A Response to Russell Moore: Is Christianity Dying?

Dr. Russell Moore, President of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission has been aggressively touting his view that the death of the “near-Christianity” of the Bible Belt is a good thing.  He once again tackled this issue in a recent “Moore to the Point” blog post.  While I understand his argument, I’m not sure I’m totally sold.

Moore argues:

For much of the twentieth century, especially in the South and parts of the Midwest, one had to at least claim to be a Christian to be “normal.” During the Cold War, that meant distinguishing oneself from atheistic Communism. At other times, it has meant seeing churchgoing as a way to be seen as a good parent, a good neighbor, and a regular person. It took courage to be an atheist, because explicit unbelief meant social marginalization. Rising rates of secularization, along with individualism, means that those days are over—and good riddance to them.

Yes, Moore is right that what he calls “near-Christianity” is no Christianity at all.  That said, there is also a sense in which what he is describing above might also be seen as part of God’s common grace in keeping social chaos to a minimum.  The problem, as I see it, was never with the folks, but with those who were teaching the folks.  Thus, the difficulty with this “near-Christianity” isn’t that it created a social setting in which Christian values were the general standard; rather, the difficulty was watered down theology taught by weak-kneed pastors who refused to call sin sinful and uphold clear biblical teaching.  I recall about 15 years ago reading a tract put together by a so-called Southern Baptist pastor (whose name I can no longer remember) who had decided that the God who struck down Egyptians with multifarious plagues and who wiped out the inhabitants of Jericho simply couldn’t be the same as Jesus.  Around the same time, the church I attended was sliding into liberalism by accepting women deacons and pastors because of past “subjugation of women” by the SBC, as if that had any theological grounding.  Little wonder the Bible Belt’s buckle got rusty, resulting in its pants coming a “tumbling” down.

In a fashion similar to John Piper in Let the Nations Be Glad (where Piper comes within a whisker of suggesting Christians ought to seek out suffering), Moore seems to be suggesting that Christians ought to seek social chaos, as if it is social chaos that necessarily produces new converts to Christianity.  Moore says “Christianity isn’t normal anymore, and that’s good news. The Book of Acts, like the Gospels before it, shows us that the Christianity thrives when it is, as Kierkegaard put it, a sign of contradiction. Only a strange gospel can differentiate itself from the worlds we construct.”  I know, I know, Moore doesn’t say “seek social chaos.”  I get it.  But he does seem to revel in the new reality that we have social chaos on our doorstep (if not already here) and that this is a good thing for the gospel. 

Moore’s argument, in part, is certainly right.  I have found “near” Christians very often think their church membership, or baptism, or vows, or Christening, or confirmation has saved them.  This makes it hard to get them to see the true sinfulness of their sin and their need for repentance.  As one woman I know once told me, she believed in “live and let live” even though she claimed a form of Christianity.  She found my views on women pastors and homosexuality downright Neanderthal and unbecoming (my words, not hers).  Yet, when it came to general social and moral standards, she and I had much in common.  As a result, there was a general standard of decency and morality to which she adhered, despite her lack of any theological depth.

More to the point, though, (pun intended), where Dr. Moore makes a wrong turn is in his (apparently) necessary determination that losing this common recognition of biblically based morality is somehow a good thing.  I have trouble following the logic that appears to crave a world where Christianity is seen as awful, bigoted, vile, and reprehensible.  By Moore’s own logic, it’s just as hard to convert a “near” Christian (maybe harder) than to convert an “honest” atheist.  If this is the case, then weren’t we already in a difficult spot where true Christianity already looked different than the world?  My friend above believed herself a Christian in some form but, as I told her on several occasions, was not.  She thought my views very odd, despite our general agreement on many moral issues.  Do we really need for the whole moral realm to dissolve before we can appropriately and properly preach the gospel?  Yes, I’m pushing Moore’s argument to the edge, but it’s the edge to which his language leads.  I don’t think we must get to that point to preach the gospel or for the gospel to flourish.

Having said these things, I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Moore that we need not despair.  We know the end game here and it works out well for the faithful.  So we take heart, whatever the moral realm looks like.  But I’d be okay if the moral reality remained a little closer to mine than further away from it.

