Each time the religious-right has risen to McCain, some of their energy seems to be sucked away by Obama’s surf to the center. Pointing out the disappointments of the Bush Administration’s faith-based initiatives, Obama surprised many by proposing not to shut them down, but to fix and expand the program.

Frequently critical of McCain’s “Bush-like policies”, Obama was careful to point out his difference: tax money would be used to subsidize religious activity if the government grants were used only for secular programs.  Funded groups would also have to follow federal hiring laws, and couldn’t discriminate based on race, sex, religion or (Obama proposes) sexual orientation — a change that may make some faith-based organizations balk.

As Michael Gerson said Tuesday and WMB later blogged, “There is nothing exclusively Republican about the faith-based agenda. The main beneficiaries, contrary to some accusations, are established groups such as Catholic Charities or Lutheran Social Services… they also tend to embrace political liberalism.”

Obama’s language is clearly from this politically-left, social gospel persuasion. He links religion and secularism together in a way no James Dobson or Pat Robertson diehard ever would. His speech echoed the tones of left leaning ministers of faith: “The challenges we face today—from saving our planet to ending poverty—are simply too big for government to solve alone,” adding that we need to “empower faith-based organizations.”

Jacques Berlinerblau, on his blog “The God Vote”, points out that Obama cannot be accused by conservative Christians of flip-flopping on this issue. In Audacity of Hope, Obama said “Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before they enter the public square.” Obama seems to have a genuine desire to shift the Democratic Party’s views on religion and government.

His faith-based speech seems to have taken the first step towards that end. Berlinerblau believes Obama will “continue to entice ‘Obama-Curious’ Evangelicals and Catholics. More importantly, it might drain interest away from McCain by getting religious conservatives to shift from a ‘no way’ to a ‘whatever’ response, when thinking about Obama’s candidacy.” Striking away at Obamaphobia is a step away from gaining a supporter.

And that may be Obama’s strategy. Michelle Cottle of The New Republic told ABC News This Week, “Obama doesn’t need to win this group, all he has to do is get his numbers with evangelicals up to the 30% that Bill Clinton got. He’s probably going to get elected.” Just a 10 percent shift of white evangelicals from the GOP could be enough to tip the election.

More than 90 evangelical leaders met in Denver last week to wrestle their way to a consensus on the 2008 election.  They reached an unstartling one: They may not be thrilled with cCain, but they’re scared stiff of Obama.

Leaders included Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum, Phil Burress of Citizens for Community Values, Steve Strang of Charisma Magazine, and David Barton of Wallbuilders.  According to Charisma Magazine, Schlafly said, “The alternative is so bad we must support John McCain.”  Burress echoed the sentiment: “If Obama wins I need to be able to get up on November 5th, look at myself in the mirror, and when I pray, say, ‘Lord, I did all that I could.’”

David Brody called it a “key turning point for McCain.”  But as dissenting voices get louder and Obama makes gestures of peace toward religious voters, this crowning of McCain may mobilize other evangelicals to distance themselves from McCain’s endorsers.

Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell has gathered the signatures of over 10,000 people who say they are “standing up for our Christian faith and supporting Barack Obama.”  In the Des Moines Register, Rev. David Bjorlin objects to what he calls the hijacking of the word “Evangelical:” It “puts me in a place where, as an Evangelical, I must vote Republican, never question the government, always support war, believe that tax cuts are a great concern of Jesus, disavow science and accept all the other beliefs that have been thrown upon the stinking heap of the already-soiled Evangelical name.”

Participants in the Denver meeting also signed a Declaration of American Values, echoing the language of the Declaration of Independence.  This Declaration affirmed values like the sanctity of life, marriage, and parental rights, along with gun rights, secure national borders, federalism, and a tax system that encourages limited government and free enterprise.

Eighty evangelical leaders are signing an “Evangelical Manifesto” that rebukes both liberal and conservative evangelicals for diminishing the Gospel to fight the culture wars, becoming “‘useful idiots’ for one political party or another.” It encourages political engagement, but it says evangelicals have sometimes spoken “truth without love” and it calls on evangelicals to “reform our own behavior.”

The document is embargoed until Wednesday, so most of the discussion centers on who is involved in writing and signing the manifesto.

Warner Todd Huston calls the manifesto “another attempt by the political left to undermine the devotion of Christians to the political right,” and asks why the project “studiously excluded so many prominent conservative Christians.”

