Pat Robertson: The Syncretism of Right-Wing Politics with Christianity

The Judeo-Christian Scriptures are constantly warning us against syncretism, when aspects of one religion are assimilated into another thus changing the purity of the original faith. The Old Testament warned the Jews of not allowing the neighboring religions to blend with their following of Yahweh. A hallmark of Greek Hellenism was syncretism, and the Jews before and during Jesus’ time were constantly battling the urge to blend the political aspirations of Hellenism with Judaism. Jesus and his followers warned that syncretism is just another form of idolatry. Paul wrote, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ” (Colossians 2:8).

One of the biggest problems in American Christianity is syncretism. We evangelical Christians have allowed the “American Dream” to blend into our Christian faith—so that now Jesus is a means to the end of prosperity and our consumerist “pursuit of happiness.” All one needs to do is look at the titles of many of the best-selling Christian books to see what we believe the Christian faith is all about (Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen is a run-away best-seller).

Another major form of syncretism in American Christianity is in our allowing the politics of the Right to blend into our Christian faith. Most Christians I know cannot differentiate between the politics of Rush Limbaugh and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is fueled by the very conservative political agenda of leading evangelicals like James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, and Tim and Beverly LaHaye. And it shows itself the ugliest when those on the more radical side of this syncretism that’s called the “Religious Right” (i.e., the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons of the world) say outrageous things that show how this syncretistic religion warps Christianity so that it no longer reflects the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The most recent incident: Pat Robertson (on The 700 Club), while commenting on what the United States should do with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, said, “You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it…It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop.” (see BBC news story here)

With statements like this, I can understand why many non-Christians are suspicious of evangelicals that we are the American version of the Taliban. But know this: It is not the pure religion of Jesus Christ speaking here—it is a syncretism of Christianity with American capitalism (because of the oil interests in Venezuela) and extreme right-wing politics (because of Chavez’ leftist agenda). This syncretism has taken Robertson “captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition” so much that he is no longer following Jesus Christ—it is no longer Christianity.

What’s sad is that he does not even know it. What’s sadder is that many of his viewers don’t know it either.

Evangelicalism’s Anti-Darwinism Warps Our Environmental Concern

It still is incredible to me that many evangelicals are not warm to the the issue of Global Warming.

Even though the head of the National Association of Evangelicals and about 100 other evangelical leaders issued a statement declaring that global warming is real and the result of mankind's actions, even though the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has produced four volumes (1000 pages each) of evidence, even though the Co-Chair of the IPCC is Sir John Houghton, an evangelical Christian, even though the research involved thousands of scientists world wide, even though they concluded that "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities," and even though Houghton tells us that "No assessments on any other scientific topic have been so thoroughly researched and reviewed," many American Christians are still skeptical. In fact, Focus on the Family (the loudest voice in American evangelicalism’s “Radio Orthodoxy”) calls all this evidence “liberal junk science.” (see article at Agape Press).

Why?

In a commentary in the current issue of Christianity Today ("Environmental Wager"), Andy Crouch writes,

The…battle between evolutionism and Christian faith has had countless unfortunate consequences…But perhaps no result of the creation-evolution stalemate is as potentially disastrous as the way it has stymied courageous action on climate change."

This makes a lot of sense. We Americans have lived through the Scopes Trial and we are in the midst of battles in certain states over whether or not our schools’ science curriculums should exclusively teach Darwinism.

It makes sense that the ugly history of the battle for origins between science and the Christian faith is now costing us in the battle for our future.

In a lecture at Cambridge in 2002, Houghton said,

[Global Warming] is a problem that is well downstream; many of us will not be much affected ourselves but it is going to affect our children and our grandchildren. We are bound to ask, therefore, questions about the sort of relationship we should have to the earth that is our home and to the rest of Creation with whom we share the earth. Let me suggest that a helpful picture of this relationship can be found in the early chapters of the Judaeo-Christian scriptures. Humans were placed in a garden to care for it. We are encouraged to see ourselves as gardeners of the earth…Christians and other religious people believe that we've been put on the earth to look after it. Creation is not just important to us, we believe also it is important to God and that the rest of creation has an importance of its own: for these reasons we should be good gardeners. But in many ways we are not being good gardeners."

