Alan Jacobs scores a point against the blogosphere’s most revered Christian-basher:
Andrew Sullivan writes in his usual vein about “Christianism”:
Imagine a libertarian Christianity, which urged individuals to give away as much of their property as possible to the poor, to forget about the sex lives of their neighbors and focus on their own, to pray more than politic and to forgive more than to judge. Imagine, in other words, Christianity, and remind yourself how alien Christianism is to it.
And then later:
At one point, Christians will look back on this period, I believe, with horror. The desire to control others’ lives and souls through politics is so anathema to the Gospels it will one day have to be exposed and ended. Until then, we just have to keep our spirits up and attend to our own failures as Christians, which, of course, are many.
I think Andrew has finally convinced me. And as I have thought more about this I have finally realized whose fault all this is: Martin Luther King. He could have stayed in his prayer closet instead of politicking; he could have attended to his own failures as a Christian, which of course were many; he could have forgiven white Southerners instead of judging them. But no. He became an “outside agitator,” marching into ordinary American communities and telling them that their local laws, and indeed in some cases federal laws, were not to be obeyed — and why? Because they conflicted with the law of God!
August 9th, 2011 | 4:45 pm
I’d put it at the feet of Walter Rauschenbusch, whose “Christianity and the Social Crisis” was enormously influential among progressives at the beginning of the 20th century. Arguing for socialism, he said “Thus the will of God revealed in Christ and in the highest manifestations of the religious spirit, the call of human duty, and the motives of self-protection, alike summon Christian men singly and collectively to put their hands to the plough and not to look back till public morality shall be at least as much Christianized as private morality now is.”
August 9th, 2011 | 4:51 pm
[...] Joe Carter @ First Thoughts VN:F [1.9.10_1130]please wait…Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)VN:F [1.9.10_1130]Rating: 0 (from 0 [...]
August 9th, 2011 | 9:08 pm
what’s most annoying about Sullivan’s “true Christianity” (or true conservatism) is that he isn’t proposing a live and let live attitude, he wants it to actively affirm his own preferences.
so anonymous sex, recreational drug use and agreed upon non-monogamy don’t become just personal choices, they become deep spiritual experiences and anyone who criticizes them slightly is a neo-Puritan Nazi. likewise conservatism can never be attached to any given ideological goal, it must always simply be defined as a “temperament” and nothing else, and anyone who disagrees is a Christianist, even on matters beyond the usual social issues like Keynesian stimulus.
August 9th, 2011 | 10:43 pm
Martin Luther King was a liberal Christian. Conservative evangelicals are not the heirs to the political-theology of King; arguably someone like Cornel West is.
August 10th, 2011 | 5:02 am
Martin Luther King was a liberal Christian. Conservative evangelicals are not the heirs to the political-theology of King; arguably someone like Cornel West is.
So you’re saying that the criticisms are fair when leveled against conservative evangelicals, but not valid when applied against liberal Christians?
Because it’s just self evident that when liberal Christians are poking their noses into someone else’s business, they are the divine instrument of God’s will, but when conservatives are never right and so have no business participating in political discourse?
August 10th, 2011 | 7:32 am
In what sense of traditional theology was MLK a “Christian” at all? Is “Alan Jacobs” Christian (sounds Jewish)? Who is he to be telling the true faithful what the essence of their religion is?
MLK was Christian neither theologically, nor personally. And he was a poor quality American (a communist, as my grandfather thought at the time), whose “civil rights” movement has been a disaster for American liberties, and white safety.
August 10th, 2011 | 8:36 am
“arguably someone like Cornel West is.”
Very arguably
I don’t know that conservatively evangelicals are claiming to be heirs of MLK as much as just pointing to an example of someone who was Christian and was a political and social activist and didn’t see a contradiction between the two.
My only question is why is anyone taking Andrew Sullivan seriously about anything?
August 10th, 2011 | 8:37 am
And Leon Heller….so wrong on so many fronts it isn’t even worth getting into it.
August 10th, 2011 | 9:01 am
Blake,
Not saying that at all. Rather, in late 20th early 21st Cen. public arguments, there is a certain posture that if I can connect my argument to Martin Luther King I score points. Because I study the American Founding so much and look for the way they are used as authorities in modern public arguments, I see similar use. Bonhoffer too. There is a tendency of all “right thinking” sides to claim them, because they were all on the “right side” of history (unless you persist in opposing the sides they fought for). And if one is a religious believer, to argue something like “they were religious believers just like me and were coming at this from the same place.”
King was not a conservative Christian, period. King also had some issues with his Christological beliefs that may put him outside of CS Lewis’s “mere Christianity” test.
August 10th, 2011 | 9:06 am
Steve,
A shorter point, which I think I agree with, might be and inconsistent use of separation of church and state or of private religious conviction and public argument. The separation is more often used to try and shut up the Christian Right as than the Christian Left.
