Natalie's Narrative

Last chance!

August is coming to a close, but there's still time to help out in the Horn of Africa.  It looks like only I've donated so far, so I would be honored if, before August ends, anyone else would be willing to pitch in as well.  It only costs 17 cents to provide one person with a nutritious meal...  

For more info on the crisis, please check out this page.

Please click here to give.

Is the very thing that helps the Church grow also its curse?

Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian Catholic theologian and advocate for the poor, blogs in Portugeuse, Spanish and English, and I wanted to share a great post from a few weeks ago: Encouragement for those disappointed with the church.

Boff is referring to the Catholic church specifically, but his point is salient for us Protestants as well.  Also, the English translation is a little rocky, so some parts are my own  translation from the post in Spanish.

Boff describes a double emigration that is happening in the Catholic church.  Some break all ties and leave due to disappointment with issues like the priest abuse scandal.  Others remain, but aren't engaged in the church as their spiritual home.  While I don't completely agree with Boff's point that the Church was "never" the object of Jesus' preaching, he makes a very valid point that if the Church fails institutionally, this does not render Jesus' message invalid.  I do think the Church is important as a community, and, even with all its warts and failures, it can more effectively live out the gospel as opposed to individual rogue Christians.

Boff wants to focus more on the idea of the Kingdom of God, especially "in contraposition to the Kingdom of Caesar."  The movement of early Christianity was dubbed "the way of Christ."  Boff writes:

It generally lives on the margins and, at times, at a critical distance from the official institution. But it is born and nourished by the permanent fascination with the figure, and the liberating and spiritual message of Jesus of Nazareth. Initially deemed the "heresy of the Nazarenes" (Acts 24,5) or simply, a "heresy" (Acts 28,22) in the sense of a "very small group", Christianity was gaining autonomy until its followers, according to The Acts of The Apostles (11,36), were called, "Christians".

The very thing that made this little Jesus-movement grow, however, was also its curse, because the bigger it got, the further it moved away from Jesus' original message.  Enshrined in a big, wealthy, powerful institution, how could it live on the margins and maintain a critical distance?

Boff argues that "the movement of Jesus" is stronger than the institutional Church.  It's not "bounded by institutions, nor is it a prisoner of doctrines and dogmas."  Boff even includes agnostics and atheists in this movement, which is 

a Kingdom of love and liberty, by his ethic of unconditional love, especially for the poor and the oppressed, and by the way he assumed the human drama, amidst humiliation, torture and his execution on the cross. Jesus offered an image of God so intimate and life-friendly that it is difficult to disregard, even by those who do not believe in God. Many people say, 'if there is a God, it has to be like the God of Jesus.'"

Again, I wouldn't go so far as to disregard the Church, but I love the idea that it is still possible to follow Jesus in spite of the institutional Church's failures.  It's a good reminder, especially with my disappointment lately about the uncritical acceptance of wealth in many American churches.  The wealth/poverty gap was one of the reasons I was previously unwilling to go to church, because I didn't want to be complicit in such economic injustice. 

But even if the Church strays from Jesus' original call to favor the poor and oppressed, that doesn't mean I shouldn't keep trying to follow Jesus.  Besides, if the Jesus movement had remained the little, humble, seemingly heretical movement it started out as, how would the word have traveled from the Middle East to North America?  I'm a beneficiary of the influence and growth of the Church, but surely there's a way for us to remain mindful of those on the margins, even in the midst of the Church's wealth and power.

Any thoughts?  Does this seem like a holier-than-thou, I'm-better-than-the church attitude?  Does it seem individualistic? 

Review of the End of Evangelicalism - Part 4: The Christian Nation

This is Part 4 of my review/discussion of David Fitch's book, The End of Evangelicalism.  In case you missed it, here is Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

The third and final empty Master-Signifier of evangelicalism is the Christian nation.  Early evangelicals felt the mainline Protestant emphasis on the social gospel came at the expense of personal salvation, so these evangelicals became less involved in politics.  But, the 1970's and '80's saw a return to caring about politics and change now, despite the common pre-millenial dispensationalist belief that this world would just pass away.  A new narrative was formed: our founding fathers established America as a Christian nation, but starting in the 1960's, we have seen this foundation crumble, and America must return to her Christian ways.  America has stopped following the Ten Commandments, and if we don't repent, we will see destruction.  

