Politics And Culture | Daniel Darling, Author, Pastor, Speaker

Archive for the ‘Politics and Culture’ Category

May

2013

My Prayer Before the Illinois General Assembly

I had the honor of delivering the convocation on Monday afternoon before the Illinois General Assembly in Springfield. I was graciously invited by the state representative whose district includes Gages Lake, Rep. Sam Yingling. I brought my eight-year old daughter, Grace. We are kindly hosted down in Springfield by my friends, Dan and Linda Anderson and their seven children. Dan is the director of Brazil Gospel Fellowship Mission. I also had a terrific time of fellowship with Shaun Lewis, who ministers with Capitol Commission Shaun reaches out to the representatives, senators, supreme court justices, and staffers with Bible studies, prayer and any counseling they need. I also had the chance to catch up with some good friends: Rep David McSweeney, Rep. Tom Morrison, and others. Grace and I also got to tour the fabulous Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum. If you are ever in Springfield, you must stop there.

The prayer itself was a little nerve-wracking. I’ve done quite a bit of public speaking and preaching and praying–so I’m not usually that nervous with this stuff. But when the presiding speaker spoke my name and I stepped up to the giant lecturn to pray, I did get a few butterflies. I prepped last week by looking at the prayers of several who have prayed before the assembly. Then I wrote it out to the approximate length of what the prayers are.

I wanted to accomplish three things: a) sincerely pray on behalf of the families of the representatives. Politicians are so despised these days, I wanted to be the one person who prays for their well-being and strength. b) represent Christ well in this public forum. I was determined to pray a Christian prayer to our Lord, Jesus Christ. I didn’t worry about any retribution and, to the credit of those who invited me, I had no warnings on that. And the previous convocations included Christ. c) I wanted to offer a prayer asking for wisdom and guidance for our state in the many issues that face us.

At the end of the day, I hope I was a service to the men and women who serve Illinois in the general assembly. I hope I represented my Lord well. And I hope even this prayer might cause some, even one, to ask questions that might lead them to come to Jesus in faith.

Below is my prayer:

Prayer of Convocation

Illinois General Assembly

Monday, May 20^th, 2013

2:00 PM

Dear Heavenly Father. We offer our humble gratitude for the gift of freedom as Americans, forged over 200 years of messy democracy and protected by the blood of our fighting men and women. Let us be ever mindful of the many peoples around the world who are not as free, as prosperous, as blessed as we are.

We are grateful to live in the beautiful and diverse state of Illinois. For the leaders who have risen from this hallowed chamber. For the movements birthed here on our rich soil.

We ask humbly for your blessing on our great land. We offer prayer for the leaders today who serve you, here, in this town. As you have commanded us, we pray for them. For their families while they are away. For their safety while they serve here. For their integrity and wisdom in shaping the laws that will shape our future.

We are thankful for each representative who has stepped out of his ordinary life to serve in leadership here. They have spent countless hours campaigning and now serving. They have given up precious time and resources. They have sacrificed their privacy, putting their lives and their families’ lives on public display. Care for each representative, each senator, each staffer and all of the family members in a special way.

I pray that you’re Spirit visits this place in a powerful way. I pray these men and women find the fortitude to lead well. Give each leader rest, refreshment, and a clear mind. We ask you to move our leaders to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before their God.

Help each lawmaker to consider your command to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves, mindful of the dignity and worth of each human life, created in the image of God. Help them not to forget the poor, the immigrant, the marginalized, and the unborn. Help them create laws that support the institutions that make our communities flourish, that encourage and sustain healthy families, that give hope to those struggling to find their way.

We ask your forgiveness for yielding, too often, to the temptation to forget you in our national and political life. For the times we reject your gracious providence. For confusing courage with incivility. For confusing liberty with license. For substituting our own agendas for yours. For putting our own interests above those we serve. For the tendency to abdicate our responsibility to deal with the tough problems.

Lord, we ask for your grace this day as these men and women endeavor to govern the people of this great state. May they realize that their power is limited, granted to them by your gracious decree. Help them wield this power with caution and humility.

We long for the city to come whose builder and maker is God. We’re thankful for the gift of your Son, who has offered entrance into this kingdom by his sacrificial death and miraculous resurrection.