I am a non-Christian (but open minded) libertarian. But I know a lot of Christian libertarians who believe their faith calls them to support a separation of Church and State and to have government involved only to protect from harm. Their faith informs their political stance too.
August 10th, 2011 | 9:14 am
Jon, it doesn’t matter for the purposes of addressing Sullivan’s point whether MLK was conservative theologically or politically, or similar to or different from politically active conservative Christians.
Sullivan made an absurdly sweeping point about how real, good, lovable Christians stay out of other people’s business and don’t offer judgment. King did not remotely follow that model. You don’t need to specify which business is gotten into or stayed out of to realize that Sullivan’s argument cannot stand up unless he’s equally willing to condemn King. At the least, he needs to be more specific. But to be more specific would cloud the moral simplicity he’s trying to create in so radically dividing faith from public interest.
August 10th, 2011 | 9:31 am
“Sullivan made an absurdly sweeping point about how real, good, lovable Christians stay out of other people’s business and don’t offer judgment. King did not remotely follow that model. You don’t need to specify which business is gotten into or stayed out of to realize that Sullivan’s argument cannot stand up unless he’s equally willing to condemn King.”
Well Sullivan isn’t the one who brought up this King business. But let me show you how easy it is to flip around.
And I think it does matter what business is being gotten into or stayed out of. If “the business” is standing up to the political powers that be who persecute “the least among you,” one could argue Sullivan is doing exactly what MLK did, as they were both on the cutting edge of civil rights.
Likewise MLK seemed far more concerned public persecution of the least among you than private sexual issues. King 1. had issues himself. And 2. at least two of his most important allies — James Baldwin and Bayard Rushton — were known gay men themselves whom King did not seem to judge.
August 10th, 2011 | 9:58 am
Not saying that at all. Rather, in late 20th early 21st Cen. public arguments, there is a certain posture that if I can connect my argument to Martin Luther King I score points
I think in this case the only “connecting” is to point out that the standard being held up is one that the left does not apply to their own activists (or iconic figures): if claiming to be a Christian is incompatible with also having a political voice, then that would be equally as true for all Christians.
Instead, what we are seeing is that this argument is used to selectively discredit some arguments without actually addressing the substance of the argument itself.
August 10th, 2011 | 10:24 am
Blake: The way I see it is Andrew Sullivan has the same problem Joe Carter does: They both posit the authenticity of their own “Christianity” against “others” and want their “Christianity” to dominate public discourse. For instance, Joe wrote Sullivan is the “blogosphere’s most revered Christian-basher[.]”
“Christian basher”? Sullivan is “Christian” himself; at least the way he defines and understands it. And in the passage being discussed Sullivan is praising the kind of “Christianity” — the non-judgmental on sexual issues libertarian Christianity — that he believes in and wants to see dominate political discourse. He’s bashing a different kind of “Christianity” — the kind that Joe Carter and others wish to dominate public discourse.
August 10th, 2011 | 10:35 am
Jon “Christian basher”? Sullivan is “Christian” himself; at least the way he defines and understands it.
First, there is no reason a person can’t be both a “Christian” and a “Christian basher.”
Second, individuals don’t get to decide what words mean, especially terms that are used to define 2,000 year old movements.
Imagine someone says that they support tyranny and oppose individual rights. Would you think that it was fine for them to call themselves a “libertarian”, if that is how they define and understands the term?
the non-judgmental on sexual issues libertarian Christianity
“Libertarian Christianity” makes about as much sense as Soviet-style libertarianism.
August 10th, 2011 | 10:37 am
“Likewise MLK seemed far more concerned public persecution of the least among you than private sexual issues. King 1. had issues himself. And 2. at least two of his most important allies — James Baldwin and Bayard Rushton — were known gay men themselves whom King did not seem to judge.”
Babies are the very “least of these”. And when private sexual issues are publicly displayed they are no longer private.
August 10th, 2011 | 10:45 am
There seems to be a cottege industry on the right in misreading Sullivan (shadowed by its big brother, Bash Paul Krugman No Matter How Right He Turns out Being Inc.) The very short post that started this is here:
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/08/evangelicals-against-christianism.html
In it, Sullivan cites David Sehat.
The first sentence of Sullivan’s single paragraph response is snipped. Here it is:
The comparision to MLK in the 50′s-60′s falls flat. MKL was committed to a specific cause of justice, not creating a giant social club of ‘correct minded people’. But the comparision may be more apt if you’re talking about MLK in the late 80′s or I should say the “MLK Legacy Industry” in the late 80′s which was more a club for left leaning aging Democrats to assert elite status based on how close they were to MLK before he was killed. At that point, MLK was becoming more of a status symbol…a signal that you were ‘in the club’ than anything else likewise quibbling with MLK (say resisting a Federal Holiday) became a way to signal you were not ‘in the club’.
