So, this week, there was a bit of a mini-earthquake in the evangelical blogosphere. Mark Galli, the former editor of Christianity Today published an article that seriously rocked the boat. Unfortunately, there simply isn’t enough time to read it, but you can read it online for free, and it is a pretty good piece, if for no other reason than that it says the quiet part out loud. What’s the quiet part out loud? Well in case you missed it, Mark let out that the Evangelical project since Billy Graham split the Fundamentalists and the Evangelicals has been one long attempt by Christians, real and imagined, to win favor and popularity in the world.
What Galli is letting everyone know is that, from the very beginning, Evangelicalism, as a religious movement, has been a thrall to secular academia and politics – because it was oh so desperate to be liked and respected. Evangelical leaders, be they pastors, scholars, or authors wanted nothing quite so much as they wanted to be loved by people who hate God.
As Galli points out there were 2 reasons for this (probably there were more, but they all fell under the category of these two) and one was an entirely bad reason and the other was a bad reason with a seemingly good motive.
The two reasons that Evangelical leaders bent over backwards to backslide into liberalism were 1) because they loved the world and 2) they believed that if they gutted Evangelicalism of every last vestige of conservative Christianity, that they would make Christianity palatable to the godless and therefore redound to their salvation.
Obviously it never occurred to the liberalizers that if they changed Christianity to the degree that it was palatable to the godless that it wasn’t really Christianity anymore – if it DID occur to them they either didn’t care because they themselves weren’t Christians, or because they cynically thought that the standards of salvation were so low that all you needed was some kind of baseline intellectual appreciation for a person, real or imagined, named Jesus – whether He really existed or not is inconsequential.
Ironically, the liberalizers, the kinds of people who write articles for Christianity Today AND get published in the Atlantic and the New York Times despite their claims to academic prestige, apparently don’t know enough Church History to know that the people who think they have to destroy Christianity to save Christianity never actually save Christianity and their projects always fail.
Apparently, the cool kid evangelicals – you know the kind who go to cocktail parties hosted by major donors to the DNC – they never learned that Liberalism has come under many names and many guises, and disguises, and it has always failed. Gnosticism which tried to make a very Jewish faith palatable to Greek dualistic and antimaterialistic sensibilities failed; Aryanism which tried to make Christianity palatable to those who thought the Trinity was too difficult to believe – it failed; The liberalizing trend withing Catholicism post the Great Schism failed to keep the Church united; Liberalism under Schleiermacher, who was certain he was saving Christianity – it failed. Over and over again, when we see people who think they’re going to save Christianity – dark, obscurantist, mystical, foolish Christianity – those people are the ones who get tossed into the rubbish heap of history. The people who want to destroy Christianity to save it are the one whose names you have to memorize for a Church History exam and then you forget them 5 minutes after the test because they’re irrelevant!
The names we remember, and we remember with joy, are the names of Christian leaders who refused to bow to the pressures to be liked and likable – like the Great Apologists, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, men like Athanasius, and Hus, and Luther, and Simons, men like Torrey and the Fundamentalists – these are the people who we will remember and honor.
And it seems like Galli is beginning to realize this. He seems to be recognizing that the liberalizing project that he’s been part of for decades is a failed project that cannot save Christianity from itself. Yet…and yet, Galli is facing a personal dilemma.
He realizes that Liberalism, as in liberal Evangelicalism, has failed to save Christianity. He recognizes that it is flawed in its desire to be liked and loved by those who hate the one who loved us and gave Himself for us. He realizes that the policy of popularity is a Hell of a way to run a railroad, and yet…and yet… he knows no other way! Because he firmly believes that being liked and being likable is a crucial and inseparable part of Evangelism and therefore Evangelicalism. Galli really truly believes that you have to be liked and respected to convert people to Christ – but he believes this while simultaneously recognizing that Evangelicalism has failed because it has been preoccupied with being liked and respected. He recognizes that Evangelicalism needs men of courage with a backbone – but just not the kind that are provocative and make people uncomfortable!
Professor Stephen Kotkin, in part 1 of his massive magnum opus on Joseph Stalin writes about why the Tsarist autocracy of the Russian Empire was doomed when it tried to modernize and become a constitutional empire. The problem Kotkin points out is that the very principle of an autocracy – that only the Tsar has the right to rule or manage the government – meant that when the Tsar needed to involve others in the government through a parliament (called the Duma) and a powerful and empowered, largely independent bureaucracy – the Tsar’s supporters opposed these steps. But those who opposed the actions of the Tsar, because they undermined the Tsar, meant that they themselves opposed the Tsar because they opposed the actions the Tsar took which undermined the Tsar. Thus, while the socialist and anarchist left was gaining popularity the conservative right of Russia fundamentally and reflexively opposed the only actions that could have saved the autocracy.
