between love and orthodoxy: part 1 - a reflection on the conservative takeover of American christianity

I had the unfortunate experience of being homeschooled from the 5th to 8th grades while leaving my only social interaction to be that of my church youth group. This wouldn’t have been a bad thing except that I was a tall, skinny kid with a fat head who looked awkward, acted awkward, loved being the center of attention, and also liked everyone to know (or think) he was smarter than them. Being bullied, though never justified, is sometimes expected.

Since I didn’t have a lot of friends, I threw myself into books and video games. I loved building cities on Sim Cities: 2000 or picking up the latest Star Wars novel. But aside from that, my favorite thing to read and study was anything around apologetics and theology. I took my faith seriously from a young age and so I sought out anything that would educate me on the faith. This love of books and video games would transfer into my college at the seminary where I’d come across thinkers far deeper than any I’d faced before.

I don’t remember what book it was or what the class was, just that it was reading something by the Catholic author Peter Kreeft and his constant quotations of this fellow named G.K. Chesterton. I went out and purchased Orthodoxy with what very little money I had and began consuming it. I finished it in a few days, and it wasn’t enough, I needed more. I was hooked on Chesterton because he had such a common-sense approach to faith; you must believe the right thing and act the right way. Yes, an oversimplification, because “act the right way” would mean not to be arrogant, not to lord your faith over people, to help the poor, help the downtrodden, and so on. But his belief was that an orthodox belief should result in an orthodox life (orthopraxis).

I began to think about the orthodox beliefs in Christianity and how we had failed to live up to them. We weren’t helping the poor, we weren’t taking public stands against corporate greed, we weren’t speaking out against the greed in our own congregations. All of these are listed as sins in the Bible and have been viewed as sins by Christians forever; it’s orthodox to view these things as sin. But I couldn’t figure out why we weren’t standing against them.

I concluded that it was because we didn’t view those things as sin because we had walked away from the right belief. Christians had no anchor to hold them fast in the storm of life, and so they shifted their morals and beliefs because they weren’t orthodox. It wasn’t Chesterton who made me think this – I came to Chesterton already believing this, I just relished his confirmation. Francis Schaeffer, however, had primed me to view American evangelicalism this way.

Schaeffer was probably the first major Christian evangelical thinker that I came across that impacted my life through his words. All the others gave me good knowledge, but Schaeffer was the first one who breathed life into the intellectual pursuit of everything. He was the largest influence on my life the entire time I was an evangelical Christian. I came across him sometime in my early 20’s after coming across a book by Nancy Pearcey, who was one of his disciples. I spent over a decade reading, re-reading, every single one of his works. I wrote numerous essays about him, shaped my entire philosophy around him. Francis Schaeffer shaped my entire evangelical worldview when I was still an evangelical Christian.

Schaeffer’s big appeal was that he believed in “true truth.” He argued that relativism had taken away any meaning from the word truth, that something could be “true” to you, but not objectively true. “True truth” was his fun way of saying “objective truth;” something is true because there’s an objective reason for it to be true. Just like math and physics, the moral laws of the universe have a universal code behind them that was created by God. He illustrates this (without saying "true truth" in this quote) in his opening to The God Who Is There:

"The present chasm between the generations has been brought about almost entirely by a change in the concept of truth...So this change in the concept of the way we come to knowledge and truth is the most crucial problem, as I understand it, facing Christianity today." ¹

Schaeffer believed young people were suffering because they lacked the concept of truth, and the truth has to be founded in something absolute. In order to know the truth one must know God, and in order to know God one must know and believe in the Bible and the historical Christian message.

"The Bible says that you are wonderful because you are made int he image of God, but that you are flawed because at a space-time point of history man fell."²

The other Schaefferism that you’ll encounter if you read his works is “space and time.” He was very big on teaching that the Bible had to take place in Space and Time. How could we live a true Christian life of love if we didn’t believe in a literal fall of Adam and Eve? What good is the story of Christ crucified if we deny the historical reality of Jesus dying and resurrecting from the grave? These are questions Schaeffer would ask and would then argue how theologies like neo-orthodoxy and philosophies like existentialism were ruining the Christian message. He would argue that we need an orthodox belief, that we must protect and defend the core of the Christian faith, if we’re to have a Christian life.

