Tag Archives: evangelical churches

Was Jesus Really “Invisible” in Your Grandmother’s Church?

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I just read Scot McKnight and Tommy Phillips, Invisible Jesus: A Book About Leaving the Church and Looking for Jesus (Zondervan, 2024). I will not do a chapter-by-chapter review, but I want to share my thoughts.

The Argument

I decided to read this book for two reasons. First, one of the authors Scot McKnight wrote a very kind endorsement for my book, God, Freedom & Human Dignity (2013), and he is an insightful author. Second, I am also interested in the subject it addresses. A student in my current (Fall 2024) theology class brought to my attention his own process of “deconstruction” and return to faith. At first, I was confused because to me “deconstruction” refers to the French theory of literary interpretation, which assumes that works of literature never merely tell the truth or a good story but always construct a fictional world designed to preserve the power structures that advantage the author. The job of the interpreter is to sniff out (deconstruct) the ways the text seeks to deceive and dominate the reader. But I learned from the Invisible Jesus that the term “deconstruction” is now being used of people rethinking their Christian faith in critical ways. I suppose the term “deconstruction” fits what this group is doing because much of their critique focuses on exposing narratives that preserve abusive power structures within (mostly) evangelical and fundamentalist churches.

McKnight and Phillips paint a sympathetic picture of the “deconstructors.” They do not portray them as rebels, heretics, and anarchists. Deconstructors ask legitimate questions of their evangelical and fundamentalist churches. They challenge the hypocrisy of church leaders and question legalistic morality. They object to the church’s lack of concern for the poor and silence on racism and sexism. To them, the church seems too focused on money and right-wing politics. It’s too hierarchical, patriarchal, middle-class, and White. The deconstructors question the truth or importance of such doctrines as six-day creationism, male headship, ever-lasting punishment in hell, and the rapture.

McKnight and Phillips see deconstruction as a prophetic movement impelled by the Holy Spirit and in search of a Jesus-centered faith. Deconstruction is the negative side of many believers’ longing for a Jesus-shaped community of intimacy, generosity, equality, and inclusion. Deconstructors cannot see Jesus amid the institutional structures and activities of typical churches; hence the title of the book Invisible Jesus.

Analysis

Agreements

There is much to applaud in Invisible Jesus. Indeed, I made some of the same observations and critiques in my book Rethinking Church. Many churches are too clergy-dominated, stage-centered, and money-driven. We need to focus more on the Table of the Lord and small groups. Let every voice be heard. And let the way of Jesus, not corporate America, set the agenda. Amen! McKnight and Phillips are right to say that we ought to listen carefully and patiently to the deconstructors and learn from them.

Critical Observations

However I do have some concerns. (1) Over the last 5 to 10 years, exposing the evils of evangelicalism has become a cottage industry and a good strategy to get a book published by a major publisher.* I detect in McKnight and Phillips a mood that troubles me. Is it Uncharitableness? I don’t know how to characterize it. But there are many gratuitous barbs directed toward evangelicals. Perhaps this sharpness is related to the negative church experiences of the authors. Readers of the book will discover in the first chapter that both McKnight and Phillips think of themselves as deconstructors. They tell their own stories of deconstruction (pp. 5-10), which strikingly resemble the stories of many other deconstructors told in the book.

(2) In the opposite direction, McKnight and Phillips construct an almost wholly uncritical, even heroic, picture of the deconstructors. I don’t share their view. Do the deconstructors measure the faith of the churches they are leaving by the teachings of Jesus? Did they learn these lessons from Jesus alone? To the contrary, many of the deconstructors I know absorbed the values of progressive secular culture before or simultaneously with their departure from the evangelical church. And the Jesus they admire seems to champion secularized versions of toleration, peace, love, inclusion, equity, and diversity.

(3) It strikes me that the picture of a Jesus-centered church painted by Invisible Jesus is utopian or at least unhelpfully abstract. The real living church has always been imperfect and impure. The weeds always mix with the wheat. There will be disagreements even within a “Jesus-centered” church about what it means to be Jesus-centered! The authors leave the nature of this ideal church underdeveloped. Yes…we must love God and our neighbors, be kind, tolerant, take care of the needs of the hungry, naked, and homeless. But does doctrine, that is, the full range of biblical teaching, matter at all? Are there any rules for making sure that the powerful force of sexual attraction is used for good and not evil? What about marriage and divorce and abortion and LGBTQ+ ways of living? Is there any type of authority in the church?

