Says a Christian leader: "Both parties do offer helpful perspectives..."

(Tim) Recently, I've grown weary of man-pleasing Christian leaders positing moral equivalence between the Republicans and Democrats, saying and writing things like this just sent out to a bunch of leaders by a veteran InterVarsity staff worker who, in the course of commending this article and the St. Louis churches profiled in it, had this to say about the Democratic Party's "helpful perspectives":

Evangelicals are now seeing that both parties do offer helpful perspectives and that those things that a Christian should have convictions about are more than just one or two issues. Amen and amen.

Bunk, and double bunk. So I responded to my dear friend this way:

* * *

"both parties do offer helpful perspectives..."

What?

So of course we all agree that Bonhoeffer was a fool, plotting to kill the murderer of millions of innocents. Got what he deserved. He should have been able to see the Holocaust in the context of the larger and deeper political and military realities Hitler faced and not been so singleminded in his actions...

I mean, really; once he left behind that petty single issue of the Holocaust--you know, all those bodies--could he not see the helpful perspectives of Nazism in so many other areas of German and European geopolitics?

Yes, his Confessing Church had some truth, and the Barmen Declaration said some good things--helpful, really--but no one ever has a corner on the truth and we all must be balanced in our civic responsibilities.

Really; what claptrap, dear brother.

I'd read this New York Times article last week--the one you forwarded to us just now--and having been involved with Acts 29, was disgusted by Thomas' statement:

"The easy thing is to fight, but the hard thing is to put your gloves down and work together towards a common cause," said the Rev. Scott Thomas, director of the Acts 29 Network, which helps pastors start churches. "Our generation would like to put our gloves down. We don't want to be out there picketing. We want to be out there serving."

As if these dudes ever had their gloves on. Driscoll did some time back, and still does to some degree; but the rest of them never threw a punch and are only continuing in the trajectory they've always lived. Furthermore, the really obnoxious part of the article and what Thomas says is to act as if our choices are between ministry/missionalism and saying God's "no." Truth be told, those who avoid saying God's "no" never begin being missional, let alone evangelistic.

Read the book of Acts, brother. Always, always, always, they were cut to the heart by the missional evangelistic true Gospel preaching. So, what's changed?

Nothing, except that we are no longer blessed with the Holy Spirit's power and so our converts join pathetic religious clubs rather than the Church of Jesus Christ.

The much-maligned "picketing" doesn't scratch the surface of the church's responsibilities to these slaughtered children. Let justice roll down, indeed. Blood and death and murder of unborn children at the rate of 1.3 million per year and you posit moral equivalence between the two parties. Would you have written this in the less bloody time of Nazi Germany? Yes, I said "less bloody."

"More than one or two issues."

Well, sure; let's add the slaughter of the newly born, but defective; the starvation of the elderly; and we're up to three or four. But funny thing, the Democrats are only falling lower into the pit of Hell with each one we add.

No, I'm no Republican. I look on the presidential aspirations of Senator McCain with something approximating nausea. But to hear men talk about what followers of Jesus Christ have to learn from Democrats is far beyond nausea, to utter revulsion.

Everyone in Church of the Good Shepherd knows I'm opposed to affiliation with the Republican party. The most frequent statement they hear from me on the subject is Sobran's line: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, I'm a Republican." And yet...

The people of God simply cannot grant moral equivalency--what you refer to as "speaking equally strongly" into the Republican and Democratic parties--as long as one party intentionally endorses the slaughter of 1.3 million unborn babies a year and the other opposes it. Deal with the Nazi parallel, brother, and realize why you've been sucked into the moral equivalence error. It's hugely popular with the New York Times and InterVarsity people, following in the steps of Jim Balaam-Wallis. It gets us lots of ears and deep murmurs of approval.

I know what works among educated people, especially in the D.C. sphere. They're convinced everything's political, so what you wrote will do well by them.

But this one thing we must keep front and center in this evil day: Nazism was less bloody than the Democratic Party.

So then, tell us why we should have Holocaust museums to Nazism but not to the Democratic Party?

As I've said many times before, I wouldn't vote for a county dog catcher that wasn't pro-life.

Comments

[Keith LaMothe]

"moral equivalence between the Republicans and Democrats"

Well, it's not quite there, but it's moving in that direction. But it's the wrong direction, towards the wrong equivalence.

[Tim Bayly]

"it's moving in that direction"

Yes, but one from hypocrisy while the other from outright love of death and Hell...

[David Cassidy]

One might more accurately say that both major parties have their fare share of evil and wicked members and leaders who desire power rather than responsibility, and to be served rather than serve.

[Tim Bayly]

>One might more accurately say that both major parties have their fare share of evil and wicked members

Of course, but we're talking a Holocaust *platform* for the Democrats. Their principles are death and destruction--principles, my dear friends.

[Keith LaMothe]

"their principles are death and destruction"

Certainly true. I think my political cynicism prevents me from seeing the republicans as significantly better, but I have to remember that there are true believers up there in Congress and that they're mostly in the Republican party because there was at least hope there.

Perhaps I should call the parties as "the Republican party" and "the Mordor party", just to keep the distinction straight.

[Fr. Bill]

Back in 2003, Touchstone published an issue about the Democrats which made the same point as this blog, viz. that in the Democratic political party you find an organization committed to secular, anti-religious, pro-abortion agendas.

In the aftermath, there was this howl of horror from amongst Touchstone's readers,which proved to be something of a shock to its editors. Seems this moral equivalence mush was pretty well established among the subscribers.

I am grateful the editors held their ground against the bitter criticism leveled at them for daring to call a spade a spade.

[David Talcott]

Dear Tim,

In light of the intolerability of affiliating with the Democrats, why not publicly affiliate with the Republicans? We have our differences with Bonhoeffer, but if we were in Germany with him then wouldn't we be right to join up? Perhaps I'm young enough that I've only been fooled twice, but it seems they're the best we have to work with.

With love,

David