“Move over U.S. Religious Right, here’s the evangelical center” April 2, 2008
Posted by Zack in , trackbackNew book says “Move over Religious Right: you’re getting squeezed by the evangelical center:” The Future of Faith in Politics, by David Gushee:
That is one of the central points of a new book by David P. Gushee entitled “The Future of Faith in American Politics”.
To Gushee, the evangelical center combines much of the theology of the Religious Right with the social concerns of the left, give it a broad engagement in many of the pressing issues of our day.
Gushee does not demonise the Religious Right - which he says is simply exercising its citizenship responsibilities in a free society - but he does critique its entanglement with the Republican Party, its hectoring tone and what he sees as its narrow focus on issues like abortion and gay marriage.
But he also takes issue with the left’s silence on or reluctance to act on such issues.
The emerging evangelical center includes activists such as Richard Cizik, vice president for government affairs with the National Association of Evangelicals, and Florida mega-pastor Joel Hunter.
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I consistently appreciate this blog.
Tonight I want to post a thought concerning Julia’s quote (”Why would a god create people so imperfect then blame them for their own imperfections?”). I’ll try to share briefly, but my thoughts quickly cascade into deeper and wider issues. And I realize these thoughts are focusing on just one part of your post.
My perspective is that God made humans with choice rather than “imperfection.” We were made to love, and love requires free will. Being made in the image of God rules out the automaton. And maybe less than “blaming,” it was more like God letting us have the consequences of our actions. Maybe not letting us slide sideways out of the consequences.
The apple situation is choosing to trust God or to trust the Deceiver and fall for selfish ambition (”You’ll become like God if you do this thing He says is actually bad for you. He’s hiding something from you.”). When we believe the lies, pain is inevitable.
And I agree, there’s no getting away from mystery. Even though I’m sharing my thoughts on this story, be sure that it is full of mystery to me. I know people could say, “But what about…?” from a hundred different directions.
I think my understandings are consistent with the rest of your description of humanity and the Bible’s story. Good stuff. Like you said, to me the story isn’t about God blaming us for messing up, but God not giving up on us even when we believed (believe) the lies and trusted the one who was opposed to all that is good and right. It’s about God doing everything possible so we’ll learn to trust and love him again, to trust him like a child trusts a good parent.
The story of Jesus is all about God jumping into the fray to show us the way home. The Word says that even if a mom could forget her baby, God would never forget us. Dad wants his kids back more than anything. He’s calling all of us kids back to his place for dinner.
And he’s calling us to shower his world with love, peace, compassion, reconciliation and hope. And that especially goes for the crew at the margins and the ones who make us the angriest. Shane is so great at communicating this message. Probably because he lives it; it’s not just theoretical moral teaching.
I like the quote, “Jesus’ way wasn’t tried and found wanting. It was found hard and left untried.” I’ve strayed far from thoughts on blame and imperfection, but not all the way to ideas on “sin” and the cross.
I realize this is all may just sound old school, but it’s still wild. Seriously wild. “Theology for ordinary radicals.”
Thanks again for all the great articles and links.
Peace, Jeff
This comment will probably make more sense to readers with this clarification–it was intended as a response to the second post about Shane Claiborne, not this one on the evangelical center. I’m not sure how I made the mistake of attaching it to this article. My apologies.
Peace, Jeff
Thanks for highlighting this article, Zack. It’s definitely a great find for FPL’s Daily News.