Mohler's Dubious take on Downton Abbey

http://www.albertmohler.com/2014/01/10/downton-abbey-and-the-modern-age-what-are-we-really-watching/

Southern Baptist Seminary president Albert Mohler is considered one of the spokesmen and intellectual leaders of the Evangelical movement. He's also highly respected in Calvinistic circles as a leader who helped to recapture a large mainstream institution within the Southern Baptist Convention.

He is often decried in the media as something of a fundamentalist and a cultural reactionary. His stances on many issues can be appreciated. He rightly stands for Biblical veracity and many cardinal doctrines of the faith.

However he, like most Evangelicals has fallen into a very destructive idolatry, the sanctification of political power. Evangelicals have confused patriotism with Christian devotion and have confused the Kingdom of God with cultural and civilizational advancement and attainment.

As I've pointed out repeatedly, Nationalism is a religion. It provides a comprehensive worldview. It has its own spiritual narratives and justifications. It has its own way of interpreting the world around it. Its narratives colour how it perceives others and profoundly affects ethics.

Ideas and models which strengthen your country are to be validated. No matter what the truth or morality of the situation is, the Nationalist ethic devolves into a version of 'My country right or wrong'.

Mohler is heavily invested in this theology of power, sometimes labeled as Dominionism. In democratic societies, power rests and depends on social consensus and cohesion. The fractures in American society have grown pronounced and at this point it is imperative for political operatives like Mohler... for that is what he really is, in the end... to forge consensus with their own political block.

This means a lot of commentary and propaganda. They have to unify their base in order to wield political muscle.

For the past thirty-five years American Protestantism has been barraged with cultural commentary which sometimes reflects Biblical teaching, but often contains a mix of misapplied Biblical concepts, coupled with American narratives (often myth) and sometimes flagrant manipulation of social realities. History is a powerful tool especially when the average American knows very little. And as sad as it is, churchgoers are statistically little different than the general public.

Mohler recently commented on the very popular television series 'Downton Abbey' and I see his comments have generated some interest.

Americans are fascinated with its depiction of a recent but completely lost world in a culture that heavily overlaps with our own.

The interest is understandable and Mohler wants Christians to think about what they're watching. I agree we should be thinking about everything we do.

Mohler believes that while we can and should enjoy the programme, there are lessons to be learned and questions which need to be raised.

Again I agree, but in this case because Mohler has embraced unbiblical paradigms with regard to culture and political power, his commentary is defective, unsound and ultimately harmful.

He rightly begins by outlining some of the extensive social changes which were sweeping across British society. This is also interesting because he's referencing vast secularization which in a previous podcast he was happy to ascribe to the Welfare State. But here we see the Welfare State in its infancy resulting 'from' secularization, not the other way around.

But even that is too simplistic. In fact, and this is something Mohler completely misses, there were theologically conservative Christian elements clamouring for the very changes Mohler is decrying.

Mohler cites the administration of David Lloyd-George but seems to miss the constant references to it during the show. The grandmother in particular finds Lloyd-Jones to be abhorrent.

Mohler also seems unaware that while the policies of Lloyd-George might seem 'secular' or 'socialist' to an American Conservative, to many Bible believing Non-conformists, his policies represented a Christian Reform.

Bible believing Christians were quite critical of the aristocracy and the Church of England. They did not share the romantic notions of the period that many Americans have wistfully embraced.

Mohler's view while resonate with the Aristocracy would have been criticized as unchristian and unbiblical.

This legacy continues today as most Bible/Fundamentalist type Christians in England are Labour supporters and what Americans would call Socialist in their understanding of politics and economic theory.

I remember when I still in the throes of Right-Wing deception being baffled by meeting Christians in England and finding that not only did they not revere Thatcher, they rather loathed Reagan and his policies.

These Christians in the early 20^th century believed social reform would make England more Christian and yet the social currents were also opening up for secular thought. Within a generation, the culture all but shed its Christian veneer.

Mohler is lamenting the fall of Christian Britain and yet with my Bible in hand I cannot possibly understand what he's talking about. The Bible doesn't share his categories and to suggest Britain was somehow Christian necessitates a serious compromise and redefinition of these terms.