To Schaeffer, a Christian life was more than “Don’t drink, smoke, and cuss.” In fact, that was minor to him. To him, it was more about how you interacted with the world and with God. Christianity was about a spiritual journey, something that is inward. As a young man during an incredibly formative age that was surrounded by turbulence, Schaeffer pointed to the rock of orthodoxy to help the world make sense, and to encourage me to love my fellow human.

Taking Schaeffer with me to seminary and encountering Chesterton, it was there that I gained a better understanding of the conservative resurgence within the Southern Baptist Convention. After all, I attended a seminary run by Paige Patterson. We couldn’t even have women as professors since that was seen as a woman having authority over a man. One can argue all day long over whether this is a correct reading and application of Scripture, it’s certainly an orthodox one because you’ll find a ton of historical evidence showing it being applied this way time and time again. Trust me, I know the defense because I heard it from Patterson himself. I learned about the resurgence not just from Patterson, but from quite a few others who were involved in it – this was the completion of my belief that proper orthodoxy would lead to a proper life.

In the world of revolution

I grew up in the wake of the Southern Baptist resurgence. It happened in the 1980s and by the time I was heavily involved in an SBC church the resurgence was almost complete. I only attended SB churches until I was in my mid-20s. Both the churches I attended in my childhood and teenage years were staunchly conservative politically and theologically. I learned about the orthodox beliefs – according to the Southern Baptists and most American evangelicals in general – on a weekly basis. I studied theology and apologetics outside of the church almost every day from the age of 12 to 28. I was seeped in orthodoxy, raised as a child of a new beautiful age of conservative, orthodox theology being taught to young Southern Baptists, so that they might follow Christ for the rest of their days.

Now in my 40s I’m not longer a Christian or conservative on most issues. What happened? Others had very similar upbringings and went through similar educations, but they’re still Christian. Yet, quite a few others have – like me – left the evangelical world for some other denomination or non-descript Christian church or left the faith entirely. In many ways, my life is a microcosm of what has been happening in the US for the duration of my lifetime. We’ve had a movement within the American evangelical community – the white evangelical community, before I forget to clarify this – that sought to correct the “liberal” and neo-orthodox beliefs of the early 20th century and commit to orthodoxy. As a result, people have either doubled-down in their orthodoxy and radicalized, or they’ve left the faith entirely – and in many ways, America herself is going to have to choose what path she will take.

Orthodoxy

Chesterton was known for his quotes and ability to turn a phrase, but the one that stands out the most – or at least that was quoted quite a bit at my time in seminary – is “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”³

It comes from his work What’s Wrong With the World, a collection of essays with this one being in the essay titled The Unfinished Temple. This quote was often used in my apologetics courses to discuss how people don’t reject Christianity for intellectual reasons, they reject it for moral reasons. The whole idea is that Christianity is so obviously true that anyone would believe it if being rational. This is a major abuse of Chesterton’s phrase. The wider context is as follows:

“Of course, I mean that Catholicism was not tried; plenty of Catholics were tried, and found guilty. My point is that the world did not tire of the church's ideal, but of its reality. Monasteries were impugned not for the chastity of monks, but for the unchastity of monks. Christianity was unpopular not because of the humility, but of the arrogance of Christians. Certainly, if the church failed it was largely through the churchmen. But at the same time hostile elements had certainly begun to end it long before it could have done its work. In the nature of things it needed a common scheme of life and thought in Europe. Yet the mediaeval system began to be broken to pieces intellectually, long before it showed the slightest hint of falling to pieces morally. The huge early heresies, like the Albigenses, had not the faintest excuse in moral superiority. And it is actually true that the Reformation began to tear Europe apart before the Catholic Church had had time to pull it together. The Prussians, for instance, were not converted to Christianity at all until quite close to the Reformation. The poor creatures hardly had time to become Catholics before they were told to become Protestants. This explains a great deal of their subsequent conduct. But I have only taken this as the first and most evident case of the general truth: that the great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

Chesterton’s argument was that due to Christian actions and the repugnance of Christians themselves, people had turned away from Christianity. He wasn’t condemning them for doing so, but rather condemning the Christians for behaving in a way that would turn people away from the Church.

