The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind

Here's historian Mark Noll on the subject of the primitivist strain in American evangelicalism, as exemplified in William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech:

… Bryan's use of history … also marked a difference with Rerum Novarum. Whereas the encyclical made careful use of ancient authorities, especially Thomas Aquinas, both to define a proper method for examining public issues and to provide answers for specific economic questions, Bryan's history was ritualistic and mythic. …

The American Revolution had taught evangelicals that the past was corrupt and that ardent effort in the present might even usher in the millennium. … This primitivism sought to dispense with history almost entirely in its effort to recapture the pristine glories of New Testament Christianity.

Because it draws strength from evangelicals' devotion to the Bible generally and to the illuminating examples of the New Testament specifically, the primitivist influence in American evangelicalism remains very strong. But for evangelicals, the record of the centuries after the New Testament era is dim at best, corrupting at worst. Responding to the crises of the moment, therefore, requires, as in the example of Bryan, an application of absolute principles along with a fervent appeal to millennial possibilities. The aeon between the first and second advent has never been the object of systematic evangelical attention. For William Jennings Bryan, as for evangelical commentary on public life more generally, there has been no Thomas Aquinas, no deference to a tradition such as Aquinas represented for Leo XIII, and no felt need for such deference.

I raise this in response to this post from Mark Kleiman and his follow-up here.

(Kleiman's omission in the links list to the right is an error I will soon correct.)

In these posts, Kleiman seems willing to accept and embrace the naive primitivism of American evangelicalism. He muses about how the Sermon on the Mount and other New Testament passages might inform Christian reflection on public issues, but does not seem to consider that he may not be the first person to do so. I've come to expect this breezy dismissal of 2,000 years of thought, debate and writing from my fellow evangelicals, but it's disappointing to encounter this approach from someone who I think knows better. And last I checked Augustine, Aquinas, Niebuhr, et. al. were still in print.

Having said that, I enjoyed Kleiman's posts because — unlike many contemporary Christians — he takes the Sermon on the Mount seriously. (Much of what he writes here reads like something from Stanley Hauerwas or John Howard Yoder.)

One of my major complaints with premillennial dispensationalism — the view promoted by the Left Behind novels — is that it relegates the ethical teachings of the Gospels to a future millennial kingdom and views them as irrelevant for Christians today. Kleiman, to his credit, takes the Gospels more seriously than LaHaye and Jenkins.

The proximate cause for his comments is Cardinal Martino's expression of sympathy for a particularly unsympathetic enemy. Kleiman's response — that Martino is being scandalously faithful to the teachings of Jesus — reminds me of William S. Burroughs' hilarious reading of the Sermon on the Mount. When he gets to the part about loving one's enemies and turning the other cheek, Burroughs starts muttering that this is damn fool nonsense and the kind of talk that could get a person killed. Kleiman is, of course, less profane that Burroughs, but no less blunt:

Loving your enemies, for example. That has to be one of the world's dumbest ideas.

Kudos to Kleiman for recognizing that this is an idea, at least, that demands a superlative adjective. It's also an idea, however, whose implications have been explored and debated for centuries. Ignoring or dismissing all of that history in an attempt to engage, unmediated by history or community, the "pristine glories of New Testament Christianity" can lead to what Noll calls "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind."

UPDATE: Re-reading this, I realize I've neglected a key point that I want to make regarding Kleiman's post and other, similar, observations about Christianity in general and American Christianity in particular. I should have begun by thanking him.

Christianity, as he reminds us, holds up a very high set of standards. At any given time, in myriad ways, we who accept that name will fall lamentably short of those standards. And one of the ways we fall short is in failing to see that we are doing so.

This leads many people to conclude that "all Christians are hypocrites." I see where they're coming from, but I want to preserve the distinction between hypocrisy and akrasia, or simple human weakness. Jesus himself harshly condemned the former, while extending mercy toward the latter (see, for example, the parable of the Pharisee and the publican at prayer).

Kleiman, again to his credit, avoids this charge. He simply echoes — with one of my favorite comments from Chesterton — that "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." For that reminder, he deserves the thanks of those of us who are trying — however clumsily — to follow this difficult, trying path.