Grant each of these legislators fresh grace today.

In the name of your son, Jesus Christ, we pray, Amen.

May

2013

Loving Someone With Whom You Disagree

Today in my Friday Five interview for Leadership Journal, I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Russell Moore, the newly elected head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. I’ve long admired Dr. Moore for his clear, biblical teaching and his winsome perspective on the Scripture and politics. One of the questions I asked him was about his relationship with the President. You might not expect a friendship between a liberal Democrat and a conservative evangelical, but this is what Dr. Moore said. I think his response gives Christians a good model for how to disagree agreeably:

I have disagreements with President Obama on some crucially important things, such as matters of life, marriage, and religious liberty. I have respect for him as a leader and as our president, and I like him as a person. When you pray for someone every day, it is hard not to love that person, even when he disappoints you in some area or another.

He and his Administration have always treated me with kindness and respect, and I have friends I love in the Administration. We don’t have to agree on everything to work together sometimes, and to seek to understand one another when we don’t agree.

I hope to honor and to pray for the President, as the Bible commands us to do, even when we disagree, and to work with his Administration when we have points of mutual concern for the common good.

I have learned a lot by watching the example of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in his friendship with the President. In a profile of Sen. Coburn in TIME Magazine, written by President Obama himself, of all people, the senator is quoted as saying, “What better way to influence someone than to love them?” I recognize the Spirit of Christ in that statement, and I hope to live up to it.

Read the entire interview here:

May

2013

How Should Christians React to Hate?

It’s no secret that the biblical sexual ethic, a beautiful monogamous relationship reserved for marriage between a man and a woman, has swiftly fallen out of favor in our culture. The recent declaration by Jason Collins, a veteran NBA center, has exposed the deep rifts in our society on the issue of homosexuality. While most of the world celebrated Collin’s courage, ESPN NBA reporter, Chris Broussard, a committed evangelical Christian, had his own courage to say, into a stiff wind of opposition, that Collin’s lifestyle choices conflict with the Christian faith.

Nothing in this story should surprise us. Society has been moving this direction for some time now. But what caught me off guard, I guess, was the public shaming of the Christian position on marriage. I heard many, well-respected sports commentators, guys I’ve listened to and followed for many years, seemingly equate Christians like Broussard with bigots and with the ignorant and unlearned. The sweeping intolerance of Christianity, the crude names leveled at Broussard and others seems to mark a new moment in our country. The reality is that holding the biblical sexual ethic will now invite open scorn. I only expect it to get worse. I only expect those who stand firm on the Scriptures to experience further persecution and hostility. And we shouldn’t be surprised. Jesus himself promised that his followers would endure some level of persecution. “They hated me, they will hate you,” he predicted (John 15:18).

So the question is this: how now shall we live? What should our reaction be? In my view there are two wrong responses and one right one.

1) We can cave in and seek the approval of men rather than the approval of God. There is a growing movement in the evangelical world that is seeking to make complicated what the Scriptures make plain, namely that perhaps the Bible is not so explicitly condemning of homosexuality as we think. As a person wired to avoid conflict I’m sympathetic to the desire to find this in the Bible, but it is just not there. Jesus himself affirmed the law of Moses when he repeated the words from Genesis, “For this cause a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to His wife” (Matthew 19:5). And while Jesus offered grace to the women who violated the biblical marriage ethic and condemned the Pharisees who wanted to stone her, he also told her, “Go and sin no more.” He didn’t act as if her sexual activity out of marriage was okay. He said it was sin. Sin that brought him to this earth and nailed him to a cross. Sin he graciously has forgiven. Sin which invites the grace and holiness of God. As much as we want to cave in on marriage, because to do so would make our lives as Christians much, much easier, to do so is to abandon the way of Christ. I’m reminded of Peter’s words to the persecuted believers of the 1st Century, “Stand firm in the faith” (1 Peter 5:19).