Chesterton and orthodox theologians after him would consistently claim that people weren’t rejecting Christianity itself – they weren’t rejecting Christ crucified, they were rejecting the followers of Christ. To them, Christianity couldn’t just be an intellectual exercise, it also had to be lived, but in order to be properly lived it had to be properly believed. To Chesterton, the only way to make sense of this world was through a Christian view of the world:

“Darwinism can be used to back up two mad moralities, but it cannot be used to back up a single sane one…On the evolutionary basis, you may be inhumane, or you may be absurdly humane; but you cannot be human. That you and a tiger are one may be a reason for being tender to a tiger. Or it may be a reason for being as cruel as the tiger…But in neither case does evolution tell you how to treat a tiger reasonably; that is, to admire his stripes while avoiding his claws…only the supernatural has taken a sane view of Nature.” ⁴

Though Chesterton was Roman Catholic, he’s played a major influence on quite a few conservative evangelical thinkers, especially within Reformed circles. The Reformed school of thought, for a very brief understanding, believes that everything has been foreordained by God and that there is an order and purpose to this world; nothing happens without first being permitted by God’s will, and God’s sovereign will dictates and governs the universe just as much as the laws of physics do, and it dictates the laws of physics as well. As such, believing there is a natural God-given order to this world, they believe that to properly navigate it you must properly understand it, and that begins with understanding God’s law for creation.

The conservative line of thinking from Chesterton and Schaeffer has one logical conclusion – fidelity to orthodoxy will almost always result in infidelity to love. The orthodox Christians took over the American evangelical movement and created a political movement out of it. As a result, they’ve essentially snuffed out any liberal movements within the evangelical world, casting them to the side and out of the spotlight. They enjoy a monopoly on power within the American Christian landscape and enjoy a large amount of influence on the Republican Party.

Yet, study after study has shown that the more you know evangelical Christians, the likelier you are to dislike them. Growing up I was told that the world would hate us for one of two reasons; either they’d hate us for not behaving like Christians (which is to say, if we were out partying and drinking, they’d hate us for our hypocrisy) or they’d hate us for being too much like Christ, that is, if we stood to our principles and loved people. They never explained that we might be hated for being annoying assholes who take away people’s freedoms. The reason people dislike evangelicals the more they get to know them is rather simple – orthodox, conservative, evangelical Christians tend to prioritize their personal theological and moral “rightness” over their ability to love.

One could argue that maybe Christians aren’t orthodox enough, and that by seeking political power they abandoned orthodoxy. This is, of course, special pleading. While there is no one definition of what is “orthodox,” within the evangelical set it usually ascribes to some view of Scripture as inspire or infallible, a decentralization of authority, a belief in the Great Commission (that the first priority of Christians it to go and save the world), and that Christ was the Son of God and exists as the second person in the Trinity. Yet, as I will attempt to show in the coming essays, most evangelicals do hold to these beliefs and yet they show absolutely no love toward the world.

As I will attempt to show later, you can choose to live a life of orthodoxy or you can choose to live a life of love, but you cannot choose to live a life that fulfills both. One or the other will eventually have to give. If you choose orthodoxy, then it’ll either be out of deep conviction or it’ll be out of mere convenience. This choice of staying orthodox because it’s convenient or because it’s conviction will continue to be tested against the tides of love, but also against the tides of power. Many powerful people will align themselves to your cause and using power you’ll be able to achieve your goals, but you’ll have to sacrifice your orthodoxy for that power. If you choose to live a life of love, then you’re going to either must morph your faith and change how you read the Bible and understand your theology to fit your view of love, or you’re going to have to slowly abandon your faith and subsequently your entire worldview. Either way, should you commit yourself to orthodoxy and living a life of love, you will eventually face these choices.  

What is orthodoxy?

Before plodding along, I think it might be best to offer a definition of what an orthodox evangelical is; this is already fraught with difficulty because there’s so many types of evangelicalism. There’s going to be a thousand different understandings. I am, however, going to base this off my years of having been a conservative evangelical – in the largest evangelical denomination – and offer a definition I feel most orthodox Christians would agree with.

