{"id":7503,"date":"2012-05-04T13:07:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T17:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=7503"},"modified":"2012-07-03T19:54:27","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T23:54:27","slug":"the-boundaries-of-the-evangelical-tribe-are-political","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/05\/04\/the-boundaries-of-the-evangelical-tribe-are-political\/","title":{"rendered":"The boundaries of the evangelical tribe are political"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

David Sessions offers some interesting thoughts on the Rev. Billy Graham\u2019s unusual decision to aggressively enter a partisan political dispute \u2014 \u201cWhy Moderate Billy Graham Supports North Carolina Gay Marriage Ban<\/a>\u201c:<\/p>\n

But what appears to be a departure for Graham actually illustrates an ongoing dilemma for evangelical Christians: the fact that they\u2019ve realized they need to change their tone while remaining determined to hold on to the old message. There have been signs of progress: young evangelicals tend to despise the legacy of the past few decades, and have begun spreading out across the political spectrum. Pseudoscientific views about the earth\u2019s origins, climate change, and homosexuality \u2014 all of which have played outsize roles in evangelical political activism \u2014 are gradually losing their grip. But all of these developments were driven less by intellectual growth than by bad luck: the Bush administration deeply discredited the alliance between evangelicals and the GOP, and the rapid mainstream acceptance of homosexuality meant conservative Christians were increasingly seen as cruel and bigoted. To the extent conservative evangelical leaders have backed away from issues like gay marriage, it\u2019s had more to do with desperation at this situation than enlightenment on the issue.<\/p>\n

I think this is all accurate and helpful. Sessions helpfully distinguishes between Graham\u2019s moderate tone<\/em> and the immoderate political positions he and other such moderates have long moderately supported.<\/p>\n

But in the next paragraph, Sessions stumbles:<\/p>\n

That leaves them in the awkward position of downplaying political positions they still take: Focus on the Family, for example, is still just as opposed to gay marriage as it was before its image makeover, though you\u2019ll never see anything about it on their main organization\u2019s website. There has been little pressure from within the movement for those backing away from old culture-war narratives to substantively adjust course.<\/p>\n

The problem here is that little phrase \u201cfrom within the movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The movement in question here is American evangelical Christianity \u2014 a stream or strain or tradition so notoriously hard to define that \u201cmovement\u201d is about as precise a term as the category will allow. But by inviting us to consider the idea of \u201cpressure from within the movement,\u201d as opposed to pressure from outside of it,<\/em> Sessions raises the difficult question of where that within\/without boundary lies.<\/p>\n

And what Sessions misses, I think, is the way that boundary is now being defined exclusively<\/em> in terms of \u201cold culture-war narratives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sessions seems to accept the pretense that the so-called \u201cgatekeepers\u201d of American evangelicalism care about any other definition \u2014 some set of theological or cultural distinctives other than the set of mandatory culture-war stances they now exist primarily to re-enforce.<\/p>\n

Let me be as clear as possible: For these gatekeepers, \u201cevangelical\u201d is not mainly a religious category. It is a political<\/em> category. Or, more precisely, it is a tribal<\/em> category employing political \u201cstances\u201d as tribal symbols. It\u2019s not about revivalism or biblicism or pietism. It is, above all else, about opposition to homosexuality and opposition to legal abortion. Period.<\/p>\n

What does \u201cevangelical\u201d mean? In America, in 2012, it means this: A white Protestant who opposes abortion and homosexuality.<\/p>\n

If you are a white Protestant opposed to abortion and homosexuality, then there is very little that you can say or do that will cause the gatekeepers of evangelicalism to regard you as not really a member of the tribe. But no matter how orthodox your faith, no matter how revivalistic, biblicistic or pietistic your expression of that faith, if you do not oppose abortion and homosexuality, the gatekeepers will insist you are an illegitimate outsider.<\/p>\n

This boundary is policed with great ferocity. Those who transgress it will be swiftly evicted. Everyone in the tribe knows this, which explains what Sessions says next:<\/p>\n

Virtually no major evangelical figures or institutions have switched sides on the issue \u2014 including the liberal ones, who tend to keep their actual views quiet or vague. Evangelical gay-marriage supporters\u2019 reluctance to take a stand, however well-intentioned it may be, allows conservative figures and groups to adopt conciliatory language and a veneer of moderation while keeping the same old content.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just public figures and donor-dependent institutions \u201cwho tend to keep their actual views quiet or vague.\u201d More than a third of white evangelicals are pro-choice.<\/p>\n

Sit down in a pew in any evangelical church. Look at the person to your left. Now look at the person to your right. Odds are that one of you<\/em> believes something that the gatekeepers of this congregation regard as anathema, forbidden and unthinkable. That person, whichever one of you it is, is there in that pew because she or he is an evangelical Christian \u2014 because her or his story is part of the story of that religious movement and tradition, because her or his faith is an evangelical<\/em> faith. Because this is where she or he belongs<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But if that person were to speak up, to \u201ctake a stand\u201d as Sessions says, then she or he would no longer be allowed<\/em> to belong where she or he belongs. So they keep quiet or vague.<\/p>\n

This also accounts for why Sessions is able to think of \u201cvirtually no major evangelical figures\u201d who support gay marriage. I know plenty of evangelicals who do, and who are outspoken advocates for marriage equality. I suppose none of them would count as \u201cmajor figures,\u201d but the more important point here is that the fact of their advocacy for marriage equality means that they no longer count as evangelicals.<\/p>\n

As soon as someone begins to exert \u201cpressure from within the movement,\u201d that person is quickly redefined as being no longer within<\/em> the movement. As soon as someone proclaims that they are an \u201cevangelical gay-marriage supporter,\u201d the tribal gatekeepers close ranks and loudly proclaim that this person is \u201cnot really<\/em> an evangelical\u201d at all.<\/p>\n

Consider, for example, Jay Bakker \u2014 who as the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker surely counts as a \u201cmajor evangelical figure.\u201d Jay took a clear stand on behalf of LGBT people and was swiftly reclassified as \u201cpost<\/em>-evangelical.\u201d He\u2019s no longer accepted as part of the tribe.<\/p>\n

As long as we accept the gatekeepers\u2019 tribal and political redefinition of \u201cevangelical,\u201d then there can never be such a thing as \u201cevangelical gay-marriage supporters\u201d because that redefinition of evangelical precludes<\/em> support for same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n

As long as we pretend the gatekeepers\u2019 tribal definition is the only valid one, then anti-gay and anti-abortion is what \u201cevangelical\u201d means.<\/em>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Sessions offers some interesting thoughts on the Rev. Billy Graham\u2019s unusual decision to aggressively enter a partisan political dispute \u2014 \u201cWhy Moderate Billy Graham Supports North Carolina Gay Marriage Ban\u201c: But what appears to be a departure for Graham actually illustrates an ongoing dilemma for evangelical Christians: the fact that they\u2019ve realized they need […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9,17,53,52,65],"class_list":["post-7503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicals","tag-abortion","tag-equality","tag-gay-rights","tag-homosexuality","tag-tribalism"],"yoast_head":"\nThe boundaries of the evangelical tribe are political<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"David Sessions offers some interesting thoughts on the Rev. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The boundaries of the evangelical tribe are political","description":"David Sessions offers some interesting thoughts on the Rev. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}