Why The Old Labels No Longer Work (And Probably Never Did)

America is deeply divided along political lines. That is no surprise to anyone. While that has always been true in our two party, winner-takes-all system, it certainly has grown sharper and nastier over the last few decades. Old fashioned opposition has turned somehow more ugly, more personal. I usually point to the ridiculous "borking" of the late Robert Bork as the turning point but there is no credible doubt that we are a nation that is at war with itself, for now limited to rhetoric but I fear that in the future it may morph into something else.

I have started to see this dichotomy, once a critical part of my life, as entirely unhelpful both politically and doctrinally. I blame some of this on the two party, win take all system we exist in where it is natural and expedient to draw a line in the sand and then start appealing to lowest common denominator positions. What we are left with is a two party system loosely based on two ideologies that have little to do with the original meaning of their labels and I (and many others) find ourselves without a home in either party.

Modern "conservatism" is not terribly conservative at all. Rather than conserving it is about consuming. To protect our consuming, "conservatives" are willing to send young people to kill and die over and over, intervening in wars we have no business in and no real chance of "success", whatever that means. This means that the same people who complain about larger government when it comes in the form of food stamps are the first to freak out if we even suggest cutting back on military spending. Quaint notions like liberty are steamrolled by "security". Shameful though it may be to say it, the Republican party (the "conservative" party) is largely built to appeal to middle and upper class, mostly white, voters who are terrified of minorities and foreigners and angry at the poor.

Modern "liberalism"? Please. Unlike early liberalism what we call modern liberalism is simply replacing a hereditary elite ruling class with a bureaucratic elite ruling class. While homosexuals can "marry" and women can kill their unborn children, by virtually any other measure modern liberalism seeks to reduce liberty and make people less free. That is not liberalism, it is servitude and enslavement.  The Democrats take a different approach from their opposites in the GOP, rather than appealing to fear they appeal to envy, painting everyone who has more than you as your enemy, an enemy that needs to be punished. Dress it up all you like in the language of "fairness", what it really comes down to is stealing from some people to bribe others for their votes.

While the modern conservative movement is deeply, perhaps fatally flawed, it is less wrong than what passes for modern liberalism. That is faint praise indeed and intended as such. With these two "choices" that are not really choices at all, it is little wonder I am done with the whole dog-and-pony show that happens on the first Tuesday following the first Monday of November. The American electoral process is a farce and everyone that pays attention knows it but most people keep doing it out of some misguided notion of civic responsibility and virtue. That isn't my primary concern.

As clearly inadequate as the terms liberal and conservative are in a political context, they are both inaccurate and deeply harmful in a church context. I say inaccurate because the things that modern political liberalism and conservatism alike stand for, or at least advocate for, have no bearing on Christian discipleship and Kingdom living. Lower taxes, defending 2nd Amendment rights, a strong "national defense"? Um no. Abortion on demand, forced income redistribution and institutionalized generational poverty. Double no.

What about harmful? Indeed and even more so than inaccurate. When we use these terms within the context of church discussions we invariably divide ourselves into camps that are as much political as they are doctrinal and the differences between the two categories is lost. Just because someone is "conservative" from a theological standpoint it doesn't always follow that they are "conservative" from a political standpoint, especially on an issue by issue basis. For example as someone who fits most possible definitions of "conservative" theologically, I am also someone who is strongly opposed to war in all forms even when it allegedly serves the national interest of America. I oppose war for the same reason I support complementarian gender roles, namely a consistent and "literal" interpretation of Scripture.

A perfect case in point was an older article someone linked to that purported to prove that reading your Bible more makes you more "liberal": Survey: Frequent Bible Reading Can Turn You Liberal . Granted it in Christianity Today and as such was immediately suspect but as I read through the article what kept jumping out to me is that the way the article defined "liberal" didn't seem so much theological as it did political. For example one statement said: But the more someone reads the Bible, the more likely he or she is to believe science and religion are compatible. Well I am pretty conservative by any measure and I think they are compatible and would affirm that statement. Now if you start getting into the particulars we would find some major points of difference on issues like evolution and "climate change". Other examples included questions about the Patriot Act and social justice issues: Some of the most interesting findings relate to moral attitudes. "How important is it," the survey asked, "to actively seek social and economic justice in order to be a good person?" Who is against social justice? Now again when you start to define "social justice" in political terms it can become code for "forced income redistribution", something the Bible never supports. I am all for social and economic justice but I also don't think that a welfare state and a permanent dependency class does anything to alleviate injustice. So the flaw here is in methodology but the message is that reading the Bible more leads to voting for Democrats.