Elementary My Dear Bumper Sticker

Tonight I was driving to church when I saw a car with a group of bumper stickers.  I love trying to figure out what someone is telling me about themselves through bumper stickers.  It’s like Sherlock Holmes sizing someone up in 30 seconds or less.

This one had a newer version of the old Coexist bumper sticker – you know – the one with various religious symbols used to spell out the word?  This version uses the word Teach with a peace symbol at the end.  The point remains the same: religious people need to get along.  While my suspicion is that a person with such a sticker is either (a) a hopeless utopian or (b) more presumptuous than any religious person, it’s difficult to decide.  This car, however, careened into (b) with verve, based on one of its other bumper stickers:

The car had a Christian fish with legs with Darwin written inside the fish.

Irony, anyone?

So, let me get this straight, Teach peace bumper sticker person: as a Christian I need to coexist with others, which, most likely in your mind means I keep my mouth shut about my beliefs, then, you bash my beliefs on the very same bumper with your ultra-funny (and extremely oh so original) fishlegs Darwin sticker?  Do you not see the absolute, hypocritical inconsistency in such a proclamation? 

Over the years I have tried to engage atheists on-line through various websites.  One of the constant refrains I get is that atheists are the rational and logical ones, who are only interested in following reason and evidence.  Yet, fishlegs sticker obviously doesn’t care about logical or rational consistency.  Essentially what fishlegs is telling anyone who cares to review her stickers is do as I say, not as I do, which is completely at odds with her alleged belief in people coexisting.  I can bash Christians because (I guess she’s saying) they’re stupid. 

I can come to other reasoned conclusions about fishlegs, as well.  She does not go to church anywhere.  She almost certainly has only a rudimentary knowledge of Christianity and probably doesn’t actually know any real Christians.  Very likely she hasn’t been on the waterfront in downtown Louisville, Kentucky on Sundays at 8:00 AM to see all those nasty, non-coexisting, creation believing Christians engaged in the utter villainy of, dare I speak it, feeding the homeless (SHHHHHHHH).  No doubt fishlegs missed out on all the many occasions when Christians have done nice things for others with no thought for themselves and no expectation of acknowledgement or return.  Oh, yeah, then there’s the Southern Baptist Convention’s disaster relief arm (which is routinely asked, yes asked, by governments to come in and help at disaster sites).  No coexistence there – nothing to see – just move on.  Let’s not forget that many Christians go to work, teach at schools, raise children, and pay their taxes, all without creating a fuss or causing anyone any problems for anyone.  I sort of think that is coexisting . . . I think.

So, channeling my inner Sherlock Holmes, I must conclude that fishlegs thinks Christians are numbskulls who need the help of the more enlightened, which, of course, means her and her friends.  Now you might suggest that fishlegs isn’t specifically targeting Christians, because, after all the coexist bumper sticker also uses pagan symbols.  Perhaps, but then where is the Wicca symbol with a Bunsen burner inside it, for instance?  No, fishlegs is pointedly smirking at Christians.

Finally, fishlegs thinks that she’s actually helping the world.  She’s making a statement.  She’s proclaiming something that needs to be said.  The beauty of it, she doesn’t have to ever defend herself intellectually because it’s all on her car, with no way for anyone to rebut her.  As a result, that tells me it’s likely fishlegs probably isn’t nearly as confident in her beliefs as her bumper stickers suggest.  Most people won’t confront someone about their bumper stickers because (a) it’s impossible while you’re in your car (b) it would be stalking to follow fishlegs home (c) when you see the car parked in a lot somewhere, it’s a rare chance that fishlegs happens to be there with the car.  So fishlegs gets to be an inconsistent hypocrite without having to defend her so-called enlightened thinking.  Yes, she’ll mouth off with her friends but she wouldn’t dare actually engage a Christian in any sort of discussion one on one; that might mean she’d actually have to coexist.  We can’t have that now, can we?

Of course, I could have it all wrong.  I’m not Sherlock Holmes.

