I'm currently in Washington DC. There are three reasons I come to Washington. The first is to visit my friends, the rector of Grace Church and an assistant at St. Johns. The second is for salsa. And the third - to hang with progressive Piskies.
My biggest complaint is that I can't do a live blogging. So currently I'm in Adams Morgan while others are talking about race and the environment.
There are about two hundred people here - there's an All Saints Pasadena / WDC grouping, with random individuals from througout the country. I saw Susan Russell, but I haven't yet said hello. When I introduced myself as the saltyvicar [quietly], I got a couple very sweet thank yous and a hug. Another reason to keep blogging.
David Hollinger gave the first talk. He gave a wonderful historical introduction to the decline of mainline protestantism, referring to the liberal protestants who had first understood this country as Christian - but in the social Gospel fashion. He then examined how we've moved away from looking at ourselves as a Christian nation, with Christianity having a proprietary relationship in this country.
Hollinger first demonstrated how liberal Christians [especially as exemplified by Reinhold Neibuhr] were part of the establishment. These leaders paid casual calls on presidents and ex-presidents. Magazines cared who these leaders said. They assumed Christians had a special role in the culture.
Not all Protestants approved of this influence. Evangelicals formed a common cause against liberal bishops, and many mainstream protestants were divided over science, higher criticism and missionary work.
Hollinger then explored the consequences of two conferences held in the early 1940's - one in St. Louis and another in Cincinnati. The two conferences charted very different paths. At St. Louis – people fed up as the liberal drift [Fosdick] towards secularism Founded the National Association of Evangelicals and created Christianity Today.
The other conference at Ohio Wesleyan, the council of churches discussed what post war world should look like. These people were comfortable with Social Gospel tradition and engaging the world. They identified nationalist chauvanism as one of its worst problems. They argued that the USA should work toward world government and non-capitalist modes of government, respect human diversity, cultural diversity and human rights, and institute justice within the US and demanded end to discrimination in the US.
OXFAM was the enemy [I'm not sure if I heard this right] of evangelicals, and the NCC and NAE defined themselves against each other. The NAE didn't like the liberal air of superiority. Liberals, for example, complained about the Billy Graham's “intellectually obscurantist” notions of the Christian faith.
Evangelicals and liberals disagreed about civil rights. Evangelicals thought that this was not a spiritual issue. They argued that these issues fell under Ceasar's law, and that civil rights were led by communists.
During the civil rights movement liberal protestants were bloodied by marching. The roles of secular Jews and the Catholic Question generated widespread concern that the church-state question would create problems.
Liberal protestants got everything they wanted in the previous generation. And Catholics figured out that protestants saw them as second class citizens. When Kennedy affirmed the church-state separation, Liberals supported Kennedy; evangelicals were still suspicious of catholics.
At this time, there were two phases of Jewish acceptance. First, there was a sudden popularization of a “Judeo-christian” tradition against Godless communism. Religious categorizations really mattered – and Jews, Catholics and Protestants shared the direction of the country. Sharing of religious ownership, whether Jews were religious or not.
Liberal protestants relaxed the rules inhibiting the Jewish entry into higher education. Eventually, Jews constituted 20-25% of the faculties. Hollinger pointed out that the decisions to drop the anti-semitic rules in the 1940’s were made by liberal protestants. Evangelical protestants were simply out of this loop, and had no role in reversing this decision.
For the first time Protestants, especially after 1960, were sharing a strategic space with people who were not protestants or Christian. After wwII, the secular space were created by entry of Jews in the university. The concept of America as a Christian nation became insulting to those who were not Christian. Secular Jews demonstrated that morality could be promoted by the “Berkeley-Cambridge” axis.
Religion as an identity got replaced by racial demographic structure. It became harder to claim that what was most important about an individual was their religious faith.
We see, especially in missionary work, the consequence of liberal Protestantism. It used to be that more than 85% of national income went to missionary work.
Liberal protestants, however, have chosen service over conversion and plant the seeds of a religious life through affirming a pluralistic Christianity, and through hospitals, farming. Liberal Christianity Seemed to have a lot in common with relativists. By 1960’s they were confronting the idea that missions were inherently patronizing.
[to be continued]