Rev. Arch B. Taylor, Jr.
[posted here 12-4-04]

We have received two comments so far on this essay.  One expresses gratitude for his analysis, while the other is short and critical.

Two more comments have come to us in response to this essay. And Dr. Taylor responds to the comments from Deborah Milam Berkley.  [12-7-04] 

As a liberal Christian, I am compelled to reflect on the recent presidential election, in which evangelical Christians provided the decisive margin of victory for President George W. Bush and other Republican candidates nationwide. By general consensus, the party's announced opposition to granting equal rights to same sex couples to marry, and local initiatives to legalize such opposition in eleven states, seem to have attracted enough voters to compensate for the fact that a majority of citizens think that both the war in Iraq and the national economy are going badly. In this election, more than in any of recent history, putative "religious values" played a major role. Other "values" include opposition to abortion and stem cell research, also agreeing with the president's stand. In my view, there is a lengthy historical background leading to the Republican win, which uniquely combines American cultural and religious characteristics. I am an ordained minister, honorably retired, of the Presbyterian Church (USA), teacher of Bible as a missionary in Japan, currently a member of the Presbytery of Mid-Kentucky, but I offer only my personal views.

Fundamentalists and evangelicals

Present day evangelicals have now rejected their earlier designation "fundamentalists" because of negative reactions to the latter term. "Fundamentalist" has come to designate extreme right wing movements that tend to take an absolutist stand on certain principles for which they are willing to engage in violent conflict. The change of name to evangelical cannot disguise the fact that many hard-line evangelicals really are fundamentalists in the original sense. They stand in direct line of development from the earlier American fundamentalists of about a century ago. Reacting against enlightened views including the theory of evolution and the historical-critical study of the Bible, the founders of the movement presented their views in a series of books called The Fundamentals, from which their name was derived. Among the fundamental principles were (1) belief in the Bible as infallibly revealed by God, to be literally interpreted as authoritative in all matters, including historical facts and natural history; (2) the deity of Christ, (3) that all humans are guilty not only of their own sins but also the original sin of Adam and Eve, and therefore deserve God's punishment of eternal death; (4) that Jesus, the sinless Son of God, offered himself to pay the price of sin for all and died our place--the doctrine of "substitutionary atonement;" (5) that Jesus rose bodily from the tomb in the resurrection; (6) that Jesus will return to judge all people and establish God's kingdom.

These principles had pretty much characterized Protestant Christianity in the US since the earliest times, but were being challenged by attempts to reinterpret the Christian message in the light of growing scientific, historical, and cultural knowledge. Thus The Fundamentalsand resulting fundamentalism represented a reactionary holding action. During the decades that followed, the mainline churches tried to adapt to the new knowledge and began to teach it in their seminaries and theological faculties. Many pastors, once out of seminary, hesitated to challenge their parishioners' traditional beliefs. If they did, they might lose members to more conservative congregations or denominations. Churches that moved away from almost exclusive emphasis on individual salvation to include serious attempts to implement the social and economic aspects of biblical teaching and willingness to dialogue with other religions continued to lose membership. In the USA, a rapidly growing number of non-denominational churches sprang up, for the most part combining the faith of The Fundamentals and Dispensationalism (see below). Along with growth in numbers and influence, they have become more aggressive and absolutist. They tend to neglect the socio-economic aspects of biblical religion and concentrate on "soul winning" both locally and globally. They insist Christianity is the only true religion and without personal faith in Jesus Christ nobody can be saved. Conservative church membership grows while the old mainline churches have lost numbers and influence and are sometimes referred to as "sideline." Many of their members have also tended to vote Republican, being still attached to the traditional faith and affluent enough to be swayed by economic and social factors that appeal to self-interest.
 

The mutual influence of conservative evangelicalism and American culture

In my view, there are many aspects of conservative evangelical religion and American culture that are mutually supportive. Although there are positive aspects to this mutual relationship, increasing emphasis on serious negative aspects does not bode well for our nation and our world.

The appeal to self-interest

When we consider traditional Christian belief as propagated in our country, we recognize that it has always had an element of appeal to self-interest. People believe the Bible's purpose is to teach the "way of salvation," to answer the question, "What must I do to be saved?" Evangelicals give a stock answer: We are all sinners, deserving of God's punishment in hell. But Jesus died in our place, and if we accept Jesus as our Savior, we will spend eternity in heaven, not hell. This is a powerful incentive for many people, especially if they are undergoing a particularly stressful life experience. There is no denying that many people have had their lives literally turned around for the better in response to this appeal and "get saved" as many evangelicals express it. Once saved, believers get baptized, affiliate with a congregation, attend worship two or three times a week, contribute generously, and engage in efforts to win others and to help fellow church members in need. These are all praiseworthy endeavors, but evangelicals tend not to favor government programs of welfare or efforts of denominations to influence tax-supported social and economic policies for that purpose. They resonate positively to the mantra pronounced by President Ronald Reagan and continually repeated by Republicans: the government is the problem, not the solution.

Extreme emphasis on individual responsibility

When evangelicals make their appeal to a person to get saved they emphasize the importance of the individual's own decision. A typical leaflet distributed by members of a fundamentalist Baptist church outlines "God's Simple Plan of Salvation" and insists: "Your joy or your sorrow for all eternity depends upon your answer. … Let God save you this very moment" (emphasis in original). What this really means is, it's all up to you. God loves you so much he gave his son; Jesus loves you so much he died for you, but it's all for nothing unless you act. If you go to heaven, it's because you accepted God's offer. If you end up in hell it's because you refused. No matter what God and Jesus have done, it's all up to you.

The typical American ideal of rugged individualism complements the evangelicals' emphasis on personal responsibility, with the result that they respond positively to proposals to dismantle the social assistance programs begun by Roosevelt's New Deal and expanded after World War II. Evangelicals criticize "social engineers" who they say ignore individual responsibility and blame all wrongdoing on circumstances beyond a person's control. "Get tough on crime" policies attract their support, and evangelicals in general seem indifferent to the growing prison population, the privatization of prison management by for-profit companies, and the reduction of educational and rehabilitation programs for prisoners.

With regard to the question of sexual orientation, evangelicals insist that this is a matter of personal choice of life style and condemn it outright. They cite a few biblical texts condemning homosexual behavior without due consideration of the historical and cultural circumstances in which the original texts were written. They cling to their view despite a growing body of scientific information to the contrary and the personal testimony of homosexual persons that their sexual orientation is simply something they had no choice in, something they just discovered about themselves, often at a very early age, and sometimes with devastating result. Evangelicals' indifferent response to HIV/AIDS was the simple declaration that it was nothing more than deserved punishment for gay men's sinful homosexual behavior. They continue to insist that persons of homosexual orientation pose a threat to traditional marriage and family values.

Unquestionably the stability of families is crucial for the general welfare of our nation's population, but evangelicals take a lenient view on the problem of high divorce rates, including the statistic that the highest percentage of divorces occur among self-designated "born again" Christians. Evangelicals rightly emphasize that sexual abstinence by unmarried persons and fidelity within marriage are the most assured ways to avoid sexually transmitted diseases, yet their general and specific attitudes toward homosexual persons denies to them the legally guaranteed support of society in establishing loving, faithful one-on-one relationships by marriage.

Resort to virtuous violence

Nothing is more American than the belief that in order to overcome evil, good has to be so much stronger that it can defeat evil. The classic Western drama that ensues when the bad guys take over the town and terrorize the people, eventually to be blown away by the good guys, is played out in our society at every level, from the personal to the international. The earliest colonists took it upon themselves to rid the land of the savage Indians and to conquer the threatening wilderness. In our national mythology, America goes to war only in a virtuous cause when forced by threats or attacks by nations or people with evil intentions toward us. Given that evangelicals rate Christianity as the only true religion, a war waged against primarily Muslim enemies can easily slip into a crusade.

The myth of virtuous violence is typical of American culture, but evangelicals promote it enthusiastically with biblical underpinning. Their God is the God of justice, who wreaks vengeance on sinners, and who will by no means clear the guilty. Though patient and long suffering, eventually God exerts his irresistible power to crush the wicked as they so fully deserve. Though God's justice is the primary aspect of the divine character, it is tempered by mercy, so that instead of destroying the whole sinful human race, God laid the punishment for sin upon the sinless Son, Jesus, thus making it possible for all who accept the offer of forgiveness to get saved and escape their deserved penalty. Virtuous violence is thus an essential element in the godhead.

Since an traditional, uncritical reading of the Bible reveals a God depicted almost exclusively in masculine terms, and the universally patriarchal culture of the ancient Near East colored the writing of the Bible, evangelicals actively promote male domination and female subordination. At the farther right wing of the movement, evangelicals tend to advocate corporal punishment for children and tolerate spousal abuse by the husband, whom they exhort to exercise his authority as head of the household.

Virtuous violence plays a role in evangelicals' understanding of the natural world. Rejecting the hypothesis of evolution, they insist on the literal creation of all things out of nothing by God who is "up there" or "out there." Like a potter, imposing shape and form on an inert lump of clay, God made human beings and animals out of the ground. Being created in the image of God seems to mean, for evangelicals, that humankind is somehow separate from the rest of creation. They take the command to subdue the earth as a mandate to exploit and control the earth and its natural resources for human use, often in a very violent manner. Evangelicals usually promote free market capitalism in opposition to any level of state planning. Everything in all creation, including human lives, has become commodified, without serious objection by many conservatives.

Dualism

The division of all humankind into the "saved" and the "lost" affects the behavior of evangelicals in practically all circumstances, from the most personal level to the global. Strict evangelicals reject the salvation not only of people of other religions, but also of other Christians who do not agree totally with their doctrines and practices. Their congregations keep close fellowship, but they choose their friends, and to whatever extent possible their business associates, from among "the saved." Mainline church members as well as Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and all the rest fall into their category of the unsaved. For them dualism extends to the division of heaven from earth. In one sense, God and Jesus are not really present in the world, except in the spiritual sense of being in the heart of each believer and the body of the true church. To all the rest, God is "outside," but from time to time invades the world to intervene in miraculous ways on behalf of true believers or to punish unbelievers. A strong sense of dualism of earthly present and heavenly future permeates evangelical thinking. Those who are really saved can anticipate eternity with God, so that what happens here and now, however important it may seem, is of less concern.
 

The additional factor of Dispensationalism

During the time of the debate over The Fundamentals, another movement called Dispensationalism was introduced from England. Based on a literal interpretation of Scripture, Dispensationalism divides world history into seven "dispensations," during each of which God's plan of salvation changed. God chose the Jews to be his people and to constitute the Kingdom of God, based on God's theocratic rule based on the Mosaic Law. Jesus came to be the King in God's Kingdom here on earth, but the Jews rejected him. Temporarily God has put the Kingdom plan on hold and, as a sort of second thought, established the Church as a spiritual entity, completely separate from the Kingdom. Non-Jews, or Gentiles (and also Jews who accept Christ), can get saved by faith in Jesus without becoming Jews and taking on the obligations of obeying the Mosaic Law. Some day Jesus will return to bring in the Kingdom on earth for the Jews. Before that happens, true members of the Church, the spiritual entity, will be snatched up to be with God in heaven, while a Great Tribulation ensues on earth below when Jesus judges and condemns all unbelievers. A climax will come with the final Battle of Armageddon, when all God's enemies are destroyed, and then Jesus establishes his one-thousand-year Kingdom, ruling from Jerusalem.

John Darby in England developed the dispensational scheme, but it achieved great popularity in the US through the Scofield Reference Bible, which included explanatory notes and cross references in a special edition of the King James Version. Darby insisted that every divine promise made in the Old Testament must someday be literally fulfilled. He concentrated on the promises of "the Day of the Lord" and the return of the Jews to their homeland in preparation for establishment of the millennial kingdom preceded by the Great Tribulation. Until Darby, almost everyone agreed that believers would suffer in the tribulation but would be saved through it. Darby promulgated the "pre-tribulation rapture" doctrine, which he claimed to have received by special revelation from God, namely, that true believers will be taken up before the tribulation and be spared the agony. This "new" doctrine offers one more appeal to human self-interest.

When I was a child in the 1920s Dispensationalism was popular in the church to which my parents belonged, as well as in other Presbyterian congregations. As a result of church divisions because of Dispensationalism, the Presbyterian Church (US) -- the "Southern" church -- appointed a committee to study the matter. They concluded that Dispensationalism was based on principles of biblical interpretation contrary to our Reformed tradition and general Christian biblical teaching. Eventually the dispensational sympathizers either gave up their views, as did my parents, or left the Presbyterian church altogether. I believe some other denominations may have gone through a similar process.

Dispensationalism was not originally included in The Fundamentals, but throughout the twentieth century in the US it has become an integral and very powerful factor in evangelical faith and action. The establishment of the State of Israel in 1945 and especially the Israeli victory in the 1967 war that gave them control of Jerusalem, have spurred dispensationalists' hopes to fever pitch. The time is at hand when it will be possible to build the temple in Jerusalem (after destroying the Muslim shrines there) and restore tribal Israel as foretold in Ezekiel 40-48. Then the Lord can come suddenly to his temple as prophesied in Malachi 3. Most evangelicals support Israel totally and uncritically. Any amount of violence in the cause of hastening the return of Christ is eminently virtuous. The success of the "Left Behind" series of books - presenting a novelistic account of what might happen at the end of the world according to Dispensationalism's literal interpretation of the Bible - has influenced the thinking of many Americans and their response to the appeals of the Republican leadership. When President Bush expressed mild criticism of Prime Minister Sharon of Israel, evangelicals mobilized 100,000 messages of protest.

Non-Christians and non-evangelicals in the USA have little or no knowledge of Dispensationalism and its dangers, but I wish to mention only a few particular points

Defective doctrine of the church

Dispensationalism makes an absolute distinction between the Christian church and the Kingdom of God. They consider God's original purpose was an earthly kingdom centering on the Jews. When the Jews rejected Jesus as king, God put the kingdom plan on hold. The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 is Jesus' charter for the kingdom, but it has no immediate claim on the church. To pray "Thy kingdom come" is to ask God to send Jesus back to earth for the final round of judgment and establishment of the kingdom. Until relatively recently, strict dispensational doctrine insisted that as a spiritual entity, the church has no business trying to influence governmental policies related to social and economic issues.

Defective Christology

In traditional Christian doctrine, Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity, fully God as well as fully human. Evangelicals love to declare, "Jesus is God." For many of them, this means that Jesus takes over all the qualities and powers of God described in the whole Bible. Jerry Falwell was debating the question of homosexuality on TV when a participant remarked that nowhere had Jesus ever taken a stand against homosexuality. Falwell strongly demurred. All Scripture is inspired of God. Jesus is God. Therefore Jesus is the author of the Bible verses condemning homosexuality, he insisted. For liberal Christians, belief in the deity of Christ means that Jesus has revealed God to us in ways hitherto known only imperfectly. Truly to know God is to know Jesus, born in a stable, not a palace, a poor man who lived among and ministered primarily to the poor, who challenged the religious and political power structure of his day, who refused the crowd's attempt to take him by force and make him king (John 6.15), and who was put to death for teaching and manner of life that challenged the power structure. Jesus reveals to us most clearly the merciful character of God in the Old Testament: God clothed the naked, guilty first couple (Genesis 3.21). God protected the first murderer from revenge (Genesis 4.13-15). God swore never to destroy the earth again for human wrongdoing, because the punishment of the flood had not succeeded in changing the heart's inclination toward evil (Genesis 6.5-7 & 8.21). Punishment did not compel Israel to return to their God, so God undertook to speak tenderly to them (Hosea 2.13-20) and declared, "I will forgive them freely" (Hosea 14.4) Not only in these texts but all through the Old Testament, God's mercy and grace far outpace judgment and punishment. This is the God Jesus reveals, but in evangelicalism this characteristic is always subordinated to God's demand for justice. Thus, as a corollary to defective Christology, we see the defect in the total conception of the person and character of God.

Virtuous violence to the ultimate degree

Evangelicalism, especially as expressed in dispensationalist terms, would have Jesus act for a God who demands the last ounce of flesh and last drop of blood of the unrepentant sinner. At his first coming, Jesus offered himself as the Lamb of God, the sinless sacrifice for the sins of the world, and believers in his name get saved. But if people reject this salvation, they become objects of divine wrath when Jesus comes again. Toward them Jesus will turn into the avenging Lion of the Tribe of Judah. In the Left Behind series of novels, with a mere wave of the hand Jesus inflicts the most horrible flesh devouring plagues on unbelievers. Jesus confronts the Antichrist with the sentence: "Death is too good for you; you shall suffer in the lake of fire for all eternity."
 

Conclusion

The Republican party leaders and President Bush in particular appeal to other items on the agenda of the right-wing conservative Christians: mistrust and outright opposition to the United Nations, support for the death penalty, opposition to limitations on individuals' right to bear arms, exploitation of natural resources, and in many locales racist attitudes toward Blacks and Hispanics.

It would require a whole book written by a sociologist of religion to expatiate on the degree to which evangelical Christian faith and practice have shaped the American culture, and the extent to which American culture nourishes evangelical Christianity. One may suggest that in certain areas they simply coalesce, and therefore when people of other nations and other religious faiths refer to America as a Christian nation, they are not so far off the mark despite our denials. I have no doubt that Bush's pandering to the special interests of his right wing Christian constituency made the difference between victory and defeat in the November 2, 2004 national elections. From the publication of The Fundamentals and the Scofield Reference Bible, nearly a century has passed, and the conservative Christian right has gradually built up its power and influence to this point. We should not wait for the inevitable fate of arrogant religio-political imperialism to overtake the Republicans and all the rest of us. Nearly half of those who voted (and I suspect a good many who abstained out of disgust for the whole thing) strongly believe that there are other ways of being patriotic Americans and of being Christians than what evangelical Dispensationalists claim. We liberal and progressive people of various persuasions must rally our forces to offer a more attractive vision for the nation and the world than we have done so far.

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The author:  Dr. Arch Taylor is a retired Presbyterian minister who served for most of his career as a mission worker in Japan, primarily in the field of education.

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Author's note:

Feel free to quote and share this material; I ask only that you give credit and notify me of your having done so. I invite comment and criticism addressed to me personally.

Arch B. Taylor, Jr.
Clarksville IN

Dr. Taylor adds this personal note:

One critic cautioned me about trying to explain the beliefs of people with whom I disagree, but I responded that at one time I pretty much agreed with them. I was brought up on the Scofield Bible at home in early life, and I have kept up with Dispensationalism since then. In my personal faith journey, I started out pretty much on the fundamentalist/evangelical path. I have close relations with people who are fundamentalists, and I have listened to fundamentalist preachers. If I have misrepresented them in any way, I welcome correction.

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