(4) Perhaps I find myself somewhat critical of Invisible Jesus because McKnight and Phillips are writing to a different audience and dealing with a different problem than that with which I am most concerned. I do not deny that the evangelical movement is in trouble, and for many of the reasons treated in Invisible Jesus and other recent books. It’s just that I don’t live there. The people I am pastoring (especially my students) are being crushed not by evangelicals but by progressives. Where I live (the West Coast) the dominant culture is secular and hostile to any form of Christianity that takes the Bible seriously. For me, to write a book critiquing evangelicals would be smashing through an open door, jumping on the band wagon, beating a dead horse. I have no desire to take the devil’s side when the devil is already winning!

(5) Invisible Jesus implies but does not construct an alternative vision of faith and life of the people of God. I suppose we will have to wait for the authors’ next book. But if history is a good teacher, when you reject a Bible-based evangelical theology, an almost irresistible logic carries you all the way to Liberalism.

*See my review of Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (Liveright, 2021) from August 2022.

Jesus, John Wayne, and Evangelicals: A Brief Reaction

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Many of my colleagues and acquaintances have praised Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (Liveright, 2021). As of today, the book has received 3,808 reviews on Amazon with a rating of 4.5 stars out of 5. Hence I thought I ought to read it for myself. My “brief reaction” won’t contain a full review, much less a chapter-by-chapter summary, detailed analysis of the argument, or thorough critique. I hope it will nevertheless be helpful for those who have read it or will read it or are thinking of reading it.

The Title

I have to admit that even before I read the book—indeed the first time I heard of it—I had a negative reaction to the title. It seemed designed to be provocative, insulting, and indicting—the kind of book intended to appeal to an extreme faction to reinforce their already emotionally-driven stance. And sure to sell! The subtitle states a thesis that seemed too radical to sustain. How could anyone hope to demonstrate that evangelicals as a group are guilty of corrupting a faith, i.e., the gospel? And are white evangelicals alone responsible for the social and political divisions that plague the country (USA)? Moreover, why add the word “white” to modify evangelicals? Will the book accuse white evangelicals of racism? There is one word missing from the title that I think is implied, that is, “male.” Although there are some women in the book whom Du Mez paints in a bad light (Merabel Morgan and Phillis Schalfly), villains are overwhelmingly male. The cast of scoundrels includes Billy Graham, James Dobson, Chuck Colson, Oliver North, Tim LaHay, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Josh McDowell, Michel Farris, Tony Perkins, and many more. So, being white, male, and a fairly traditional Christian rather than progressive or liberal you can see why I did not resonate with the title.

The Book’s Mood

It’s been a long time since I’ve read such a depressing book. The book begins and ends with what Du Mez considers irrefutable proof of white evangelicals’ hypocrisy and corruption, that is, their overwhelming support for the twice-divorced, serial adulterer, misogynist, racist, xenophobic, islamophobic, arrogant, foul-mouthed Donald Trump in the 2016 election (Preface, xvii). Enthusiasm for Trump is the definitive refutation of evangelicals’ sincerity in all their talk about morality, faith, and family; it is proof that “evangelicalism must be seen as a cultural and political movement rather than as a community defined by theology” (p. 298). Between these bookends she tells story after story of white, male evangelical leaders’ political intrigue, ambition, duplicity, hypocrisy, and sexual misconduct. According to Du Mez the animating heart of evangelicalism is patriarchy, “heroic white manhood” (p. xvi), “militant masculinity” (p. 3), and white nationalism. Perhaps I missed it, but I don’t recall Du Mez mentioning a single positive quality or redeeming feature of her evangelical villains. It’s a story of meanness, betrayal, and hypocrisy. That’s all there is. I could not detect in Du Mez’s portrayal a smidgen of empathy. No nuance. No grace.

After reading 300 pages describing dirty laundry and exploring skeleton laden closets, you begin to doubt that there is any goodness left in the world. It took me a whole day to recover my sense of perspective. As a professor of religion, I shudder to think what reading this book would do to the mind and heart of a young college student who knows nothing else about the history of American Christianity.

The Argument

Given the subtitle of the book I expected hear an argument for her thesis. But the adverb “how” in the subtitle should have given me a clue that I would be disappointed. The “how” announces that the fact of white evangelicals corrupting the faith and fracturing the nation is taken for granted. Evangelicals’ support of Donald Trump proves it. Her task is to show how this happened and why we should not be surprised that it did:

History makes clear that this should come as no surprise. Evangelical support for Trump was no aberration. For many white evangelicals, the values Trump embodied aligned with the militancy at the heart of their faith (p. xvii).

