Evangelicals, Progressives Seek to End Culture Wars

ericstubb »

Thu Oct 11, 2007 3:19 pm Agree: 7   Disagree: 0

Christ said "How can two walk together unless they agree?" Orthodox Christianity is based on Divine revelation. The progressive movement has a different intellectual foundation. Some progressives may be Christians, but not all are; the ideas or values which unify them are then necessarily based on something other than Scripture. Orthodox Christianity requires rejection of homosexual acts, abortion, embryonic stem cell research and other items on the preogressive's wish list. Progressives seem to want to give others what they believe is "fair", yet this sense of justice often gives disproportionate claims to one party over the other: the mother has all rights and the unborn child no right to live; two gays who wish to be married have the right to do so while kids in public schools have no right to learn homosexual acts are immoral; the scientist and the ill have the right to seek cures from embryonic stem cell research but the embryo has no right to live. Christianity has a different sense of justice from progressivism. We can talk, but when "finding a way forward" becomes more important to Christians than Divine Revelation, that Christian has at best compromised his faith to accomodate the world. Our first loyalty should be to Jesus Christ and His kingdom. We're called to be salt and light, not to reach a consensus. Reaching an agreement where we can without compromising our beliefs is good, but I wonder if something more than that isn't going on here.

Another thing: it's odd to me that conservative evangelicals are the ones painted in a negative light by some of those in this article. Anyone who watches or reads the news or sees much entertainment these days will quickly get the sense that progressives do a great deal to marginalize and isolate conservative Christians and all others who disagree with them. We are made to feel distanced and increasingly ex-communicated from society. Have progressives considered their own contributions to the culture wars and the deep rifts in society? Or is this something conservative Christians are going to be scape-goated for?