The previous discussions about Keillor have brought to mind how this has been going on , on a much smaller scale, within the Church for 25 years, starting with the beginnings of the conservative backlash (which apparently had begun several years before that, given how they had built an apparently strong coalition by the time of the 1979 SBC Convention). Paul Pressler, Paige Patterson, and other fundamentalist leaders “successfully” garbbed control of the leadership positions of the SBC, and embarked upon a 20 year campaign to “cleanse” the denomination.

I was at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 1978-81, and all of the professors there at the time are now either retired or at other institutions (often in larger, Baptist affiliated but prestigious univeristies such as Wake Forest and Baylor) , or with other denominations, or the CBF (Cooperative Baptist Fellowship).

From my perspective, I see a trend toward cultural capitulation in the conservative movement, much as they rail against “worldliness”. Their worldliness lies in the areas of “values” that they conveniently omit from their “morals lexicon”. The social and international dimensions of the gospel are alarmingly absent from their litany of concerns.

I first heard Tony Campolo, an American Baptist, in 1980. Also, that was the same period I am describing, when the Baptist world became a microcosm of what was happening in the public religious sphere beginning in 1980 with Reagan’s election and the emergence of “The Moral Majority” as a force in that election. Campolo would come down squarely in the “theological-emphasis on social jsutice as a key expression of faithfulness” camp. I had also had my Christian Ethics class under Glen Stassen just prior to that, and had the opportunity to hear from a broad sprectrum of Christian theologies regarding ethics.

I also had a course in BioEthics, and both Stassen and Simmons (the bioethics prof) were very concerned about the prospects of a Reagan administration, on social principles based on Christian Ethics, and also with their alliance with the emerging Christian Right. Campolo soon began to come under fire from the “orthodoxy police” of Right wing Christians. Over the years I’ve read most all of Campolo’s books (some 14 of them), and seen or heard him speak many times.

I was never to work in a Southern Baptist Church after graduation. It was possible shortly afterwards, and I did work for a conservative small town American Baptist Church in Iowa (which was more like a Southern Baptist typical Church than an American Baptist Church), but increasingly, the Southern Baptist Convention tone changed dramatically, and its leadership began sounding just like the Moral Majority.

All of this is to say that I’ve been involved in such cultural/theological divides within the Church for quite a while now, and the Web (and later the Blogs) gave me an opportunity to write about some of this, adn begin to explore the Internet as a means of connecting to a community of theological dialogue on a much larger scale than was previously possible.

This election cycle, I felt this divide more acutely, since I felt that I, as well as the large majority of America, whether they realize it or not, had much to lose with another Bush term, and had lost so much with the first term. The resolve of the Religous Right was all the more zealous , in spite of what seemed to be more obvious and glaring deficiencies of the Bush administration exposed. It seems that the desire of the Right to “feel supported” (even thought they’re not) is exerting a major pull on them.