TIME.com: My Problem with Christianism
Andrew Sullivan wrote this article for Time's back page this week. If you thought Emergent was a passing fancy, then see how nicely it fits in the mainstream...
His premise:
"So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike."
I can see the point Sullivan is trying to make, only I'm looking at it from the other side. I sometimes (sincerely) ask myself whether someone who supports "abortion rights" or "gay rights" and certain other issues can really be a Christian. Is that even possible? Or are these left-wing crazies trying to crash Christianity by saying their views are consistent with God's will?
ReplyDeleteI probably should have put left-wing crazies in quotes because I'm not saying they ARE crazy, they just seem that way to me. But I really have been spending more time lately trying to separate my political views from my religious beliefs (when necessary I mean.) Often I find it can't be done.
derifter:
ReplyDeleteYour last sentence is probably the most important of your comment, and that's also why I think Sullivan's remarks quoted in Paul's post are insightful, even if at least partly off-base. Our faith cannot, and ought not, be divorced from our view on anything! To suggest otherwise is to fall into a flavour of unBiblical dualism.
However, the distinction that Sullivan doesn't get, or make ( I didn't read the whole article, trusting Kerux has selected the quote that provides the gist ) and the one that requires we have great wisdom, is the area of Christian activism. Does my faith call me to picket abortion clincs, withhold my taxes as a matter of alleged conscience etc.. or am I called to speak the gospel and effect change from a grassroots level as God changes hearts one by one? I think the Bible teaches it's the latter, but balance is certainly required as we seek to live as lights in this world. That will certainly require involvement in the culture, but to what extent? The drawing of those lines I'll leave to someone smart like Kerux. :-)