With the fact of evangelicals’ betrayal of the gospel established beyond doubt by their association with Trump, all Du Mez needs to do is construct a narrative illustrating how the post WW II evangelical movement was animated from its beginning and throughout its history by ideals of militant (white) masculinity and submissive femininity. The narrative portrays evangelicals’ defense of the Bible and orthodox doctrine and its rhetoric of morality, marriage, and family as serving the basic instinct of (white) male superiority, a will to power masked as theological faithfulness. Evangelicalism, Du Mez contends, is “a cultural and political movement” not “a community defined by theology” (p. 298). This conclusion, I think, is the central point of the book. It is to disempower the male dominated evangelical movement by unmasking the ulterior political motives hidden by its theological rhetoric. It is to imbue her readers with suspicion of sanctimonious rhetoric and free them—especially women—from the linguistic cage constructed by male evangelical architects.

Will it work? Yes. For some people it will. Those who already hate Donald Trump, those burned by evangelical churches, those already leaning leftward in their politics, and theological liberals and progressives will enjoy reading about the sins of their political enemies. As I said at the beginning of this essay, the title of book tells you who the book is meant to entertain.

Critical Assessment

Do I have anything good to say about Jesus and John Wayne? Yes. Having read extensively in American church history and theology, I know most of the stories and characters discussed in the book, but not all. I learned some new things. The book is well-researched and meticulously documented. Her book testifies to her impressive ability to create a narrative out of thousands of facts. Concerning the facts it recounts, I do not doubt its historical accuracy. And it’s pretty well written. But….

On the other hand, I believe the book is deeply flawed. Though the facts are accurate, the narrative is misleading. Her obsession with debunking evangelicalism root and branch is too obvious to overlook. She explains everything evangelicals say and do as manifestations of their lust for power. This thesis makes historical explanation too simple and mechanical. All the characters are rendered as one dimensional ciphers. They don’t even have the virtue of being flawed. They are just bad. As far as readers can tell from Du Mez’s narrative, evangelicals did nothing good; their causes were unjust, their fears unfounded, and their actions divisive.

I began this essay with my apprehensions about the title of Du Mez’s book. Reading the book did nothing to remove them. Despite all the facts marshalled in its support, I don’t accept her narrative. If you read the book, ask yourself two questions: (1) can the evangelical movement really be as unambiguously evil as Du Mez portrays it? (2) If it is legitimate to deconstruct evangelicalism and reduce it to the will to power, is it not legitimate to ask what “metanarrative” or hidden motive controls De Mez’s narrative reconstruction?

Progressive Christians: Beware of Liberal Theology

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I’ve read several books so far this summer. I can’t write a review of all of them. However, because of its direct relevance to issues I often discuss on this blog, I want to share my thoughts on Roger Olson, Against Liberal Theology: Putting the Brakes on Progressive Christianity (Zondervan, 2022). Olson has written a very good book with a simple argument whose relevance will be immediately apparent even to casual observers of American Christianity. The book contains 174 pages printed in larger than average type. It is divided into eight chapters and an introduction. Olson writes in a non-technical style readable by a wide audience, though even those educated in theology can benefit from reading it. It is apparent that Olson works hard to present the ideas of liberal theologians accurately and assess their merit fairly.

The Argument

As the title indicates, the book criticizes liberal theology and issues a warning to “progressive” Christians. The argument of the book is designed to achieve two goals: (1) to demonstrate that liberal Christianity is not Christianity at all, or at least it that is not biblical, classical, orthodox Christianity. It is a “heresy,” “counterfeit,” “a false gospel, apostasy” (p. 14); (2) to convince progressive Christians not to slide into liberal theology. Progressive Christianity is on a downhill trajectory toward liberal Christianity. Hence those progressive Christians who wish to remain truly Christian need to understand that there is a stable middle ground between a cult-like fundamentalism and full-blown liberalism. Olson urges them to take this path (p. 174).

Chapter-by-Chapter Summary

The introduction and each chapter of the book contributes a different piece of evidence that supports Olson’s conclusion that liberal Christianity is not Christianity but “an alternative religion to true Christianity” (p. 33). In this section I will summarize briefly the essential argument of each chapter.