This is not just good environmentalism, it is good theology.

The Professor as Scholar

Scot McKnight has honored my website with another gem directed at those in Christian academic scholarship. It's a lecture he gave at North Park University, about the "Professor as Scholar." Since one day I hope to be both, it is of particular interest to me.

A quote:

Scholarship is not about “winning”, about “fame”, or about climbing to the top; most won’t know and many don’t care; it is about expression, about a dialogue, about pursuit of truth, about our own development as humans, and about contributing to the Great Conversation of the Mind – from diverse, but nonetheless fully conscious, Christian points of view.

The full lecture is at re-integrate.org, click here.

Brian McLaren on Left-Right Politics

I am saddened by the polarities that have arisen in the United States. When the Left and the Right demonize the other side and refuse to engage in conversation, we all lose. When those in the church read and listen to only one side of any issue, then we are not being wise. “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” (Proverbs 15:22). I’m seeing a very disturbing trend: people on the Right are exclusively buying right-leaning magazines, reading right-wing columnists, listening to right-wing radio, and watching Fox News. People on the Left are exclusively buying left-leaning magazines, reading left-wing columnists, listening to left-leaning radio, and watching left-leaning news. We surround ourselves with “yes-men” who simply affirm what we already want to believe. We are not being challenged to think in new ways, to find moderating positions, to seek the truth in love. And worse, we convince ourselves that the one-sided position is the godly position. We are not listening to “many advisers,” and therefore we lack good counsel.

I just received the latest issue of Sojourners (Jim Wallis’ magazine on faith, culture, and politics). The cover story is called “A Bridge Far Enough? How would Jesus address the issues of our day?” by Brian McLaren (read it here). Readers of my blog and website know how highly I think of Brian McLaren, one of the principal voices in the “emerging church conversation,” and one of the leaders of Emergent.

Following the lead of the Apostle Paul, who became “all things to all people” (1 Cor 9:22) and who tells us that God “gave us the ministry of reconciliation”(2 Cor 5:18), McLaren writes in this article about how Christians are called to “build bridges” to connect people of opposing polarities in our contentious political climate in the United States.

He identifies four bridges: (1) The Religious Right and the Secular Left; (2) The Religious Right and the Religious Left; (3) The Secular Right and the Religious Left; and (4) The Secular Right and the Secular Left. He writes, “So, for starters, if we want to be communication bridge people, we need to realize that there aren’t just two kinds of people out there, or one kind of polarization. Becoming all things to all people doesn’t simply mean becoming two things to two kinds of people.”

Then he gives seven pointers for bridge-building conversation, based on the principle that “We must teach what Jesus taught in the manner that Jesus taught it.” (1) We must stop answering questions that are framed badly; (2)We must start raising new questions and issues that need to be raised; (3) We must answer questions with questions; (4) We must go cleverly deeper; (5) We must agree with people whenever we can; (6) We must speak through action, not just words; (7) We must tell stories.

How great would it be if Christians were the ones who did not feed INTO the polarization of American politics but were the RECONCILERS of American politics?

How a Faithful Nation Gets Jesus Wrong

In an essay in this month’s Harper’s Magazine (“The Christian Paradox: How a Faithful Nation Gets Jesus Wrong”—read an excerpt here), Bill McKibben offers an analysis of evangelical Christianity in America. McKibben is best known as an liberal environmentalist, and has been published in Mother Jones and environmental magazines a lot. He is also a follower of Jesus Christ, and has been published in The Christian Century, Sojourners, and Christianity Today.

