natalie's narrative

Armageddonist absolutism

Once again school has taken over my life, but I wanted to share a great Sightings email from early October, "Evangelicaldom," by Martin Marty.  The topic was evangelicals' involvement in politics, and it made me realize why it is so difficult to have a civil conversation with politically conservative Christians.  

Marty references an article in the Los Angeles Times that describes the "absolutist style of religious fundamentalism": 

Those who oppose the religification of politics may think all they have to do is change tactics, but they are sadly, tragically mistaken. They can never win, because for the political fundamentalists, this isn’t political jousting, this is Armageddon.  With stakes like that, they will not lose, and there is nothing democrats – small ‘d’ and capital ‘D’ – can do about it.

This struck a chord with me, because it is really difficult to reason with people who are truly convinced that their political stances have the seal of approval from God, and moving even a little bit from their stances would be sinful.  It would have negative eternal consequences.  How can you have a productive conversation with someone so set in her ways like this?  With so much "at stake," these Armageddonists are not budging.  Political/fiscal conservatives are geniuses for aligning with them.  Geniuses.

The unfaithful governor highlights a paradox...

South Carolina's evangelical governor refuses to resign after disappearing for a week to be with his mistress.  Comparing himself to King David, the governor stated:

I remain committed to rebuilding the trust that has been committed to me over the next 18 months, and it is my hope that I am able to follow the example set by David in the Bible — who after his fall from grace humbly refocused on the work at hand. By doing so, I will ultimately better serve in every area of my life, and I am committed to doing so.

A rabbi in the NY Times yesterday notes:

The paradox of American evangelicals is that they are Christian on the one hand and political conservatives on the other with utterly opposing views of redemption. Christians believe that no one is blameless and all must therefore ride the coattails of a perfect being into heaven. But conservatives espouse the gospel of personal accountability. The state cannot save them. Man must earn his bread by the sweat of his brow and not by welfare alone.

Guns and the gospel of peace

I read an article today about a pastor encouraging his parishioners to bring their guns to a church service tonight (contingent on the pastor finding a new insurance carrier, as their current one canceled their coverage for today!!).  

This flies in the face of what Jesus said were the two greatest commandments.  I cannot reconcile supporting gun rights with loving your neighbor.  A different pastor who was shot in a different church while preaching is completely disgusted by the pro-gun pastor's actions, and commented:

“I don’t understand how any minister who is familiar with the teachings of the Bible can do this,” he added. “Jesus didn’t say, ‘Go ahead, make my day.’ ”

I heart I Heart Huckabees

I just finished watching I Heart Huckabees.  It was weird but funny.  I loved the dinner scene with the Christian family and the Sudanese refugee!  "Jesus is never mad at us if we live with Him in our hearts."  Tommy Corn: "I hate to break it to you, but He is - He most definitely is."  If you ever want to watch an offbeat, philosophical film that skewers our society, I recommend this film.  The Shania Twain element was cracking me UP!

What a post-fundamentalist will not be teaching her children...

This is awesome.

This I Used to Believe

On the way home from class Friday night, I caught This American Life on NPR.  The theme this week was "This I Used to Believe."  I wanted to share Act II because it was my former self in a conversation with my new self--faithwise.

A woman, grieving an inexplicable death of her close friend, is a former Catholic who thinks she may be agnostic now.  She has a (frustrating) conversation with an evangelical Texas football coach.  He goes all arrogant and apologetics (Josh McDowell style) on her, when all she seeks are a few answers to her questions about God and why do bad things happen to good people.  

I know that answers to her questions probably don't exist in this lifetime, but I grew so sad for the woman.  In the middle of pain and hurt and grief, nobody CARES whether Genesis 1 is literally true or whether postmodernism is wrong.  All she needed was a fellow human being to just listen and BE with her in her questioning and doubt.  Act II demonstrated why (aside from the church's love affair with militarism, patriotism, and consumerism), I have no desire to be involved in an evangelical church.  You can throw all the answers and arguments and facts at me you want, but if you have no way to address the gaping wounds in the world, you won't get very far!

The episode can be found here: This I Used to Believe.

Yes we did!

Emily Hunter McGowin has an excellent post regarding evangelicals' respose to Obama's victory.  She does a great job of pointing out how the negative, fearful reaction betrays a trust placed more in our government than in God.  Jesus makes it clear that our kingdom is not of this world.  (I wish I would have had a copy of Shane Claiborne's Jesus for President after the 2004 election, but I digress).  