Warren Cole Smith says the document has both virtues and flaws, but he also questions the list of people who either haven’t signed or say they weren’t included in the process: Gary Bauer, Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land, Michael Farris, and Concerned Women for America’s Wendy Wright.

But FundamentaList’s Sarah Posner points out that it’s unlikely that some of the most dedicated culture warriors would want to sign a document clearly criticizing some of their tactics: “The list of names Smith claims were excluded represents the generals who issue the orders to the foot soldiers in the religious right’s politicized culture war.”

The list of participants isn’t easily boxed, either. Rick Warren is a Southern Baptist pastor who is hard to categorize politically. For instance, some religious right leaders criticized him for inviting Barack Obama to speak at his church’s annual AIDS conference, but Democrats criticized him for inviting four Republicans and only one Democrat to speak at the same conference.

Several others – at least the few whose names are public — aren’t primarily political figures. Os Guinness is an academic and author. So are Richard Mouw, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary, and Timothy George, founding dean of Beeson Divinity School.

The Religious Right is still desperately trying to catch John McCain’s attention, and they’re still running into the same problem that left them with a candidate so distasteful to them in the first place. They can’t seem to pull it together and make up their minds.

The latest news: A group of 20 social conservative leaders has signed a full-page ad issuing dark threats if McCain picks Mitt Romney for his vice president. The irony: The group includes a former Romney supporter.

Paul Weyrich – founder of the Moral Majority – once supported Mitt Romney for president. Then Weyrich admitted before Religious Right leaders “and before almighty God” that he was wrong, and decided to join the campaign against Mitt Romney for vice president.

Baffling, but Christian Right guru James Dobson has flip-flopped, too [see Focus response below]. First, Dobson said he would vote for a third party candidate if neither party nominated “an individual who pledges himself or herself to the sanctity of human life.” Then Dobson said he would vote for (but not endorse) either Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee. After Romney dropped out, Dobson endorsed Huckabee — too late to make a difference.

The GOP nominated a candidate with an unimpeachable pro-life voting record, but Dobson still isn’t happy. He backed off his threat to vote third party and said he wouldn’t vote at all this November. Then he changed his mind and said he will vote, despite the fact that McCain supports embryonic stem cell research.

But if McCain changed his position, would it help? It didn’t help Romney. The whole thrust of the anti-Romney campaign is that Romney is untrustworthy because he reversed his positions on abortion and gay marriage.

On April 2, James Dobson told the Wall Street Journal, “I have seen no evidence that Sen. McCain is successfully unifying the Republican Party or drawing conservatives into his fold.” Considering the wildly vacillating choices social conservatives have made this election season, maybe McCain is waiting for them to unify themselves first.

UPDATE: (From Gary Schneeberger, vice president of media and public relations for Focus on the Family Action):

The thesis of Alisa Harris’ commentary is faulty – which might explain why some of her facts are, too. Central to her analysis is that socially conservative evangelicals all fit snugly under a single tent; problem is, that never has been accurate. Our movement is a vast and varied one – from political insiders who see pragmatism as the best way to effect long-term change, to more prophetic voices whose allegiance is to principles – not candidates, political parties or even election results.

It is into this second camp that Dr. Dobson falls. Ms. Harris accuses him of “flip-flopping” on the standards that will guide his voting this November. In truth, Dr. Dobson made it clear, speaking as a private citizen from as early as January 2007, that he could not support Sen. McCain’s candidacy. He said the same of the candidacies of Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson later last year. He also said, as Ms. Harris notes, he would vote for a third-party candidate if both major parties nominated standard-bearers not committed to the sanctity of human life. That commitment to not cast a ballot for someone who would end preborn life has not wobbled one whit: certainly not in Dr. Dobson’s indication he could vote for either Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, the two candidates who unapologetically championed the pro-life cause; or in his endorsement this February of Gov. Huckabee, still in the race at the time.

It is also unfortunate that Ms. Harris states that Dr. Dobson remains unhappy even though the GOP, in McCain, has anointed someone with an “unimpeachable pro-life voting record.” That is simply untrue. Sen. McCain led the charge in the Senate on two bills that would have allocated federal money for lab experiments on human embryos – tiny human lives which would have been killed after the tests were done. Thankfully, President Bush understood that you can’t call yourself pro-life and abide the slaughter of nascent life in the name of suspect science. He vetoed the immoral legislation, knowing it would lead to cloning. Dr. Dobson agrees with the president’s position, which is one of the reasons he is “still not happy” with the GOP’s ’08 nominee.