Even if not all evangelicals hold to such a dramatic view, the Christian Right still sees nothing wrong with "reclaiming" America as a Christian nation.  Through voting for leaders who say they are Christian, they can eliminate abortion and gay rights, bring back prayer to the public schools, and chip away at the separation of church and state.

To Fitch, this reveals a weak ecclesiology: "we do not see the church as having a social reality of its own" (p. 106).  Christians are merely a collection of individuals, who have each made a decision for Christ, and must work to improve the moral fabric of our country through even more personal conversions.  The Christian nation is a symbol to rally around, keeping actual justice at a safe distance "so that we rarely have to 'get dirty' ourselves" (p. 107).  Rather than directly working on issues, evangelicals can just vote and lobby for "moral" legislation.

The Christian nation shows itself as a Master-Signifier when one asks what would really happen if Christians saw success with all of their political goals.  Would students who pray in schools do so because it is required, or are they somehow more Christian?  Would more people act like Christians if gay marriage were outlawed?  Fitch thinks that little is accomplished, but the idea of a Christian nation persists because it's easy to rally around and comes at less of a personal cost for many (wealthy) Christians.

Moving away from the political-legislative process, Fitch's discussion of capitalism is excellent.  Having organized around the illusory Christian nation, it becomes conveniently easy to ignore unjust economic realities.  In fact, evangelicals have baptized market capitalism, and the indivudalistic property rights that come along with it, as the most biblical system.  There is nothing wrong with hard work and individual responsibility, but evangelicals' embrace of market capitalism disregards structural problems and the effects of corporations/consumerism.  

Evangelicals can individually donate huge sums of money to the poor, but Fitch notes that this generosity is performed at a distance.  No one can question the gated communities, the comfortable suburban churches, and the isolation of the poor in many urban centers - look at all these individual monetary donations!  Fitch sees evangelicals saying "I will help the poor and be generous, but only on the terms of Christian capitalism that provide me protection, security, and distance from the poor when I need it." 

The CEO's who are devout evangelical Christians but plunder the retirement accounts of their employees are a great example of the contradictions that the Christian nation reveals.  One CEO was very involved in his church and even served meals to the homeless; however, he was convicted and served prison time for $7 billion greed and mismanagement of WorldCom.  Enron's Ken Lay was a Sunday School teacher.  Even with capitalists like these CEO's abusing the system, evangelicals will still support this economic system, because it allows them to be "economically independent."  This means that the gospel that shapes Christians is actually "justice done at a distance," because it doesn't touch the existing (exploitative) structures (p. 121).

I thought this chapter did a great job of pointing out the inconsistencies, especially economically, that evangelicals entertain with regard to living out the gospel in the public square.  The only thing I took issue with was Fitch's characterization of Jim Wallis and Sojourners as the flip side of the Dobson/Falwell coin.  I see Wallis as allying with other faith-based groups, or even the non-religious, to work toward a more just society - no one needs to convert or be forced to view specific Christian symbols or hear Christian prayers under Wallis' view.  But the Christian Right pitches a fit when manger scenes are removed or the phrase "Merry Christmas" is outlawed.  There is no room for other faiths because Christianity is the only right way.  Otherwise, this was an excellent critique of the idea of a "Christian nation."

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Could you give up a coffee or a meal out this week?

My birthday has come and gone, but I still want to bring awareness to the crisis in the Horn of Africa, via the organization One Day's Wages.  An estimated 29,000 children under the age of five have died in the past three months, and 3.2 million people in Somalia remain in need of immediate, life-saving assistance.

It only costs 17 cents to provide one person with a nutritious meal.  Please consider giving up a coffee or a meal out this week, and donate instead.

For more info on the crisis, please check out this page.

Please click here to give.

Want to do something about the crisis in the Horn of Africa?

It's my birthday month, so I thought I would use that as an excuse to bring awareness to the crisis in the Horn of Africa, via the organization One Day's Wages.

I'm just a middle-class person in the Chicago suburbs, but heart-broken over the famine and resulting hunger in the Horn of Africa.  

While affecting such a far-away place might seem hopeless, I'm convinced that if we each try to feed just one person, we can do a lot.  In fact, it only costs 17 cents to provide one person with a nutritious meal.  That's doable, right?  