Emily also points out how uncharitable evangelicals' responses are in light of such an historic election.  I unfortunately saw a lot of this when I logged on to my Facebook account today.  Emily writes:

Finally, I was deeply disturbed by evangelicals' overall uncharitable response to what is an historic moment in American history, no matter your political affiliation or religious convictions. One of our country's "original sins" was the mass enslavement of an entire race of human beings, for no other reason than their skin color and physical features. The text of the Constitution itself considers black African slaves only three-fifths of a person. This infamous blot on an otherwise ingenious founding document (called the “constitutional compromise”) is an embarrassment to all Americans, let alone Christian Americans who proclaim the equal worth of all before God. 

But now, US citizens have elected the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya to be their President. Regardless of one's political leanings, this is an amazing thing and a reason to celebrate. No, the plague of racism in America is not defeated in this historic event. And, yes, there are plenty of reasons for evangelicals to be concerned about the possible future decisions of our new President and his counselors. But, for now, at this moment, evangelicals should be able to celebrate a great step forward in the cause of justice.

Anyway, I should have remained blissfully ignorant and avoided Facebook, because the tone here in the Chicago area is so fun!  I was in the Loop Tuesday night for class, and it was awesome to see such enthusiasm for our political process.  I know I complained earlier about McCain/Palin supporters not knowing anything about their actual policies, but I think people have overall become more involved and informed, which is encouraging.  We need to keep this up so as to not have a repeat of the past few years!!  

Spread the wealth

I try to catch whatever snippets of presidential campaign coverage that I can, and I've noticed that John McCain has derisively referred to Barack Obama's policies as "spreading the wealth" several times.  Over the past few years after delving more into Scripture and reading books by Shane Claiborne, I've realized that the Bible--and the Christian faith--is all about wealth redistribution.  So I found it a little odd that McCain was so critical of the idea.  I wondered if he worried about alienating his Christian voters.  Then I realized that perhaps the Christians who support McCain probably think that the phrase "God helps those who help themselves" is found in the Bible.

Anyway, I can't bring myself to vote for someone so critical of Leviticus 25, of jubilee, of 2 Corinthians 8:14-15 and Acts 4:34.  When God provided manna in the wilderness, those who accumulated too much found their hoarded manna spoiled.  After we've just vividly seen the results of the wealthy and powerful in our society making decisions with no government oversight, which has essentially been the logical end result of unrestrained capitalism, I find it hard that a candidate so critical of sharing wealth could win this election.  

Even Alan Greenspan has realized, after this current crisis, that his free-market philosophy is not the answer.  Even just a regular capitalist country has some measure of wealth redistribution, such as pooling money (taxes) to build roads, schools, and provide fire protection, among other things.  

I don't understand what's so awful about spreading the wealth, unless of course you ARE one of the wealthy.  Of course the interests of the wealthy are the ones that the Republicans are so intent on protecting, so why am I so surprised about McCain's comments?

Okay, back to my contracts reading...

Questions for complementarians

David Gushee, in an editorial in USA Today, poses some great questions for conservative evangelicals who cheer Sarah Palin's role as vice presidential candidate.  They include:

If you agree that God can call a woman to serve as president, does this have any implications for your views on women's leadership in church life? Would you be willing to vote for a qualified woman to serve as pastor of your church? If not, why not?

Do you believe that Palin is under the authority of her husband as head of the family? If so, would this authority spill over into her role as vice president? 

Do you believe that women carry primary responsibility for the care of children in the home? If so, does this affect your support for Palin? If not, are you willing to change your position and instead argue for flexibility in the distribution of child care responsibilities according to the needs of the family?

I too wondered about this when I heard the news that Sen. McCain had chosen a female running mate, especially the second question:  If Palin's husband is to have authority over her, does that extend to her role as vice president--or even president??

It seems like hypocrisy and dualistic thinking to separate the church sphere from the secular, political one, as I believe Al Mohler has recently done.  So, how would a conservative Christian answer these?  All I know is that it would require a lot of gymnastics!

Idolatrous politics

I just read a great post by Dr. Bruce Prescott, regarding the slogan of the Republican candidates' presidential campaign, "Country First:"

One American political party has adopted "country first" as a campaign slogan. That same party is the party of political preference for the bulk of the evangelical community in our nation. I have been waiting for the significance of that statement to dawn on someone in the conservative evangelical community, but to date they seem to be blissfully unaware of the idolatrous overtones of their politics.

In fact, followers of Jesus wouldn't even be able to put our country third!  The post is can be found here: Country First?