2) We can ratchet up the angry, hateful, personal rhetoric. As shameful it is to cave in on Scriptural truth, it’s equally sinful to sort of use our position as an increasingly marginalized minority to lash out at those who don’t agree with us. But if we’re to take serious the truth we claim to uphold, we have to listen to all the words of Jesus, including his words, “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:43-48). And we have to listen to the words of that same Apostle Peter. The same guy who told us to “stand firm” also told us to do it with civility and respect (1 Peter 3:15). I find it interesting that Peter, speaking to an increasingly marginalized, persecuted group of Christians, found it important to say, essentially, “Make sure you suffer, not for your own evil, but for doing good” (1 Peter 2:20; 1 Peter 3:17). In other words, we are to speak firmly, but with kindness, winsomeness, charity, and grace. If we are honest, we would admit that the Christian community does not always do this well. We should disagree with Jason Collin’s choices, but we should not mock him, we should not post crude or hurtful slurs online. We should not slander those who disagree with us. We should lead with grace, remembering that Jesus didn’t come to condemn, but to offer salvation and life. Jesus came for sinners and so we should seek to love sinners as much as He did. We should, like Paul, remember that we are counted in that group: we are as much sinners in need of grace as the unrepentant homosexual. I find it interesting that Paul, at the end of his life, nearing the time of his martyrdom at the hands of a cruel despot, surveyed the entire landscape and said, “I am the chief of sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). Imagine that. Paul looked around the entire world, saw wicked men like Nero and the soft Christians who betrayed him and yet said, “They may be sinners, but I’m worse.” What a spirit of humility! This is the spirit that should inform our engagement on these issues where most of the culture resists. We should ask the Spirit to help us fight the urge to return rhetorical evil with rhetorical evil (1 Peter 3:9). We should reject the sort of knee-jerk, crude, mean-spirited kind of speaking that seems to characterize much of our public discourse. Civility is not unimportant and it’s not overrated and it’s not the enemy of courage.

3) We can respond with love and grace.

2 Timothy 3:12 reminds us that “all who live godly in Christ will suffer persecution.” The level of persecution we face today in America is low-level at best. Much of what we think is persecution is simply consequences of our own inability to treat people with grace. But we’re moving into an era where our positions on the issues may invite charges of bigotry. This is where we must not react with surprise or fear–remembering that trials are an opportunity for joy (James 1:2) and occasions for growth and Christlikeness (John 15; James 1:2-4). Fear stems from a lack of faith and fear causes us to react in unloving ways. But if we believe that God is completely sovereign and that we have been tasked by Him to the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18), it is incumbent on us to model Jesus’ behavior and react to hatred and intolerance with grace and love. We should be wise about responding to every charge with a countercharge. We should hold our fire sometimes, as Jesus did in the face of false accusations (John 18:33-38). We should forgive others, looking to Christ’s own forgiveness of us (Ephesians 4:32) and His forgiveness of those who crucified him, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:42). We should not be defensive, whiny, petulant. We should work hard to see every human as someone worthy of respect (1 Peter 2:17), created in the image of God (James 3:9). We should not make our fight personal or political (Ephesians 6:12). The real enemy doesn’t have a human face, but is our adversary (1 Peter 5:8). And our real hope is not in a short-term victory, but in the future hope of a coming kingdom, another world, a city whose builder and maker is God (Matthew 6:10; Hebrews 11:10).

As followers of Jesus, we’re not simply called to be counter-cultural with our sexual ethics, but also in the way we talk, speak, and articulate these things. If we are called to suffer for our faith, let’s pray God gives us the courage and grace to endure and that our lives are but a small glimpse of Christ within.

Apr

2013

A Commitment to Holiness and Humility

I had the privilege of interviewing Rev. Samuel Rodriquez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. Rodriquez is a well-known speaker who represents the growing Hispanic evangelical population. I asked him about a recent honor he received:

You were the first Latino leader to give a commemorative address at Dr. Martin Luther King’s annual commemorative event. Was that opportunity a dream come true?

Beyond a dream come true, the opportunity graciously rendered serves as a testimony to the purpose and promise of God for each of our lives. When I was 14 years of age, I saw a television special on Dr. King when a still small voice in my heart prompted me to write, “One day, God will enable me to connect with Dr. King’s family as I serve our communities.” With a commitment to holiness and humility, all things are possible.