This particular article in Harper’s is very good. While at times he concentrates too much on specific “end-timers” and lumps some good authors in with the self-centered writings of the likes of Joel Osteen, he has a number of excellent observations. One of his main points that I really appreciated was the wrong-headedness of how we evangelicals have practiced the command to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

McKibben writes,
“American churches, by and large, have done a pretty good job of loving the neighbor in the next pew. A pastor can spend all Sunday talking about the Rapture Index, but if his congregation is thriving you can be assured he’s spending the other six days visiting people in the hospital, counseling couples, and sitting up with grieving widows. All this human connection is important. But if the theology makes it harder to love the neighbor a little farther away—particularly the poor and the weak—then it’s a problem. And the dominant theologies of the moment do just that. They undercut Jesus, muffle his hard words, deaden his call, and in the end silence him. In fact, the soft-focus consumer gospel of the suburban mega-churches is a perfect match for the emergent conservative economic notions about personal responsibility instead of collective action.”

I have been blogging about this for some time: The syncretism of American individualism with Biblical Christianity makes for a truncated gospel. The contemporary theology of many evangelicals is an individualistic gospel (it’s mainly about me and Jesus, it’s about my personal well-being, it’s about my need for self-fulfillment). Many modern mega-churches (though not all) have grown large because they cater to the consumeristic tendencies of American evangelicals--offering more about making life good for ourselves than the difficult work of loving those other than ourselves. This focus on the individual often negates the doctrines of community and kingdom. This focus on individual solutions to problems often negates many collective approaches to systemic problems in our world.

The Christian Right has latched onto this individualistic gospel to the point that anybody who attempts to take Jesus’ teachings to heart—with systemic solutions to the problems like helping the poor, for example, are labeled “liberal” and scoffed at.

See Ron Sider’s book, Good News & Good Works: A Theology for the Whole Gospel for a more kingdom-based gospel.

Imagining Atomic Bombs

This last Saturday, the 60th anniversary of the first atomic bomb drop on Japan, I was at The National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

I stood under the legendary aircraft, the Bockscar, the B29 that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki 60 years ago today (August 9, 1945, 11:02 AM, Nagasaki time). As I stood under its belly, reaching up to touch the underside of this massive airplane, I tried to imagine flying over the ocean and then over the Japanese homes on the way to Nagasaki. I imagined the bomb, “Fat Boy,” unloading from the bomb bay and dropping behind me.

The Air Force museum does not tell of the fatalities, only that the bomb ended a war that promised to continue to be very bloody and cost many, many lives. Japan surrendered three days after the bombing, ending World War II.

An estimated 65,000 men, women, and children were killed and tens of thousands injured at Nagasaki to add to the 130,000 that died from the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.

I stood there for a while, in my world of imagination, until I realized that I was in the way of some people trying to take a family picture in front of the plane. The Japanese family lined up and smiled…the camera flashed, and the family said something to each other in Japanese. I watched in stunned silence. It seemed almost surreal.

Bible Verse of the Day

"When a man has lost his hair and is bald, he is clean."
Leviticus 13:40

WRF's Comment Magazine features the CCO

The Work Research Foundation is a Canadian organization whose mission is "to influence people to a Christian view of work and public life." They seek to explore and unfold the dignity of work, the meaning of economics, and the structures of civil society, in the context of underlying patterns created by God.

The WRF's academic journal is called "COMMENT."
This month, Gideon Strauss offers a very favorable article entitled "Building Institutions - The Coalition for Christian Outreach"

He writes,
"The CCO is unique among campus ministries...the CCO led the way in insisting thirty years ago that Christian discipleship has implications for the studies of students, and for their everyday working lives after they graduate - implications that start with a personal faith life marked by devotional depth and discipline, but that ripples out into every corner of life, and into the very structures of society..."

The Kingdom of God: The Christian’s Participation in the Battle of “Empires”

This is the part 2 of 2 (see below for part 1)

The biblical picture of the Christian life shows us participating in the battle between Kingdoms. We, as Christians, are identified with the deliverer (Christ) in His conquest over the dark kingdom of Satan. “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:10-12).