A Mom Who is Just Like Jesus

Here’s the thing I always tell people about my Mom: she’s the closest thing to perfect you’ll find aside from Jesus.  Mom’s gentleness is her defining feature.  I don’t recall her ever saying anything bad about anyone (even people who were pretty doggone rotten).  I hardly remember her ever yelling, even at us kids. I alone gave her plenty of ammunition for yelling had she chosen to use it.  I only remember her cussing once and that was because a certain younger sister who shall remain nameless (all of my sisters are younger than me) was complaining about something and Mom was up to her eyebrows with it.  I don’t think Mom knew I was there.  Frankly, as I recall the event, Mom didn’t even really directly cuss at my sister, but simply suggested all she did was complain (using a different, but not so nice word for complaining).  The whole thing lasted maybe two minutes. That was Mom’s worst day ever (in my experience), so far as I’m aware.  How many of us would give our eye teeth for that to define us at our worst?

Mom is super smart.  She read widely (when she could see well enough!) and learned as much as us kids as we went through school.  She could converse about the solar system, politics, religion, math, history and health with equal aplomb.  I remember she and I reading the James Herriot books when I was about 14 or so – we both often laughed so much we had stitches at some of the silly things that happened.  Mom understood better than me having been a farm girl for much of her life.  She always enjoyed learning new things and was a pretty decent Trivial Pursuit player in her day!

She was a registered nurse who had worked in the emergency room and between that and the farming there was little that bothered her.  I made some effort to test her, though.  In my skateboarding days she repaired me again and again.  I remember one time she had patched me up with some gauze and bacitracin.  I went back a few days later for her to look at it and the gauze had actually started growing into my knee!  She clipped around the edges and told me not to worry about it!  Being 13 years old, I thought it was super cool, so I didn’t care.  Mom knew it wouldn’t hurt me and it wasn’t infected, so she didn’t care either.  When I got bitten by a dog and wouldn’t use my leg because it was too tender, she forced me to walk around the block, heel to toe, until I stopped limping.  When I complained that it hurt, she just said she knew, but assured me if I toughed it out, I would be glad.  She was, of course, right.  I once let a friend shoot me in the face with a pellet gun (too long a story to repeat here) and  Mom acted like I had just nicked myself shaving (even though it required an ER visit).  I’m convinced I could have had a limb dangling with blood spurting and she would have just wrapped it, iced it, and calmly driven me to the emergency room, all the time suggesting (not yelling) I might want to reconsider ill-advised use of chain saws!

Mom wasn’t the kind to dispense unasked for advice.  To my recollection she never once told me “I told you so” even though she could have so many times.  More often than not, what I got from her was just a look – the kind that says “really, now, did you think that was a good idea and aren’t you glad you’re okay even though you might have gotten yourself maimed, killed, or psychologically disfigured?”  It was enough.

The other thing that amazed me was her patience.  Mom had five children in a span of seven years.  I can recall long trips in our various station wagons (for those of you under about 40 that was what people drove before minivans) during which any ordinary human being would have torn out most of their hair.  Dad didn’t have any (hair that is), so that was never a big problem for him.  Mom, however, had plenty (although she always kept it short because it was “just too much” which I now realize is euphemistic for “I have five kids, I don’t have time for hair”).  Nonetheless, despite herding the five of us during long trips, Mom never seemed frazzled or out of sorts.  Around the house, somehow the laundry always seemed to get done, the dishes were always clean, and the house was always clean (my sisters did help out with some of this as they got older – I was exempted due to lawn mowing and other outside duties).  During the numerous times we moved Mom never seemed to even twitch about all the packing and cleaning that went along with leaving one duty station for another (my Dad was an Air Force lifer – almost 30 years).  It seemed like Mom never got tired, never failed to make dinner, never got sick, and never said she didn’t have time for us.

Mom will be 85 in two weeks.  She is more fragile than in the old days, but, we are learning, is one stubborn gal!  She doesn’t give up anything easily. When I call and talk to her she still has an ever present sense of “life is good.”  Many of her older relatives lived into their 90’s.  My grandmother died at around 80 years old but ONLY because she had been fighting cancer for years.  There is a toughness in those genes and Mom represents it well.  Her unfailing good cheer while dealing with some very tough blows in the past ten years is truly remarkable.  Dad has drifted into dementia and Mom has suffered some very serious health problems since 2005.  Yet, to hear her tell it, life remains an ever blessed gift from God for which she is always thankful. 

Gentle, kind, patient, loving, caring, smart, tough but tender – I think when Mom enters heaven, there will be people pointing and talking, in a good way, because they’ll be saying there’s that lady who looks just like Jesus.