The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience

[OneBlueSky]

by Ronald J. Sider
ChristianityToday.com
January/February, 2005

http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2005/001/3.8.html

(snip)

Scandalous behavior is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most "Christians" regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment.

The findings in numerous national polls conducted by highly respected pollsters like The Gallup Organization and The Barna Group are simply shocking. "Gallup and Barna," laments evangelical theologian Michael Horton, "hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general."1 Divorce is more common among "born-again" Christians than in the general American population. Only 6 percent of evangelicals tithe. White evangelicals are the most likely people to object to neighbors of another race. Josh McDowell has pointed out that the sexual promiscuity of evangelical youth is only a little less outrageous than that of their nonevangelical peers.

- more . . .

http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2005/001/3.8.html

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Does this really surprise anyone? They are all hypocrites.

My only argument is the juxtaposition of the words 'highly respected' and 'Gallup'. From what I have read, the new generation (the son) is not so trustworthy.

highly respected pollsters like The Gallup Organization

[pdxmom]

2. This is exactly the reason I gave up on organized religion

At the age of 13, I realized the hypocrisy of what I heard and learned in church and the behaviors I saw from the same people outside of church. Very few actually walked the walk. I still believe, but don't feel a need to have to belong to a church, which I think has been bastardized to meet some need people have to appear holy, and still engage in behavior that is very unchristianlike.

I've always said that Falwell, Robertson, et. al. are gonna be in for a huge surprise when they get to those Pearly Gates.

[passy]

3. My favorite quote is this one.

"Interestingly, a disproportionate share of the saints were women, African Americans, and persons earning less than $25,000 per year.
"
referring to this study: "In 1992, George Gallup Jr. and Timothy Jones published a book called The Saints Among Us. They used a 12-question survey to identify what they called "heroic and faithful individual" Christians. Some of the questions identified people who believed in the full authority of the Bible and practiced evangelism. But others identified costly behavior: "I do things I don't want to do because I believe it is the will of God" and "I put my religious beliefs into practice in my relations with all people regardless of their backgrounds." They labeled "saints" those who agreed with every question. And they called "super-saints" those who agreed strongly with every question."
No wonder the men in charge are not really compassionate.

[bigmonkey]

4. Antinomianism.

It's a word for the heresy that some people are, by grace or achievement, exempted from all moral rules. More and more of these political Xtians seem to follow that heresy.

[Karenina]

5. Actually, it's also quite common in the

"secular world." Witness a BEST FRIEND from childhood become "rich and famous," few willing to say, "you're being an ASSHOLE" for fear of losing "access." Folks who don't hear "NO" often enough begin to believe the RULES no longer apply to them. And so it is...

[noonwitch]

6. Good article written by an evangelical

I grew up in a religiously conservative community (suburban Grand Rapids, MI). Our Mayor (of Kentwood) had an affair with the city treasurer (the mom of one of my sister's friends). Both were conservative republicans and the mayor's wife and treasurer's husband were both hurt badly by the affair. This was in the early 80s. We were calling Kentwood "Peyton Place" at the time.

I participated in a group called Young Life, which I took seriously and it was a good experience, even if I did break with evangelical christianity later. A lot of the kids who participated were sexually active and also abusers of drugs and alcohol.

When I was in college, I had a roommate who was involved in Campus Crusade for Christ. She was also in my sorority. Her nickname was "BJQ", with the Q standing for queen.

My sister had a black male friend in high school, who was a really good friend, but nothing more. The other kids tormented him and left him hate letters in his locker, made comments all the time about he and my sister, until he started feeling suicidal. Those kids didn't dare do or say those things in front of my sister, who would have enjoyed kicking their pathetic racist butts to Kingdom Come. And this kid could have kicked their butts, but was a nice and gentle kid at the time. He also went to Ferris State on a scholarship and got the crap beat out of him by a gang of roving racists on campus. Eventually, my sister went to the guidance counselors, who put a stop to it. A good number of the kids who committed the racist acts were good dutch reformed children, with christian parents. I know the parents were notified by the staff, but I doubt they were disciplined at home for what they did.

Then of course, there's Hillsdale College, a bastion of conservative education located in southeast Michigan. A few years ago, there was a huge scandal when the school's president's daughter in law killed herself. It came out that she'd been having an affair with her father in law.

Conservatives do not have any kind of lock on moral values.