Religious Right: losing their children?
CNN Belief Blog reports on the religious right's loss of their children from their ranks:
I was talking one day to the Rev. Jim Wallis, an evangelical leader, when he made a startling claim:The Religious Right has lost its children.
Wallis said the children of ultra-conservative Christians are deserting their parents’ theology in droves. Wallis is the president of Sojourners, a network of progressive Christians.
He says a new generation of Christians are tired of their faith being defined by two issues: fights over abortion and homosexuality.
They really object to the tone of the culture wars. I’m on the road a lot and I’ll have these young Christians say to me, 'If they force us to only care about two issues, they’re going to lose my generation.'
Wallis cites another example as proof of his point: the popularity of evangelical writer Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz.
Writing at the blog finitum no capax infiniti, Art Boulet has more on the fighting among conservatives:
one of the reasons that this blog has fallen silent over the past few months has been because i have been working 40 hours a week as coordinator of the princeton dead sea scrolls project. but there is another reason:i’m completely sick of fighting.
i just don’t care anymore.
the culture of conservative evangelicals (and especially of the conservatively reformed) is sickening to me. everything is about a ‘battle for x’ or ‘defending the heart of the gospel’ (which changes as the opponent changes…one day it’s justification and n.t. wright is a heretic, the next day it’s inerrancy and kenton sparks is a heretic). that’s not what i want to do with my time. i didn’t go to seminary so that i could get a ‘heresy hunter’ license and claim my spot among machen’s warrior children. i went to seminary because i want to positively contribute to the way christians think about the bible, about their god, and about how to live their lives in relationship to that god.
All the studies show that the biggest de-evangelization is in churches (conservative or liberal) who fight all the time. Not healthy disagreements but long term divisive fights over who has the truth about some issue.
This brought to mind something I hadn't thought about for many years. It reminded me of -- of all things! -- a Paul Harvey radio show that I heard once back in the sixties or seventies.
He remarked that the North Koreans did not succeeded much in brainwashing American POWs who could identify positive reasons for participation in the war; it worked when they could only identify negative reasons, or none at all.
"Soldier, what are you fighting for?"
"What am I for? I - I'm against Communism, that's what I'm for!" Those are the ones who succumbed.
So it seems as though, if I am a Christian - or anything, for that matter! - because I'm against something, maybe I'm not that good at it.
But if I'm a Christian because I'm *for* something, I'm probably going to do it better. Maybe I'll even be better at identifying and articulating what I'm against.
Posted by Dcn Scott Elliott![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/nav-commenters.gif)
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July 21, 2010 10:43 PM
What a crying shame it is that so many Christians nowadays cannot or will not see Jesus' mission was "for" and not "against": "God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but to save the world" (John 3:17). And yet, by their words and behavior, they make it seem as though Christianity's primary agenda is to condemn -- in diametric opposition to the Christ's attitude and modus operandi.
Gregory Orloff
Posted by Gregory![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/nav-commenters.gif)
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July 22, 2010 9:05 AM