In everything I’m writing I’m (1) not referring to Orthodox Christians and (2) not referring to any other branch of Christianity except conservative, orthodox evangelical Christianity. So-called Eastern Orthodox or Greek Orthodox churches are entirely different and removed from this discussion to a degree. They do, of course, have their own orthodoxy, but the orthodoxy I’m discussing is unique to the evangelical church.

I’d argue there are 6 main points of conservative evangelicalism:

1.      A commitment in some form to Biblical authority and inspiration/inerrancy – this often comes in the form of stating that the Bible in its original authorship is completely true and without error. This gives room even within the orthodox evangelical community to have some give and sway on interpretation errors or errors between manuscripts.

To properly understand the concept of inerrancy and inspiration, the idea is that the Bible functions as one cohesive voice. While there were different authors throughout time and while there were different scribes throughout time and mistakes found their way into the passages, none of those mistakes are of theological concern. Guiding the writing, delivering, and interpretation of the Bible has been God, and therefore those who have access to God through the Holy Spirit can interpret his Divine word.

2.      Adherence to historic Christian doctrine – while you’ll catch few evangelicals ascribing to any Catholic creeds, for the most part they agree with the major Christian doctrines that emerged out of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries around Jesus’ nature and the nature of the Trinity. They believe in God the Father, almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth, and Jesus Christ his only begotten son, and so on. They ascribe to the Incarnation, creation and fall of humanity, resurrection of the dead, and other very mainstream Christian beliefs. While they wouldn’t ascribe to the Nicene Creed or Apostles’ Creed in the same way Catholics or Orthodox do (they give them no authority), they would state that to be an orthodox Christian (saved), you’d have to believe these things.

3.      An emphasis on personal holiness and personal choice, or salvation as a “born again” experience – The biggest mark of evangelical Christianity is the emphasis on having a “born again” moment. Now, the understanding on the “born again moment” can differ widely among different faiths within evangelicalism – a Calvinist will have an incredibly different view of this than someone who believes in total free will – but at its core is the belief that you must personally choose to follow Christ.

4.      An emphasis on evangelism and missions work – most evangelical denominations are very big on missions’ work. I grew up Southern Baptist and missions work was drilled into people’s heads. Orthodox evangelicals are committed to sharing the Gospel around the nation and around the world in the belief that God has commanded them to do this.

5.      Cultural conservatism and social engagement – evangelical Christians, throughout their history, have always been culturally conservative and socially engaged. While this hasn’t always and doesn’t always manifest into a political presence, it does mean that evangelicals will typically support the more conservative elements of society and be against any social changes. The view on this stems from the belief that Christians are to be salt to the world, that Christians should stand out and support their Biblical ethics – the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.

More than that, however, is what some evangelical scholars – usually in the Reformed tradition – would call the “cultural mandate.” Within the evangelical tradition, conservative Christians do tend to interpret both the Great Commission and God’s command to Adam and Eve to “go forth and multiply” as an order for Christians to engage culture. How that engagement happens is up for debate and looks different in different traditions, but there’s a call to engage the culture at large.

6.      Distinct identity within a broader Christian spectrum – evangelical Christians are very quick to distance themselves from liberal or progressive Christians. What I noticed within the Orthodox Church and in other denominations is that the mark between “liberal” and “conservative” isn’t as bright as the one within the evangelical movement. But there is a call to be distinct, to be different, to stick to your guns on your faith and belief unlike the liberals and progressives (who aren’t viewed as real Christians).

These 6 points summarize the conservative evangelical position within America. I think most evangelicals would agree with what I wrote and even might have a few things to add.

Thy kingdom come

While the Edict of Milan is often incorrectly cited as the moment Christianity became the Roman Empire’s favorite and chosen religion, it didn’t happen too long afterward. In 380 CE, Nicene Christianity enjoyed its seat on the throne after the Edict of Thessalonica made it the State religion.

Of course, anyone who knows history knows that 380 CE is rather late in the game for the Roman Empire, and it had already been showing cracks for several years. A favorite pastime of the Romans was to engage in civil wars. The constant wars resulted in an eventual breakdown in the civic order. While Rome should have collapsed several times between the 2nd and 5th centuries, Western Rome finally fell apart in 476 CE, or at least that’s the date commonly given by historians.  During this slow collapse there were no other institutions with which to step in and keep order, just the Church in Rome. Thus, the Church began to gain more and more influence over the lives of the everyday folk while the government essentially collapsed, and the new Germanic governments moved in.

