Evangelical Protestantism is where it wants to be

14 August 2023

Russell Moore used to be one of the top officials of the most powerful religious organization in the country, the Southern Baptist Convention. He was pushed out for criticizing Donald Trump. Since then, Moore has rebranded himself as defender of the soul of evangelical Protestantism.

His gambit, however, depends on something important – that the broad public doesn’t know much, or anything, about conservative religions. Moore wants us to believe that “Christianity is in crisis,” but Christianity is not in crisis, not for the reasons that he says. Nor is his particular sect in crisis.

It’s exactly where it wants to be.

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NPR interviewed Moore, who is now the editor of Christianity Today, about his new book Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call For Evangelical America. He said that he knows “Christianity is in crisis” because “multiple pastors tell me essentially the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount parenthetically in their preaching - “turn the other cheek” - to have someone come up and say, ‘Where did you get those liberal talking points?’”

He added: “What was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ, the response would not be, I apologize. The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak.’ When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.”

What the broad public does not know is that the “Sermon on the Mount” does not play a central role in the evangelical Protestant community. It plays a role, of course, but mostly to the extent that “turning the other cheek” applies to those already in the evangelical Protestant community.

God’s love is also exclusive to those already on the inside. It’s unconditional, but also conditional, on accepting that his only-begotten son, Jesus, died on the cross to redeem your sins and prevent your soul’s everlasting damnation. Once you have accepted this – once you have accepted that God’s love is conditioned on punishment – you’re part of the community.

If you do not accept this – well, that’s the side of evangelical Protestantism that Russell Moore isn’t talking about. It’s also the side that NPR host Scott Detrow doesn’t know about, apparently. Detrow asked how can you fix a crisis of Christianity if “the central message of the gospel is something that a lot of people in the church do not seem to want to fully embrace?”

Moore has a silly answer about going “small and local,” but the question is part of the problem. It’s based on an understandable but faulty assumption – that the point of evangelical Protestantism is spreading the message of God’s love (“turning the other cheek”) and that the divisiveness that was ushered into “every aspect of American life” by Donald Trump has turned a religion premised on spreading the message of God’s love upside down.

No, it didn’t, and it never was that.

Evangelical Protestantism is a conservative sect. As such, it concentrates on punishment. That’s the side that Scott Detrow doesn’t know about, apparently. That’s the side that Russell Moore is letting him misunderstand. If you do not accept God’s conditions – that his son died to redeem your sins and prevent your soul’s damnation – you get what you deserve.

Now, American Christians have always argued about this question. If God’s love is equal and unconditional, how can it also be unequal and conditional? The answer is that it can’t be both. That’s why liberal and moderate Christianities, even some forms of evangelical Protestantism, have either abandoned the concept of damnation or prioritized God’s love. They have taken the Sermon on the Mount to its logical, subversive conclusion.

What is it subversive to? If God’s love is equal and unconditional, then anyone can be redeemed, no matter who they are, no matter how they choose to live their lives, even if they do not believe in a higher power. The most subversive interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is God loves you, right now, as you are. The Kingdom of Heaven is brought to earth.

To conservative sects, that’s heresy. It also democratizes social and political hierarchies, and jeopardizes the privilege of those on top. The subversive teachings of Jesus – “turn the other cheek” – undermine the point in being conservative. They must divide the world between those who are “saved” – God’s children – and those who are damned. They must cling to punishment because it explains and rationalizes the surrounding reality.

Why are there poor people in America? Why do Black people suffer most? Why do so many hard-working people struggle to make ends meet? They must have done something to deserve their lot in life. And because they deserve it, there’s nothing to be done about it. It’s God’s will, after all. If they’d accept what we accept, then maybe God would bless them, too.

Russell Moore sees himself as a reluctant dissenter. He’s not, though. He’s rehabbing the image of evangelical Protestantism by exploiting the broad public’s ignorance of conservative religions. (Not all conservative religions justify society’s status quo, but most do.) “The church,” he said, should not be as “tribalized and factionalized” as American culture has become. But “tribalized and factionalized” makes evangelical Protestantism what it is.

And it’s exactly where it wants to be.

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