Today as the GOP tries to base their nomination on Theological Correctness, we see Jesus as not much of anything but a mascot employed by a particular political party. What’s next? Perhaps we should break open the Trinity and add Ronald Regan and Winston Churchill to the Godhead?
August 10th, 2011 | 10:49 am
Jon,
Bayard Rustin, not Rushton, was one of Martin Luther King’s assistants. God bless.
August 10th, 2011 | 10:59 am
Well Joe it really isn’t for me to say what’s real Christianity or how it properly defines.
And since I haven’t taken the plunge and become a Christian I am not wedded to any particular kind of Christianity.
Sullivan, from a more traditional Christian perspective, seems to want his “Christian heresy” to properly define public discourse.
I do know, however, more traditional orthodox Christian types who are libertarians. My friend Jim Babka is one of many. They may personally think homosexual conduct is sinful behavior, but still find ways to minimize governments’ involvement in private affairs so their toes don’t get stepped on. And they don’t obsess with fighting a “gay agenda.”
August 10th, 2011 | 11:06 am
I do know, however, more traditional orthodox Christian types who are libertarians.
I should have clarified that by “Christian libertarianism” I was referring to the theological, rather than the political. There’s nothing inherently wrong (I guess) with being a politically libertarian Christian.
August 10th, 2011 | 11:25 am
It would seem then Joe that’s what Sullivan was talking about when you take his post in context.
August 10th, 2011 | 12:10 pm
“And I think it does matter what business is being gotten into or stayed out of. If “the business” is standing up to the political powers that be who persecute “the least among you,” one could argue Sullivan is doing exactly what MLK did, as they were both on the cutting edge of civil rights.”
Let me remind you of a word called “abortion” and change just a couple of words in what you said above:
“And I think it does matter what business is being gotten into or stayed out of. If “the business” is standing up to the political powers that be who persecute “the least among you,” one could argue the religious right is doing exactly what MLK did, as they were both on the cutting edge of civil rights.”
August 10th, 2011 | 12:25 pm
Yeah you do have a point. I don’t happen to believe a fertilized egg or a few week old zygote is a human being with civil rights. But if it were, it would raise the same human right/civil rights issues that race, sexual orientation and a bunch of other categories raise.
August 10th, 2011 | 1:32 pm
Good, then he should take his own advice. He should stop judging, devote himself to a private life of contemplation and prayer, and take a vow of poverty and give away his possesions for the service of the Gospel.
Oh wait, he isn’t doing that? He’s doing Christianism himself, just from the opposite end of the political spectrum? Well, that sucks.
August 10th, 2011 | 4:32 pm
the above quote is a good example of what i’m talking about. when it comes to moral issues he disagrees with today’s Christians on, Sullivan throws up his hands and talks about an “unknowable God” that makes it too difficult to know what’s right or wrong, regardless of how clear it is in the text. when it comes to something he’s sure about, though, he’s got no problem excommunicating others as un-Christian.
personally i’m not into making pronouncements on what’s “Christian” and what isn’t. i just think it’s more annoying coming from someone who makes a big show of being the most open, fair-minded individual in the universe while simultaneously engaging in ridiculously emotive personal attacks on anyone and everyone.
August 10th, 2011 | 5:45 pm
Do you people actually know anything about Christianity, in any of its faith traditions? Or are you just another bunch of PC liberals? In what sense was MLK Christian? Because he called himself one? Is that the standard?! Obama calls himself Christian, too. He never attends Church (and only joined a black activist one in Chicago to further his filthy political ambitions), wants to make protest again unborn infanticide illegal, and pursues a destructive agenda regardless of its now demonstrated harms because he is an arrogant, affirmative action fool who won’t admit his own (economic) ignorance. He is also about the opposite of humble (in that rather like the vile MLK, too – in fairness, however, there is no evidence that Obama is a serial adulterer, as King was).
Do you people think the awful civil rights movement was somehow Christian? In what sense was a movement to force racial integration with a horribly violent and debased race down the throats of decent, civilized white people following the example of Christ? Where did Christ admonish his disciples that the civilized must be geographically integrated with the barbarian? He said nothing of the kind, you know he didn’t, and you are therefore liars to associate Christ with King.
MLK was a Black Nationalist. He wanted power and unearned redistributed wealth for blacks, all to come at the expense of innocent, ordinary whites. That he used his status as a Christian minister and an affirmative action academic (before that policy was official, white liberals had long been practicing it) to further Black Power hardly stands to his credit; quite the contrary.
MLK was a despicable human being, the results of whose life can be read in the horrendous black on white crime statistics we can all find (though the govt is trying to deemphasize the link between race and criminality by deliberately not collecting and recording the relevant information).