In the West, the government collapsed quickly. In the East, however, it held its grasp until 1453, which allowed the emperor – and not the Bishop of Constantinople – to maintain his spot as the center of authority. In the West, however, once the Germanic kings began to split up what once was Rome, there was no centralized authority to help negotiate the treaties and alliances. Enter the Bishop of Rome, or as we all know him, the Pope. And thus, Christendom was born.

From the end of the 5th century up until the 16th century, the Church held virtual monopolistic authority over everyday life for most people in Western Europe. It was the unifying cultural and political force throughout the continent. During this era, the Church not only provided the spiritual guidance we expect, but also shaped law, education, art, societal norms, and courts, creating a sense of shared identity across the diverse kingdoms and peoples. A peasant traveling from Cologne to London may not have much else in common with anyone there, but he could go to the local church and find help due to having that common currency (faith).

Over time, however, the unity began to crack and falter as internal reforms and divisions coupled with external changes – such as the Renaissance – emerged. The Protestant Reformation in the 16th century is one example of how the splintering of Europe along religious lines caused a fragmentation that resulted in the end of Christendom. The theological fragmentation of the 16th and early 17th century transformed into a political one by the end of the 17th century. Nation states were beginning to arise as a result of the Thirty Years War (the first major European conflict since the Roman era) and were demanding independence from Church control.

By the time of the Enlightenment, a shift toward secularism within the culture and national identity eroded the Church’s dominance in public life. Scientific discoveries, liberal philosophies that promoted individualism, and skepticism toward traditional authority – the once all-encompassing framework of Christendom gave way to a modern Europe marked by religious pluralism and the separation of church and state.

Americanism

It’s rather fascinating to look at North and South America and see what the differences in the timing of colonialism brought about to these two continents. South America and Latin America were colonized mostly by Spain and Portugal toward the end of Christendom, when the Church still held major sway. As a result, most of these nations have been predominately Catholic up to this day and some have even had their own dealings with the Catholic Church. North America (the US and Canada), however, were colonized by the English and French with the English winning that battle. This colonization happened at a time when Christendom had lost its grip on England and the Church of England reigned supreme.

As a result of being colonized after Christendom by a nation that wasn’t beholden to the old order, the 13 Colonies, what would become the United States, never developed a centralized church. The ideas of the Enlightenment more than the doctrines of the Church guided the crafters of the US Constitution. However, though the US lacked a centralized church, localized churches could often hold sway in a way reminiscent of Europe.

American Christianity was unique in that it was pluralistic – not in the sense that they were okay with other religions (although they were to a shocking degree, as in, they were okay letting them practice if they didn’t bother anyone), but that they were accepting and tolerant of other denominations. However, the North American colonies were bringing in a lot of refugees from Europe in the aftermath of the Thirty Years War. That war had lasted from 1618-1648 and morphed from what was initially a religious war to what concluded as the first “modern” war of nation states. Certain groups, like the Puritans, felt persecuted in Europe and like they’d never find a save place to practice their beliefs (theocracy – and they felt the Church of England was too Catholic).

Since so many early Americans came from a diverse background of Christian denominations, coupled with the massive expansion and expanse between settlements, it follows that mainline denominations tended to thrive in the cities while evangelical movements tended to thrive in the rural countryside. Since going to a town may not have a Baptist minister, but they might have a Presbyterian minister, a lot of Americans didn’t have the hardline divisions that were prevalent in European Christianity – but they also lacked a lot of the secularizing motives that the European population had. Europe was primed for secularization after centuries of religious warfare that then turned political. The United States, however, has never faced religious warfare or repeated persecutions for religious reasons (against Christianity).

Even without having a centralized church, Christianity itself – specifically evangelical Christianity – became the de facto civic religion in the US. Holidays, public discourse, the framing of the entire national identity, and even certain national symbols are steeped in the evangelical Christian tradition. It was the individualism of evangelicalism, the emphasis on a personal conversion and personal holiness, that played a big part in the independent spirit that resulted in the American Revolution. There wasn’t a hard demarcation between mainline and evangelical churches either – culturally and ethically, they held to the same beliefs and therefore, on the civic level, so long as you were a Christian it was enough.

Evangelical Christianity enjoyed a virtual monopoly on American culture and power in the early 19th century, but cracks began to form around the issue of slavery. Famously, the Southern Baptists split from the group that would later become the American Baptists, all over slavery. After the Civil War, there was no time to heal as advances in scientific theories and philosophy were attacking the validity of the Bible. The “naturalists,” or modernists, were stating that the Bible wasn’t historically accurate, that science showed we evolved, and the fundamentalists saw this as an attack on inerrancy. Leading up to the 1920s a slow rift continued to grow between mainline and evangelical groups, until in the 20s and 30s – after the “liberal” takeover of the mainline denominations – evangelicals became predominantly conservative and viewed non-fundamentalist churches (mostly mainline) as heretical.

The divide between evangelicals and mainline Protestants, however, didn’t really affect American culture at large. It wasn’t like the Thirty Years War. Instead, the Northeast US and other wealthy parts of the US stayed mostly mainline while the rest of the US continued to remain evangelical – again, a decentralized church structure makes a lot of sense when covering the vast distances the US presented. And so evangelical Christianity continued to have sway over the general populace of the US, especially in the South.

Reality catches up with America

1925, for a time, was seen as the death of religious fundamentalism within the United States. The reason for this is the famous Scopes Trial where evolution was put on trial. While overly dramatic, the fact is this did cause a downward trend in religious fundamentalism. They were seen as anti-intellectual, anti-science, and anti-progress. Of course, the entire decade of the 20s was one marked by decadence and hedonism. New cultural norms were taking hold, a belief in a need for personal holiness didn’t seem to matter when the conveniences of the world were becoming…well…more convenient.

The 1930s brought the Great Depression and the1940s brought World War II and the Holocaust. In the difficult years of the 30s people didn’t turn to religion. In the end, it was the government, not God, that turned the US around. After the death and destruction of the 40s, people seemed to question God all together. The returning GIs were bringing back a culture of change with them. It’s shortly after World War II that the fundamentalist Protestants who had split off from the mainline churches begin calling themselves “evangelicals.”

The 50s and 60s saw desegregation, the rise of drug use, hippie culture, and outright hatred of all authorities. The culture in America was changing and the evangelicals were taking note, watching their children grow up in a way that was completely foreign to older generations. The sexual revolution questioned traditional family norms and sexual norms.  

By 1966, one of the most popular and well-distributed magazines in the US asked the question on its cover, “Is God Dead?” There were a rash of religious movements popping up, alternative spiritualities that were well-beyond anything in the Christian tradition. Evangelical Christians still had power over the pew and in most of America, but the writing was on the wall – things were changing and not in their favor. Having Time Magazine, a leading publication, openly question the center of their faith sent shockwaves around the evangelical world.

As the culture continued to change, some evangelicals argued that Christians needed to change, that their harshness and legalism had driven people away from the church. They argued that Christianity had forgotten it’s message to bring Christ into this world. Starting in 1949, Billy Graham began holding his crusades where he placed a heavy emphasis on a personal relationship with Christ and personal holiness. From 1949-1979, people like Billy Graham were quietly growing the ranks of the evangelical community, despite the movement of the culture.

Despite the changes in the culture, evangelicals stayed the same. White evangelicals stood again attempts at desegregation, stood against social liberalizing policies, stood against pro-union policies, and stood against pro-women policies. Still, the culture in general looked to be moving away from the church. While there had been a Christian consensus within the US for most of its history up to that point, it was falling apart and the morals of the world were changing. Much like the Catholics toward the end of Christendom, the evangelicals were watching their grip on the culture go away.

However, when Roe v Wade hit in the mid-70s, something flipped in evangelicals. The conservatives who had been waiting in the shadows began to plot on how to make a comeback within their own denominations and within the nation. With a newly elected conservative President in 1979, American evangelicals stood on the precipice of either saving America or letting it go the way of Europe.