Phil Johnson works for John MacArthur and blogs at Pyromaniacs. His recent post on How Evangelicals Traded Their Spiritual Authority for a Mess of Political Pottage concludes…
…it is my conviction that because they have invested so much in the political process, evangelicals have weakened their own movement with a tendency to compromise; they have sacrificed evangelical distinctives, and they have gone far off message from the central truths of the gospel. Political activism has been a disaster for the American evangelical movement on every front. Not only have we completely failed at the political process; we have failed even more egregiously to remain distinct from the world.
and has generated a response from my friend Joe Carter over at the Evangelical Outpost titled, A Herd of Unicorns: The Myth of Evangelical Political Engagement in which he responds in part…
Contrary to what many secularists claim–and many Christians believe–we evangelicals are not all that politically involved. Sure, like most Americans we talk a lot about politics, especially in an election season. But the claim that we are involved in actual political activities–lobbying, organizing, campaigning, etc.–would be difficult to support with actual evidence.
. . . . . .
Rather than assuming that evangelicals are a large, powerful, committed political bloc that, for some inexplicable reason, is completely ineffective, the more realistic conclusion is that politically engaged evangelicals are like a herd of unicorns: powerful and abundant in the imagination while not actually existing in the real world.
Read Phil then Joe and then hope that both honor my request to join me on a future edition of The Paul Edwards Program to bring the debate into the real world of talk radio.
UPDATE: Joe Carter and Frank Turk (from Pyromaniacs Blog) will join Paul this afternoon at 4:30 pm.
One more thing Steve, have you had a chance to read Mark’s new book Vintage Jesus? He coauthored with Gerry Breshears, I just started it. If you have read it I would love to get your impression.
Fair enough, I have said my peace. I used to listen to McArthur all the time and read his books until I saw his in a couple acts of popular straw man discernment.
Truth should be Truth without the straw man tactic.
Thanks Steve nice banter…….
“And btw, Mark’s Hill Church isn’t growing because of so many people getting saved under Driscoll’s headship…” How do you know?
Because I talk to people at MHC; I talk to other pastors in the area in Seattle; I have been to MHC, seen their worship services, witnessed their evangelism, and spoke with others face to face who attend there.
NOw, the real question is this: how do you know that MHC is growing in the numbers they claim in genuine, “first time” conversions? Probable answer: you believe the self-promoted press announcements that Mark makes from week to week.
I do appreciate you brother and your obvious love of God’s Word. But listen, Driscoll is small time when it comes to theology, doctrine, and biblical exposition. May I encourage you to feast at the tables of Sproul, MacArthur, Duncan, and Bridges and leave behind the sandbox of the “immature, reckless and pseudo-reformed.”
Grace and peace,
Steve
2 Cor. 4:5-7
Steve,
Are you saying that the context of which the scripture was preached and related back in the 1800’s is the same as it is now? Let alone in different cultures? Jesus used stories and metaphors of the times to allow for understanding of his sermons, he “contextualized”(such a dirty word). The core message needs to be salvation through Jesus alone, however, bringing that message forth in the way that people can relate can vary. A message preached in China will vary differently than one preached in the US. The context is different, the culture is different, the people have a different background, however, the core message shouldn’t be softened up. I have heard Driscoll several times and his core message is right on. I just don’t understand why you discernment guys need to nitpick over issues that God can sort out. The issues that mean nothing to salvation.
“And btw, Mark’s Hill Church isn’t growing because of so many people getting saved under Driscoll’s headship…” How do you know?
This is the type of statement that used to make me scratch my head when I considered myself in your corner. You guys put yourself in the judgment seat and try to decipher people’s motives and heart. Judge not what you can’t see or know. I have said it before, the discernment guys are running around and acting like the Pharisees that Jesus condemned in his day. I guess that is part of our human nature to think WE have it right and because of that we can judge everyone else and thank God we are not like them that are not as “elect” as we are. I am not personally attacking you Steve as much as I am the whole mindset of you discernment folks, Ingrid, Ken Silva, Brannon House, et al.
I appreciate the back and forth though, and the good nature of the conversation, I have seen Silva really get out of hand in “defending the Truth”.
Pixelmaster
“He preaches to a different crowd than one would who preaches in Nashville Tenn.
Funny, I thought we were preaching the gospel of grace to sinners in every city – not to “different” crowds. THAT is part of the problem here; Driscoll is just a seeker-friendly marketeer with an attitude. And btw, Mark’s Hill Church isn’t growing because of so many people getting saved under Driscoll’s headship…” In reality, Mark’s church growth technique has been to simply draw all the carnal Christians from around the Seattle area; Mark’s Hill church has grown by attrition not biblical evangelism.
Don’t drink the Kool-Aid brother….
Campi
” just think that the rabbit trails of scatological, vulgar speech and the contextualization of the gospel needlessly detract from what could be a very powerful teaching ministry.”