Introduction

A standard definition of liberal Christianity is “maximal acknowledgment of the claims of modernity in Christian thinking about doctrines” (p. 6; quoting Welch). Christian doctrines are adjusted or rejected to conform to modern science and progressive morality. If this definition seems rather abstract, it is because liberalism finds it easier to specify what it does not believe than what it believes. Orthodox Christianity submits to a fixed canon whereas liberal Christianity adjusts to the ever-changing spirit of the age.

Chapter One, “The Liberal Tradition and its Theology.”

The story of liberal Christianity begins with the German theologian and preacher Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834). Schleiermacher rejected a Christianity whose content and truth are rooted in external authority. Everything supernatural must be reinterpreted as natural and rooted in human experience. He reframed Christian doctrines as articulations of the human experience of dependency, a kind of mystical experience of our contingency and the reliability of a mysterious ground of our being. Other liberal theologians followed Schleiermacher’s lead in retaining Christian language and churchly practice but changing its inner meaning and the ground of our knowledge of its content and truth. Many liberals following in Schleiermacher’s wake, however, shifted from mystical to moral experience as the source and meaning of doctrine. None returned to the “external” authorities of scripture, tradition, or the church as the source and norms of Christian truth. Christian truth in all forms of liberal theology comes from within the human self. According to Olson, Douglas Ottati in his book A Theology for the Twenty-First Century (Eerdmans, 2020), though compensating for changes in science, culture, politics, and morality, reinterprets Christian doctrines in much the same way as Schleiermacher did 200 years earlier.

Chapter Two, “Liberal Theology’s Sources and Norms”

As I indicated above, liberal Christianity refuses to allow scripture and tradition to trump reason and human experience as sources and norms for Christian belief and practice. Whether it is the private or the social self, humanity is the measure of all things.

Chapter Three, “Liberal Theology and the Bible.”

For Liberal Christianity, the Bible is not authoritative in any way that would require us to trust it as telling the truth about God or God’s historical interaction with humanity. Its stories may “form” us but they do not “norm” us (p. 63, quoting Delwin Brown). Not to put too fine a point on it, we can accept the Bible when we agree with what it says and reject it when we do not. It’s not too early to ask a question: if scripture and tradition do not tell us anything we cannot learn from our own experience and we can reject anything that does not resonate with our experience, why read it and why preach it at all?

Chapter Four, “God According to Liberal Theology.”

Liberal theology rejects the traditional doctrine of God as omnipotent, independent, omniscient, and transcendent. It rejects miracles and the distinction between nature and the supernatural. But liberals do not want to move to deism or atheism. According to Olson, they opt for a “third way,” which he calls “panentheism.” Panentheism considers God and the world to be one eternal, ever-evolving reality. God depends on nature and nature depends on God. As some liberals put it, the world is God’s “body.” Olson quotes liberal theologian Donald Miller who explains, “God is synonymous with the search for human wholeness, for confidence in the ultimate meaningfulness of human existence” (p. 87). It seems that Miller here identifies God with a deep dimension of human consciousness. Peter Hodgson avers that “God actualizes godself in and through the world” (quoted on p. 88). As is clear from these two statements there is much diversity among liberal theologians in their affirmative statements. As I said earlier, it is easier for liberalism to tell you what it does not believe than what it believes.

Chapter Five, “Jesus Christ in Liberal Theology.”

For liberal Christianity, Jesus is a religious human being who “saves” us by setting a powerful example of ideal humanity. Jesus is not the incarnate Son of God. He did not die for our sins; nor did God raise him from the dead. And yet liberals keep talking about incarnation, resurrection, and salvation. Donald Miller says the quiet part out loud when he admits, “I presently feel comfortable reciting the creed without editing it or feeling a pang of conscience if I affirm something I do not literally believe” (quoted on p. 109). We might want to ask Miller this question: if you don’t believe it “literally,” why say it at all? Perhaps you’ve worked it out with your own “conscience,” but what about the people listening to you who are deceived into thinking that you are one of them? Olson cites Miller’s confession “as an example of how slippery liberal Christians can be” (p. 109). In brief, for liberal theology, Jesus is either an example or a symbol but not the Lord and Son of God of the New Testament or of the creeds. Reliance on symbols rather than historical reality frees liberals from having to defend the facts of the gospel and supposedly makes Christian faith a matter of inner certainty not subject to refutation by historical research. But it also transforms it into a myth whose truth lies not in the storyline taken literally but in the longings the story evokes in the listener.

