Response to Rachel Held Evans's "How to win a culture war and lose a generation"

If I seem to be angry with Christians who differ on my view of marriage, I don't mean to be. My ire is mainly directed at clergy and so-called Christian 'leaders' who ought to know better. Many of these people received theological degrees from seminaries, and are employed in church positions paid for by old endowments, all of which was given them by churchgoers (present and past) who had no idea that their money was sponsoring such people.

Sometimes I can get frustrated with people in the pews who seem, at times, to be content to go through life like Mr. Magoo--oblivious to all the dangers and concerns around them. However, my indignation is not for them--though I wish, for the ten-thousandth time, that they would finally inform themselves on this issue. My concern is with those who should know better, and don't, or don't care, or lie to others and to themselves.

I recently came across this suspicious piece by Rachel Held Evans, who is apparently someone who has made her name among the tiny but influential Christian Left as a writer and blogger. Evans is furious that Christians in North Carolina, when they were in the voting booth alone with their consciences, voted to protect traditional marriage. I will get into a few of her assumptions in a minute.

What is interesting is Evans' update where she admits to disabling the comment section of her piece because she wants to keep it a 'safe place for conversation.' Let me get her exact quote:

"Update: I've closed the comment thread, just because it's become too much to monitor and I want to keep this a safe place for conversation. Thanks for understanding!"

A safe place for the type of conversation that she wants to have, I think she means. Irony, irony.

Evans must be a lot like the rector of the church my family used to attend in Mississippi in the small town where I currently live: on the surface, he gave the pretense of being an affable, open to discussion type of person. However, my former rector was really a bully at heart, and we saw it on full display every Sunday. Instead of hearing about the 'good news,' we heard some of the most outrageous claims that I have ever heard in a sermon...things about global warming and capitalism that most Democrats and mainline liberals won't touch...at least on camera.

Here is my point:

My wife and I felt bullied on Sunday mornings not because we hadn't heard such stupid, uninformed nonsense before. After all, I was completing a Ph.D. program at a big university, so we saw and heard this sort of stuff all the time. I also once went to a conference where a nice couple did their presentation on 'sustainability,' and I watched them (it was actually rather funny) read stuff they had printed off from Think Progress and other far-left websites...their naivety was cute: they thought that stuff was real. ;-)

No, the reason we felt bullied in church was because we were listening to a lot of stuff we knew was not true (about the Texas state education board treatment of Thomas Jefferson, etc.), but we were sitting in a format (a church sermon) where we could not (for various reasons) respond. Our former rector had a near-literal 'bully pulpit.'

I've asked God to help me forgive this man, and one thing I tell myself is that perhaps he is unaware that he is bullying. In fact, if no one ever tells him otherwise, how can he know?

And yet, Evan's desire to put up her scream of a blog post (with all of its stupid assumptions), and then disable all comments or responses, makes me question my earlier assertion if indeed people like her and my former rector are truly unaware that they are using their speaking/writing venues to bully others.

Think about it. At the conference, once the couple had finished their presentation, they were SLAMMED: gently but critically by conservative-leaning people like me (I said nothing, but others did), and then slammed HARD by liberal-leaning people like my colleague who was sitting next to me. She was mad as hell and did not hold back.

However, in a sermon or a blog, these same people can rant their bile nonsense out, and not have to worry about a response from the rest of the proletarian abyss. That might be the very reason that progressive-minded people, who seemed to me to show little interest in religion back in the 1990s, seem interested now. They have the speech-venue that they have always wanted.

Now, a few other things.

Evans is largely uninterested in theological arguments. Furthermore, Evans never once discusses the physical and mental health issues involving homosexual lifestyles. (Few leftist Christians ever do, other than to blame all of these issues as rooted in homophobia, etc.) One comes away thinking Evans is fine with gay men dying of AIDS, anal cancer, suffering from the scarring on the anus, or committing suicide...as long as her own trendy friends can't call her a 'bigot.' Evans does not really discus anything that matters, and most of her post is illogical slop and unworthy of comment, but there was one nugget of interest I want to discuss. To quote Evans here:

"Is a political “victory” worth perpetuating the idea that evangelical Christians are at war with gays and lesbians? And is a political “victory” worth drowning out that quiet but persistent internal voice that asks—what if we get this wrong? Too many Christian leaders seem to think the answer to that question is “yes,” and it's costing them. Because young Christians are ready for peace. We are ready to lay down our arms. We are ready to stop waging war and start washing feet. And if we cannot find that sort of peace within the Church, I fear we will look for it elsewhere."

Notice how Evans used 'we' many times instead of saying 'I'? When Evans does this, it is not a grammatical slip, meaning she does not go from talking about herself to talking about herself and her friends combined. This is a rhetorical tactic that I want to discuss.

First of all, when someone begins to talk about his/her views in terms of 'we,' our cynicism button should automatically turn on: if it doesn't, you need to unplug yourself out of your state of Orwellian 'thought control'.

Secondly, almost anyone who speaks in terms of 'we' when discussing his age group or her 'generation,' especially "The Youth," etc., is lying or at least distorting the truth.

The problem with her argument is that I am 33 years old, not one of these 'old farts,' and I don't agree with anything she...Rachel Held Evans...says. (Not that she cares anyway.)

Thirdly, people such as Evans are stuck in some sort of demographic rut, which shows what we already knew anyway...that her main inspiration for her theological intuitions was never Revelation through Holy Scripture, prayer, discernment, or the Blessed Sacraments, but was instead caused by her preoccupation with sociopolitical fashions of the day.

If Evans had for one moment eased her grip on the theory she depends on to prescribe her interpretations, she would have to somehow deal with contradictions such as this: there are many Christians such as myself, young fathers and mothers who have graduate degrees, who have lived with this 'culture war' that she is tired of (because her side lost this battle...but I digress), who do not agree with her.

Most of these people I know are like me: they try to read the Bible at least once a day, and they have lots of books in their library and next to their beds about the Christian faith and what it means to live that life. They are responsible, have families and jobs (not living in their parent's basement at age 28), are active in their communities, are compassionate people who care for others. Also, all of them attend a local church (Episcopalian/Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic, nondenominational, etc.) at least weekly, and usually during the week as well; they are very involved in their church community, and give lots of their time, money, and effort to it. (They stand out in stark contrast to some of the 'young Christians' Evans discusses, most of whom might 'feel spiritual,' but can't be bothered too often to get out of bed an hour or two early on Sunday to be part of a church community...even when the church has EVENING SERVICES!)

Bottom line, there is no demographic question here when it comes to Christians of any age group who don't want to be bothered with living out their faith, or Christians who do not want to be troubled with understanding the true nature and personality of the God with whom they claim to be in a covenant, or Christians who are ashamed of their faith because it calls for them (at times) to go against some of the fashions of our times.

THEY ARE JUST BAD CHRISTIANS, period. Or they are uninformed, ignorant, or their faith hit a snag somewhere and it has failed to blossom and grow as God wants it to. The age demographic has nothing to do with it. Old and young people have this problem.

There are lots of people (and God bless them because I believe that we all might start here in the beginning)

who are in touch with the 'pathos' of their faith, the feelings that come with being in contact with God. However, they are ignorant of the 'ethos' and 'logos' that pertain to their faith. They are like we all once were...immature Christians. However, spiritual immaturity is not like physical immaturity, and it can...and has...reached all age levels.

Speak for thee, Rachel Held Evans, and not for me!