There is no moral reason whatsoever why any white Christian (really any Christian) should esteem MLK. He was a disaster for white America, and possibly, in an ultimate Christian sense (which liberals can never understand), for Black America, too – which was a far more moral and civilized place (though let’s not exaggerate that, either) pre- than post-MLK.
That MLK is the only American to have his own national holiday – that he is thus thought to be a more important figure than George Washington, the Father of our country – is too disgusting for words.
August 10th, 2011 | 6:50 pm
Leon,
You ask “In what sense was a movement to force racial integration with a horribly violent and debased race down the throats of decent, civilized white people following the example of Christ?” Which ‘civilized’ white people are you referring to? Bull Connor? Collie Leroy Wilkins? George Wallace? Ross Barnett? The hundreds of smiling onlookers at assorted lynchings? The murderers of Emmett Till? The membership of the White Citizens Councils? Inquiring minds would like to know….
August 10th, 2011 | 7:08 pm
“In what sense was MLK Christian? Because he called himself one? ”
“That he used his status as a Christian minister ”
Hmmm. He had the status of a Christian minister, according to Leon, but we can’t find any sense in which he was a Christian, according to Leon. I sense some incoherence in addition to the disgusting racism.
August 11th, 2011 | 7:49 am
What is this site – PC Central?
Are you telling me, pentamom, that there are no Christian ministers who are not in fact Christians? No ministers in it for money, power, influence – worldly concerns which desecrate Christ’s message?
Publius (there’s a particularly inapt web-moniker) asks which civilized white people I’m referring to. Are you stupid? The millions of plain souls robbed, raped and murdered by blacks since the syphil wrongs movement. I suppose they don’t count for much in your eyes, do they? Acceptable “collateral damage” to achieve the great Marxoid/utopian fantasy of – hold breath – “racial integration”.
Fool the fools, perhaps, including yourself. You do not fool God. Callousness has consequences, sometimes in this world, always in the next.
August 11th, 2011 | 8:24 am
Leon, are you for real? Your comment is so beyond racist that it is a caricature of racism. Shameful, whether you are serious, joking or trolling.
August 11th, 2011 | 10:06 am
Leon,
Weird name by the way. And thanks for knowing the types of things that “do not fool” God . . . when/how did he tell you this? Again, which ‘civilized’ white people are you referring to? The Klan? The lynchers? Bull Connor? The murderers of Emmet Till and Medgar Evers? James Earl Ray? Were these folks doing God’s work? Are the aforementioned groups/individuals simply a creation of PC-minded historians? Take a stab at answering the questions this time, instead of engaging in a rant.
August 11th, 2011 | 10:48 am
publius, perntamom, Peg, and everybody else:
It’s time to exercise that immortal piece of Internet wisdom:
Do Not Feed the Trolls.
August 11th, 2011 | 3:00 pm
“There is no moral reason whatsoever why any white Christian (really any Christian) should esteem MLK.”
wherein Leon manages to prove that he has no concept of Christianity and is, in fact, strongly anti-Christian. Another supporter of German Christianity in another guise.
August 11th, 2011 | 4:46 pm
burritoboy — Nazi, not “German,” please.
August 11th, 2011 | 8:43 pm
i just think it’s more annoying coming from someone who makes a big show of being the most open, fair-minded individual in the universe while simultaneously engaging in ridiculously emotive personal attacks on anyone and everyone (that disagrees with him or point out how stupid he is).
============
Heyyyy, sounds like three liberal FT commenters who post here all time…
August 11th, 2011 | 8:50 pm
And I think it does matter what business is being gotten into or stayed out of. If “the business” is standing up to the political powers that be who persecute “the least among you,” one could argue Sullivan is doing exactly what MLK did, as they were both on the cutting edge of civil rights.
===========
No, one couldn’t argue that. Sullivan is perpetuating a sexually violent and deformed world.
There is nothing cutting-edge about Sullivan, he’s just one tired, deformed human being trying to legitimize his deep, disoriented attitudes and behaviors regarding sexuality and life.
American society loves to institute and promote a self-glorifying discourse instead of facing and dealing with how many psychologically deformed individuals it contains.
This is why liberal propaganda on sexuality has become dominant.
August 11th, 2011 | 9:19 pm
“American society loves to institute and promote a self-glorifying discourse instead of facing and dealing with how many psychologically deformed individuals it contains.”
I think I’m reading one right now.
August 12th, 2011 | 3:21 am
Jon Rowe
August 11th, 2011 | 9:19 pm
“American society loves to institute and promote a self-glorifying discourse instead of facing and dealing with how many psychologically deformed individuals it contains.”
I think I’m reading one right now.
============
You wouldn’t be promoting a self-glorifying discourse, would you?
August 12th, 2011 | 11:55 am
Daryl Hart provides an interesting counterpoint to Jacobs:
http://oldlife.org/
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact