Category: Constipated Evangelicals

Let the Schisms Continue

Once upon a time, some time ago, in different times, non-Evangelical Protestants were eager to come to together and sing Kum-bay-yah, doctrinal differences be damned. That’s how we got the UNITEDs (TM) – United Methodists, United Church of America Jr. (Canada), United Church of Christ and Christian Christians, etc. etc. Sometimes it made sense to pool resources and sometimes they merged to satisfy certain governments that were unsettled by all these unsanctioned denominables. But whatever the practical reasons, this was all justified in moral, theological terms: As the triune God is a unity of diversity, so should Christians be. The small doctrinal differences were not important enough to fight about. Heck, the average Protestant wouldn’t know a lick of difference between Presbyterian and Methodist anyway. 

But in keeping with modern politics, unionism has lost its appeal these days. Recent years saw the break-up of the UMC into the UMC and not-UMC (the Global Methodist Church) over support for same-sex marriage. More recently, the Anglican Communion has started unraveling at a heightened pace. The beginnings of schism can be traced back to the founding of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in 2008 over – surprise, surprise – sexuality. GAFCON became a semi-official alternative to the four “Instruments of Communion” that united worldwide Anglicanism (incl. Episcopalians). The more recent – and boldest – rejection was that of authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

And now the Arch happens is woman (yay!) named Sarah Mullaly. This was somehow the final straw, not simply because she is an ally, but because “global” Anglicans apparently still prefer a male-only episcopate. For instance, see this Facebook comment from one of our listeners in Nigeria. So shortly after this great atrocity, the GAFCOM boys decided to give Christendom a true October surprise, announcing its intent to completely reorder the Anglican Communion away from “reformist agendas.” Ready to Harvest has a pretty good explainer on the current state of play.

One of the more regrettable similarities between the Methodist and Anglican defectors is that that the “global” moniker is not entirely wrong, since the energy behind these recent schisms is in the so-called “Global South.” Even as they rightfully bend the arc (of the  Covenant) of history toward justice, progressive Christians must respect the the fact that their developing-world co-denominationalists will take a bit longer to get there. And they should be given break, given well all that [gestures in colonialism].

Fortunately, these schisms may not be all that big of a deal. Reactionary church politics are not a foregone conclusion in Africa, where ENS found some supportive voices admid the misandric loudmouths. And one polity expert believes the GAFCON statement is “wishful thinking” on the part of GAFCON leadership and misrepresents the diversity of opinions that may be found among and within GAFCON-friendly congregations; not all will so keen to split off.

To use a metaphor-cum-pub-trivia-answer, these splinter-groups are like LIV Golf. They are potent threats funded or encouraged rich assholes, but may not have the staying-power to usurp the PGA. Or maybe they will, given the rapid decline of Mainline Christianity in the developed world. Stupid times are definitely ahead.

Your Sunday Semi-Regular Spiritual Roundup

 

So what’s new this week month? Nothing good, as usual, though are working harder to more regularly get you the good content that other people have already discussed more thoroughly on legitimate websites. But hey, we can try and aggragate some of that crap here. That’s something!

British Methodists Enter 21st Century: The John Bulls beat us to the punch again! This month, the UK Methodist Conference reaffirmed their 2019 vote, and will now allow same-sex couples to be married on church premises (gasp) by Methodist clergy (double gasp). Meanwhile the Yanks are stuck in a holding pattern while they try and figure out the best way to schism themselves.

Southern Baptists Avoid Disaster: Last month, the SBC managed to forstall the complete trumpification of their leadership. That doesn’t solve their problems, Oh LAWD no, but it does mean that as an “institution” they will continue to be just regular religious bigots, rather than fascistic religious bigots. They will also likely be able to hold onto to their five remaining Black members. And there’s more good news!…

White Christian Genocide Tapers Off: Great news, assholes! It seems your share of the Hellscape has stopped shrinking for the moment. White Evangelicals are still really struggling to get young blood into their churches. ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE WHY. Will progressive churches find a way to take advantage of millenial agnosticism? Is the Pope Mormon? Speaking of whom…

Pope Not Dead: Well Franco’s intestines seem to be recovering nicely. Still wonder why they insist on electing old guys to do this job when Jude Law already convinced us that 40-somethings could be just as out-of-touch.

Other Stuff Probably Happening In Other Religions Elsewhere: We are sure other religious stuff is happening elsewhere. The Earth is a big place, with regions like the Middle East, where things happen all the time! We encourage you to go look this stuff up. 

Noted Insurrectionist Josh Hawley Punches Down at Pelagius

Credit: Francis Chung/AP (well, half of it)

Lost amidst all the rebellion of the past few weeks was a charming theological nugget that resurfaced from well over a year ago. We almost missed it ourselves! Josh Hawley, last seen avoiding Mittens’ gaze, wrote a lovely little tome back in the good, pre-pandemic times, blaming all of America’s liberal failures on Pelagius, the mortal nemesis of none other than St. Augustine. When he got caught up in the most recent shenanigans, the NYT decided to revisit his theology in a profile linking him to Bill Barr and the other greats of Christian Nationalism.