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines “Empire” as “Imperial or imperialistic sovereignty, domination, or control.” In light of this definition, we need to see ministry as our participating in the battle in which the “Empire of God” is subverting the “Empires of Satan” as they are manifested in our day in their imperialistic domination or control over the hearts of people and in the evil social structures that control people.

What are the “evil empires” that vie for the hearts of the 21st Century generation?

Walsh and Keesmaat make a very strong argument that consumerism (including the dark side of such things as capitalism / materialism / globalization / commoditization) is an evil empire that has people today in bondage. “A society directed by the consumerist imperatives of global capitalism is driven by images with a vengeance. And these images—purveyed especially through that quintessential image-producing medium, television—must change constantly in order to create and sustain an insatiable desire for more consumer goods and reach the ultimate goal of economic abundance.” (Colossians Remixed, p. 84).

Another systemic empire that Christ seeks to subvert through his people is racism. Michael Emerson and Christian Smith make the case that social structures in American society have sustained a racialized culture that dominates and subjugates African Americans. This empire is not being overthrown by the Kingdom of God because white evangelicals (in their propensity to focus on individual sin rather than societal sin) are unconsciously missing the issues of systemic racism. (Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America [New York: Oxford University Press, 2000])

Another empire that imprisons the human heart today is the desire for power or prestige. Many in our culture have bought the lie that life is mostly about gaining powerful and prestigious careers.

Yet another empire to which people are in bondage is the empire of individualism. The self-serving ideas of individualism / self-actualization / self-esteem have sovereignty in our culture’s consciousness. We live in a society of increasing solitude, where community is fabricated, where friendships are rare, and where the ultimate goal is individual satisfaction. Stan Grenz has issued a clarion call that the Kingdom of God announced by Christ is a call to create a community.

Another evil empire that is binding people revolves around wrong notions of sexuality—today’s American society promotes an ever-increasing sexual dominion over our thoughts and attitudes.

Technology, as great as it is, can be an empire that vies for the hearts of people.

The Kingdom of God has come to overthrow these kingdoms. Jesus is setting both individual hearts and the culture free. I see my ministry to college students as bringing the good news of the Kingdom to those who are in the bondage of these kingdoms.

Can you think of other “kingdoms” that Jesus’ Kingdom of God can subvert and overthrow?

Kingdom of God: Victory and Liberation

My last post offered a pdf article on my website from Scot McKnight on the Kingdom of God (see previous post, below). Today, I thought I’d add my two cents on the idea of what the “Kingdom of God” means.

Jesus saw his mission as the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises that God would liberate his people through the coming Messiah. As George Eldon Ladd wrote, “The strongest statement is Matthew 12:28: ‘But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.’” (A Theology of the New Testament, p. 63) The power that Jesus displayed in his exorcizing of demons showed that he had command as the King to deliver people from the bondage of another, evil kingdom—the kingdom of Light was overthrowing the kingdom of darkness.

This is drawn out in the next verse: “Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house.” (Matthew 12:29). In other words, King Jesus’ invasion of the dominion of Satan entails the process of binding Satan of his powers.

Ladd’s insights are helpful: “Instead of waiting until the end of the age to reveal his kingly power and destroy satanic evil, Jesus declares that God has acted in his kingly power to curb the power of Satan. In other words, God’s Kingdom in Jesus’ teaching has a twofold manifestation: at the end of the age to destroy Satan, and in Jesus’ mission to bind Satan. Before Satan’s final destruction, people may be delivered from his power. ‘Binding’ is of course a metaphor and designates in some real sense a victory over Satan so that his power is curbed.” (A Theology of the New Testament, p. 64).

It is like the often used military metaphor: The decisive battle in a World War II was D-Day. The war was won and the tide of battle was turned before the actual gaining of the victory. V-Day came later. The Jesus event—his incarnation, death, and resurrection—was the initial defeat of satanic power in the decisive battle, D-Day. V-Day will take place at the Parousia.