I also asked Rodriquez about immigration reform and the misconceptions white evangelicals often have about Hispanics. You can the rest of the interview here:

Apr

2013

The Political Idol

Okay, I had a terrific interview with cultural commentator and author, Eric Metaxas about a wide-range of things including civic engagement, the role of the Church in culture, evangelical subcultures, and the controversial White House Prayer Breakfast. It was brought to my attention that the section of the interview I had previously highlighted might have been controversial in the sense that it didn’t give the full context of Eric’s remarks and given the impression that I agree with the idea that Christians generally create “subpart art.” Alas, that’s not my intention at all. So rather than stoke a controversy, I decided to highlight another portion. In this section I asked Eric about the tension Christians face between civility and courage:

To be merely and nakedly political and to say things and advocate for issues in an uncivil manner will create an idol of politics and results. To worship that idol is to deny the gospel in another way.

You can read the entire interview here:

Apr

2013

The Best Kind of Protest

Last week, on the way home from classes at TEDS, I listened in on a radio conversation on Moody Radio (90.1 FM). The host was my friend, Chris Fabry. Chris told the story of a listener who wrote in to express his appreciation for Christian radio. The man had come across Moody in a roundabout way. His car was in the shop for repair and the mechanic had not done the work in the time the customer thought appropriate. So he berated the mechanic quite forcefully.

What caught this angry customer off guard was the response of the mechanic, a Christian. He didn’t return fire. He responded with kindness. This unusual display of love completely threw the customer off guard. Upon leaving, he noticed a “fish symbol” somewhere in the shop. And after starting up his car to go home, he heard Moody Radio playing on the stereo. Somewhere after this time (I wasn’t clear from Chris’ telling of the story), this angry customer, who berated and verbally abused a Christian businessman, put his faith in Christ.

This story made me think long and hard about my response to injustice done to me. It particularly made me think about the current brouhaha over gay marriage. Like most evangelicals, I hold to the biblical position of marriage and am offended when those who disagree consider me a bigot or hateful. I am offended by the words of Starbuck’s CEO Howard Schultz, who essentially told us we can “take our money elsewhere.” Starbucks is a company and a brand that prides itself in diversity, a biblical, kingdom value, so I’m curious about the intolerance toward conservative Christians.

But there’s another side to this we need to consider before we take up a protest against Starbucks. I respect those who will say, “I choose to invest my money elsewhere.” That’s a perfectly legitimate and biblically defensible position. I’ve done this with some of my investment choices over the years. But here’s the rub: however we handle Starbucks and other such controversies, we have to ask ourselves the question: how does the Great Commission inform our public engagement?

Somewhere at a Starbucks is a lonely, seeking, hurting employee whom God just may want you or me to love into the Kingdom. Perhaps there is a family member struggling with same-sex attraction who is looking for someone to walk him through these struggles–with both truth and grace. Somewhere there is an unbeliever watching our public pronunciations and asking himself, “I wonder what Christianity is about?”

There is a place for firm resistance to unbiblical values. You can oppose gay marriage because in loving your city and community and country, you hope for a culture that embraces the family unit. And yet, we must ask ourselves the question, always, “How does what I’m doing fit the mission of God to seek and save those who are far from Him?”

I think this informs the way we engage. Personally I’m choosing not to boycott Starbucks. You may choose differently. We can disagree on that charitably. But what we must not do is allow our protest against values with which we disagree overshadow our responsibility to show Christ’s love for the world. Our posture, when offended and maligned, should be like Jesus’ response. “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). It should not be to “return evil for evil” (1 Peter 3:9) and seek to win short-term cultural skirmishes that surrender the long-term battle for someone’s heart.

Like Jesus we must hold truth and grace in tension (John 1:14). We must be both courageous and civil (1 Peter 3:15). Because it may very well be the person who offends us the most in that moment is the person whom God is in the process of saving. And our gracious response might be the bridge that the Spirit uses to usher him from death to life.

Feb

2013

Friday Five: Andrew Walker

I’m thrilled today to chat with my friend, Andrew Walker. Andrew researches and writes about marriage, family and the moral principles that support civil society. As a policy analyst in The Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, he also focuses on how ethics inform public policy decisions and investigates the role that religion plays in American political culture.

