All posts tagged Evangelicalism

  • In Praise of Ordinary Church

    In Praise of Ordinary Church
    Brian Zahnd

    Sometime in late modernity Christians who had deeply, though mostly unwittingly, imbibed the heady cocktails served by the high priests of the Enlightenment (Voltaire, Hume, Nietzsche, et al.) conjured the drunken idea that Jesus had given a writ of divorce to the church. In an age of suspicion committed to the critique of tradition how could it be otherwise? Surely the compelling figure of Jesus of Nazareth could have nothing to do with the tired institution that is dismissively referred to as “organized religion”? This secular assault upon the church found a surprising resonance among many Christians — especially pietists, revivalists, and rugged American individualists. Thus was born the modern idea of Jesus as personal savior (which really means private savior), leaving the church as little more than an optional common interest club for the more socially inclined. Jesus was essential, but the church was optional, or perhaps irrelevant, or even a hindrance to Christian faith.

    Today this kind of thinking is in full bloom. But what should we make of it? Or perhaps a better question is, what would the first followers of Jesus make of this development? I have no doubt at all that they would scratch their heads at this strange new private religion with its stunning capacity to misunderstand Jesus and his message.
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  • Mercy In a Mean Time

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    Mercy In a Mean Time
    Brian Zahnd

    My father was a political man; a lawyer and a judge. He was an ideological conservative. He was also known for his kindness and mercy. My dad died in 2009. At his funeral a man approached me and said, “Your father sent me to prison for armed robbery. I came to his funeral today to honor him. He always treated me with respect and dignity, and he dealt with me as mercifully as the law would allow.” I don’t know how often a felon attends the funeral of a judge who sent him to prison in order to pay his respects, but I would guess it’s not too often. My point is that my father was a political conservative who never felt his conservatism was in conflict with his Christian commitment to kindness and mercy.

    Which is why I am so baffled and grieved by what seems to be a turn toward meanness in the name of conservatism. I’m also quite sure that my father, were he alive today, would be just as baffled and grieved.
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  • You Cannot Be Christian and Support Torture

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    You Cannot Be Christian and Support Torture
    Brian Zahnd

    You cannot be Christian and support torture. I want to be utterly explicit on this point. There is no possibility of compromise. The support of torture is off the table for a Christian. I suppose you can be some version of a “patriot” and support the use of torture, but you cannot be any version of Christian and support torture. So choose one: A torture-endorsing patriot or a Jesus-following Christian. But don’t lie to yourself that you can be both. You cannot.

    (Clearly you do not have to be a Christian to reject the barbarism of torture, you simply need to be a humane person. But to be a Christian absolutely requires you to reject the use of torture.)

    I remember when Pew Research released their findings in 2009 revealing that six out of ten white evangelicals supported the use of torture on suspected terrorists. (Patton Dodd talks about that here.) The survey stunned me. I spoke about it from the pulpit in 2009 and have continued to do so. I said it then and I’m saying it again today: You cannot support the use of torture and claim to be a follower of Jesus.
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  • End of the Line

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    End of the Line
    By Brian Zahnd

    Western Christianity is at a critical juncture. Those who care deeply about the church are aware of this. Things are not as they once were. Things are changing. Dramatically so. Even if we don’t understand what is happening, we can certainly feel it. There is an uneasy feeling throughout evangelicalism that everything is changing. Long-held certitudes are being challenged from both within and without the Christian faith. The way things were even ten years ago is no longer the way things are today. It’s easy to be disconcerted by it all. Read more

  • Lose Your Passion for Dumbness

    I will start this with no definite idea of where it will go. An adventure in the blogesphere. I’m not sure where I’m going, but I invite you to come with me.

    I remember reading in Bob Dylan’s Chronicles how when he first arrived in New York City in 1961 he was staying with a man who had a large library and how he found himself spending most of his spare time devouring volumes on history, philosophy, poetry and literature. Dylan then made some quip to the effect that, “You’ve got to lose your passion for dumbness.”
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