Tim Keller, pastor of the PCA Church of the Redeemer in New York City, is a fine apologist in the C. S. Lewis tradition. His The Reason for God is very good "mere Christianity" for sophisticated critics.
When I read Christian apologetics, I often find the author can give a solid account of how a Christian should relate to God and other individuals.
As a Christian sociologist, though, I am also looking to see what insight the author can give about how Christians should make and inhabit social structures. In other words, I want more than Christian morality -- I want an account of Christian social ethics.
Ethics is the real weakness of the evangelical side of the church. It is great on "changed lives," but throws up its hands at the architecture of "changed institutions."
In the individualistic traditions of Protestantism -- Baptists and all of their cousins -- this focus only on individuals is built into their DNA.
For the Catholic branch, and the magisterial Reformation strands, of Christianity, though, this neglect is a real weakness. And of all the magisterial Reformation families -- Reformed, Lutheran, and Anglican -- the Reformed have the most to offer to Protestant social ethics.
Which is why it is disappointing to see so learned and thoughtful a Presbyterian thinker as Tim Keller whiff on Christian ethics. He says at the end of the book that Jesus will come back to redeem the whole world.
But what Christians are meant to do with our social structures in the meantime is left hanging.
Saturday, February 01, 2020
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
Dreher Wants to Quit the World Over Sex
Reading Rod Dreher's The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation.
The issue that makes him give up on the world -- even more than consumerism, materialism, or abortion -- is the gay agenda. This includes normalizing transgender people. Also porn.
I appreciate that there are always challenges to living a fully committed Christian life, as Benedictine monks try to do. And even for serious lay Christians, the world is full of challenges. But I just don't see coexisting with gay people as the same as the Dark Ages.
Probing a bit deeper, I appreciated Dreher's praise of marriage and marriage-supporting communities. I was therefore surprised that he entirely skirted the vexed issue of patriarchy, male headship, complementarity, or even any discussion of gender roles in the one-man, one-woman family.
I think if he is going to sell people on a benedictine withdrawal into little Christian communities, he needs to settle whether that includes giving up on gender equality.
The issue that makes him give up on the world -- even more than consumerism, materialism, or abortion -- is the gay agenda. This includes normalizing transgender people. Also porn.
I appreciate that there are always challenges to living a fully committed Christian life, as Benedictine monks try to do. And even for serious lay Christians, the world is full of challenges. But I just don't see coexisting with gay people as the same as the Dark Ages.
Probing a bit deeper, I appreciated Dreher's praise of marriage and marriage-supporting communities. I was therefore surprised that he entirely skirted the vexed issue of patriarchy, male headship, complementarity, or even any discussion of gender roles in the one-man, one-woman family.
I think if he is going to sell people on a benedictine withdrawal into little Christian communities, he needs to settle whether that includes giving up on gender equality.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Douthat is Right That Half-Baked Christianities are a Bigger Threat Than Irreligion
In Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, Ross Douthat puts his finger on four kinds of heresies that have rushed into the vacuum created by the retreat of the old Protestant Establishment. These heresies are recognizably kinds of Christianity, but embrace only one side of a classic paradox or tension.
• Alternative gospels, from the highbrow Gnostic Gospels to the lowbrow Da Vinci Code.
• Prosperity gospel, from Michael Novak's sanctification of capitalism to Joel Osteen's hucksterism.
• Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (the term is from sociologist Christian Smith) - think Eat, Pray, Love or Deepak Chopra.
• Nationalism, both messianic and apocalyptic.
In each case, the proponents have grasped half of a good thing, but miss the tempering wisdom of the mean between extremes.
The last heresy is the one most in my interest. He says the great social movements do have a vision of improving the nation, but tempered with realism about sin. Moreover, when they worked, these movements drew from both parties. What Douthat thinks is unique about this moment is that there are messianic and apocalyptic strands in both the Republican and the Democratic Parties.
Douthat notes that religious leaders tend to think unbelief is the great danger. I have long thought that human beings are a believing species, because we want to understand why our existence is meaningful. This means that when confidence in the great religions ebbs with a portion of the population, what they turn to is not stark unbelief and nihilism. Instead, every kind of paganism rushes in.
The heresies that Douthat notes are actually partly signs of life for the church -- they try to draw on the great patrimony of the world religions, especially the biblical strand. That they do so in an unbalanced way is the common error of all humanity, as Aristotelian philosophy always reminds us. But their hearts are, I think, pointing in the right direction.
Douthat says that each decline of faith in American history thus far has been followed by a resurgence of a chastened but vibrant renewal. He sees some possibilities of that renewal now. I think I am more constitutionally optimistic than he is, so I see his hope and raise it.
• Alternative gospels, from the highbrow Gnostic Gospels to the lowbrow Da Vinci Code.
• Prosperity gospel, from Michael Novak's sanctification of capitalism to Joel Osteen's hucksterism.
• Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (the term is from sociologist Christian Smith) - think Eat, Pray, Love or Deepak Chopra.
• Nationalism, both messianic and apocalyptic.
In each case, the proponents have grasped half of a good thing, but miss the tempering wisdom of the mean between extremes.
The last heresy is the one most in my interest. He says the great social movements do have a vision of improving the nation, but tempered with realism about sin. Moreover, when they worked, these movements drew from both parties. What Douthat thinks is unique about this moment is that there are messianic and apocalyptic strands in both the Republican and the Democratic Parties.
Douthat notes that religious leaders tend to think unbelief is the great danger. I have long thought that human beings are a believing species, because we want to understand why our existence is meaningful. This means that when confidence in the great religions ebbs with a portion of the population, what they turn to is not stark unbelief and nihilism. Instead, every kind of paganism rushes in.
The heresies that Douthat notes are actually partly signs of life for the church -- they try to draw on the great patrimony of the world religions, especially the biblical strand. That they do so in an unbalanced way is the common error of all humanity, as Aristotelian philosophy always reminds us. But their hearts are, I think, pointing in the right direction.
Douthat says that each decline of faith in American history thus far has been followed by a resurgence of a chastened but vibrant renewal. He sees some possibilities of that renewal now. I think I am more constitutionally optimistic than he is, so I see his hope and raise it.
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