The political division of the evangelica church

[achilles12604]

I haven’t been on in a while so I am rusty. So bear with me.

I was recently reading an article in the New York Times.

Article Here

This article covered a few different subtopics while discussing the main point that the evangelical church is experiencing another major split. It seems that there is a leaning among the non-hard-line believers towards an almost realistic and reasonable stance. Instead of saying "abortions are evil and those who have them are going to hell!!!" they say "abortions are wrong, but we must try and help to community and render aid to hurting people. So let’s start a counseling and alternative center instead of yelling and protesting the abortion center across the street."

Now this may be just me, but option 2 is much more appealing and gentile. It seems to me that the peaceful Jesus portrayed in the Gospels would champion option 2.


Read through the article for yourself (it took me about 20 min) and then I have some questions for debate.

1) Is the overriding point of the article accurate? Is there a split developing within the evangelical church?

2) If such a rift is indeed forming, which side's views are more closely represented in the Gospels and would indeed fall into the old WWJD cliché?

3) Are the more conservative (as opposed to hard-line radical) believers betraying their roots and their true faith, or are they returning to the heart of the faith while the "old-timers" are the ones who have left the truth?


Extra Credit Question : I have given this some thought and I have decided that if the democrats had any semblance of intelligence at all, they would support Obama rather than Clinton. My reasoning is this. While Hillary Clinton's fairly radical views are almost exactly what a traditional democrat would aspire to bring to the white house, her views can not and will never be accepted by the more independent/ soft republicans which are becoming more and more numerous with the war in Iraq and other disasters befalling the hard line republican party.

Barack Obama's views however, while the may not be as left as some democrats would like, are far enough to the "right" of left, to appeal to this same middle crowd. The result would be that the Democratic Party would steal a huge percentage of voters who would normally and historically have voted straight republican, thus securing a democratic victory.

I believe that if the DNC chooses to support Hillary Clinton, it will force this middle crowd to do something they do not really want to do, and split their vote for either Giuliani or a third party candidate.

Extra Credit Question : What do you think of my analysis of 2008 democratic nominations? Would Obama be able to capture the hearts of the traditionally republican but fed up crowd? Would Hillary’s nomination FORCE this same huge middle group back to the republican side despite their frustrations with the party?

[micatala]

An interesting article and I think what will be an interesting thread.

To the extent that the Republicans are losing evangelicals I can think of a number of reasons. The main one, however, would be a loss of credibility, both on the part of Republican leadership and on the part of evangelical leaders who have been pushing the political agenda of social issues. People have figured out they have been lied to and manipulated. They are not going to put up with this, even if they largely agree with the views of those practicing these dishonesties.

There is also the dynamic of leaders continually over-hyping the 'social evils' they rail against. THis is illustrated, for example, by the following quote from the article:

In the days before the election, Dobson told me he believed the culture war was “rapidly approaching the climax, with everything that we are about on the line” and the election might be “the pivot point.”

Language like this is constantly employed by social issue conservatives. People are figuring out that the sky isn't really falling just because some gays might want to get married.

The Republicans have also been trying to maintain a schizophrenic existence. They want to push conservative social issues to get votes. On the other hand, the have let Cheney and the neo-cons run too much of the show, espeically the foreign policy show.



I also found this passage of interest:

Ever since they broke with the mainline Protestant churches nearly 100 years ago, the hallmark of evangelicals theology has been a vision of modern society as a sinking ship, sliding toward depravity and sin. For evangelicals, the altar call was the only life raft — a chance to accept Jesus Christ, rebirth and salvation. Falwell, Dobson and their generation saw their political activism as essentially defensive, fighting to keep traditional moral codes in place so their children could have a chance at the raft.

But many younger evangelicals — and some old-timers — take a less fatalistic view. For them, the born-again experience of accepting Jesus is just the beginning. What follows is a long-term process of “spiritual formation” that involves applying his teachings in the here and now. They do not see society as a moribund vessel. They talk more about a biblical imperative to fix up the ship by contributing to the betterment of their communities and the world. They support traditional charities but also public policies that address health care, race, poverty and the environment.

I hope this trend continues. We need to get away from the 'end times' mania.


The discussion on Huckabee was also interesting.

But the leaders of the Christian conservative movement have not rallied to him. Many say he cannot win because he has not raised enough money. Perkins and others have criticized Huckabee for taking too soft an approach to the Middle East. Others worry that his record on taxes will anger allies on the right. And some Christian conservatives take his “gestation period” line as a slight to their movement.

