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IV. The Religious Right

Let's pursue this in terms of politics. Evangelicals in America have recently re-emerged into the political sphere on a grassroots level, but not as the individuals who provide the intellectual basis for politics. Why don't we have evangelical public intellectuals providing that kind of force for conservative politics?

Mouw: One reason is that we do not have a theology of public life yet. So in the political sphere, we went from unthinking noninvolvement to unthinking involvement, which translated into the triumphalistic takeover mentality that we find in many active evangelical political movements today. They are not guided by careful theological reflection.

We do have public spokespersons like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, but they really haven't thought these issues through theologically. The result is that the theological basis for what their political followers have advocated has been at best minimal and at worst perverse.

How then should evangelicals be engaged politically? Are Christian political groups wrong for fighting abortion, homosexuality, and immorality?

Mouw: All of these issues are important. My theology of homosexuality, abortion, and sexual immorality is the same as many in the Christian Right. But I am wary of the arrogant and unrepentant spirit that I see in some of these organizations.

Christians should remember that one of the reasons the culture is in such bad shape sexually is that we failed in the past to address the issues in a positive, biblical way and instead fostered a sexually oppressive subculture. We did not treat the sexual sinner well. We have not done a good job at manifesting a healthy, self-critical, repentant attitude toward our actions. We have treated homosexuals horribly in the past. And if homosexuals today are angry with the church, we first need to repent of our past sins and then try to seek the credibility in this society to begin speaking.

Our scandals are as bad as anybody else's. We have no business appearing self-righteous. And so, I'm troubled not by the theology or the ethical perspective of Christians on the political front, but by their tone and spirit.

Bock: We're also selective about what we fight for. Take welfare reform. Have we thought about what we are going to do with the people who are impacted by the reform? Where do words like compassion, justice, and fairness fit into the discussion? Will we give those issues the kind of energy that we give to abortion or sexuality? The church has to transcend any political identification so that whether the particular problem is to the left or to the right, the church is able to address the issue.

Another aspect of having a public theology is having Christian public intellectuals who act as bridges between the strictly academic world and popular movements. Roman Catholics have leaders such as Michael Novak, William F. Buckley, and Richard John Neuhaus. How can we encourage more evangelicals to do the same?

Mouw: Actually, we've done this. Evangelical historians have made the greatest contribution toward an evangelical public theology as they have engaged with the American experience in their work. Look at the kind of study that Mark, George Marsden, Nathan Hatch, Grant Wacker, and others have done. And tens of thousands of young people in Christian evangelical colleges and seminaries are receiving a trickle-down effect from their professors' work. These are our future laypeople and the leaders of the laypeople. And I am hopeful, because significant work has been done on this in the evangelical academy in the last decade or so.

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August 1 1995, Vol. 39, No. 9