Yesterday, I heard an interview with former President Jimmy Carter. He’s just published a new book entitled Faith: a Journey for All. I’ve read and heard Carter address the importance of his Christian faith many times.
I’ve always admired Jimmy Carter. Did he “succeed” as President? Not in the way most people define success. He was never comfortable playing the game of Washington politics. He championed human rights around the world and brokered a Middle East Peace deal that is still in effect, but economic problems at home and the Iran hostage crisis doomed his chances of re-election. He left office deeply unpopular.
Sounds like a failure. But Carter never compromised his personal integrity. He never wavered in his faith. And his post-presidency, the most consequential in American history, has redeemed his image.
As I listened to him yesterday, I was struck by how easily he defined himself as an “evangelical born-again Christian,” even though the vast majority of those in our country who share this identity espouse a world-view that is directly at odds with his own.
For Carter, being an “evangelical” is not a matter of politics. He asserts that there are many evangelicals who are politically moderate and even liberal. This claim sounds archaic in an era when white evangelicals are now regarded as a reliable voting block. But I know whereof he speaks. Growing up as a Southern Baptist (like Carter), I understood the importance of being born again – of awakening to the reality of Jesus Christ in a personal way and committing myself to follow him. To be an “evangelical” in those days simply meant that you believed the gospel of Jesus Christ was an urgent message that needed to be shared with the world. It meant your Christian faith, while personal, was not a private matter to keep to yourself, but something to be shared with others because it had universal significance. It also meant that, since the Bible is the only written witness to the life, teachings, and ministry of Christ, you regarded the Scriptures as the final authority for all matters of faith. (The early evangelical confessions qualified biblical authority by saying that all of scripture must be interpreted in the light of Christ.)
Carter is a living example of that more traditional understanding of evangelicalism. He has devoted his life to seeking peace, justice, and human rights because his faith compels him to do so. And he does not apologize for or hide the fact that his entire reason for doing these things is his commitment to Jesus Christ. In fact, it is imperative that, as an evangelical, he let others know that his Christian faith drives all his efforts to make the world a better place. He is serving the kingdom of God proclaimed and embodied by Christ.
I no longer belong to an evangelical denomination, but my personal piety continues to be informed by what I consider to be true evangelicalism: a Christ-centered faith that recognizes the authority of Scripture and regards the Christian witness as an urgent matter in every generation.
Yet today, evangelicalism seems inexorably woven into three forms of public Christianity that strike me as irreconcilable with true discipleship to Christ.
The first is the partisan Christianity begun by Jerry Falwell, Sr., forty years ago. First, it was called “the Religious Right.” Then, it became “the Christian Right.” Later, it came to be known as “Conservative Christian Evangelicalism.” Today, it is properly referred to as “White Christian Evangelicalism,” to be distinguished from the historic black church, which is both theologically conservative and very evangelical, but in no way espouses the partisan politics associated with predominantly white evangelical churches. As white evangelicalism has become more overtly partisan, it has lost credibility with the wider public. Today, the percentage of Americans identifying themselves with this form of Christianity is down to 17%. That’s a 25% drop in ten years, and a 50% decline since the mid-1990s. White evangelicals, who once were known as champions of “family values” and loudly demanded “moral leadership” and “good personal character” from the nation’s leaders, overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump for President despite his long history of adulterous behavior and his brazen claim that he doesn’t need God’s forgiveness because he’s never done anything wrong. Why? Because, according to white evangelical leaders, he embraces the “right policies.” But if that were true, why not express support for policies they like while holding him accountable when he runs afoul of their values? I believe his main appeal to this religious base of supporters is that he speaks to them as a persecuted minority (which they are not) and vows to protect them. And for this reason, they are willing to give him an unlimited number of passes for reprehensible behavior and rhetoric. Now, white evangelical leaders look like the religious hypocrites worthy of Jesus’ withering condemnation in the gospels. They are tarnishing the image of the Christian faith, and it is increasingly difficult to separate them from “evangelicalism” in general.