Still, Ms. Harris goes on to suggest Dr. Dobson recently told Sean Hannity he would vote for Sen. McCain anyway – evidence of yet another apparent flip-flop. In truth, what Dr. Dobson said on Hannity’s America a few weeks ago was that he certainly would vote, but gave no indication for whom, emphasizing the importance of the candidates and issues down the ballot and expressing his belief that we have a God-given responsibility to let our voices be heard. Again, there is nothing inconsistent in these pronouncements.

Dr. Dobson has spent 35 years “in the arena,” as Theodore Roosevelt said, defending the value of all human life and the importance of traditional marriage as a building block of society. He’s taken his fair share of hits from the media (even the Christian media, including World) for the stands he’s taken. Those positions spring not from expediency, but from conscience and principle. It is an honor to serve such a man, because he is the antithesis of a flip-flopper. He is guided by deeply held biblical convictions – and is unafraid to defend his beliefs against those who would mock or misrepresent them.

Readers: I stand corrected in my mischaracterization of Dr. Dobson’s comments, saying that he will vote in November, as implying that he will vote for Sen. John McCain. It wasn’t my intention to misrepresent his position in any way, and I’m very sorry for any damage or confusion this has caused. Alisa Harris

The original article was posted on WORLD On the Web on April 8.

Sen. John McCain launched his “Service to America” tour at Mississippi State University with a proud-patriotism speech that colorfully recounts his family’s history of military service. It’s hardly a surprising move for a Republican candidate who will rely on his military history to appear more experienced and resolute than his Democratic rival (whoever that may be). But nearly everyone with an opinion has come up with reasons why the speech wasn’t a good idea.

The New Republic bloggers Jason Zengerle and Barron YoungSmith compare McCain’s approach with those of two Republicans he doesn’t want to emulate: Bob Dole and George W. Bush. Zengerle writes that the McCain speech is Dole-esque for its “soaring meditations on valor and honor, but ones that ultimately make the candidate seem archaic and leave voters depressed rather than excited.” He then floats the fascinating idea that this approach works with reporters, who appreciate the melancholy of an aging idealist, but will come off as depressing to the “average Sprint guy.” Probably true, but is McCain really trying to win over the average Sprint guy right now, or is he still after the Republican base? A good guess is the latter, and that we’ll see different aspects of McCain’s record highlighted when average Sprint guys start paying attention.

Beliefnet’s God-O-Meter finds the speech surprising for its lack of pandering to evangelicals, but believes it may contain “a veiled pitch to the Christian Right, laying out his views on the primacy of family and the government’s role in protecting the family unit as the building block of society.” Also probably true, but what if the whole thing was a not-so-veiled pitch to the Christian Right? Does God-O-Meter get that the religious right loves the military almost as much as it loves the family?

The speech apparently reminded Frank Schaeffer, disenchanted son of the late Christian apologist Francis Schaeffer, how much he hates the Iraq war. At the Huffington Post, he echoes YoungSmith’s point about McCain’s “lone veteran parade” ethos, arguing that McCain’s sense of “honor” makes him too attached to the military to make detached presidential choices:

That is McCain’s problem: the Iraq War is too deeply personal to him. He also has had a son serving, but I mean something else. I mean that McCain confuses his personal ethic of past military service with future policy. Listen to McCain speaking and you hear an old man looking backward while articulating a litany of maudlin references to his sense of honor, service and sacrifice as the main reason for electing him.

Schaeffer’s point seems interesting, but directly after the above paragraph, it leaps from historically informed analysis into a shallow political screed: “McCain seems ready to sacrifice the American future to his sense of past personal honor. Why else would he be refusing to admit his mistake of supporting the Bush fiasco?”

McCain has strongly criticized administration officials for their handling of the war (saying it was “terribly mismanaged,” and Rumsfeld is “one of the worst defense secretaries in history”). But this fact is lost on Schaeffer, who is too loudly insisting upon a “completely fresh start” (translation: Obama) and “the good of the American people” (translation: unconditional withdrawal) to notice that McCain admits that the war’s handling has been sometimes disastrous. Instead, Schaeffer says, “If we are to get out of the mess [Bush] made we need good judgment and a ruthless disregard for any concern other than for the good of the American people.”

