A post by Derek Penwell today has me going. I read it just minutes after comment replying in a series of push backs that Christian Piatt received about his series of posts on the God’s Politics blog about certain Chriatian Cliches he says should be abandoned. Of course, the users of these cliches came crashing in to question his Christianity, and one of the more self-righteous of the bunch was so sure of himself that I just had to speak up. Derek , in his post, nails it from so many angles in his post, which was spurred by the “Why Liberal Churches are declining” piece by Russ Douthat, and Dianne Butler-Bass’s response. Prime among his observations are the assesments of “political alliances” with which conservatives love to bash everyone else:
If progressive Christians have merely uncritically baptized liberal ethical systems when it comes to issues like homosexuality—as is often suggested by our fundamentalist brothers and sisters—why is it not the case that the conservative embrace of tax breaks for the wealthy, the adoption of a do-it-yourself attitude toward healthcare, welfare, and unemployment benefits, and the enthusiastic correlation of patriotism and militarism are merely a baptism of conservative or worse, libertarian ethical systems?
via Turning the Tables: Why Conservative Christianity Bears the Burden of Proof | [D]mergent.
So elequently put, Derek. That’s a keeper. And spot on. Easy enough to dismiss the “other’s” views/expressions as “political captivity” while working under the assumptions of yet another political captivity. (I also need to acknowledge here that I am indeed making my own claims about THEIR political alliances being captive to GOP politics. But it goes beyond “competing claims” here. We often see the media today holding up a debate in terms of “balance”, where claims of our own that the “THEY” represented by the right wing of Christianity is “balanced” out by “the other side” by positing the matter in a “he-said she-said” manner, which implies that we have a “wash” and that the “truth lies somewhere in between” (boy do I ever shudder when I hear that). It’s not just a battle for who’s right about the Bible here (but judging from the imbalance of occurrences of “left wing” trolling on Right Wing sites (rarely any) compared to the opposite (right wing trolling on Progressive sites) , the tendency seem to be that it’s much more important to the right wing that they are “right about the Bible” (which makes even more sense when one considers that this is an idolatry; putting “Bible” and “theological fidelity to a notion of Scriptural primacy” (as long as that primacy is self-serving) higher than obedience and incarnate response (and response as communities, as opposed to merely individualistic).
Derek’s prime charge is as he highlights here:
The real war on religion is being waged by those on the Right who read the bible not as the story of God’s saving interaction with the world through the unfolding of God’s reign, but as foundational for a conservative politics of self-interest or as a blueprint for a post-Enlightenment cult of individual piety.
And this is no more apparent than in things like the uproar over Christian Piatt’s “Cliche” lists. The ferocity with which people will rush to the defense of what I can only describe best as “talking points of the evangelical right wing”; and its also interesting that these people show up in a Sojourners community blog post, where one wonders why they show up to read there inthe first place, unless it be to display their “righteous belief structures”. When Christian suggests that Jesus resisted the idea of his disciples calling him “Lord” (and there is, in theological studiess, the idea known as “The Messianic Secret”, but this notion seems to be off the radar of these “defenders of the faith of how to articulate the faith”), there is almost an audible gasp in a pile on with “how can you call this into question? It’s a basic principle!” , while all the while ignoring that the basic thrust of Piatt’s articles have been against a formulaic, legalistic, “tract-bearing” approach used by “share your faith” (meaning “share” in a flat, verbal sense) people. And so there is a deep irony to the fact that these people come defending the continued abuse of certain theological notions as somehow magic incantations that have to be used in any “presentation” of the gospel (as if the gospel is something to be “presented” as if some PowerPoint presentation).
The thing that tells me that I am, in this case, on solid ground, is that this thing called justice and shalom, which the Right has become convinced is “Democratic Party platform”, existed long before American politics. It’s part of that “Biblical history” I see when I read the Bible. And yes, I DO INDEED tend to gravitate toward the American political party that is populated by folks who have a sense for the equalities that seem basic to maintaining an order which is not dominated by an oligarchy. (Whoops, that sounds like “Occupy”. You betcha. I defintiely have the sense that they’re on to somethin’)
