Stan Moody:
Saying “Goodbye” to the Culture Wars:
As a nation, we Americans are emerging from a long stretch of a reasonably comfortable divide between Church and American life. Referred to as “culture war”, the Confessing Church had traditionally represented values diametrically opposed to those of the self-serving American Dream of prosperity and success.
The complex problems facing our nation and our communities of faith now, however, seem to have moved well beyond easy sound bites, facile solutions, or even the Sinner’s Prayer. As a result, the evangelical community appears momentarily at least to have shifted its eyes from God and onto politics, in particular the Republican Party, as its defender of hope.
An implosion of monumental proportions over which god to trust – the American Dream or Jehovah – is on the horizon. That impending war, however, will not be for the hearts and minds of Americans. It will be for the soul of the Republican Party and the faith of the Confessing Church. Tragically, the Republican Party cannot survive without the Evangelical Right. The Evangelical Right, having wearied of waiting for God, cannot remain a force for hope outside the sanctity of repentant prayer. They are pulling each other down a quarter inch at a time.
Where do we go from here?
It is very true that time has worked against the influence of faith over public policy. Secular humanism, popular with the Democratic Party, is effective so long as we have the resources to carry out the panoply of diverse interests and mandates. That was yesterday, however. The balance needs to be restored so that public leaders become comfortable once again with invoking their faith without being accused of promoting theocracy.
Let’s face it; there has been at least some comfort in knowing that our political leaders were not flying exclusively by the seat of their pants but considering matters in light of responsibility to the Divine. Republicans, however, are professing to drag strong Christian values into the public square despite legitimate skepticism over how truly Christian those values might be. While a number of prominent Democrats have in the past included God in their hopes and dreams for America, the divide between the two expressions of faith has widened. Too many of us find ourselves caught in the gap!
Who Can Salvage the “Nones” and the “Dones” Among Us?
The effective merger of the Confessing Church with the Republican Party has left the diminishing remnant of the rest of us with the growing sense that we are back to flying by the seat of our pants. The Democratic Party, while advocating for the respect of all religious beliefs, has lost its protective role over individual and institutional rights. The Confessing Church, in its comfort over being left alone by government, finds itself in the position of prideful moral absolutes reigning over unmerited forgiveness. We are left with a religious and political void, leaving little landing room in either dimension for the faithful believer in Christ.
That may be a bridge too far for nation or Kingdom – too much water over the proverbial dam!
Rise of the Right to Unbelief:
The freedom not to believe in God, while biblical, has become commonplace. Cold, hard, legislative secularism threatens people of faith, for whom practice of their religion demands certain moral absolutes in conflict with unrestrained civil rights. Jesus’ commandment to love the neighbor we may not like has been shuttled aside out of fear of losing political control.
The Democratic Party finds itself losing its grip on its populist base due to a collapse of respect. The Republican Party, on the other hand, has found populist revival through the twisting of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, abandoned by the Christian Right in its lust for power and success. Rejecting Jesus’ command for believers to enter as active citizens of God’s eternal Kingdom now as impractical, the Christian Right has redefined God’s “Kingdom” as a new world order, demanding political dominion. Enforcement power has been secured by the NRA and a Supreme Court with a long history of allegiance to political ideology.
What Will This Look Like Down the Road?
I don’t pretend to be a prophet, but the picture that emerges from this conflict is at best bleak. The lesson of ancient Israel’s fatal fall from God’s favor over its lust for world dominion is being ignored by the Christian Right and thereby its savior, the Republican Party. After two centuries of debate, we people of faith find ourselves caught between the rock wall of organized religion and the hard place of civil religion.
One last word to the declining population of brothers and sisters in Christ. The Kingdom of God inaugurated by Jesus invites us to an alternative to nationalism. One of the most reassuring scriptures to that effect is that of John 14:23, 24:
If anyone loves me (Jesus), he will keep my word; my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him. He who does not love me does not keep my word (love of God and neighbor).
If, indeed, the Kingdom of God is a present, dynamic, triumphant landing place for the professing believer in Christ, the transformative power to live a life of service and sacrificial love comes not from enacted legislation but from the unseen presence of God.
The cost of full subscription to such a trust of God may well be beyond the declining ethic of the specified inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Author, Stan Moody: Ordained evangelical pastor of 31 years; former elected Maine State Representative (one term in each party); former prison chaplain; Registered Maine Hunting Guide and a gun owner humbled by failure of Godly focus.
