A Misreading of Evangelical Fragmentation

https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/17/how-partisan-politics-captured-and-fractured-the-evangelical-industrial-complex/

This represents the latest installment of blind Evangelical leaders leading the blind. It was reposted at The Aquila Report whose editors apparently thought it profound. And yet it represents the kind of fatally flawed thinking that is not just misleading but is becoming destructive.

DeVine ignores the shift to the far right within Evangelicalism which helped to provoke a reaction. In some ways the various reactions to the rightward trajectory (the breaking point being Trump) were legitimate and in other respects less so. It needs to be stated that both larger factions represent the values of the middle class and all the unbiblical thinking, ethics, and motivations that it entails. Additionally the entire piece is guilty of begging the question with regard to Christian involvement in politics and the task of shaping of culture. If the New Testament doesn't support these notions of middle class values and socio-political engagement (which it doesn't in either case) the arguments fall flat.

In other words the commentary is not only wrong in terms of the questions it addresses, its assumptions are wrong, and therefore its ethical applications and conclusions are wrong. The Christianity DeVine represents and promotes is not rooted in the New Testament. We can agree that the same could be said about Tim Keller and those on his side of the debate. It's a case of error ruling the day.

Another way of looking at the divide is to understand that one camp believes that social respectability (a middle class value) is tied to their testimony. They believe that to influence culture they need to relate to it.

The other side is less concerned with respectability (though they are far more than they would realise or admit) and yet they are more concerned with the question of power (they would probably prefer 'leadership') which they perceive to be an exercise or expression of faithfulness. In their case, access to the reins of power, money, and the security that comes with these things (also rooted in middle class values) take precedent over relational testimony.

They're both wrong. Interestingly in some respects this divide is reminiscent of certain aspects of the Catholic-Orthodox divide though that schism is far more profound and more deeply rooted in cultural dissimilarities. However, the Catholic emphasis is also on relationship vis-à-vis society. It's more important to include and incorporate than to divide. It's a wrong view of the Kingdom but once the Sacralist-Constantinian view is embraced a somewhat plausible case can be made for such an approach to catholicity.

On the contrary the Orthodox side puts a greater emphasis on being right and for everyone else to conform to the truth as it has been revealed – or more properly the church tradition as it has been interpreted. Embracing the same erroneous concept of the Kingdom, there's a great emphasis on making society bend or submitting to prophetic leadership (in their case in the form of a patriarch or sanctified ruler) as opposed to finding a way to co-exist.

Like all Sacralists, DeVine ignores the Scripture's warnings regarding mammon and power and thus he falls into factionalism and partisan thinking as opposed to providing principled commentary from the status of being a pilgrim.

The article is also replete with errors as found for example with his interpretation of MacArthur's Dallas Statement. Contrary to his assertions, the truth is that many Trump-friendly Evangelicals rejected it because MacArthur was guilty of gross oversimplification. They're no less Right-wing. They just thought MacArthur's statement too sloppy, imprecise, and knee-jerk in its zeal to counter the other side.

Even DeVine is concerned with justice. He's outraged over the Left and their social and economic policies. He believes them to be wrong and therefore unjust. Why? Because social transformationalists and sacralists of every stripe want to see justice applied in society. The divide comes over the fact that there are different understandings of what that means and what it looks like. The New Testament doesn't share this concern and so the advocates of the position are forced to look to the Old Testament which cannot be applied in any kind of consistent or principled fashion – as it's not meant to be. And in other cases the appeal is made to the Western socio-political and philosophical heritage which again is highly complicated, problematic, and necessarily divisive – and also at odds with Scripture.

The rejection of Grudem's flawed article was in some cases motivated by politics. But others recognised it for what it was – flawed thinking, a misapplication of Scripture, and the expression of ideas out of accord with the New Testament. In other words (from my perspective) it was par for the course, just what we've come to expect from the misguided pen and muddled mind of Wayne Grudem.

For my part I will not weep if the Evangelical Industrial Complex collapses and I hope the entire Trump wing collapses with it. Both camps have abandoned New Testament Christianity and DeVine's commentary only muddies the waters and feeds the fires of distraction.