RUNNING SMACK

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

There’s a second left in the game. You’re eight points down, it’s fourth-and-56 and you’re on your own one-foot line. But not to worry, says John Shore. This ball game’s in the bag:

It is inevitable that Christians who would now be described as “liberal” will be the overwhelming majority of Christians in America. That sea change, the waters of which we already feel swelling everywhere around us, can no sooner be stopped than can the moon passing across the night sky. Today’s conservative evangelical Christians who are rallying against “postmodern relativism,” “revisionist secular theology,” “a naturalistic doctrine of God,” or however else they might label the theology of the left, are like yesterday’s horse-and-buggy owners rallying against the newfangled automobile. The future of transportation was obvious then; the future of Christian theology is obvious now.

In the old days, it was easy for the vast majority of American Christians to believe that, say, Jews and homosexuals (to name but two of the many, many groups Christians traditionally so destine) are going to hell. And what made it so emotionally and spiritually comfortable for so many Christians to assert that? Because none of them knew any Jews or homosexuals. No Jews or gays had a nearby farm; no Jews or gays were at the county fair; no Jews or gays attended the local PTA meetings; you never ran into either at the hardware store. The Jews were (however involuntarily) sequestering themselves in places like New York City; and while you may have interacted with a gay man over in the pipes department, that was his secret.

That was yesterday. Today most people have in their lives, and deeply care for, at least one person who is no closer to being a Protestant Christian than I am to being French Canadian. Today everyone is related to, shares a neighborhood with, works with, or goes to school with someone who is gay, Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu, Mormon, Unitarian Universalism, Wiccan, Native American, Shinto, Baha’i, Rastafarian, Cao Dai, Tenrikyo, agnostic, atheist, or any combination thereof. Humans, we are a creative group, are we not?

It’s a great deal more troubling to condemn to hell someone for whom you have affection than it is an abstract member of an abstract group. Growing up in my white suburban neighborhood, I didn’t know a single person who was Hindu. Today there are five young men who are Hindu living right next door to me. Those young men have become friends. If part of my theology insists that my Hindu friends are going to hell, you better believe I’m going to reassess that part of my theology. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t.

Keep telling yourself that, tough guy. Just ignore the fact that all those progs who were going to flood Episcopal outlets after Robbie got his pointy hat haven’t, to say the least, shown up yet as evidenced by the fact that TEO is shedding cathedrals almost as quickly as it’s shedding peeps and that the only churches in this country who are showing any vigor at all are churches who won’t compromise the Gospel just because the Zeitgeist ordered them to.

Otherwise, I’d say you’re spot-on.