Steve,
The Lord used Jack Van Impe to bring me back to the fold, however, I would never recommend people listen to him as I think he is a couple fries short of a happy meal now. When I see you and other guys like McCarther attack Driscoll I can’t help but think isn’t there enough infighting? Shouldn’t we be standing for the Truth? If Mark is preaching the gospel, which he is, then let it go. He is not the McLaren type of emergent, in fact when he saw what they were part of years ago he disassociated with them. He preaches to a different crowd than one would who preaches in Nashville Tenn. If people are truly being converted and their lives are changed by the power of Jesus under Driscoll headship then why bicker? No matter what you think, preaching styles have changed and morphed over the centuries. I used to be in your camp(no pun intended), I used to listen to you and Ken Silva, and others on the Mike Corley show, I can’t any longer when I see that type of infighting over very trival issues. I agree with contending for the faith but the Driscoll attacks were too much for me…….
ColinSamul
Jen never responded to your question –
What exactly about the Catholic Church is it that Protestants misunderstand?
There are many. And the understandings are so far off. I will adress a big one.
On the April 18 show it was stated that Catholics do not believe the Christ died for the redemption of sin.
The only call on the topic came from a woman from Detroit. She sounded astonished to learn this shocking fact. She asked, “They don’t believe that Christ died for our sins”. The reply was immediate and adamant “no”. She asked “well then what do they believe?” The reply was, “I don’t know. But it isn’t what we believe”
No one ever checks what the Catholic church actually teaches. They only accept what is told to them without checking facts.
The redemtion thru the cross is the central teaching of the Catholic faith.
You can find out what Catholics believe about Christ’s death at….
http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1sect2chpt2art4p2.htm
This is a link to the catechism. It is easy to read and broken down into bite-sized stand-alone pieces. Scripture references are in the text.
I encourage you to learn for yourself in the church’s own words.
Salvation thru the sacrements is another huge misunderstanding.
Pixelmaster
First of all, I really like the name “Pixelmaster” (wish I had thought of that…). Secondly, there have always been areas of Mark’s ministry that I truly appreciate. I just think that the rabbit trails of scatological, vulgar speech and the contextualization of the gospel needlessly detract from what could be a very powerful teaching ministry.
But with that said, I am happy to be welcomed here and as well always appreciate dialogue centered around the Lord and His Word.
Paul
Thank you brother for your kind and gracious words; and your invitation to come on your program. I would be honored for I so appreciate what you are doing in radio for the kingdom.
One quick note as well on my above post. I wanted to also express how much I do appreciate Phil’s ministry through his blog and his teaching. I do agree with him on much of what he has recently posted on this issue of Christians and politics – we mostly agree.
But to clarify, I just thought some of his arguments were more generalizations and hyperbole than rooted in actuality (i.e. I reference your radio show with Frank and Joe for context). And, in this current political climate and election year, the issue is somewhat passe considering the influence and dialogue of the religious right so far is almost nonexistent. That is why I thought Joe C. hit a home run in his views.
Phil’s voice would have been good to hear about four years ago or during the Justice Sunday campaigns of about three years ago when the epicenter of that movement was really front and center to theme of this discussion.
Hope that helps clarify a bit.
I look forward to future discussions with you Paul on key issues facing the church and culture from a biblical worldview.
Grace and peace to you; the cross waves higher than the flag.
Steve
2 Cor. 4:5-7
I have to tell you, I credit Steve Camp and his friends at worldview weekend, slice of laodacia and christian research network that helped my leaning left. This was especially they when he started in on Mark Driscoll. I have the utmost respect for Driscoll, his sermons are very theologically sound, yet the above network demonized him and associated him with the McLaren crown. I don’t know Camp’s stance on Driscoll now, it seems that the hard right is warming up to him. That said, welcome Mr. Camp, I welcome your comments and love to dialog.
Steve,
It is great to see you commenting here. I am honored, as I have been a consistent follower of your blog for some time.
You have an open invitation to come on my radio program in Detroit to talk about your recent posts on emergent and Mark Driscoll.
Phil is correct but is only about four years too late. There are no evangelical voices in the current election cycle as there were in the past. It would have been good to hear from Phil when men like Mohler from our camp were getting detoured into the political fray. Good to see Al preaching the gospel then lobbying for ecumenical Justice Sunday events.
This is a non-issue this year.
Joe, on the other hand, is spot on. evangelicals are like a herd of unicorns: powerful and abundant in the imagination while not actually existing in the real world.
BINGO!
The past perceived influence of evangelicals in the actual political process on issues of real change on legislation was a non-sequitur. Access to the oval office didn’t equate with impact.
I really like your blog Paul. Keep up the great work you are doing for the kingdom.
I agree with a lot of what was said above. It seems like we do give prominence to the issues of homosexuality and abortion and make everything else a secondary issue. Many have praised the Republican Party as having a monopoly on religious virtue. When we start advocating a party for whatever reason, we need to rethink what we are doing. When Jesus returns, he is not going to set up a democracy and have the Republicans co-reign with him. He will come back as King.
Do we really think that by preaching against homosexuality and abortion will change people? People can only be changed by an encounter with God and by trusting in Christ as Savior. Abortion and homosexuality are symptoms of a larger problem: sin and a fallen world. We are busy trying to attack the symptoms while the world is attacking our foundation (i.e. the Bible).
