Column: Evangelicals seek positive change
Jonathan Merritt, has become one of the most persuasive articulators and exemplars of a revised form of evangelical engagement with politics.
Apr 17, 2012
USA Today
March 25, 2012
By Tom Krattenmaker
Judging from the Republican presidential race and news media story lines, it's the same old, same old in 2012: GOP candidates courting the evangelicals. Analysts offering their latest conjecture about whether "the evangelical vote" will swing to Candidate X or Y. Evangelical kingmakers gathering on a ranch in Texas to anoint the official evangelical choice to defeat the despised Democrat.
But not far below the surface, change is afoot in the ranks of a once-reliable GOP voting bloc and around that term, "evangelical." As has been widely reported, more evangelicals are breaking formation and tackling social problems such as poverty and human trafficking that weren't on the evangelical political agenda a decade or two ago. Even more seismic, though, is a challenge being mounted against the notion that electoral politics is the way to do God's work in America's public life.
In a refreshing departure from the culture war mind-set that has come to characterize this and other recent elections, some of evangelicalism's leading thinkers and spokespeople are trumpeting an important insight: Christians too fixated on politics are bound to end up frustrated and tarnished. And politics is not the only way to create positive change.
Politics played like sports
It's good to find so many Americans interested in elections. But while following the big contests of recent years — the bruising rhetoric, the breathless 24/7 news media and Internet coverage, the "just win" mentality — one gets the sense that it's often not the right kind of interest. Many of us seem to engage in politics the same way we follow sports: What strategy will it take for my team to stick it to the opponent on Sunday? Who's moving up and who's moving down in the playoff race? Who's dissing whom on Twitter?
Seeing many of Christianity's most ardent and visible followers caught up in the mean-spirited, truth-demolishing aspects of this is one of the more discomforting features of today's politics. What a relief it is to see a growing community of evangelical thinkers and leaders restoring sanity and taking corrective action to free their faith from politics' damaging grip.
Consider Jonathan Merritt. A one-time GOP precinct leader and the son of a Baptist pastor from Georgia, Merritt, 29, has become one of the most persuasive articulators and exemplars of a revised form of evangelical engagement with politics. Despite the impression one gets from the political rhetoric of late — a "war" on Christians, a "war" on women, a "war" on contraception (and a "war," evidently, on measured language) — Merritt is convinced that the culture wars' days are numbered.
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Apr 17, 2012
USA Today
March 25, 2012
By Tom Krattenmaker
Judging from the Republican presidential race and news media story lines, it's the same old, same old in 2012: GOP candidates courting the evangelicals. Analysts offering their latest conjecture about whether "the evangelical vote" will swing to Candidate X or Y. Evangelical kingmakers gathering on a ranch in Texas to anoint the official evangelical choice to defeat the despised Democrat.
But not far below the surface, change is afoot in the ranks of a once-reliable GOP voting bloc and around that term, "evangelical." As has been widely reported, more evangelicals are breaking formation and tackling social problems such as poverty and human trafficking that weren't on the evangelical political agenda a decade or two ago. Even more seismic, though, is a challenge being mounted against the notion that electoral politics is the way to do God's work in America's public life.
In a refreshing departure from the culture war mind-set that has come to characterize this and other recent elections, some of evangelicalism's leading thinkers and spokespeople are trumpeting an important insight: Christians too fixated on politics are bound to end up frustrated and tarnished. And politics is not the only way to create positive change.
Politics played like sports
It's good to find so many Americans interested in elections. But while following the big contests of recent years — the bruising rhetoric, the breathless 24/7 news media and Internet coverage, the "just win" mentality — one gets the sense that it's often not the right kind of interest. Many of us seem to engage in politics the same way we follow sports: What strategy will it take for my team to stick it to the opponent on Sunday? Who's moving up and who's moving down in the playoff race? Who's dissing whom on Twitter?
Seeing many of Christianity's most ardent and visible followers caught up in the mean-spirited, truth-demolishing aspects of this is one of the more discomforting features of today's politics. What a relief it is to see a growing community of evangelical thinkers and leaders restoring sanity and taking corrective action to free their faith from politics' damaging grip.
Consider Jonathan Merritt. A one-time GOP precinct leader and the son of a Baptist pastor from Georgia, Merritt, 29, has become one of the most persuasive articulators and exemplars of a revised form of evangelical engagement with politics. Despite the impression one gets from the political rhetoric of late — a "war" on Christians, a "war" on women, a "war" on contraception (and a "war," evidently, on measured language) — Merritt is convinced that the culture wars' days are numbered.
Read More