For more info on the crisis, please check out this page.

This year, it would be the best birthday gift in the world to know that a few more people will get a nutritious meal.  I've given, as the hunger and desperation in the Horn of Africa has just broken my heart.  Join with me to support my birthday campaign for ODW's Horn of Africa Relief Fund.

Even if you're only able to give for one meal (remember, it's only 17 cents!), I'd be thrilled with such a great birthday present!

Please click here to give.

Warden Burl Cain and evangelicalism's decision for Christ as Master-Signifier

James Minton of the Baton Rouge Advocate kindly let me know of a correction.  Contrary to the Baptist Press report, Thomas Ward sentenced to death for murdering his father-in-law, not his mother-in-law.  Minton's most recent articles on Angola can be found here.

I'm branching off from reviewing David Fitch's The End of Evangelicalism to share a great example of the disconnect that the decision for Christ can cause for evangelicals.  A few weeks ago, Mother Jones published an in-depth report on an 18,000-acre prison in Louisiana, called Angola, and its Southern Baptist warden, Burl Cain: "Among born-again Christians, Cain is revered for delivering hundreds of incarcerated sinners to the Lord—running the nation's largest maximum-security prison, as [the Baptist Press] put it 'with an iron fist and an even stronger love for Jesus.'" 

The vast land of Angola prison previously consisted of five slave plantations.  Although Warden Cain's turnaround of the prison is much-praised by evangelicals (he told his story twice at Wheaton's chapel service while I was there), much like the history of Angola, Cain's prison has an ugly side.  Three-quarters of the prisoners are black and still work the land at Angola.  An exonerated former inmate describes Cain as a warden with "'a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other.' And when the chips are down, Thompson said, 'he drops the Bible.'"  Angola also has three inmates who have been in solitary confinement longer than any other prisoner in the U.S--over 36 years.

Warden Cain tells Baptist Press about his first execution, which spurred him to start his "moral rehabilitation" campaign at Angola:

Thomas Ward had been sentenced to die for murdering his mother-in-law. Cain viewed him as little more than a criminal whom society had ruled should die for his crime. "I didn't worry about what he must have been experiencing in the hours before his death. I didn't go to his last meal, and I didn't share Jesus with him."

When it was time for the court's order to be carried out, Ward's face was a mask of fear as the deadly fluids began flowing his veins. "There was a psshpssh from the machine, and then he was gone," Cain recalls. "I felt him go to hell as I held his hand."

"Then the thought came over me: I just killed that man. I said nothing to him about his soul. I didn't give him a chance to get right with God. What does God think of me? I decided that night I would never again put someone to death without telling him about his soul and about Jesus."

Now, there are five chapels in the prison, the largest with 800 seats, and the inmates themselves are the preachers.  Mother Jones reports that 2,000 inmates have made a decision for Christ since Cain's arrival. Angola has seen a decline in violent crime, rape, drug use, and assaults on prison staff, although many have pointed out that these rates began dropping prior to Cain's tenure.

Angola is a great illustration of the narrowness of the decision for Christ.  Warden Cain, at his first execution, was disturbed that he had not shared his version of the Gospel to which the death-row prisoner could mentally assent.  Cain was less disturbed (or not bothered at all) by the fact that our society kills killers to somehow show that killing is wrong.  

The focus is on individual conversions, without addressing how the whole Gospel can rehabilitate not only prisoners, but the system that incarcerates so many people, mostly poor and African-American.  One out of every 55 Louisiana residents is in prison, the highest incarceration rate in the U.S, and if you count those on probation and parole, the number jumps to 1 out of 26.  The death penalty and harsh treatment of prisoners continue, without any regard for the dignity of human life.  

But never mind the injustices that remain, because individually, many prisoners have made a decision for Christ.  The brokenness of the system that brings these prisoners to Angola in the first place and that perpetuates the cruel treatment once they're at Angola reveals the emptiness of the "decision for Christ" as a Master-Signifer, but nonetheless, evangelicals will continue to praise Cain, produce documentaries, and invite him to speak at conferences and chapels...

