conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

looking back always a mistake?

fewer and fewer evangelical Christians will be attracted to the mood of angry nostalgia for a lost golden Christian America that has so often characterized the evangelical public voice[…].
- David Gushee

Religion Dispatches has posted a summary of a panel discussion with scholar David Gushee on the shifting political landscape of evangelical America. It's worth a read if you are interested. The bloggist, Robert P. Jones, offers several interesting notions of his own.

Essentially, party loyalty is fading as people are willingly step away from the rhetoric of the power mongers and express the nuances of their own thinking. The priorities may not be what many expect. The question is, of course, how this will show itself in the coming presidential election. Should be interesting.

I pulled the one quotation out because I think it serves as a warning to mainline protestant denominations pining for some halcyon days of yore. I think that pretty much anyone could get turned of by such rhetoric. Upholding the glories of the past in stead of a profound hope for the future is likely a mistake. "We used to be so cool! What happened?"

The Religious Right made it work only because they found people to blame: anyone who bought into Modernism. The made themselves the victim. Thus, they garnered power. It works. But it may not last and does not necessarily improve anything. Gushee and others speculate that the necessary extremism to such a movement burns itself out.

It's a good warning to those of us in the Mainline traditions who also sometimes bemoan the loss of what we imagine once was. It might be wiser to look beyond the past landscape to something more nuanced...more complicated and not less. There's something about wine skins that could be said here.

Okay...the day calls. Peace!

Posted by tripp at April 4, 2008 06:58 AM