In fact using Mohler's parameters the term Christian becomes basically meaningless.

State Churches or even so-called Christian societies lose any sense of antithesis and the Church ends up just become a reflection of the culture. It's literally baptised worldliness and all that goes with that term.

Why is there so little focus on the Church during the programme? Because the Church had largely become irrelevant in the lives of the aristocracy! In the ridiculous Anglican polity it was something they paid for and yet few respected it. The clergy were largely little more than grasping sycophants who filled a ceremonial role. The servants were not allowed to attend Non-conformist chapels. They were forced to attend the state church with their masters and usually were delineated by special dress etc... Actually in addition to being a blatant violation of Biblical commandment the entire setup was humiliating and a little more than reinforcement of social hierarchy.

The Bible-Christians of the day and the Secularists wanted to see the Aristocratic system come down. It wasn't quaint and cozy as perceived by American viewers sitting in their living rooms. It was a grossly hypocritical, unjust, destructive and immoral system that had run its course.

I once believed that people could learn from history if they would bother to study. In recent years I have completely abandoned that view. Increasingly I see people like Mohler and he is by no means alone, who learn nothing from history. They see what they wish to see and little more.

In this case he is viewing Downton Abbey through the politicised eyes of the Christian Right and wishes to use it in order to score a point for his own political agenda.

British society had a Christian veneer but in terms of Biblical theology, it was in no way Christian and the forms it employed to identify itself as Christian were rooted and founded upon anti-Biblical and heretical notions.

Britain was an empire and a particularly powerful one. It was built on blood and theft. Europe was shaken by the events of the French Revolution and while we think of the 1800's as an era of revolution it was also a time for reactionaries to seek the rescue of their society. Rescuing meant moral reform and the recasting of social ideas. In England this meant the Victorian age which made both previous and subsequent ages seem libertine. And yet for all that, it was once again a veneer. Beneath the surface lay masses of sin-enticed urban dwellers and seething suppressed people who would 'break-out' once the opportunity presented itself. It was riddled with great injustice and wicked social cancers that came during and after the World Wars.

The fall of Britain as a world power is not to be lamented. Morally it was a hypocritical and bloodthirsty affront to God. When one considers the social and moral rot, and the seared consciences of the ruling powers it is astonishing it did not fall sooner.

I suppose for me what is most shocking is that a century later Christians have still learned little from it. Mohler doesn't even seem to understand the social forces at work and has once again provided a misguided, reductionistic and erroneous commentary.

Others like the Banner of Truth's Ian Murray have suggested it was the rise of fiction, the rise of the novel which made shipwreck of British society. If people had just put down their Dickens and Hardy then all would have been well.

This analysis is so myopic that it beggars belief.

Others in the United States have tried to claim many of these social critics as being Christian even though they represented a repudiation of everything the American Right stands for. Hardy, the most astute of the social critics is too openly anti-Christian and is rejected. It is his works that are in fact the most interesting and helpful in exposing the rot of so-called Christian Britain.

To Murray and other Banner of Truth figures that lament the fall of the Christian Empire I can only say since they don't understand what made it fall it's no great shock that they lack the moral clarity to see it for what it was.

I enjoy watching Downton Abbey even though it has degenerated and is quickly turning into a soap opera. It's good to reflect on the period, the lives of those at the top and the strange middle/nowhere realm of those in service. How had all this come about? Why was this society viewed as Christian? I guess for all the attempts of those to show the 'dark side' of this era, people like Mohler don't seem to get it. I guess that's why Colson and others didn't seem to understand Dickens either. They miss the fact that were Dickens alive today he wouldn't be sitting at the Heritage Foundation with Dobson and company.

I pray that the Church will open its eyes and quit listening to these blind guides and their flawed propaganda they call commentary.

For a much more timely and informed discussion on some of the salient issues surrounding a show like Downton Abbey I would recommend the following recent interview:

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/02/258704323/visible-and-invisible-servants-looks-at-life-downstairs