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Review of the End of Evangelicalism - Part 3: Decision for Christ

	I have prayed this prayer for the first time
	I have prayed this prayer in the past and I renewed it today

An enthusiastic campus ministry leader approached me my freshman year of college.  We discussed the ministry's events and meeting times, and eventually the sweet woman asked me whether I had made a decision for Christ.  I had.  A couple of times, actually.  When I was six, I "asked Jesus into my heart," When I was around fourteen, I felt the decision I made when I was six somehow didn't "stick," so I prayed the sinner's prayer again, made another public confession of faith, and was re-baptized.  In my eyes, I wasn't truly saved until I was fourteen.  

Growing up Southern Baptist, a common part of the church service is the "invitation," or "alter call," after the sermon.  It includes an emotional song and exhortations from the pastor to come forward and make a decision for Christ.  Often, the alter call can be emotionally manipulative, convincing many that perhaps they aren't truly saved, or maybe they didn't really mean it the first time around.  

Or, your initial decision for Christ did stick, but you've backslidden since then, so you can go forward during the invitation to announce you want to "rededicate" your life to Christ.  There is no limit on the number of times one can rededicate.  I don't mean to say that the emotional manipulation is intentional on anyone's part, but these feelings often result.

I shared my experience with the energetic campus ministry leader.  However, she persisted in sitting down with me to draw out the bridge of salvation and explain how I could be saved.  

I felt very awkward at this point, explaining to her several times that I'd already made the decision, and had used this very bridge illustration to lead others to make the decision for Christ.  It didn't matter.  The ministry leader still had to make sure I'd heard and mentally assented to the correct steps to salvation.  Or perhaps my prior decision(s) hadn't stuck properly, so she would be responsible for my being outside the fold if she didn't show me the bridge illustration.  

This emphasis on cognitive, personal conversion is another empty Master-Signifier in David Fitch's The End of Evangelicalism.  During the modernist-fundamentalist controversies, an exaggerated split developed between the decision to receive pardon for sin in Christ and the decision to live in the Spirit.  As a result, many evangelicals today have coalesced around the decision for Christ, an individual, voluntary act that is "nurtured through individually acquired learning and worship" (p. 79).  This emphasis turns the conversion experience into mainly a cognitive one.  Discipleship is receiving information and instruction, and church becomes "an informational gathering centered around the sermon" (p. 80).  

Watering down the conversion and formation of a Christian to information and tallies of decisions has exposed the decision for Christ as an empty Master-Signifier:

The recidivism rate of those who make "the decision for Christ" is famously high.  Eternity Magazine reported as far back as 1977 that evangelistic crusades among evangelical churches could locate only 3 percent of those claiming to have made "a decision" as being found in any kind of Christian church.  Billy Graham said publicly on David Frost's PBS show in the 1990's that he believed only 25% of the decisions recorded in his crusades resulted in people actually being born again.  At the time, this shocked evangelicals.  One of the largest evangelical denominations reportedly disclosed that there had been 384,057 decisions for Christ within their churches in 1995, but only 6 percent could be accounted for in any way the following year. (p. 82).

Separating the decision from the changed life that is supposed to result makes the poor recidivism rate palatable, because adding anything to the decision would be salvation that is not by faith alone.  To evangelicals, a works-based salvation is worse than thousands of people who initially show an interest in following Jesus, but cannot be found the next year.  

The most damning result, though, is that the hallowed decision enables Christians to claim allegience to the Gospel, yet makes "little to no demands on changing one's life" (p. 84).  It unites people, helping to identify them as evangelicals, yet requiring nothing of said people.  As a result, complete inconsistency with the confession to follow Christ and the behavior afterward is common.  The nebulous personal relationship with Christ is the goal (praying, reading Scripture, attending church services), as opposed to believers making sure they are "doing" something, transforming their behavior, or helping others -- because over-emphasizing "doing" is too dangerously close to "works."

One example of an irruption hit very close to home: holiness codes of evangelical colleges.  Fitch says these behavioral requirements reveal that making a decision for Christ often does not affect the practice of a convert: "we are saved, but this does not effect [sic?] how we live, therefore we must make sure it effects the way we live!"  

Yes, I held to the Community Covenant at Wheaton, but it mainly served to bind a disparate group of people converging on campus from a variety of denominations.  Isn't it redundant to require the students to follow this covenant while at Wheaton -- shouldn't we already behave this way, regardless of our status as Wheaton students?  The agreement itself almost becomes a mini Master-Signifier, because it ensures that students, while all professing Christians, conform to an expected, uniform standard of behavior, usually with regard to evangelical biggies like sex and alcohol.  Yet in reality, the covenant was empty at its core, as students would drink and have sex anyway (married sex is allowed, from what I hear...).