The Church, mainly the evangelical breed, does need to become more informed as to what is going on in the political world. I agree with Pixelmaster’s assessment with recent foreign policy decisions in recent years, attention to the poor, and so on. I wonder how people are missing these things. However, they are the government, and we should not assume, regardless of how things appear, that it is a Christian government. Many of the founding fathers were Deists who affirmed the Lockean principles of the day, and sometimes I wonder how much has actually changed. Don’t get me wrong, this is a great place to live and the unrest common in most of the world is far worse than what we have here. But we should stop taking sides and just pray for the leaders, respect their position, and do what is right and legal as the Bible commands.
Thank you.
God has given us the solution, but we either do not believe Him, or have been too distracted with our own thoughts, ways and solutions to follow the instruction. We don’t have to make a big deal out of this and organize a movement, just follow the instruction within our own hearts and homes…
2 Chronicles 7:14 (New International Version)
… if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Have we neglected this because we think it is too simple?? Naaman almost made that mistake (OT 2 Kings 5), but “rethunk” the situation and was healed.
I don’t think we need to stay silent about anything, I am saying we might do better by rethinking how we approach the battle. The current method of trying to legislating our values but marrying to a certain party is only hurting our cause not helping it.
The issue of divorce is spoken of many more times in scripture than homosexuality, yet the church seems to turn a blind eye to one and blame the other for all our issues. Very hypocritical.
Pixlemaster, So unless our houses are in perfect order, we should stay silent about sin and injustice in our day? In that case call those missionaries home, no preaching the Gospel of repentence until those missionaries are sinless! That seems to be an overreaction to the log in your eye, speck in your brothers eye passages.
You are right that marriage is a disaster in the church, but that failing on the part of Christians does not logically lead to a requirement for silence when we see God’s law violated.
I don’t have time to read the actual post so I will comment on the excepts. I agree both statements. Evangelicals have been the most reliable and least politically active voting blog that this country has. Joe kinda points that out in the second part of the quote. Evangelicals through the network of rightwing politics and religion are very reliable in their voting for the republicans(83% in 2004). Yet, they are not engaged at all as it seems like whatever “king” Bush does is blessed. They let 2 issued override all others, Abortion and Gay rights. They ignore that Bush’s economic policies have made the top 1% own 40% of this country’s wealth, up from 22% in the 90’s through tax cuts. They ignore Bush’s slashing of many social programs that help the poor and needy, they ignore Bush’s appeal to the worst environmental polluters by putting their lobbyist in charge of the regulation or simply slashing regulation altogether. They bless a war that was sold under the guise of an immanent threat of a “Mushroom cloud”(read fear mongering), when the facts to the contrary were present at the time and ignored. They ignore the slashing of many of our civil liberties all in the name of Terror(read again fear mongering). They ignore the white houses involvement in the outing of a CIA agent(an act of treason) because her husband spoke out about the truth of the Niger/ yellow cake uranium that Bush referred to in the 2003 State of the Union address. They ignore the whites houses involvement with planted journalist(Jeff Gannon) who was in under and assumed name and was operating a male escort service under his real name on the side(how does he get clearance as a reporter to the president?). They ignore authorizing of torture and killing of many innocent people who had nothing to do with terrorism or Al Qaeda. Many still believe that Saddam and Al Qaeda are linked, even though they were mortal enemies, as Saddam had a secular government that was sympathetic to Christians( know this from first hand accounts, my neighbors are Iraqi). Al Qaeda is a religion faction that does not like a secular government.
Why do they do this? Because they are told over and over on Sunday’s that Abortion and Gay Rights are the number 1 issue to God. They are told by the republicans that they stand for these issues. Even though hardly anything was done about abortion from 2002 – 2006 under a right wing controlled House, Senate and Executive. Why was nothing done? They need those issues as wedge issue to keep evangelical in their corner. They cannot have Evangelical looking at the issues above with a critical eye. They are told that they need to vote for the abolishment of abortion even though outlawing it would not stop it. They are told that they need to fight for the sanctity of marriage even though in our own house we can’t stay married more than the secular world. They are told that having a “different” political view is somehow weird or unchristian.
I am not for abortion and would never endorse it but I often wonder if the tact of outlaw is the right way. Would Jesus go that route or would he try to change people’s lives so they wouldn’t seek an abortion if they made a mistake. Would the girl living in poverty seek an abortion is she was able financially able to care for a child? She still might, but there would be a better chance she wouldn’t if she were better off financially and the Christian community were sending a different message about hope of the life in them. This is a serious question. The right will paint pro choice folks as “liking” abortion. I have yet to find one person that thinks it is a good thing.
I don’t agree with the Gay lifestyle, however, when we in our own house have such an issue with marriage how dare we point the finger as committed Gays and tell them they will ruin marriage. We are doing what the Pharisees did in Jesus’s time walking around with all piety and thanking God we are not like the infidels. It is time to rethink why we do what we do and what Jesus was really about, Judgment starts in the house of the Lord, let’s judge ourselves and hold our leaders accountable for their unjust actions and stop trying to legislate God.
As you can tell I am a little fired up over this.