What can a gay atheist teach Evangelicals? Quite a lot as it happens. In this short and stimulating book, Jonathan Ruach challenges Christians to be true to their faith for the good of society.
His primary audience is American, and his concern is how American Christians have broken their bargain with the democratic order of the United States. John Adams, the second President, famously said that the American constitution was made for “a moral and religious people”. In the context of the early Republic, Adams had Protestant Christianity in mind. Sadly, according to Rauch, the historic mainline Protestant denominations are in serious decline having succumbed to a vague moralistic leftish liberalism.
Many Evangelicals on the other hand are veering politically rightwards to Magaland. Whatever you make of Ruach’s political analysis, his concern is that theologically conservative Christians are in danger of selling their inheritance for a bowl of political stew. Strangely, he holds up the Mormons as an example of how to remain true to [their] faith, but with a generosity of spirit and active public engagement. Putting that aside, Rauch’s big point is valid: Christians, and particularly Evangelicals, must be true to their convictions for the good of others and renew their commitment to the American constitutional order that owes so much to Protestantism.
How does all this apply in our context in Great Britain? Sadly, our older denominations have also largely drifted from orthodoxy and have sold out to the prevailing culture. While there are many wonderful signs of spiritual life, Evangelicals are far fewer relative to the population than in the US. But we need to remember that the American constitutional order has its roots in this country – in Alfred the Great, Magna Carta, medieval political theology, the Reformation and the Puritans. John Locke, the father of classical liberalism, studied under John Owen at Oxford. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 prepared the way for the later American Constitution which basically codified English liberties.
Today British Evangelicals need to rediscover this heritage for the sake of our country, which is drifting into a kind of technocratic tyranny where liberties such as freedom of speech and religion are being undermined. As Christians we are called to do good, and in part that means engaging wisely and graciously in politics at various levels (Titus 3v1-8). Maybe it takes a gay atheist to remind us of that.
CROSS PURPOSES: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy By Jonathan Rauch. Yale University Press. 153 pages. £25 ISBN 978 0 300 273 540