Our insistence on using political labels loaded with cultural baggage to divide from other Christians is enormously unhelpful to our mission and harmful to our witness as the church. It happens on both sides, many "conservatives" use "liberal" as a way to dismiss anything another believer says and likewise there are many "liberals" who sneeringly use terms like "fundie" to mock those who have a more literal view of the Bible. Both groups do it and both claim to be preserving the foundations of the church in doing so but what they are really doing is dividing us up based on our positions on tax policy and national security, issues that have no bearing on our universal call to be ambassadors of a King with no army, no taxes and no borders. Can we declare a moratorium on using this language to bite and devour one another? I will volunteer to try to start with my own writings and would call on anyone reading here to do the same.

Why spend $100,000,000 to raise money?

Richard Stearns, President of the enormous charity World Vision U.S.A., wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal calling on American evangelicals to support U.S. foreign aid, Evangelicals and the Case for Foreign Aid. The essay itself is pretty unconvincing. Anyone who thinks that the billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid are being spent wisely or efficiently needs only look at the rest of the government to know that is false. That wasn’t really what piqued my interest though…

What was more interesting to me is what a little digging around uncovered. Is a large Christian organization going to be better suited to works of mercy than a bunch of small ones? Which is better, being nimble or “economies of scale”? My train of thought took me on down the tracks and stopped at the webpage of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (EFCA)

According to the data submitted to the EFCA, World Vision allocates more than 10% of their expenditures to fund raising or slightly more than $100,000,000 for fiscal year 2010. One hundred million dollars to raise funds. Add to that administrative expenses of $46,000,000 and you have a bunch of money that is absorbed by the organization rather than going to help those in need. Those are pretty big numbers.

Quick disclaimer. World Vision does lots of great work from what I can tell in places like Haiti so this isn’t a “bash World Vision” post. I am just trying to get us thinking more about giving, about mercy and justice and most importantly about why we put forth so much money in an effort to raise money.

I get it, I really do. It takes money to raise money. That is especially true when your aid organization is one of the thousands of different groups vying for the tax deductible contributions of a finite pool of religious donors. Therein lies one of the biggest problems in the church and I believe one of the top reasons for so much financial confusion. From the huge groups like the Salvation Army, Samaritans Purse and World Vision down to local food pantries and even individual local churches, the disunified church of Christ spends far too much time, energy and money trying to compete with other “competing” organizations for the finite resources of people and cash available from the Christian population.

I also know that as organizations get bigger and bigger, they often grow more and more inefficient. Take for example C3 Missions, the parent organization of the Global Orphan Project and partner of the Haiti Orphan Project. It is a much smaller organization than World Vision with annual expenditures of about $3,000,000. Of that, all of $75,000 went to fundraising or 2.5% according to their disclosure to the EFCA. Granted the proportion of admin costs went up because they are economies of scale when you get bigger but a lot of that is directed at fund raising efforts apparently in big organizations.

So what is the conclusion? I am really not sure there is one. I like smaller organizations for the most part. I like that with groups like the Haiti Orphan Project and the crisis pregnancy center I volunteer at that I know and can see where the money is going. On the other hand, when something like the earthquake in Haiti happens, organizations like World Vision and Samaritans Purse are able to respond almost immediately. So which one is better? I think both have their place. I just wish that we had some sense of real unity in the church so that we didn’t have to pick and choose from competing charities but given the size and diversity in the church I am not sure how to make that happen practically. I really don’t like problems with apparently no solution. There is so much need for works of mercy in the world and there are so many different groups trying to do the same thing in slightly different ways. How can we ever find a way to cooperate with one another instead of competing with each other?

Selective justice

From today's memorial service for the victims of the Ft. Hood shootings:

"It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know -- no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts, no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice -- in this world, and the next," Obama said.

What about justice for those killed in the womb? What sort of justice does he thinks awaits those who perpetuate and support abortion? Is the jihadist who shot and killed 13 people in Texas worse than the "doctor" who snuffs out the lives of unborn children on a daily basis? 13 innocent people killed at Ft. Hood. Tens of millions killed by abortion. One is called a tragedy, one is called a choice. I am afraid you won't see such signs of sorrow or brave words of confidence in judgment when the issue becomes politically inexpedient. The victims of abortion die in silence and not many people seem to care.

A blast from the past

I love this famous line from Barry Goldwater at the 1964 GOP Covention in San Francisco...



I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.