Wrapping the culture war in the Bible

I suppose I should know who Dr. David Barton is. He's a professor of history and such at Ecclesia College, a private Christian school, and heads up an organization called "Wall Builders." He's also, apparently, a semi-regular on some of the talking head shows on cable. I have to admit I've never seen him on the tube, nor heard of him in any context. But apparently he's "somebody." Part of his claim to fame is that he has often shared a stage with Glenn Beck at various rallies around the country.

He recently published comments on his blog answering the questions and criticisms of his association with Beck, considering that Beck is a Mormon. He tells his readers that in assessing Glenn Beck, one should look at his "fruits," citing Jesus' teaching that you shall know the character of someone by their fruit. He also draws a parallel between Cornelius, who wasn't a Jew, being accepted by the Jewish apostles, with how Christians should accept Glenn Beck. He makes the case that because of Beck's good heart he should be embraced by Christians when he talks about returning God to the center of American life and values.

I wish Barton hadn't made the effort.

Reading his blog piece, I think Barton makes a strong case that belief in Christ, as the New Testament characterizes belief in Christ, makes absolutely no difference in terms of one's political ideology or patriotic convictions. Which, frankly, is fine. I don't believe Jesus came to this world in order to make us all constitutional originalists or Republicans. On the broad cultural and values front, interestingly, religion has little to do with anything. I was a conservative long before I became a Christian. We can unite with conservative Jews, Mormons, Catholics, Pentecostals, and every stripe of evangelical, on social, cultural, and political issues. But it is interesting that when it comes to these cultural and values issues in America today, Jesus really is irrelevant. That's what Barton is saying, whether he intended to say it or not.

And if Jesus -- who he is, what he accomplished in his earthly ministry, and what he is accomplishing now in regard to the building of his kingdom -- is irrelevant in the culture war, then the "God" that Glenn Beck and others like David Barton appeal to isn't the God of the Bible, the God of the New Testament, the God incarnating Jesus, but is a civic God, and the religion they're talking about getting back into the nation is a civil religion, and not Christianity, per se.

There is so much in Barton's comments that I take issue with, it's hard to know where to start. I'll take one comment he made:

Recall the incident in Acts 10 where God shattered the thinking and paradigm of the Apostles by manifesting himself to and through Cornelius. In the Apostles’ thinking, this was definitely not supposed to happen, for Cornelius was part of the wrong group. Nonetheless, God moved through Cornelius, making clear that His blessing was upon him.

The point of the story of Cornelius was that God intended the salvation accomplished by Christ to be available to all people, not just the Jews. God didn't move through Cornelius as some kind of evidence of a pluralistic cultural "big tent," but to show the apostles that God's plan of salvation was for the Gentiles as well as the Jews. Cornelius didn't become simply a cultural ally of the apostles...he became a brother in Christ. For Barton to use this example in a blog about Glenn Beck tells me that Barton is confusing a political agenda with the working of God. And coming from a nationally recognized evangelical, that confusion is rather scary.

And the good fruit Jesus always referred to were spiritual fruit, produced through the union of the believer with the vine, Christ. Barton is misrpresenting the "fruit of Christ" in saying that Glenn Beck produces "good fruit."

On the cultural front, we can join arms with Mormons, Catholics, Jews, even atheists, if they are for a return to constitutional government, individual responsibility, and common decency. But let's not confuse this effort with the Kingdom of God, or declare a person who doesn't ultimately put their faith in Christ as "godly" and "righteous."

I think Barton, here, is doing huge damage to the message of the gospel with his piece. And I really wish evangelical "leaders" and self-proclaimed spokespersons, would stop doing that.

It's an interesting quandry. When spokespeople/leaders say we need to recognize that this is a nation founded on faith and that we need to rebuild the foundation of that faith, I tend to agree. But at the time of the Founding, Christianity was it...There were different stripes of Christianity: Baptist, Presbryterian, Quaker, Catholic, Episcopal, but Christianity and Christian values in a broad sense were the consensus.

We don't have that consensus any longer. We have Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, even athetists and agnostics in the mix today, as well we should, considering what freedom actually means in this country. And while Christians still make up the majority in this country (I'm being generous), in that mix are pacifists, Jim Wallis-types, and the like. Most black Americans are undoubtedly Christians, but 95% of them voted for Obama. And as Barton points out, there are over a third of self-identifying evangelicals who don't think abortion or gay behavior are "sins." How can a consensus intended on rebuilding our foundation of faith be forged from this hodge-podge? I'd bet that if you gathered ten evangelicals, and each one was interviewed separately about what their understanding of the gospel is, you'd probably get about 6 different answers, and the majority would be wrong (or, more accurately, would give you a truncated partially correct answer). I'm not too encouraged by what I see of the evangelical church in America today.

So, what are we to base our efforts to rebuild society on, considering the broad diversity of views and perspectives? The only answer is to build it upon widely held broad views, which will unite people with conservative values together under a "big tent." Oddly, sadly, this big tent cultural conservatism can't be built around Christ. I don't believe that an appeal to convictions other than Christ-centered convictions is necessarily wrong, even for devout Christians. Personally, I think a scriptural case can be made for kind of a "meh" attitude toward government and society. Jesus said, with an almost perceptible shrug of his shoulders, "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's," as if to say that the two don't intersect. The only consistent Christian message to the politics of this nation today is likely a prophetic one: "Repent!"

Fight for conservative cultural principles, if you must. But can these principles, as a glue to the entire society and culture, come from faith in Christ? Yes, if there was still a unified Christian consensus in this country. Otherwise, no, it must come from something else. Which is why I don't think Barton or anyone else should wrap the conservative movement, or Glenn Beck, or Sarah Palin, in the Bible.

That is my sanctified cynical view.