In short, the problem with the Russian Autocracy WAS the Russian Autocracy. Conditions in the Russian Empire were so bad and so oppressive and so backwards that massive Western Style reforms were the only thing that could save it, but massive Western style reforms would also mean the end of autocracy. Thus, the only way to save the Autocracy was to destroy it.
In the same way, cool kid Evangelicalism, the kind of Evangelicalism that deeply and desperately desires degrees from Harvard and articles in the New York Times and Atlantic and to be liked and respected by pro-abortion senators – that kind of Evangelicalism is broken and cannot be saved. The only way to save the Liberal Evangelicalism is for it to stop being liberal Evangelicalism and to become conservative – either conservative Evangelicalism or Fundamentalism.
But that’s the thing it cannot do. Liberal Evangelicalism CANNOT become conservative of fundamentalist because it is quintessentially and basically addicted to being liked and loved by the world. Being respected by the godless is the sine qua non of liberal Christianity which places palatability with the world as the greatest good. It can’t change because if it changes it ceases to be.
Thus, what we see is the irony of ironies, that liberalism is the least flexible form of Christianity. Fundamentalists, at least Neofundamentalists, can hold a wide variety of political opinions and stances and it can seek more or less respectability from the secular academy and press as long as it holds to the fundamentals, which today would be something like: inerrancy; creationism (or at least something to the right of Darwinism); anti-abortionism; salvation by grace through faith in Christ’s atoning death on the cross and resurrection.
But actually, it’s not even that. Liberal Evangelicalism is rigidly and inflexibly tied to the Spirit of the Age. Conservative Evangelicalism, and Neofundamentalism, always place the spirit of the age lower hierarchically than their theological priors.
And that’s really the difference, and John Ehrett points this out in a wonderful piece he published this week – the real difference is that Conservatives place social sciences and worldly knowledge underneath of theological truth as revealed in the Scriptures. Or, in other words, to the Conservative, theology is the queen of sciences; to the Liberal, the social sciences and worldly knowledge need to rule over our theology. Theology, for the Conservative, tells us how to do social sciences. Social sciences, for the Liberal, tell us how to do theology. And there’s all the world of difference between those two philosophies.
But this brings us back to Galli: why? Why let the social sciences lead theology by the nose? Because Liberal Evangelicals love to be loved – they need to be liked.
Now, as most of you know, I worked in Youth Ministry for many years with Youth for Christ. And it was a wonderful experience, and I met all kinds of wonderful people and a great many kids put their faith in Christ and experienced real transformation. But I and others were always weary of a certain kind of Youth for Christ staff member. You could tell them if you’d been around long enough and those who were wise did their best to help these poor folk or to get them out of the ministry. These people that were unfit for service in Youth Ministry were the ones who NEEDED to be liked by kids. The kind of person who needs to be liked and works with teenagers is a disaster waiting to happen.
Now, there are all kinds of reasons why someone might need to be liked by kids – maybe high school was hard for them, maybe they’re deeply insecure, maybe they just have a personality flaw, maybe they’re trying to impress the girls because they want to bang them – or boys, I suppose – but the fact of the matter is, nomatter what the reason, a person working with kids who needs to be liked by kids should not be allowed to work with kids.
Let’s look at some Bible:
In I John 2 we read:
15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
And of course, in James 4 we read:
4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
Friends, people who are desperate to be liked and loved are, as we all know, the least likely people to be liked or loved. Nobody respects a desperate person. And nobody loves a person who will debase themselves to be loved. Sure, people will use them. People will exploit them. People will lie to them. But nobody respects them, and nobody loves them.
Nobody loves someone who only wants to be loved. It’s one of the great paradoxes of this universe, that a person who will do ANYTHING to be loved, is fundamentally unsuited to being loved.
Friends, a little self-respect goes a long way. Liberal Evangelicalism with it’s slutty, self-debasing, abased, love-me-please-please-I’m-desperate-please-I’ll-say-anything-and-you-can-do-whatever-you-want-to-me-as-long-as-you-love-me-please-love-me approach to theology is doomed to die the death of pathetic irrelevance and neglect that all thoroughly unlovable people and institutions are doomed to die.
Evangelicalism can and will be relevant again just about as soon as it decides that it no longer cares if it’s love by those who hate the One we love. Evangelicalism can and will be relevant again, just about as soon as it decides that the Bible will be our final authority in all matters of faith and practice no matter what the eggheads say and no matter how unpopular it is. The funny thing about life in God’s universe is the best way to be respected is to not worry very much about being respected and the key to being loved is to not worry too much about being loved. That’s because the people least suited for love and respect are the people who make being loved and respected their greatest goods.
In the end it comes down to this: what do you want more – to love God or to be loved by the world. Only one can be your greatest desire. And which one you pick makes all the difference in the world – and the world to come.