The Myopic Sacralism of Metaxas

While I was thawing out some frozen pipes this morning I heard this on the radio. I disagree with the BreakPoint commentary virtually every day, but this one inspired me to say something...

http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/24420

Metaxas opens his commentary with: The Christian sun is rising in the east. Eastern Europe, that is. And the Western media just doesn’t get it.

Actually, he doesn't get it. He doesn't understand that Nationalism is tied in with religion in most of these countries. For them to swing away from a Communist past is to embrace the opposite...Extreme Nationalism and for many countries their religion is an essential part of their national identity.

The Croats 'are' Croats because they are Roman Catholic. That's what distinguishes them from the Serbs and Bosniaks. Otherwise they're all the same people. To be Serb is to be Eastern Orthodox. The Bosniak identity is tied in with being a Muslim.

This is the curse of Sacralism. This type of cultural identity is destructive to Biblical Christianity. There's no antithesis. Just be a proud religious Croat...and you're a bona fide Christian. Nationalism, pride in nation, race, and culture becomes a mark of piety.

It's not that different from the United States is it?

Metaxas seems upset that the media is concerned about Right-wing politics being related to Christianity. He doesn't think that it's fair for them to tie it in with the rising Fascism in a country like Hungary. But that's the whole point. Fascism is ultra-Nationalism...it becomes militant, racist and reactionary. The Christians are likely fall into the trap because the rising state power wants to incorporate them and reward them. It's a real danger and one the Church has often failed to realize.

Metaxas doesn't understand this. Even though he wrote on book on Bonhoeffer and the Nazis he doesn't understand what happened with the German Church. He doesn't understand what happens when Christianity is wedded to political power. He doesn't understand that he's working to create a Church in the United States that would fall into the same trap.

He can't see it in the United States, why would he see it overseas where the political situations and parliamentary systems are far more complex? Unlike our two-party system, many countries actually have real and very complicated democracies.

There are encouraging things happening in the Eastern European Church...the real Church, not the mixed up world of Metaxas' theology.

In his world Catholics are Christian, Eastern Orthodox are...sometimes. The Christian Right is happy to speak of Eastern Christians when it suits their political agenda and happy to ignore them when it doesn't.

BreakPoint under Colson was bad enough, but since his death it's gotten even worse. Someone who would be involved in the sacrilege also known as VeggieTales never had any credibility with me to begin with. Time and time again he demonstrates his political and cultural assumptions and aspirations shape his misguided commentary. Like Colson his mentor, Metaxas has very little understanding of Biblical Christianity and his leadership needs to be rejected by all those who would faithfully serve the Risen Christ.