Evangelicalism is also closely intertwined with the “prosperity gospel,” a religious co-optation of American consumerism. It claims that true faith always yields material prosperity, for this is the primary way God blesses us. I know from personal experience that when we learn to be generous with what we have, we discover how much is given to us. When we distinguish wants from needs and trust that God provides all we need, what we have goes a lot farther. But that faithful approach to material resources is a far cry from the prosperity gospel, which posits a direct correlation between faith and worldly success, such that increased faith yields increased fame and fortune. The prosperity gospel was on full display after this year’s Super Bowl. It was a great game, and I enjoyed watching it. But when the first words out of Eagles’ coach Doug Pederson’s mouth were, “First, I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” I winced. To be fair, he did not go on to say, “for giving us this victory,” but what else were we to conclude? I’m sure the shared faith of coaches and players (many of whom prefaced their post-game remarks with “all glory to God”) was a huge boon to them during the season. I hope that as people of faith, they regard their newly minted championship status as an opportunity to do some incredible good for others. But my Christian conscience rejects the notion that the Eagles won the Super Bowl because God was rewarding these multi-millionaire players for their faith. First, faith is not “rewarded”; it is given. Second, real faith is not proven by worldly success but by sacrificial living.
So there’s the partisan Christianity that reveals itself to be more partisan than Christian, and there’s the prosperity Christianity that seems to love prosperity more than Christ. And a third form of public Christianity that does not comport with anything I have come to know and believe about Jesus Christ is the prudish faith that is obsessed with human sexuality. It is beyond ironic that Jesus, who gathered a community of misfits who did not conform to any of the norms of ancient Jewish or Roman society, is held up as the champion of the traditional nuclear family. Yes, he stressed the value of sacred commitments like marriage. But even his prohibition of divorce under almost all circumstances served the purpose of defending women against the abuses of a deeply patriarchal culture where only men could obtain divorces. He demanded that the marriage covenant be regarded as the sacred union of two people instead of a contractual arrangement whereby a man took a wife as his property. Jesus never said a word about homosexuality, never described the purpose of marriage as pro-creation, and never said that wives must be subservient to their husbands. He spent far more time talking about the care of the poor, the dangers of materialism, and God’s judgment of unjust political structures than he did addressing issues of marriage and sexuality. And yet, a large swath of American Evangelicalism has allowed itself to be identified as anti-gay, anti-abortion under all circumstances (and pro-life only for the pre-born), and pro-patriarchy, as though nothing else is more important to Jesus.
For all these reasons, I decided several years ago that the term “evangelical” is beyond redemption. It had become so closely identified with values that are abhorrent to me that I saw no point in trying to reclaim it or redefine it. I’m still not convinced that defending the historical meaning of this term (which is centuries old but not biblical) is worth the trouble.
Then, I hear Jimmy Carter say, without hesitation, “Yes, I’m an evangelical Christian.”
And I find myself asking in response, “Am I?”
- I am a Christian. I try to live by all the best principles of what evangelical Christianity used to mean, and if somebody asked me point blank, “Are you an evangelical Christian?” I would say “yes,” but I’d have to add, “not in the way that term is usually understood.”
The identity I won’t give up is being a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ. But then, come to think of it, that’s getting harder to defend every day, as well. “White evangelical” is not synonymous with “Christian,” but the secular media often uses the terms interchangeably. Those of us who follow Christ and refuse to be a “reliable voting block” for any party, who do not seek material reward for our faithfulness, and who don’t equate Christianity with Victorian morality, need to do a better job of telling our stories. Instead of apologizing for our faith, we need to claim it. Instead of just confessing our faith, we need to live it.
And whether we seek the label or not, that is true evangelicalism.
©2018 by J. Mark Lawson
Great piece of writing, Mark, especially distinguishing between all the Religious Right crowd. As a Catholic, I do not know what to say sometimes. If I say Christian, people think I am part of that bunch. If I say Catholic Christian, they think I am part of the Right to Life crowd. Maybe I need a different denomination.......
Posted by: Michael Salamone | 04/04/2018 at 05:34 PM