“They finally have the soldier they have been waiting for, and they shouldn’t send me out into the battlefield without supplies,” Huckabee told me in exasperation. He argued that the movement’s leaders would “become irrelevant” if they started putting political viability or low taxes ahead of their principles about abortion and marriage.

Here we see the Christians conservative leaders being entranced by the lure of power. They don't see Huckabee as being able to attain that power, or use it as they wish, so they don't support him. One could look at this as sacrificing principle for power or pragmatism. Too much of this is going to turn off the flock.


However, Democrats can easily flub this. They have already flubbed, in my view, their ascendancy to congressional majority. If they end up being perceived as disingenuous, they will not long see the benefit of this dynamic.

[Chancellor]

I haven’t been on in a while so I am rusty. So bear with me.

I was recently reading an article in the New York Times.

Article Here

I'm sorry.

This article covered a few different subtopics while discussing the main point that the evangelical church is experiencing another major split. It seems that there is a leaning among the non-hard-line believers towards an almost realistic and reasonable stance. Instead of saying "abortions are evil and those who have them are going to hell!!!" they say "abortions are wrong, but we must try and help to community and render aid to hurting people. So let’s start a counseling and alternative center instead of yelling and protesting the abortion center across the street."

But it's the New York Times and, so, it is not to be taken seriously.

Now this may be just me, but option 2 is much more appealing and gentile. It seems to me that the peaceful Jesus portrayed in the Gospels would champion option 2.

Many evangelical Christians are, in fact, involved in ministries to help these women. Groups like Planned Parenthood (whose founder was part of the eugenics movement of the early 20th century and supported mandatory sterilization of blacks, the poor and the "feeble minded") oppose Christians providing crisis pregnancy services.

Read through the article for yourself (it took me about 20 min) and then I have some questions for debate.

1) Is the overriding point of the article accurate? Is there a split developing within the evangelical church?

The split has always been there.

2) If such a rift is indeed forming, which side's views are more closely represented in the Gospels and would indeed fall into the old WWJD cliché?

Actually, there's nothing new here.

3) Are the more conservative (as opposed to hard-line radical) believers betraying their roots and their true faith, or are they returning to the heart of the faith while the "old-timers" are the ones who have left the truth?

No, the ones who left the truth are the ones that got caught up in the dominion theology and Christian Reconstructionism (they're the ones trying to take over governments and social institutions).

Extra Credit Question : I have given this some thought and I have decided that if the democrats had any semblance of intelligence at all, they would support Obama rather than Clinton. My reasoning is this. While Hillary Clinton's fairly radical views are almost exactly what a traditional democrat would aspire to bring to the white house, her views can not and will never be accepted by the more independent/ soft republicans which are becoming more and more numerous with the war in Iraq and other disasters befalling the hard line republican party.

If Democrats had any semblance of intelligence they wouldn't be Democrats. Seriously, though, Hillary doesn't know what her views are. In the span of about two minutes during the last debate she took two different positions on the same issue. Whether Democrats would do better to support Obama (who has very little actual experience), I don't know. What I do know is that I believe Democrats should make up their mind what they believe philosophically and stick to their guns.

Barack Obama's views however, while the may not be as left as some democrats would like, are far enough to the "right" of left, to appeal to this same middle crowd. The result would be that the Democratic Party would steal a huge percentage of voters who would normally and historically have voted straight republican, thus securing a democratic victory.

They're all a bunch of big government nanny state socialists.

I believe that if the DNC chooses to support Hillary Clinton, it will force this middle crowd to do something they do not really want to do, and split their vote for either Giuliani or a third party candidate.

Since Slick Willie Clinton was very much a centrist, the middle crowd may end up going with Hillary.

Extra Credit Question : What do you think of my analysis of 2008 democratic nominations? Would Obama be able to capture the hearts of the traditionally republican but fed up crowd? Would Hillary’s nomination FORCE this same huge middle group back to the republican side despite their frustrations with the party?

I think your analysis is off. Obama is just as liberal as Hillary, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and the others. Further, he can't get the support of a significant part of the black community because, as some of them claim, "he's not one of us." We all know that Bill Clinton was the first black President.

[Assent]

They're all a bunch of big government nanny state socialists.

Since Slick Willie Clinton was very much a centrist, the middle crowd may end up going with Hillary.

*giggles*

Nanny state.

And Slick Willie...well, I'd get banned if I linked what I was thinking to that.

But seriously, saying that your opponents are just as bad as they think you are is not a good way to get a reasonable response. I don't recall that name calling ever did anything but make people mad.