This was also the message of Paul. In his epistle to the Colossians, he wrote, “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14). “Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he (Christ) made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Colossians 2:15). In the words of Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat, “Here is the classic paradox in Paul’s thought. Christ has already defeated the powers, but his reconciling rule has not yet been fully established in history.” (Colossians Remixed, [Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2004], p. 155)

Tomorrow: Practical ideas about how God's Kingdom is overthrowing/subverting the evil kingdoms found in this world.

Kingdom of God article from Scot McKnight (pdf)

On Scot McKnight's blog (Jesus Creed), he recently did a seven-part series exploring the biblical teaching on the Kingdom of God. In my humble opinion, this blog series is an excellent companion piece to the practical application on Kingdom living you'll find in Part 3 of his book, The Jesus Creed.

Since I feel that "The Kingdom of God" is perhaps the most crucial topic that a Christian is to understand (after all, it was what Jesus’ proclaimed as the “good news” or “Gospel!”), I asked Scot if I could publish the whole thing at my website for people to be able to download and read.

So here it is! It’s in pdf format, so you can print it out and give it the attention it deserves. Follow this link:

The Kingdom of God by Scot McKnight



For those of you who have not yet read Scot McKnight’s The Jesus Creed (and shame on you! It did after all, win Christianity Today’s 2005 Best Book on Christian Living!), you will love Part Three (chapters 13-18), which deals with “The Society of the Jesus Creed.”

In the prologue to part 3, Scot writes,
“Because Jesus’ mission was to establish the kingdom of God—
The society in which the Jesus Creed transforms life—
A spiritually formed person lives out kingdom values in the Society of the Jesus Creed.”

It is a very readable and practical guide to living the Christians life of "Kingdom Values"--the values of transformation, "mustard seed," justice, restoration, joy, and eternal perspective.

Something is not right with the world

All you need to do in order to believe this is to go to a funeral for a 14 month old. Little Noah McKenney passed away on Monday, after having been born with spina bifida, and then battling brain cancer the last two months of his life.

His parents, Todd and Bethany, are old friends of mine from the singles ministry (dating back 15 years ago) at The Chapel. I remember Bethany as this hippy-ish girl with this beautiful long mane of red hair—always smiling and playing her guitar at area coffee shops. Todd was a prim and proper lawyer. We always found it interestingly odd that those two paired up! Todd is now Pastor of Community at The Chapel, and we have kept in contact here and there over the years—most recently bumping into each other at the CCO’s Jubilee Conference this year.

As the mourners filed through the sanctuary of the church, different videos were being shown on the two large screens above the pulpit: shots of Bethany with her newborn baby, another scene with Noah’s older sister, Selah, singing to him as he laid in his rocker, and videos of Noah’s first birthday party. In front of the pews sat Bethany, very distraught. Todd stood next to her, shaking hands and hugging loved ones as they filed in…a pained smile on his face as he’d greet friends and family. He held a soggy Kleenex in his left hand.

I hugged Todd and held Bethany’s hand, and then I passed the open coffin. I could only just glance at the little boy lying there—“Oh, Lord!” I thought, “He has red hair!”

Images of my own red-headed son, Trey, flashed into my head.

How could I ever handle losing him? Or Joel or Kaira?

How does a parent cope?

I sat in a pew and cried.

Some would say, in some desperate attempt to find comfort at a time like this, that God must have wanted this to happen—that it must have been God’s will for Noah to have died at 14 months.

I disagree.

This is wrong. Period. Something is not right with the world.

This is the carnage left by the Fall. This is why Jesus introduced the Kingdom of God—to overthrow the power of death through the power of His resurrection.

Paul knew the pain of watching loved ones suffer because of death. When he wrote to the Corinthians, he was not teaching pie-in-the-sky feel-goodisms or ivory-tower theology. He was telling us the wonders of the resurrection that we need to know when we come face-to-face with the sting of death.

