Larry alerted me to this article last week, and I revisited it today. I was especially taken by this quote:
This is why John Gresham Machen said, almost a century ago, that liberal Christianity is not a brand of Christianity: it is simply another religion altogether — liberalism.
While much of what is identified or even touted as “liberalism” is something somewhat short of Biblical Christianity, Colson’s suggestion in this article that:
This kind of decision dishonors our Lord, dishonors the Church, and dishonors those who have kept the faith for two millennia.
Overtly suggests that these “decisions” or “position papers” forwarded by Mainline denominations are THE battlefield where IDEAS and OPINIONS are slung back and forth is the nexus of the battle between good and evil. The idea that “dishonoring the church” has anything to do with “what position you take” on SOME issue (select from the cultural dropdown list of choices) is depressing to me. Absent is the idea of the ecclesia; the people of God as a people set apart. Colson suggests here that these lines are drawn by the boundaries of the debate on what issues there are, what potion on these is correct, and that “positions” on these are the defining characteristics of those who have “kept the faith for two millennia”.
Colson’s first incredibly haughty remark above is ironic, for this is close to what I think also of the camp he indirectly implies as the “correct” one; that there is more “political” positioning and cultural mores involved here than “theological”. It is “another religion altogether” which mixes American nationalism with choice morsels of severely truncated and de-fanged ideas of how God’s people stand apart.
(update: my last sentence there where I speak of the “American nationalistic” “Religion” of the Religious Right is echoed in a strikingly similar way by Hauerwas in this video to which I was just watching/listening —see about 15:30 into the video……the whole thought starts about 14:30…..(or Audio only—Real Audio stream or mp3 download) (I was so proud of myself that I just reacted to the Colson article by describing the Religious Right as “truncated” Christianity, and then heard this comment by Hauerwas just minutes later, after seeing Daniel’s link to the video here)