Before joining Heritage in November 2012, Walker was a policy analyst and lobbyist with the Family Foundation, a public policy organization in Kentucky. He worked on issues related to education policy, opposition to casino gambling, and the defense of marriage, life and religious liberty.

Walker has been published in outlets such as The Louisville Courier-Journal, The City, The Weekly Standard, Christianity Today, Touchstone, The Gospel Coalition, MereOrthodoxy.com and — as a freelance writer — by the Institute on Religion and Democracy. His broadcast experience includes appearances on Louisville’s Fox and NBC affiliates.

A native of Jacksonville, Ill., Walker graduated summa cum laude from Southwest Baptist University with a bachelor’s degree in religion. He received the highest departmental honors as a theology student. In 2010, he earned a master of divinity degree in theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is pursuing a master of theology degree in ethics there, focusing his studies on political ethics and church-state relations under theologian and ethicist Russell Moore. He is active on Twitter at: @Walker_Andrew

I asked Andrew a few questions about his work and the Heritage Foundation:

1) For people who may not be familiar with the Heritage Foundation, explain the mission and purpose:

The Heritage Foundation began in 1973 under the direction of Dr. Ed Feulner. In many ways, it has become the standard bearer for conservative policy and the conservative movement in America. Heritage came to prominence under Ronald Reagan, whose administration adopted and implemented many of the policies crafted by Heritage scholars. Since then, Heritage has amassed a large grassroots coalition of over 600,000 members who partner with Heritage to see conservative principles advanced across American culture and public policy. Our mission bears repeating, which is to formulate and promote conservative policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. Heritage’s main audience is Congress, so we’re located right in the heart of Washington D.C. on Capitol Hill.

2) 2012 was not a good year for evangelicals at the voting booth. Are you disheartened about Christianity’s so-called waning influence?

I’m not convinced there’s been a drastic plunge in Christianity’s numbers as much as a precipitous decline in the cultural capital that Christianity once wielded. Christianity is no longer a label of cultural validation that it once was. In some places, the label ‘evangelical’ is a term of derision. While we should regret “Christophobia,” increased hostility towards Christians does provide a new context for faithfulness. We shouldn’t resign ourselves to despair, fatalism, or defeatism. Hope should be our sign because, frankly, we don’t determine outcomes by the present. Moreover, if you’re in Christ, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we inherit the cosmos.

But let’s tackle the political aspect. The 2012 election showed, again, a hardening of political divides, with the evangelical voting bloc especially. Precise statistics aside, if you self-identify as a white evangelical, you’re overwhelmingly likely (75%-80%) to vote for one party over another. Why is that? Some critics will accuse Christians of voting in ways to recover the loss of Christian America. Some will accuse Christians of cozying too closely with political powers in order to ingratiate themselves with power. For me, the answer is found in the Christian ethical witness. One party in America demonstrates open hostility to core beliefs of Christian doctrine and ethics. You probably wouldn’t expect Christians to be voting in droves for this party. If there comes a time when both parties are hospitable towards a culture of life, then I think you’ll see political divides begin to weaken. I want Christians to debate the merits of minimum wage laws (and they can), not whether we should allow marriage to be redefined. So, depending on how you measure success, Christians might have been on the losing side of the issues, but they were more united on key aspects related to Christian ethics. If our beliefs should form a consensus, 2012 reveals that, like in 2004 and 2008, evangelicals have a strong united vision for certain public issues of our day. I should issue a word of caution, however, and say that Christians ought to be fiercely independent and not beholden to any party. If there comes a day when both parties demonstrate hostility to marriage and life (and that could be on the horizon), I think you’ll see a mass exit of Christians voting for the GOP. I’m with Peter Leithart who recently remarked that “If the Republican party can’t bring itself to endorse a traditional understanding of marriage, let it split. If the Republican party can’t be bothered about the slaughter of the unborn, let it shatter into a million little pieces.” To that I reply with, “Amen and amen.”
3) Evangelicals today seem to be reexamining their engagement in the public square. What are your thoughts on Christian political activism in the 21st century?

What a question! As many have observed, there are growing pains within evangelicalism and its relationship to politics. I think this is overall very healthy. On the face of it though, rethinking how we’ve engaged in politics isn’t a confession that we ought to abandon politics, which some tragically advocate for.