What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These perishable bodies of ours are not able to live forever. But let me tell you a wonderful secret God has revealed to us. Not all of us will die, but we will all be transformed. It will happen in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, the Christians who have died will be raised with transformed bodies. And then we who are living will be transformed so that we will never die. For our perishable earthly bodies must be transformed into heavenly bodies that will never die.
When this happens—when our perishable earthly bodies have been transformed into heavenly bodies that will never die—then at last the Scriptures will come true:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. How we thank God, who gives us victory over sin and death through Jesus Christ our Lord!
(1 Corinthians 15:51-57)

White Evangelicalism and Racial Issues in America

One of the best books I read during my time at “New Staff Training” with the CCO is Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith. Emerson and Smith are Sociology professors (at Rice University and North Carolina, Chapel Hill respectively). The book is a sociological study on the racism that remains to this day in America, and how evangelicalism actually is contributing to the problem.


The big idea that kept rising to the surface for me concerned a truncated version of racial reconciliation that has been in vogue in white evangelical churches for the past 10 years. I’ve been pastoring in white suburban churches during these years, and have witnessed it first-hand.
Emerson and Smith articulate it on page 74 of Divided by Faith:

“For them (many white evangelicals), the race problem is one or more of three main types: (1) prejudiced individuals, resulting in bad relationships and sin, (2) other groups—usually African Americans—trying to make race problems a group issue when there is nothing more than individual problems, and (3) a fabrication of the self-interested—again often African Americans, but also the media, the government, or liberals.”

Yes! Nailed it! And I didn’t realize it until I read this a few weeks ago!

In the evangelical churches I’ve been associated with, all three of these have been the way we have been framing the subject matter. Most white evangelicals would say that they are not themselves prejudiced, that they do not have a personal problem with black people. They would say that they would, in fact, welcome individual relationships with African Americans. They would be the first to say that there is not room in Christianity for anyone to feel superior over another person of another race.

But, and right here’s the rub, they keep it at the individual level. As long as individuals are not themselves prejudiced and acting sinfully toward other individuals, then they feel that the race issue is being solved.

This is a symptom of a grander issue: Generally speaking, white evangelicals have embraced a truncated gospel—a gospel of the individual being reconciled with God and with other individuals. It is not a gospel of community. It is not a gospel that allows for the redemption of social structures because it is a gospel of individuality.


So, there is a general suspicion of social-structure redemption. It is viewed as “liberal,” since it’s assumed that social action is not concerned with what is truly important: the individual human heart. Since a white evangelical does not see racism in his own personal individual heart or in those around him, he assumes that talk of racial problems must be a fabrication of the self-interested. He rejects affirmative action, for it is seen as a self-interest fabrication, since racism is a matter of the individual heart. In general, we white evangelicals have been blinded to systemic racial problems in society because we are limited by our individualistic gospel.

The extent of racial reconciliation in white evangelical churches, then, has been a truncated solution—individual reconciliation. Hug a black person, pledge to never be prejudiced, and that’s about it.


But that’s not enough. Until Christians understand the systemic injustice of racialization, we are not only unable to be a part of the solution, we are a part of the problem.

I'm Baaaaaaaa-aaaaaak!

After a long hiatus, I'm finally back.

A new ministry, a new rhythm of life.

My next several months are going to be focused on learning a new position (as "Area Director" for a college ministry called the "CCO"--Coalition for Christian Outreach), and figuring out how the new ministry will dance with home life with my family.

And I will also, of course, be sharing my thoughts here at VanguardChurch--especially on issues about how postmodernity effects the next generation as they seek God.

I look forward to conversing with readers about how to reach college-aged students (as well as all other postmoderns) with the gospel of Jesus Christ...
...and I look forward to how our discussions about postmodernity and the Bible will get us closer to the real Good News of the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached.