Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Charles Marsh, a professor at the University of Virginia wrote a devastating
article (actually, an adapted chapter from his
new book) in the
Boston Globe a couple weeks back. Here are a couple of snippets:
These past six years have been transformative in the religious history of the United States. It is arguably the passing of the evangelical moment -- if not the end of evangelicalism's cultural and political relevance, then certainly the loss of its theological credibility. Conservative evangelical elites, in exchange for political access and power, have ransacked the faith and trivialized its convictions. It is as though these Christians consider themselves to be recipients of a special revelation, as if God has whispered eternal secrets in their ears and summoned them to world-historic leadership in the present and future.
and
If only holiness were measured by the volume of our incessant chatter, we would be universally praised as the most holy nation on earth. But in our fretful, theatrical piety, we have come to mistake noisiness for holiness, and we have presumed to know, with a clarity and certitude that not even the angels dared claim, the divine will for the world. We have organized our needs with the confidence that God is on our side, now and always, whether we feed the poor or corral them into ghettos.
The article makes note of the fact that evangelicals in the U.S. chose conservative national political alliances over global spiritual alliances. Christians from around the world overwhelmingly opposed the war in Iraq . . . Christians in the U.S. overwhelmingly supported it.
Via:
Fast Company Expert BlogsLabels: books, Christendom, culture, politics