This chapter was definitely my favorite.  I agree wholeheartedly with the assessment of the personal, individual, nebulous decision for Christ.  I would add that this inward-focused, non-transformative element that divorces action from being a Christian has also crippled evangelicalism's ability to be a true force in righting social wrongs.  As long as I read my Bible in my daily personal quiet time and follow the other items on the checklist of a good Christian, the social realm is too easily forgotten.  Fitch does excellently address this in the next chapter, but I think the decision for Christ has contributed to avoidance of social justice just as much as, if not more than, the belief in a Christian nation.  

So for my next post, I want to share a great example of this disconnect/avoidance of social issues that the decision for Christ brings.  The subject of the Zizekian critique actually spoke at Wheaton's chapel a couple of times, too, to much applause...

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Photo credit - second photo

Review of The End of Evangelicalism - Part 2: Inerrant Bible

This is part 2 of my review/discussion of David Fitch's book, The End of Evangelicalism.  Check out part 1 for an overview of the theory that Fitch appropriates from Slavoj Zizek.

One of evangelicalism's Master-Signifiers (conceptual objects to which we give our allegience, but in reality are empty at the core) is the belief in an inerrant Bible.  Commitment to a high view of Scripture is a defining characteristic of evangelicalism.  This belief gained traction during the fundamentalist-modernist debates in the 1920's and '30's, which eventually led to a split from mainline Protestants in reaction to higher criticism.  

It's worth noting, however, that the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy specifically denies that "inerrancy is a doctrine invented by scholastic Protestantism, or is a reactionary position postulated in response to negative higher criticism."  Regardless of the motives behind its origin, to be a good evangelical, one must suscribe to the belief in an inerrant Bible.  The Chicago Statement defines the term "inerrancy" as Fitch uses it, but it can be summarized as a belief in the Bible's authority because of its divine verbal inspiration by God, which is "historically, and in every other way, inerrant in every word" (p. 50).  Because every word conveys a propositional truth, a close reading of the Bible is encouraged, in attempts to somehow reach the original author's intent.  Or for us legal eagles, Evangelicals:Bible:: Scalia:Constitution.

As most evangelical institutions require a commitment to inerrancy, this belief has helped knit evangelicals together as a group.  But Fitch questions how this doctrine has actually shaped us as a people.  One of the characteristics of a Master-Signifier is its elusiveness, meaning it's difficult to pin down.  An inerrant Bible producing "one true interpretation" has been elusive for evangelicals.  Fitch says that inerrancy "is mocked each time another set of evangelical commentaries multiplies the possible interpretations for each text in the Bible" (p. 55).  Inerrancy as a more conceptual object, though, serves us well, as it helps to rally the troops against liberals (as objet petit a) who would deny the truth of the Bible.

Fitch also points out that the belief in an inerrant Bible does little in the way of unifying evangelicals in practice, because once you state you believe in inerrancy, no one can question the interpretation that results.  Thus, the belief holds factions that would otherwise have little in common.  Sadly, manipulating Scripture in this way prevents evangelicals from actually participating in and continuing the story that Scripture tells, because the church is too busy defending and upholding inerrancy.  

As far as irruptions of the Real, which are in-breakings that expose the emptiness of the Master-Signifier, Fitch points to the disagreement over the Chicago Conference on Errancy's stance on literal 7-day creation, and Hal Lindsey's failed apocalyptic predictions.  Through these overidentifications, inerrancy was shown to be "more about 'being right!' than a belief that we inhabit with our daily lives" (p. 59).  Fitch also points out that inerrancy is a device used to control the truth.

This chapter is loaded with gems and I can't do it justice with a single blog post.  Fitch's discussion of George W. Bush's actions during his presidency is golden.  

For me, fewer examples come to mind with inerrancy, because I've spent more time criticizing the other elements in Fitch's triumvirate: a Christian nation and a personal relationship with Christ.  However, I did notice that Al Mohler provided a great example in one of his recent posts, The Church and the 'Clobber Scriptures' - The Bible on Homosexuality.  Here, as a gatekeeper and controller-of-the-truth in his defense of inerrancy, Mohler refers to his usual objet petit a's: liberals and homosexuals.  

