Lacking in Grace, Evangelicals Have Earned Their Bad Reputation

Baptist News Global: Shepherds for Sale and the Evangelical Civil War

Charles Qualls: Who's Woke at Bubba-Doo's

Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time.  Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.  The Apostle Paul, Epistle to the Colossians, 4:5-6, NRSV

Let your speech always be gracious.  

The Way Christianity Should Be

The piece that is linked above, by Charles Qualls, who is the pastor of Franklin Baptist Church in Franklin, VA, is part of a whole series he writes for Baptist News Global, centered on the life that surrounds an old country store he calls "Bubba-Doo's."  There are multiple illustrations throughout the series, which I very much enjoy reading, that are clues about the manner in which this particular pastor approaches the Christian gospel and sees what kind of faith it produces.  The word that comes to mind is "gracious."  

Dr. Qualls obviously draws on his Georgia-raised background in coming up with the characterization of a place like Bubba-Doo's.  I didn't grow up in that part of the country, but I've spent enough time in places like that to visualize such a place, along with the people in the surrounding community.  Dr. Qualls' examples illustrate Christian faith as gracious, and shows the kind of patience and understanding with people that earn a good reputation even among people who are not Christians or predisposed to accepting Christianity at face value.  

In this particular story, one of the characters is a lesbian, the niece of the owner, whose presence as an employee in her uncle's store has stirred up complaints from a few customers, calling the store owner "woke" and threatening not to visit there or conduct business anymore.  The illustration in this fictional account points to a more gracious way to treat the person, as a human being, as a family member, as an individual who is accountable before God for themselves, than some mean-spirited response, or a boycott. 

The story illustrates the point in an excellent way.  Treating someone with dignity and respect, because they are a fellow human being, doesn't constitute an endorsement of their lifestyle, their political position or their faith.  It's simply the right thing to do.  They are accountable for themselves before God, not before anyone else, and they have not asked for a judgment or ruling on the rightness or wrongness of their lifestyle. 

Here's the bottom line.  Conservative Evangelicals claim that the Bible is inerrant and infallible, and that it is the sole authority for Christian faith and practice.  If that's true, then interpreting the Christian faith out of the New Testament starts with the recorded words of Jesus Christ himself, using them as the interpretive criterion for all of the rest of the Bible.  Jesus, answering a deep theological question from religious leadership, said that the greatest commandment was "to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind," in other words, with your intellect and your spirit.  And he also noted that the second greatest commandment was equal to the first, "to love your neighbor as yourself."  

"Neighbor" is a broad term, and it went beyond just the people who live in the neighborhood.  Jesus illustrated the point by using a Samaritan as an example, a man who was of a different ethnicity, spoke a different language and practiced a different religion was defined as "neighbor."  All through the New Testament, it is clear that this is a core value of the Christian gospel.  The way for a Christian to demonstrate their love for God, in obedience to this greatest commandment, is to love one's neighbor.  There's no other way to do it.  

As I look at the public image politically engaged conservative Evangelicals in the United States put forth, I see nothing that resembles this primary, core Christian virtue.  

Forget Loving One's Neighbor, These People Hate Each Other 

That's in contrast to the kind of Christianity that is visible as an influence in American politics, and which prompts authors like Megan Basham, among others, to turn over rocks looking for ideological and theological disloyalty among big-name Christian leadership.  Disloyalty, in this case, is measured not so much by differences of opinion over Bible interpretation, though that is clearly a factor, but with declarations from some Evangelical leaders that being Christian includes voting for conservative Republicans, specifically giving loyalty to Trump.  

So, within this religious-political movement that ironically gives loyalty to a man who rejects the very core principle of Christian conversion, denying his own sinfulness and his need for God's forgiveness, which is an absolute requirement, under Evangelical interpretation of the Bible, to becoming Christian, and who lives a lifestyle diametrically the opposite of that which is laid out in the inerrant Bible by Jesus and the Apostles, there is little love to be found.  Mostly what shows is a lot of jealousy of the wealth and influence of others, and anger at those who keep this for themselves and refuse to bow the knee to the worldly reprobate who, for the third time, is the GOP nominee for President.  

Lying, character assassination, mis-quoting and mis-interpreting public statements, failing to verify statements made that are used to undermine the integrity of someone else, I can't find any place in the inerrant, infallible Bible that makes these particular "attributes" identifying marks of a Christian.  The apostle John does say they identify an attitude of being he calls "antichrist," but they bear no resemblance to the characteristics that identify true Christianity.  Yet there is the exact strategy used by Basham to call out those within the Evangelical fold she believes to be "traitors" and "leftists."  

I'm not going to repeat all of the infighting, accusations of lying, of being "leftist," or "traitors" or wolves in sheep's clothing that Basham slings around in her book.  I wouldn't recommend reading it.  The article that is referenced here more than makes the point.  

But I will say this.  Any Christian leader who claims that a Christian is identified by how they vote, and that true Christians cannot vote for Democrats is directly contradicting the words of the Bible's authors.  Being a political leftist doesn't disqualify anyone from being Christian, and a political leftist who demonstrates love for God by loving his neighbor is far more Christian than a far right wing conservative Evangelical Republican who hates all of his neighbors who don't think like, act like and believe like he does.  

There's a reason why 16 million people who once belonged to and attended churches in the United States that identify as "Evangelical Christian," no longer do so.  They went to church for inspiration and motivation in living out a set of values and virtues taught by the Christian gospel.  They left when they got the opposite of that in the form of Trump's right wing extremism.