics now. (This view has its dangers for the broader culture - unquestioning support for Israel being one of them - but the dangers are quite different than those posed by postmillenialism.)

I was intending to distinguish Christians with theonomic views or leanings from those in the mainstream of orthodoxy - I wasn't intending to set up theonomy and orthodoxy as mutually exclusive. And I would contest that orthodoxy is a historically indefinable term - simply look at the Nicene Creed. Or if you want to confine yourself to Protestants, look at the Heidelberg Catechism.

Historically speaking, Christianity has been defined by its worship, not by a particular politics. In fact, that's what the word "orthodoxy" means - right worship. Now giving right worship to God necessarily has political implications, even as the confession "Jesus is Lord" had for the earliest Christians. But the truly dangerous thing about the rising Christian Right historical metanarrative, to my mind, is that it shows too much loyalty to the merely temporal, to the accidents of history, and tends to make Christians forget that they are merely "strangers and pilgrims on the earth, whose true citizenship is in heaven." (Not that that statement should lead to quietism, but rather to a radical critique of political power, no matter whether it is being wielded by people who profess Christianity or not.)

I understand the limitations of journalism. It is difficult to think of an alternative history. But, like Ryan said, it would serve us better if you criticized narrative history and the resulting prescriptivism when it occurs on the Left as well as on the Right.

Finally, I want to apologize to you, Mr. Sharlet, for my assumption that you wouldn't come back to read a response. I took the phrase "screamingly obvious" to mean you dismissed further dialogue about your thesis, but I've appreciated your engagement with us.

This is very valuable commentary, and I'm sorry I haven't had time to absorb it and respond properly. I don't have time now, unfortunately -- not even for the blogs I'm responsible for myself. So I'll just throw out a few quick thoughts and promise you I'll spend more time thinking about what you've all said.

First, I'll grant that the distinctions you're drawing are important. But then, so are the distinctions within any broad social movement, and an article, even a long one, probably won't contain them all. Some I reject -- such as this silly and overly-rigid distinction between evangelicals and fundamentalists. I don't think it's fair to accuse me of ignoring that difference, since I raised it at the beginning of the article, rejected it, and rejected the scholarly maneuver of "maximalism" as well. I know the historical pedigree of "fundamentalist" and alluded to it. At the same time, I think it's an excellent (and, incidentally, not NECESSARILY negative) term, and an apt description for those Christians who not only believe that their faith is the sole truth, but also believe that that fact is A) essential to THEIR particular faith; B) important to broadcast. To wit: Those of you repeatedly accusing me of dishonesty because I either disagree with you or, possibly, don't understand something, aren't exactly challenging my understanding of fundamentalism.

As for genealogy -- there was a word of difference between the ideologies of Carl Schmitt, Hermann Goering, Albert Speer, and you-know-who. Important differences, the negotation of which shaped history and deserve exploration. However, if someone wants to refer to German fascism, and even argue tht Hitlerism was shaped by Schmitt even though Hitler probably never read Schmitt, I think that's legitimate, especially in a popular press article.

Ok, inflammatory example. You fellas are smart enough -- smarter n' me, it sounds like -- to take the point. Same illustration could be made with regard to, say, contemporary American labor movement. World of difference between John Sweeney, Andy Stern, and TDU. But not in the eyes of a liberal OR conservative free trader.

So, these distinctions within Presbyterianism, or even within the intellectual divisions of American evangelical conservative protestant denominations -- a fairly small group -- ARE important, but can also blind one to trends in social movement.

My argument, in bare bones form: Rushdoony elevated providential history. Schaeffer, by friendly accounts, studied this AND taught it (so I've heard from other critics of the article who studied it with him), and, I'd argue, incorporated it into his more popular works. The most popular, A Christian Manifesto, is baldly of the American exceptionalist school (and, to my surprise, revoltingly racist).

As for Terry: I think he's a disciple of Schaeffer -- albeit perhaps not an astute one -- because he told me he was. Christianity Today thought so, too. I didn't interview LaHaye, but he makes that claim himself, and again, CT, a Schaeffer-friendly magazine, says as much. Federer and Rusty cite Schaeffer as an inspiration and are clearly drunk on Barton and LaHaye (I got my copies of their work at the event in the story).

Ryan: Dangers of narrative history. I should rephrase that: I meant to make clear that I don't think there's any other kind. Here are those lines near the end as they'll appear in the book, in which I get to expand on things a bit:

he actual past no more serves the secular imagination than that of fundamentalism. History cannot be demystified; it is dependent as much on mystery—that which we recognize we cannot know about the past—as on the rationally understood. If we believe the aphorisms of literature—“The past isn’t dead, it’s not even past,” and “the past is a foreign country”—then we believe in mystic history. We are not so secular after all. Fundamentalism knows this, and that is why, for now at least, the dupes, the saps, and the fools—the believers—prefer its re-enchanted past, alive to the dark magic with which all histories are constructed, to the demystified state’s blind certainty that it is history’s victor.

--As for why the Right is better at such stories: That's a damn good question, and not simple, for it wasn't always so. The 1920s and 30s were the decades of the great leftist storytelling. I'm not interested in that "pox on both their houses" kind of centrism. I'll take the left -- liberation, in this world -- over the rightist story, any day.

Well, a long response, after all, and still I haven't done your comments justice. Despite the fact that I think you all have misread the article and responded in some instances with pointless rudeness -- all this dishonesty talk smacks of paranoia -- I have to say I really appreciate such a close reading. And much of what you say will help me reconsider some points. Some of it will be reflected in the book, though probably not to your satisfaction.

Best,
Jeff Sharlet

Sorry if I've been rude. No one likes to see intellectual heroes of theirs lumped together with people they believe are on the lunatic fringe. If I wrote an article about Chomsky and Zinn, and you happened to be a fan of theirs, and you thought I was being unfair to them, you might be rude too. I worry about the broadening use of the term fundamentalist by the left, because I see it as a power move, an effort to marginalize Christians generally because of the ideology of some. (Admittedly, we need to police ourselves too - just like moderate Muslims need to do in regard to their faith.)

But to address your points: Rushdooney, Schaeffer, and LaHaye all have versions of providential history - I agree with you that far. But R's is mostly about American politics, whereas S's is mostly Western intellectual history (at least in his famous "trilogy" - haven't read the Christian Manifesto). L's may be influenced by these - I honestly don't know as much about him. But his view of history is really more Bibliocentric (with a dispensationalist hermeneutic) and classically fundamentalist.

And I agree that fundamentalist and evangelical are terms that really can't be distinguished meaningfully. In fact, I don't think that either has a really substantial meaning anymore - at least in the sense that they don't mark out a particular group of Christians as they did when they were first coined.

You may be right about A Christian Manifesto. Schaeffer became more political after Roe v. Wade, yet I haven't read his works which postdate the decision. Thus, I may be defending the "early Schaeffer," whereas you may be accurately describing the late Schaeffer.

Our presuppositions would color our view, however. I don't believe that liberation is a definable narrative, except in the sense that Rene Girard gives it when he argues that the mark of a Christian (or post-Christian) society, as opposed to a pagan one, is its concern for victims, since they "look like Christ." This theme of concern for the victim is admittedly in tension with other themes in the Bible, themes which the theonomists, etc. prefer to emphasize. Because I continue to believe in the authority and the validity of the whole Bible, I believe the two themes - God's holiness and righteous law and God's loving concern for victims and sinners - can be reconciled. However, I can see that one who does not view the Bible as I do might consider these themes to be hopelessly at odds.

Jeff,

I really appreciate you coming back into this conversation, and it speaks very well of you as a journalist. I'm also won over by your point that to the larger world, distinguishing between fundamentalists and evangelicals is not a fruitful endeavor.

However, I am troubled by the subsequent implication. Namely, that I have to either deny Christ as he's presented in the Bible, or accept a level of comraderie with Jerry Falwell, Bob Jones Jr, and Tim Lahaye that makes me shiver. Maybe Evan you can help me here, but I'd be willing to hear from anyone. How do we distinguish evangelical Christians who believe that their faith commits them to particular political positions from evangelical Christians that don't?

Evan and Matt: At this point it's probably worth re-asserting Presbyterian ecclesiology. The theonomists we don't like are part of the church, and as such we are forced to recognize a certain level of connection with them, even if we don't like what they're doing. This, perhaps, would provide some support for what Jeff is saying: they may be idiots, but they're our idiots. Lest we forget, the mere fact that we're talking about intellectual genealogy makes this a family squabble, not a conflict between strangers.

Jeff: In re storytelling, it's worth pointing out that the so-called Golden Age of progressivism and liberalism in the early 20th century consisted largely of Christians who were self-consciously and explicitly influenced by the kind of providential history we're discussing here. Their politics could be considered somewhat leftist today, but their ideology was not. Granted, they were fairly liberal Christians whose theological commitments were rather tenuous, but the underlying idea was there: God works in history and is going to change the world through our efforts. The elder Roosevelt is a prime example.

Why did things change? Well for starters, the 20s and 30s saw the birth of the movement first called "fundamentalist", a self-applied moniker used to describe those Christians who insisted upon the "fundamentals" of the faith, in essence the core of Christian theology. The authors you are discussing are all heirs, directly or indirectly, of this movement. The departure of the highly-involved theological vanguard of the mainline churches has led to the gradual deflating and minimizing of their cultural influence and coherence, and coincided with the gradual ebb of theology in leftist circles. The idea of providential history was thus inherited by the right.

Simultaneous with this theological exodus was the newly ascendant atheistic Marxism, which really tries to tell a version of providential history without providence, and the left pretty much caved. Their politics remain, but the departure of their theological consciousness, as it were, combined with the influence of an atheistic version of the story that just isn't very compelling, and you've got an unmitigated disaster. All of a sudden smoking a lot of weed and growing your hair out is about as transcendent a vision as the movement is capable of conceiving.

Matt, I agree - I don't know many journalists of any stripe who would engage at this much length with people who challenge their thesis. And it's a good question you raise; however, I have no simple answer for it. After all, I do think that the Gospel has political implications; I just wouldn't be as optimistic as many of the people Sharlet critiques that earlier generations of Christians have worked them out properly. Ryan makes a good point too. We can't disavow all connection with these folks, even if we disagree with some of their basic theses and programs. The connection, however, is, as Ryan said, ecclesial rather than necessarily intellectual. They are fellow believers, not fellow travelers.

It's no credit to me as a journalist that I'm following this conversation. It's a credit to you folks as interesting critics, albeit, I believe, mostly wrong ones. That said, there's an interesting digression here about the way journalism works these days. I'm always stunned when I meet some journalist who says he doesn't bother to see what the blogs are saying about some article he labored on for months. To the outside world, that looks like arrogance, but I think it's more the result of the unfortunate professionalism of what used to be a trade or an art.

Anyway, some interesting points raised above, but let me see if I can't push you a little further:

--Evan, you write: "If I wrote an article about Chomsky and Zinn, and you happened to be a fan of theirs, and you thought I was being unfair to them, you might be rude too." I haven't read Chomsky and Zinn since I was a college freshman, but they'll make for a fine example. Chomsky has a lot of sharp insights. Recently, Hugo Chavez, the leftist strongman of Venezuela, plugged his book at the UN. Chavez is a killer. Maybe the best deal that country can get right now, but a killer. A canny strategist, but not an intellectual. So, while I doubt he really has a grip on Chomsky, I'd certainly say he's genealogically linked in the intellectual sense -- despite the fact that Chomsky is likely horrified by the thought. I wrote Ryan offthread that one of the things that I see as most troubling among Christian intellectuals like you guys -- that is, theologically if not necessarily politically conservative -- is an all-or-nothing approach to your intellectual heroes. One thing liberals undertand is how to take what's good from a writer without embracing what's not so good. For instance, I'm a huge fan of Garry Wills -- but I have no use for the liberal fundamentalism of his recent book, "What Jesus Really Meant." And I don't need to reconcile his great work with his bad work, because I understand that he's an intellectual, not the personification of a creed.

That said, you raise an interesting possibility about the evolution of Schaeffer's views. I happen to be a fan of that trippy movie he made, and happen to think that what I've read of his early views displays a romantic disinterest in the realities of power and his own attraction to authoritarianism, but perhaps one of you should write a good essay on The Varieties of Frances Schaeffer.

Matt, you write: "Namely, that I have to either deny Christ as he's presented in the Bible, or accept a level of comraderie with Jerry Falwell, Bob Jones Jr, and Tim Lahaye that makes me shiver."

Yes, I think that's choice you face. And I think that's a particularly Christian dilemma, and that's one of the things I love about Christianity. That's the premise of singing in the pews: You either have to kick tone-deaf Mr. Smith out of the church, or accept a level of disharmony with a mangler of music that makes you shiver."