Review of The End of Evangelicalism - Part 1: Ideology as the Big Lie

Todd kindly provided me a copy of David Fitch's The End of Evangelicalism for review, so here is the first part, albeit long overdue.  The 100+ pages of law school reading each week won out over the summer, unfortunately.  

I broke up my discussion into several posts, because this book has joined the likes of Mark Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind in terms of reshaping my thinking.  Also, I've been interested, for the past 7-8 years, in the same ideas that Fitch criticizes, so I found myself amen-ing and underlining on nearly every page.  Since I started the book, it's hard not to notice in headlines the very things Fitch deconstructs, so I want to throw in some examples outside the book.  Therefore, I simply could not do it justice in one post.  My review(s) will also be posted here, and be sure to check out other reviews there as well.

Fitch uses the work of political and cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek (who in turn relies on Hegel) to perform a political analysis of evangelicalism.  The term "political" here means how and why evangelicals have come together, and how we practice our beliefs.  Specifically, Fitch explores, and then deconstructs, three predominant elements of evangelicalism: belief in an inerrant Bible, the decision for Christ, and the notion of a Christian nation.  

These three elements today actually "mean very little for how we live our day-to-day lives as evangelical Christians." (p. xxii).  However, they form a patchwork group of what would otherwise be disparate Christians, because we are all free to define these terms in our own way, yet we think we've all defined them the same way.  Formation of such a large, seemingly unified, and powerful group initially helped evangelicalism's rise in North America and elsewhere.  But as Fitch shows,

evangelicalism, in reaction to the modern-fundamentalist controversies, pursued a strategy for survival via a defense based in the autonomous structures of modern reason and politics. In the process, we gave up the true core of our Christian politics--the person and work of Jesus Christ--and set ourselves up for a fall by in essence becoming a form of "religious ideology."  We in essence emptied our social politic of its core in Jesus Christ for a politics buttressed by the temporary structures of modernity. (p. 17).

I would love to spend more time delving into Zizek's analytical tools, but I wouldn't do them justice.  Fitch describes Zizek's theories as "doing therapy upon an entire culture," so it's a broad undertaking (p. 20).  Zizek assumes that all systems are linguistic structures, and ideologies serve a cynical function: they appease us and make us feel better about ourselves, and we ascribe to these ideologies fully knowing this.  Ideology gives us a "Big Other to believe in and assuage our guilt while [...] we are content with the status quo.  Ideology provides a big lie with which we can all cooperate in order to keep our lives going" (p. 24).  

One basic concept in Zizek's framework is the master signifier, which is a conceptual object to which we give our allegience, thus enabling groups to form.  These master signifiers are empty, because they are often nebulous, vague, and serve as an orientation point so we think we all believe in the same thing. Fitch isolates three of evangelicalism's master signifiers: an inerrant Bible, the decision for Christ, and the Christian nation.  

Another basic concept is the irruption of the Real.  Irrupt means to burst or break through, and that is exactly what certain events do to expose the emptiness of the master signifiers.  Zizek defines them as excessive episodes that reveal the drives and contradictions that underlie our ideology.  Overidentification and jouissance are two forms of irruptions.  Overidentification happens when an ideology is taken too seriously, thus showing how absurd it is (hello Stephen Colbert!).  Jouissance, on the other hand, is the enjoyment that holds us together under an ideology.  It's an irrational, perverse type of enjoyment, but is focused on an objet petit a.  For example, many U.S. Americans "enjoy" aiming their vengeance at Islamic fundamentalists, who become our objet petit a, while American evangelicals direct their perverse enjoyment toward railing against liberals and the LGBTQ community.  

To Zizek, once the irruption of the Real occurs, there is nothing at the core.  But Christians hold that our life here is not empty at its core, for we form our lives around the fullness of Christ.  However, the way we are "enjoying" some of the cornerstones of our beliefs may be preventing us from fully articulating a politic that is faithful to Christ.  Up next: the inerrant Bible.  

As an aside, today I started Christian Smith's The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture, and it is already looking like an excellent complement to Fitch's chapter on inerrancy-as-master-signifier.  Or rather, maybe Smith's book will help expose a breaking-through, or irruption, of evangelicalism's contradictions about the Bible?