Christian beliefs, acts must begin to merge

This is a story about the necessity of radicals.

And James Dobson.

Unlikely bedfellows to be sure, but improbability doesn't change reality, and in this case, the shoe fits.

Dobson, the 72-year-old founder of Focus on the Family, and his wife, Shirley, both resigned from the executive board of the organization late last week, in yet another signal that the end is near for the first generation of politically engaged evangelicals of the late 20th century – more commonly termed the religious right.

The signs they were on their way out have been coming more and more frequently in recent years, beginning with the late Jerry Falwell's widely panned comments claiming the events of September 11th were an act of divine judgment toward gays, feminists and liberals. The trend continued with more controversial remarks from Falwell, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and Dobson himself ranging from the comically bizarre to the tragically insensitive.

Yet as their influence wanes, politically engaged Christians who may not share all of the religious right's views would do well to thank them for an often-neglected fact: These men, for better or worse, revived interest amongst Evangelical Christians in applying Christian ideas to the public square.

After the unambiguous failure of Prohibition – a cause widely supported by the evangelicals of the day – many disillusioned evangelical activists withdrew from the public sphere.

Some, like Christianity Today founder Carl Henry and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, spoke of Christianity applying to all areas of life, but for most American Evangelicals, faith was a private affair.

The consequence was that Christianity became, as my friend Margie puts it, "personally engaging but publicly irrelevant." And that was the best-case scenario.

Worst-case scenarios often used poor interpretations of Scripture to justify a pie-in-the-sky escapism that saw interaction in social issues as a waste of time. The notion of sacred and secular spheres and the fallacious belief in a "rapture" in which Jesus would take the church out of the world contributed to the problem.

Dobson, Falwell and Robertson responded to this by calling Christians back to the public sphere.

True, they often did so in the name of bigotry, homophobia, racism and countless other inexcusable sins, and when they did, biblical faithfulness - not to mention basic standards of human goodness - requires that they be condemned in no uncertain terms.

But they made the call all the same.

In their day, they were radicals. And you need radicals to move discussion forward in new directions.

That's what these men did.

For a new generation of younger Christians eager to see Christian ideas applied in the public sphere, we should be thankful to them while also learning from their mistakes.

Our approach, however, must account for an obvious and basic fact that the older generation neglected – a kingdom inaugurated through sacrifice and enemy love has no other means of advancing itself.

The Christian message centers itself at a cross mounted on a skull-shaped hill – a degrading, demeaning, brutal symbol if ever there was one. Yet if Christian teaching is true, it is here that the rebirth of the world began.

Therefore, a Christian approach to political issues should be characterized by a refusal to use force or coercion to advance our interests.

Rather, our lives and our social engagement should always be characterized by what Pastor Greg Boyd calls "power from below." It means sacrifice, charity, and enemy love – three things that seldom characterized the religious right.

Falwell, Robertson and Dobson forgot about the meaning of the cross. What other explanation is there for their constant attempts to strong-arm Christianity into American legislation and culture?

Another lesson we have to learn is that our theology and our practice must agree with each other. Dobson and others tried to re-engage the public sphere while still holding to the unbiblical idea of a rapture and seven-year tribulation where God opens a can of Sodom and Gomorrah on the entire planet.

The contradiction is obvious. If it's all going to burn anyway, then the evangelicals of the ‘40s and ‘50s were right. The world's a sinking ship, all Christians should do is pile as many people as they can in the lifeboat before the whole thing sinks. If the Left Behind version of the Apocalypse is true, then social engagement is frivolous. Christians should dedicate their time to tract bombing and door-to-door proselytizing.

But, if the biblical writers Paul and John are correct when they portray God as being the God who renews all things - not the God who burns up all things - then our agenda has to change.

We must replace this false rapture theology with a robust theology of the everyday that takes biblical teachings about the renewal of all things seriously.

This means understanding that ultimately God's redemptive work in the world is as broad as the scope of his creative work. The Christian's work in the world is about renewal rather than escape, collaboration rather than condemnation.

The consequence of such a view is that all of life becomes sacred, profound, beautiful and saturated with meaning. Therefore, we no longer need to see non-Christians as adversaries or consumers of our evangelistic techniques – as the religious right did – but rather as partners in making our communities better places to live.

If these things happen, then the next generation of American evangelicals might have a bright future as a positive force for hope, love, joy and grace in a world starved for those precious things.

And, oddly enough, we'll have James Dobson to thank for it.

jake meador is a junior english and history major. reach him at jakemeador@dailynebraskan.com.