Stones Cry Out

Good questions Mark. My question is, if Mohler finally has a "real" blog, why are there still not comments from readers? :)

Great post, and much food for thought. I'd forgotten about "Sheilaism." Thanks for the link to that.

Al Mohler's writing can be brilliant, but it tends to be narrowly focused, and I've not yet recovered my astonishment at his arrogant complaint in a Crosswalk column that John Paul II of happy memory had not spent enough time on "issues of importance to evangelical Christians."

He also needs to learn how to paragraph.

Steve, No big deal, but this is Matt's post, not mine.

Matt, Derb's comments are simply a less-well-thought out version of Mark Noll's criticisms of evangelical thought, which you and I have both written about in the past. (I'm too lazy and time pressed to track down the links.) Short answer, sadly, is that he's right. However, I would say that evangelicalism never did claim for itself any sort of strict intellectual boundaries. I would say that, by default, it borrows the intellectual history of Protestantism as a whole. I'm not defending here, since I have the same exact criticism, but evangelicalism is not a really old body of beliefs and perhaps one could say its intellectual underpinnings are still in formation.

Now that you've mentioned Sheilaism, I am reminded that I need to go re-read Habits of the Heart, which I previously read as an individualistic college student. Now that I am a more communal adult, I might like it more.

Mark - could part of the problem be that much of evangelicalism no longer ties itself to traditionaly protestantism?

Yes, that is part of the problem. Indeed, one of my concerns with evangelicalism is that it doesn't tie itself in any way to anything "traditional"--protestant or otherwise. Like a ship without rudder or compass, it now wanders with no sense of where it's been (lack of sense of history/tradition) and no sense of where it's going (lack of intellectual grounding). Perhaps that's why it's becoming such a hodge podge of New Age beliefs mixed in with older protestant/revivalist practices. A strong voice needs to emerge--like a Pope or something.

Mark Sides writes: A strong voice needs to emerge--like a Pope or something.

Great. Just what the world needs. How many Popes are enough?

Matt writes, "But Mohler seems to imply that any support for gay marriage is, de facto, an un-conservative position. By what standard?"

What is it that Brooks is trying to conserve? The idea that marriage should be redefined from how it has been understood for thousands of years across cultures is a profoundly radical one.

To espouse such a radical change on a central institution of our civilization can hardly be called conservative. It's not like this is some peripheral issue like whether the top marginal tax rate should be 25% or 28%.

Mark Sides wrote, "Indeed, one of my concerns with evangelicalism is that it doesn't tie itself in any way to anything "traditional"--protestant or otherwise. Like a ship without rudder or compass, it now wanders with no sense of where it's been (lack of sense of history/tradition) and no sense of where it's going (lack of intellectual grounding)."

I'd attribute those traits more to the mainline protestant denominations than to evangelicals. [Since there's no hierarchy among evangelicals, I don't think you can really make such a generalization actually. We're not all out here handling snakes. :) ]

What age-old tradition was the Episcopal Church in New Hampshire following when they ordained an openly gay bishop? What tradition was the Presbyterian Church USA upholding when they voted to divest from companies doing business with Israel?

Positions such as those seem to be more in line with the traditions of the faculty of UC Berkeley than of traditional Christianity.

Editors, My view of Christian history and tradition dates back to a little bit before the Episcopal Church's travesty du jour (indeed, I left the Episcopal Church many years ago, the church I was baptized in). I also think that saying that history/tradition and intellectual grounding are somehow tied to mainline protestant denominations and their current wrong-headed flirtations with the social left is, well, a silly statement to make. When I talk history/tradition and intellectual grounding, think CS Lews, Luther, Aquinas, Augustine, Patrick, Cyril, Polycarp, Clement. Get the idea? Your comment does not even begin to touch the criticism that modern American evangelicalism lacks a deep intellectual basis and a good understanding of Christian history.

A person's conservative credentials are not made or broken on the basis of his position on gay marriage. That is all.

Mark,

Huh? You implied the mainline churches are more grounded in Christian history/tradition. You didn't offer any reasoning behind the assertion that it's a "silly statement" to offer some factual counter examples where the current behavior and teaching of mainline denominations is not in line with Church history/tradition. How else does one measure this grounding, if not by current behavior? If a minister quotes Aquinas or C.S. Lewis while performing a gay wedding, is that a sign of grounding in the traditions of the church? I don't think so. If you think that's silly, perhaps you could explain why.

Some evangelical churches are well grounded in history/tradition, some are not. That's the problem, you're making a broad generalization where one can't be made, because the evangelical churches operate independently for the most part.

"A person's conservative credentials are not made or broken on the basis of his position on gay marriage. That is all."

That is not an argument.

I didn't intend for it to be an argument. It was a statement.

Matt and Mark

Granted a person's conservative credentials may not be made soley on the issue of gay marriage, but, in the opinion of this conservative pastor, they ARE broken if one supports or refuses to oppose gay marriage. That is an issue which is clearly settled in the foundational primer on acceptable moral standards(i.e. the Bible). With regards to Mark's comments regarding the "rudderless ship called Evangelicalism" let me say that many, though not all of us, are tied to a very old tradition which precedes Clement, Polycarp, et al(see primer above). Yes, I am keenly aware that we have more than our fair share of intellectual light-weights ( I am trying to be kind here)when it comes to dealing with the major social and moral issues currently facing our nation. Having said that however, I would hasten on to point out that most of my ministerial friends are more than qualified to address issues in light of what the early church fathers taught or wrote, as well as the Reformation leaders and 20th century theologians. The simple fact is that most of us are spending the great majority of our time dealing with the rather mundane issues of life which involve tending to the needs of sheep who are often unruly and self-centered. We are not wandering aimlessly in a fog of historical or traditional ignorance. We are quite clear on where we have come from. We know where we need to go. The question yet to be answered is can we raise up a generation of apologists who will clearly and passionately and clearly articulate our views to the nation while at the same time confirming the merits of those views through by the way they live their lives.

I should point out that I have not involved myself in the gay marriage discussion in these comments. I don't necessarily agree with my colleague Matt on this. I am also not necessarily sure that Matt's position is that he supports gay marriage, but that a conservative should not necessarily be ridden out of town on a rail because of the issue. To be clear, though, I do not support gay marriage and I think it would be a huge societal problem if it were allowed.

I still am baffled by how the Editors think I am defending the ridiculous liberal theological and social positions taken by mainline Protestant churches the last few decades. How you get that from my comments is somewhat amazing. Christian history and tradition are not, at least in my mind, synonymous with mainline Protestant churches. In any event, I suspect we agree on much more than that on which we differ, so I'm not sure a continued debate on this theme makes much sense. If you disagree with my views on the shallow intellectual roots of the evangelical church in America, don't debate me, read Mark Noll's book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind and debate him.