Evangelicalism’s past engagement with politics has gone in cycles. When Carl Henry awakened evangelicals to the necessity of public engagement, he wasn’t focused exclusively on politics. He did, however, help lay the firmament for what has been known as the Religious Right and its direct engagement on the political process. Today’s evangelicalism is moving in a direction (a good one, I think) that sees politics following downstream from culture. Moving forward, I think you’ll see evangelicals marked for concern with the institutions of culture perhaps more so than direct political advocacy. My friend Thomas Kidd at Baylor very recently remarked that he can’t control the voting patterns of Ohio, but that he can control the culture of his dinner table. That seems about right to me. At the same time, we shouldn’t think of everything in black and white categories. I’m in Washington that has Congress as its audience. Dan Darling has his church as his audience. Congress and families are but two components of culture. The message is that Christians should use whatever platform or venue they’ve been placed in to love their neighbor and to seek the welfare of their city.

We’re also seeing evangelicals adopt the “Common Good” into their political lexicon and as a motive of their engagement. Christians shouldn’t be motivated by social prestige or social privilege; we should be motivated by the Common Good, which means loving our neighbor and advocating for the institutions that facilitate access to human flourishing. One example is marriage. Today’s marriage debates assume that Christians advocate for marriage for exclusively theological reasons. That isn’t accurate. While marriage is an ultimate Christian ‘good,’ is isn’t exclusively a Christian ‘good.’ Marriage is a creational ordinance that fosters well being for all—atheist, Muslim, Jew, or Christian. I want a strong marriage culture because I want kids in my neighborhood to experience life at its fullest—and a Mom and a Dad is a feature of that. Lastly, I also see an evangelical openness to Natural Law—a concept that allows for a common ethical and moral grammar with our non-Christian neighbors. For all the talk of evangelicals lacking a coherent political theology, the Common Good and Natural Law approaches are quite promising.

My present concern is that in overreacting against the Religious Right, some evangelicals are advocating for a very hollow program of post-partisanship—this idea that Christians can largely escape political controversy and the so-called “Culture Wars” by resigning themselves to silence or as above the fray. Any whiff of political talk and certain evangelicals will pounce, decrying the fusion of religion and politics. Frankly, this is profoundly naïve and glosses over the complex layers that motivate Christians to enter the public square. Are Christians motivated by amassing power? I don’t think so. I think it’s more accurate to say that Christians are motivated by ethical witness and forming what Robert George calls humane “moral ecologies.”

When political and cultural forces unite on issues that Christians find disturbing, Christians have the opportunity and I’d argue, obligation, to confront Caesar. Let’s use Hobby Lobby as an example. Are the owners of Hobby Lobby trying to carve out exceptions in the law in order to arbitrarily flout government authorities? By no means. The owners of Hobby Lobby are defying an unjust policy imposed by the federal government because their Christian faith imposes certain ethical (not political!) standards related to human sexuality and human dignity. Moving forward, I’d ask evangelicals and their critics to think about how ethics is the bridge between religion and politics. This changes things, I think.

To me, it seems that some evangelicals are really anxious to be martyrs; that they find sordid delight in Christianity’s lost influence. Fine. Swell. If the time for martyrdom comes, let us be faithful. But remember: Martyrdom comes only when Christianity has been ruled out-of-bounds. I don’t want Christian faith marginalized in America just because we think being on the margins will make us better Christians. Being on the margins or promoting life on the margins doesn’t necessarily make one a more faithful Christian any more so than the profoundly immoral Anabaptist who doesn’t want his or her taxes supporting “empire.” I want a culture responsive to Christian mission, and we don’t have to disentangle ourselves from issues of political importance in order to succeed. The pro-life advocates who counsel a post-abortive woman to Christ are demonstrating both a political and evangelistic witness. That’s not theocracy; that’s evangelism. We just need to be responsible in our politics, which means both boldness and humility, or as someone once said, “Grace” and “Truth.”

4) You studied at Southern Seminary under men like Albert Mohler and Russell Moore. Explain how their scholarship has informed the work you do now.

