Friday, June 10, 2005
Liberal Christians
More and more, Christians with liberal political views are stepping up.
But be that as it may, here is what is really bothering me. The so-called "progressive," or liberal, Christians don't seem to be thinking straight.
This says to me that conservative and liberal Christians really do only differ on the issues that the left decries the right for focusing on too much -- same-sex marruage, abortion, etc. Isn't that a revolting development - well at least for the Christian left which accuses us of being reactionary.
Tony Campolo is a tireless campaigner for social justice, especially for the poor, for the environment and for oppressed populations in the Third World. Like Carter, he is also an evangelical Christian ? a Baptist minister, in fact.Tony Campolo is one of the best Christian speakers I have ever heard. It saddens me that he is throwing into this discussion in this fashion.
Although many Americans see evangelicalism as a monolithic construct, ?in reality, there are a whole lot of us evangelicals who think differently,? said Campolo, who founded the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education.
But be that as it may, here is what is really bothering me. The so-called "progressive," or liberal, Christians don't seem to be thinking straight.
If leaders of the progressive evangelical movement had their way, social activism would be divorced from politics. They envision a day when all of the awesome organizational skills and economic power of the conservative evangelical structure could be brought to bear on feeding the hungry, housing the homeless and leveling the uneven playing field of modern society.Hey, wait a minute -- ultimately, that's what I think, and I ain't progressive. Feeding the poor is the church's business -- NOT governments, it should be apart from politics. The rub comes that we have to be politically active to get government out of it.
This says to me that conservative and liberal Christians really do only differ on the issues that the left decries the right for focusing on too much -- same-sex marruage, abortion, etc. Isn't that a revolting development - well at least for the Christian left which accuses us of being reactionary.