While I admire Christians for in theory attempting that painful brotherhood, I think it's important to recognize that it's forced on all of us. For instance: Unless I'm ready to go John Walker Lindh, I have to accept a level of camraderie -- i.e. responsibility for -- Bush in Iraq. That's very unpleasant, and very uncomfortable. For that matter, I'm bound to Pat Robertson, too, who with government support has spread much misery in Africa. Well, I enjoy the roads, and the protection, etc. of this gov't. I benefit from it. Therefore, I share the responsibility for it and those whom it supports.

Ryan, when you're talking about early 20th-century progressivism as liberal Christians, I assume you're talking about followers of the Social Gospel. I'm not. I'm thinking of the labor movement, in general, and the Popular Front in particular. I wouldn't romanticize either movement -- but they were good storytellers.

Jeff: I still don't think you're being fair. Look to the example While in a cafe in Istanbul we can all expect to be contaminated by our alleigance to George Bush. But I could also say in that cafe, "Don't hate me, I'm a Democrat!" or "I'm a liberal!" or better yet, "I'm not a Republican." While still admitting that yes you are an American, and yes you are a fan of democracy. There are a lot of labels in that example that can be quickly, and maybe efficiently, used to distinguish the difference between GWB and me, or you.

On the other hand, I think you're saying that I can't have any labels like the labels in the above example to distinguish me from my flavor of Christianity from people of a more radical bent, or at least that differentiating labels have lost their meaning. Now it may be perfectly true that these labels have lost their meaning. I don't pretend to be in a position to make that call, but what I am asserting is that labels applied to different areas of Christendom are helpful for us as Christians, and for you as a non-Christian, to know who to be afraid of.

Evan: I sense that I'm not making myself clear. I have political convictions that I derive, at least in part, out of my religious beliefs, but I don't think that every person who shares most, or all my beliefs, ought to come to hold the same beliefs as me. I take fundamentalists to be people who do think that their religous beliefs do neccessitate particular political convictions.

Ryan: Do you think Obama is trying, very intentionally, to be a storyteller exactly in the way you describe? I think that is maybe the main intention of Audacity of Hope. Disclaimer: I haven't actually read the book yet, I'm just borrowing from what I've read about it.

Matt, I'm guessing, given your example, that you've been in that cafe in Istanbul. Me, too. Or, more to the point, in Algeria, some 15 years ago, at the outbreak of the first Gulf War, which the moderates were blaming in part on Bush 1. The reasoning went that Algeria's radical Islamists had gained popular support in part in response to Bush 1's demonstration of his disregard for the lives of Arabs. Cold War over; no help on the way; here are these guys who build hospitals (radical Islamists); so, ok, we'll join them. The people I was talking to said, Fuck Bush. Right on. Fuck Bush! I said in response. Ok, they say, but what did you do about it?

That's the question I'm pointing too. I don't think it's a matter of "policing," as Evan suggest, so much as people like you doing what you're doing here -- only moreso, and with absolutely brutal honesty. The great temptation of Christianity, historically, has been the persecution complex. At times, it's been merited; but it's also hardwired into the cultural faith, leading even smart, informed reformist or radical Christians to circle the wagons against a bogeyman called "secularism." I call secularism a bogeyman because it's a Christian creation. American secularism, in particular, is the old Protestant order. That order broke apart mid-century, and Protestants have been confused about which side to be on ever since.

Incidentally, you call me a non-Christian. Did I call myself that? I'm a halfsie. Half-Jew, half-Christian. That'll screw with your categories, since you're operating on the premise that Christianity is EXCLUSIVELY a faith. But a Jew -- even a half-Jew -- can't think like that. Culture is as real as faith.

Matt: Well, it depends on what you mean by politics. All of us who believe in Biblical authority are called to determine what the Bible is saying to its original audience and then to determine how that applies to our contemporary context. This is a messy process, and so it shouldn't translate into unthinking support for a party, candidate, etc. However, I can see why the abortion issue has made many people (including me, really) essentially captive to the Republican party. I think our best hope is for a viable third party to arise (or, better, two third parties - one coming out of the Republican party and one out of the Democratic).

I have a certain "romantic disinterest in the realities of politics" myself. It's hard to be too engaged in a pragmatic process when your ultimate loyalties lie outside of history.

I sure hope someone "up on the mountain" (at Covenant College, for the non-enlightened in all that is Covenant) is making this whole dialog required reading for their students! Worth the price of admission (to the blog, not Covenant! :-)) and more!
--
RDS