It was a real blessing to study at a seminary led by two evangelical and intellectual giants. Dr. Mohler’s influence has been instructive for me in seeing how the dynamics of culture work—for good or bad—with the Christian narrative. Dr. Moore combines a perceptiveness about human nature that is uncanny, to be frank. The Christian political task must have an accurate biblical anthropology and both Mohler and Moore understand the nature of man and his proclivities in a way that makes political realities discernible and unsurprising. When you understand the fallenness of man, redemption in Christ, and the unveiling of His Kingdom, you’re rescued from despair but also freed from pursuing some type of Christian utopia. The Christian political program should be one where our view of the Ultimate informs and shapes life in the Penultimate. Both Mohler and Moore are models for that perspective.

5) If you were to recommend a particular book to someone wrestling with the intersection of faith and culture, what would that be?

It’s a little complex and academic, but Robert P. George’s The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis is a clear presentation of how divergent understandings of ethics and morality often lead to cultural conflict.
Bonus Question: I know you’re a huge fan of West Wing. So what’s your favorite character?
The quick response is Ainsley Hayes, because she put the Bartlett administration’s unchecked liberalism on its heels from time to time. As for a main character, Josh Lyman really grew on me as the show progressed. He was tactical, shrewd, unapologetic for his views, and fiercely loyal.

Jan

2013

What We Don’t Want to Hear: Leadership Is Hard

We live in an age when distrust of leaders is, perhaps, at an all-time high. I don’t have any statistics to verify that. However, if my Facebook and Twitter feeds are a reasonable sample, if the blogs and columns and books I read are an indication, people today just don’t like the people who lead them. For instance, Congress approval rating is at an all-time low. The latest negotiations over the Fiscal Cliff exposed the dysfunction in Washington between Republicans and Democrats. And so everybody, everywhere teed off on the politicians.

I think we’ve arrived here for two reasons. First, the last few generations have seen the stunning and tragic fall of leaders of all stripes, from Presidents to pastors. We’ve seen leaders abuse power, not only in Washington, but in the church, in the home, in the community, in business. Many wonder if there are any honest leaders left. Over the Christmas break and into our vacation, I read a few books on the American Presidents. I’m amazed at the decline in respect for this once-great office. Historians may disagree, but I feel that perhaps Watergate was a turning point, where the office of President became less regal. But it’s also the spirit of the age, I think, that we just don’t like or trust those who lead us. Some of this is deserved, but some of this a spirit of rebellion. And I think it makes leadership that much more difficult.

This leads to my second reason why I think we don’t like leaders. This reason points not to the leaders, but to us. You see, it’s much easier to be a critic of a leader than to actually lead. For instance, there is one President and 435 leaders. But there are a seemingly unlimited number of paid pundits, columnists, bloggers, radio talk show hosts, and other such members of the opinion media. Most of them get paid very handsomely to lob their criticisms at those in office. But, here’s the rub, they don’t actually have to lead. They are not in the arena. And so they can articulate purist ideological positions and hammer leaders who deviate, even in small ways. They can resist any kind of deal-making with the other party. They can live in a fantasy world where your side can get everything it wants all the time in every situation. Now, to be clear, I think the media and opinion-makers serve a valuable purpose in our democracy. They help shape the public discussion and influence those in power. After all, I’m a writer and blogger who sometimes gets paid for my opinion. However, looking at Washington from this perch is much easier than having to actually lead and get something done in a difficult environment with those who hold opposing views.

I think this view of leadership prevails in the Church as well. Church leaders should be open to criticism. One of the things that bothers me about some is that they dismiss all criticism with a sort of lazy “haters gonna hate” defense. The best leaders bend an ear to opposing views and admit mistakes and weaknesses. But, it is far easier to be a Christian blogger with an opinion than to be a high-profile pastor in the arena. It’s easier to criticize Rick Warren than to be Rick Warren. It’s easier to criticize John Piper than to be John Piper. It’s easier to criticize Beth Moore than to be Beth Moore.

I think all of us would do well to recognize that leadership is difficult and while we shouldn’t turn a blind eye to abuse and corruption, we should obey the Scriptures and hold our leaders with some esteem. We should recognize that the sideline gig is much easier than the one in the arena, that couch commentary comes easy, real leadership is hard.

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