To be continued…

There’s Nothing Mere About “Mere Christianity”

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Last week I announced the theme for the coming year: “A Catechism of Mere Christianity for a Post-Denominational Church Living in a Post-Christian Culture.” I explained the rise of the post-denominational church and its negative effect on contemporary churchgoers’ understanding of the Christian faith. Today I want to explain what I mean by “mere Christianity” and why the church’s teaching must take into account the general post-Christian Culture.

I am sure that the term “mere Christianity” reminds many of you of the book by C.S. Lewis. In his preface, Lewis cites the Puritan pastor and theologian Richard Baxter (1615-91) as his source for the term “mere” Christianity. In Baxter’s Elizabethan English, “mere” meant pure, unadulterated or unmixed, whereas in modern English it has acquired the connotation of minimal or bare. In Mere Christianity, Lewis attempts to present the central teaching common to almost all denominations, Protestant and Roman Catholic. According to Lewis, nonbelievers ought to be given an opportunity to hear the basic Christian message rather than having to sift through all the fine points of denomination-specific teachings.

Perhaps Lewis wishes for his age what St. Vincent of Lérins (early 5th century), advocated for his, that is, that Christians ought to give special honor to “that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all.” Lewis discovered that it is not easy to articulate “mere” Christianity in a way satisfactory to everyone any more than the Vincentian rule can generate a list of teachings acceptable to everyone. Lewis’s first readers found matters with which to quibble and some later readers cite omissions and offenses. But Lewis’s work has stood the test of time. Seventy-years later it is the number one selling book in the category of theology and is read approvingly by Protestants of all denominations and Roman Catholics.

In this series, however, I will not attempt to imitate C.S. Lewis. His book was aimed at outsiders and was written before the post-denominational church gained the prominence it holds today. This series aims at insiders and takes our post-denominational consciousness into account. This is why I am referring to it as a catechism. Seventy-five years ago, during the Second World War, when Lewis first presented the material contained in Mere Christianity to a British radio audience, it would have been inaccurate to refer to England as a “post-Christian” culture. Not so today, for Great Britain or the United States. Lewis could presume that regular churchgoers have been taught the basics of the faith by their denominations. We can no longer make this presumption. Hence my title “a catechism of mere Christianity.”

Like Lewis and St. Vincent, I am convinced that there is a set of basic beliefs that defines the boundaries of Christianity and that the historic traditions (Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant) share this core. Perhaps the exact boundaries are fuzzy, and it would be difficult and perhaps impossible for these traditions to agree on a particular text articulating these basic beliefs. Nevertheless when I read the Seven Ecumenical Councils (or at least the Nicene Creed), the Protestant confessions of faith and catechisms, the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the Roman Catholic Catechism, I am amazed at the consensus on these core beliefs. And I am also amazed at how extensive the list of consensus beliefs and practices is. There is nothing minimal about this “mere Christianity”!

Though the post-denominational culture in its evangelical form does not deny those historic beliefs and practices, it neglects to teach them in their fullness and focuses instead on experience. The language of worship includes references to God, Jesus and the Spirit. It directs worshipers to praise the grace of God, the love of Jesus and the joy of the Holy Spirit. Sermons inspire and encourage individuals. But as far as I can tell, there is little instruction in doctrine. Such neglect fails on two counts. (1) It assumes either that Christians don’t need instruction in the material covered in the historic catechisms or that they already know it. My experience is that they do not know this material, and my conviction is that they really need to know it. (2) It assumes that churchgoers understand the few beliefs that are mentioned in worship and sermons. I do not believe this is true. Familiar religious language has a way of losing its cognitive content and becoming opaque unless it is explained continually. When this happens, Christian words or professions of faith cease to direct the mind and become mere expressions of religious emotions.

In this series I plan to remind you of what your church should be teaching all its members (catechism) about basic Christianity (mere Christianity). All along, we will keep in view Christian language’s loss of meaning for a post-Christian culture.

Most church catechisms follow the order of the creed or of that church’s confession of faith. That order corresponds also to the order of most systematic theologies: God, the Trinity, creation and providence, the fall and sin, Christ and salvation, the Church and the Spirit, the Christian life and eschatology. I shall begin at a different place, with the church. And next week I shall explain why I begin there.

Next Week: “Yes, The Church Really Is Our Mother.”