This is a Problem

Introduction

There is still such a thing as an unholy alliance and I think Christians who enjoy politics should consider this. Lewis, in the preface to Screwtape Letters, pointed out that there can be two equal and opposite errors. One error that became very apparent in the last few weeks was the story released by Daily Wire about how Evangelical leaders or elites worked hand in hand with the NIH director to influence pastors into guilting their congregations into stepping in line. And while I was not surprised in the least to have seen Moore, Warren, Wright, French, and TGC involved I was disappointed to see Keller and Stetzer. This comes on the heels of the article by Mark Galli, former editor of Christianity Today, on how Evangelicals long for the attention and approval of the mainstream and are more than willing to preform theological gymnastics to get it.*

And the critique of this behavior has been available but often pooh poohed by said elites. Yet let he who is without sin throw the first stone. If shaming a congregation to toe a party line for attaboys from bureaucrats, or guilting readers for crumbs of approval from Black Lives Matter are unholy alliances, then we also have to look to the equal and opposite errors of the elite wannabes podcasting away at The Blaze and the like. 

Postmodern Conservatives

And I want to be clear I am concerned with Christians first and foremost. If secondarily general conservatives re evaluate who they partner with as co-beligerents then that is just gravy. But Christians should be standing on the rock solid foundation of the Word. They should know it, understand it, apply it, and do that application. In general what I see are principal-less conservatives who do not know why they are conservative, beyond, they were raised that way, or just want to be what the left is not, or have developed a lower tolerance to BS. Christians do not have this luxury, sadly many act is if they do. 

I have seen too many conservative talking heads that claim to be Christians, often passionately, and yet have appalling theology. It shows up in their mangled attempts to justify political positions that are dodgy at best e.g. Trump can do no wrong, or in their actions such as uncritically platforming a man who claims to be a woman and is a rising right wing star. This is a problem.

There has been a slow creep of ends justify the means in Christian conservatism. It didn’t start with Trump, he merely made it harder to ignore. Too much has been shoved under the banner of being co-beligerents. There is a big difference between working with papists to save babies from abortion and promoting a drag queen on your show because they also think Kyle Rittenhouse was not guilty. It reeks all too much of trying to gain the world and loosing your soul. In scenarios like this Christian conservatives with loose both.

The point of being conservative as a Christian is that our principals are directly downstream from Scripture. It seems painfully obvious that there has been a separation of church and state in the minds of Christians who are conservative. And that shows when someone claims to be standing on truth, acts in a postmodern political way, and then struggles to connect the two. 

Conclusion

It is an enormous concern that Evangelical leaders were so lazy that they were manipulated by the government to be condescending and snide while repeating lies. But it really is no better that the alternative voices are lazy in equal and opposite ways. 

*There is no elegant way to fit this into the main piece. The Daily Wire story is recommended but not highly recommended. It is written in their style designed to incite anger instead of simply providing facts and allowing the reader to reach the conclusion. And I find Mark Galli’s critique of CT to be ironic since it was under his tenure that the publication moved quite left.