Pelagius, for the laity, was the great patristic pitchman of human freedom. For him, free will was a gift of Grace, and human beings ought to make full use of it- with God’s help and Christ’s guidance of course! Admittedly, Augustine was a bit overzealous in the takedown of the man; his polemics are why some folks today wrongly assume Pelagius believed that human beings were capable of perfection completely on their own. Really, Pelagius’ biggest sin was underestimating sin itself, as he did not agree with Ol’ Hippo’s understanding of the Fall. But to be completely fair to the poor Irishman, Original Sin was not yet doctrine at the time.

Now we certainly know better today, but any good Catholic will tell you that the inherent sinfulness of man is no reason to poo-poo the good works of free will, even if it needs a touch o’ Grace to set in the right direction. Nor is it any reason to blame Pelagius for his wrong ideas, especially since no one friggin’ knows who he is. Well, outside patristics nerds – they certainly had a good day on Twitter:

If Hawley wants a real antagonist, he should look closer to home. The dear Senator was apparently raised Methodist, where he was undoubtedly was exposed to the *gasp* horrors of John Wesley and his Arminian notions of sanctification. Indeed, Jacobus Arminius is the greater, more relavent instigator of human freedom in faith. Perhaps that’s why poor young Joshua had to flee to the safety of the Evangelicalisms…which are premised the fundamental choice of accepting Jesus Christ as one’s personal savior or not. Whoops.

Pelagius was just a straw man for Augustine’s theology, just as he is a straw man for Hawley’s social conservatism-cum-White Christian nationalism. Hawley’s theology makes zero sense. For all their faults, neither Pelagian nor Arminian freedom necessarily led to moral relativism. Our free choices are always meant to be guided by a principle of goodness! What Hawley really has a problem with is that other people – and other Christians – have different understandings of the “good life,” and they choose to live accordingly. Hey, we totally sympathize, Joshua! We’ve been dealing with Christian pluralism since 1517.

So Who Will Be the Evangelical Messiah Now?

Guys, it’s over. None of us wanted to believe it at first. The results had come in. He was winning in Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin, in Michigan – everywhere that mattered! But then “the mail” started trickling in, and our Man’s lead eroded away like this country’s family values. And then he lost Georgia, GEORGIA! Home of Newt! Home of S. Truitt! No, our Deliverer certainly didn’t give up! His lawyers, gentile and semite alike, toiled and sweated. But despite the many good Christian judges he put into the courts, his case were unfairly thrown out by the bad Christian judges he put in the courts. 

Folks, we can laugh about it all we want, but God’s Annointed has well and truly lost. And so has America.

But press on we must! The lingering question for all Christians (except the liberal ones) is quite simple: just who will be our savior now? Let us remember that we’ve never really had one like Donald Trump. He was never who we expected, but neither was Christ. God works through who He will!

And this is a Truth that had eluded conservative-evangelicals. We thought the Spirit could only truly and fully coelesce in someone whose righteousness was outward and clear. But pastors and the other public Christians we looked up to were simply too pure in spirit to dirty their hands in politics, so we turned to the Christian-aligned political class. Yet it has become clear that this indirect approach to power and influence is too limited and our donees too spineless. That is why Donald was so impactful. While not the most…er… reverant soul, he was assertive, spoke his mind and kept his promises. Well, his promises to us, at least; we actually care very little about economic matters, but we care about conservative judges, embassies in Jerusalem, and policy-apparati that defend non-Muslim religious freedom. And these items he most deftly delivered, Hallelujah! And we’ve since come to realize that Trump represents something all of us have secretly desired: a lib-owning patriarchal worldview that returns us to the Biblical principles of masculinity our pastors have told us definitely exist.

But, that period is over now. So who can take the reigns and solidify these gains? Well, consider these options:

  1. Donald Trump Jr. Let’s just the obvious one out of the way right now. First, unlike the other heirs, he has most dominant personality akin to his father’s, and is as like to speak power-to-truth just as much as he did. Second, he’s the most popular son, and a frontrunner for 2024. One small problem is Donald ben-Donald’s quite obvious coke habit. His father’s sobriety was always a good Christian pivot away from all the sexiness, but Jr. could use some reconditioning.
  2. Congresswomen-elect Majorie Taylor-Green is one possible next evolution (in the non-Devil’s trick sense) of Trumpism. While her Christian bonifides are not that well-established, she’s already shown the evangelical skill of distinguishing good Jews from bad Jews. While I am a bit wary of this conspiracy business, at lot of people in my congregation are “down with the Q”, so whatever. On the other hand, as a brand-new Congresswoman, she still doesn’t have quite the profile.
  3. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Noem has the personality and boldness to rebuild the Trump coalition and win the Presidency. She’s already proven her faith and dedication by killing off much of her state.
  4. A mainstream Republican politician. Haha no, just kidding. None of those quislings will do.
  5. Donald Trump. Honestly, why is this even necessary? First, no one can replace the Man. Second, he isn’t going anywhere. He’ll be the same age as our current Papist-elect in 2024, so why no run again? 

Frankly, this is all just pointless speculation when the obvious answer is #5. If anything, Trump has taught C-E’s to be more pragmatic in trying to get what they want. So let’s rejoice in the fact that DT will be our leader until the day he gets cryogenically frozen.