Christian Smith coined a useful and resonant phrase, describing evangelical Christianity in the post-1960s United States as both “embattled and thriving.”
.. an identity in a secularizing country that was neither separatist nor assimilated, but somehow mainstream and countercultural at once.
.. there is talk of an intergenerational crisis within evangelical churches, a widening disillusionment with a Trump-endorsing old guard, a feeling that a crackup must loom ahead.
.. that they will either go along with the drift of their elders and become church-of-American-greatness heretics, or else they will return to “older liturgical traditions,” Catholic and Orthodox and Anglican, and cease to identify with evangelicalism entirely.
.. If so, then this would imply that white Christian tribalism and a very American sort of heresy, not a commitment to scripture and tradition, has kept evangelical churches thriving all these years.
Comments:
.. According to Psychologist Brian Hall, many see a world that is a terrifying mystery beyond our control, where safety and security are the issues. Here, the black and white evangelical “are you saved?” churches thrive. Many others see the world as a problem to solve with the help of institutions of control, like government and big corporations. Institutional churches thrive here, depending on their unchanging truths. But other religious people have come see the world as a project, and here the old immovable certainties become more plastic. This is terrifying for those who go by black and white.
.. It strikes me that the first sentence of your third paragraph from the bottom should read as follows: “But it’s also possible that evangelical intellectuals and writers, and their friends in other Christian traditions, have Over-estimated how much how much a serious theology has ever mattered to evangelical’s sociological success.”
.. His view of life led to his death because he was way ahead of his time. He chose a difficult path.
Evangelicals choose an easy path. One that is black and white. One that rejects science; evolution. One that rejects the complexities inherent in daily life... Why does every pundit speak of the election as if voting for Trump is tantamount to an endorsement of all things Trump?
I voted because I believe it to be a civic obligation, but I didn’t choose the options on the ballot, and I had to pick one. Tust me that I endorsed neither. I am honestly not sure how much anyone should take away from a vote for Trump (or a vote against Hilary).
There were two bad choices, and he won by the skin of his teeth. Let’s not make more of his victory than what it was.
America: The Redeemer Nation
We need a new national narrative.
One way to identify one is to go back to one of the odd features of our history. We are good to our enemies after wartime. After the revolution, we quickly became allies with Britain. After World War I, Woodrow Wilson was humane to our European enemies. After World War II, America generously rebuilt Germany and Japan.
Elsewhere, enmities last for centuries. But not here. Why? Because we have a national predilection for fresh starts. Coming to this country is for many people a new beginning. We turn every new presidential administration, every new sports season, every graduation ceremony into a new beginning. It’s said Americans don’t settle arguments, we just leave them behind.
The story of America, then, can be interpreted as a series of redemptions, of injury, suffering and healing fresh starts.
- .. In the 18th century divisions between the colonists were partially healed.
- In the 19th century divisions between the free and enslaved were partially healed.
- In the 20th, America partially healed the divisions between democracy and totalitarianism.
.. The great sermon of redemption and reconciliation is Lincoln’s Second Inaugural.
.. This is a speech of great moral humility. Slavery, Lincoln says, was not a Southern institution, it was an American institution, weaving through our common history for 250 years. The scourge of war, which purges this sin, falls on both sides. Lincoln fought any sense of self-righteous superiority the Northerners might harbor. He rejected any thought that God is a tribal God. He put us all into the same category of ambiguity and fallenness.
.. The final prayer heralds a new beginning: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds…to achieve lasting peace among all nations.”
.. He combines Christian redemption with the multiculturalist’s love of diversity. In one brilliant stroke, Lincoln deprives Christian politics of the chauvinism and white identitarianism that we see now on the evangelical right
Trump’s name is coming off his SoHo hotel as politics weigh on president’s brand
President Trump’s company has agreed to remove the Trump name from its hotel in Lower Manhattan and give up management of the property, the most visible sign yet of the toll his presidency has taken on his brand.
The decision, announced by the company Wednesday afternoon, follows signs that business has flagged for months at Trump SoHo, beginning during his polarizing campaign last year.
The hotel’s sushi restaurant closed. Professional sports teams, once reliable customers, began to shun the property. The hotel struggled to attract business for its meeting rooms and banquet halls, according to reporting by radio station WNYC.
.. This will be the third time since Trump’s election that his name has been removed from a building. In July, the Trump name was taken off the Trump International Hotel in Toronto
.. In the United States, the Trump name still adorns hotels in Honolulu, Las Vegas, Chicago, New York and Washington. The Washington hotel, opened last year, has been a bright spot in the company’s portfolio. Flush with business from Christian groups, trade associations and foreign clients, its profits have greatly exceeded expectations.
.. Elsewhere, the Trump Organization has seen greens-fee revenue fall at its golf courses in Los Angeles and the Bronx, and it has lost dozens of customers who rented out banquet rooms for parties or golf courses for charity tournaments.
.. Last summer, 19 charities canceled galas or other fundraisers they had planned for this winter at Mar-a-Lago, costing the Trump Organization hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
.. But by this year, at least 11 of the 12 NBA teams that previously stayed at Trump SoHo had quit. Some cited logistical reasons. Others said they could not stay at a hotel with Trump’s name on it.
Wes Goodman & Religious Conservatism, Inc.
The frightened teenager fled the room and told his mother and stepfather, who demanded action from the head of the organization hosting the conference.
“If we endorse these types of individuals, then it would seem our whole weekend together was nothing more than a charade,” the stepfather wrote to Tony Perkins, president of the Council for National Policy.
“Trust me . . . this will not be ignored nor swept aside,” replied Perkins
.. The Post has a photocopy of a 2015 letter that Perkins sent to Goodman, congratulating him on his therapy, but advising him that he ought not to seek political office until he has dealt with his homosexual behavior. Perkins said that he was “disappointed” by Goodman’s decision to run for state office, and kicked him off of the Council for National Policy.
.. Here’s the thing, though: Perkins and others who knew what Goodman had done in the hotel room let him continue his rise in conservative politics, knowing that he was a potential time bomb. How many social and religious conservative donors, activists, and voters would have supported an Evangelical rising star had they known that he was at least once willing to commit adultery, with a young man, and by sexually assaulting him?
.. So, Tony Perkins, the most powerful religious right figure in Washington, helped hide from other conservatives, as well as the public, that junior Republican politician Wesley Goodman, despite his façade as a Bible-believing family man, was an adulterous gay groper. Why?
.. Goodman was seen as a rising conservative star and a good networker who could help young people get jobs in conservative organizations
.. When asked whether Rosenberger had heard the rumors of Goodman’s past, Miller said they can’t chase down every rumor.
“Until someone comes forward with a substantial allegation — and when that occurs there is immediate action to make sure the proper protocols are followed,” Miller said.
.. Was it the case that young men propositioned lewdly by Goodman, who was well-connected in Republican politics, were afraid not so much of Goodman but his protectors?
.. Was Tony Perkins’s decision to stay silent as Wes Goodman’s political star rose in any way related to a desire to have a reliably conservative vote in the Ohio statehouse, even though he knew the man was a groper? I find it hard to believe that someone of Perkins’s national stature would worry so much about the Ohio statehouse, but given that Evangelicals (like Perkins) have established a reputation of overlooking credible accusations of sexual predation for the sake of supporting politicians who vote as they wish, the question remains.