McCain’s speech was an unsurprising reiteration of his military cred, designed to ingratiate himself with his party’s military-loving base. And since most of the country is still on pins and needles watching Obama vs. Hillary, its impact is not likely to go much further.

The editors of WORLD have put together another great issue, and it’s now available online. Here are some highlights:

Cover story: Mark Bergin, Jamie Dean, and Lynn Vincent on how soaring foreclosure rates are devastating some communities and raising questions about how much imprudent lenders and borrowers should lose, how much taxpayers should pay, and what churches can do to help.

Campaign 2008 Special Report: Warren Cole Smith on the inability of the religious right’s leaders to unite behind a GOP candidate, and how they face a wilderness road to the White House. Plus, Jamie Dean and Marvin Olasky take a look at Barack Obama’s historic speech, which has not silenced all critics or lifted all polls.

Religion: Richard N. Ostling on the unending debate over gays, as mainline denominations prepare for a new round of potential standoffs and more dissatisfaction on all sides.

Entertainment: Megan Basham on how filmmaker Tyler Perry is taking Hollywood with loud themes of redemption.

Thoughts: Insightful columns by Joel Belz, Gene Edward Veith, Janie B. Cheaney, Mindy Belz, Andrée Seu, Marvin Olasky, and Andy Obrochta, who writes on obeying God from prison.

For all you non-subscribers out there, we’d love to have you join our family of readers and not miss out on all WORLD has to offer. Click here for more info. (Subscriptions make great gifts, too!)

Have the culture wars come to an end?

E.J. Dionne predicts the beginning of a new, more secular era, comparing this election to FDR’s, when the crisis of the Great Depression outweighed people’s former squabbles about Prohibition.

Dionne predicts that “large, secular problems” like war, the economy, and globalization will eclipse voters’ concern for moral values. John McCain, he points out, won by focusing on national security instead of abortion, and Democrats are closing the gap between religious voters. Dionne ends with a statement that’s become cliché this year: “The era of the religious right is over.”

Daniel Larison dissects Dionne’s argument and disagrees. “The culture wars are not only continuing, but they are arguably intensifying and the belligerents are become more hardened in their opposition.” Obama faces questions about patriotism and religious faith, Romney struggles with the Mormon question, and Huckabee ends up the second-to-last man standing. In a diverse and splintered society, “political polarisation will keep increasing as citizens come to have less and less in common with one another.”

Rod Dreher sides with Larison: “The culture war isn’t dead; it’s just shifting fronts.” It’s becoming less about “sex stuff,” Dreher says, but it’s becoming a war that divides by race and social class.

Peter Steinfels echoes Dionne’s cliché with a caveat: “Combat may wane, at least a little, at least for a while. But there are good reasons to doubt any lasting truce, let alone a real peace.” Culture wars began before the Religious Right, and they’ll continue because our surface divisions come from deep philosophical fissures. There are still people who believe that religion poisons everything, he notes, and liberal Democrats are probably their more receptive audience.

Walter Russell Mead says the culture wars may never end, and they shouldn’t because we need each group to balance out the other: “Conflict is not the same as chaos. It may be that in a fallen world, we need the excesses of each party to be held in check by the other parties.” The culture wars, he says, “may be the best way for human beings.”

Continuing through this year’s political R’s, let’s mention a couple of things about religion: All the candidates have spoken of their religious beliefs, yet as Alexis de Tocqueville described Americans in the 1830s, “It is often hard to know from listening to them whether the main intention of religion is to obtain everlasting joy in the next world or prosperity in this.” Or votes.

Journalists wrote and spoke the most about Mike Huckabee’s beliefs: A Lexis-Nexis search shows “Huckabee” and “religious right” appearing 893 times during the three months before the Texas and Ohio primaries. Religious liberal Obama, though, typically avoided such characterization: His name and “religious left” appeared together only 28 times during that period. Huckabee received press criticism for an Iowa ad that called him a “Christian leader,” but few fussed about a South Carolina brochure that praised Obama as a “committed Christian” who is “called to Christ.”

Obama has benefited from messianic hopes, and indulged them by (among other things) saying that he and his supporters can become “a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest.” But he should not be ridiculed as lightweight because some of his fans swoon: He is delivering the “social gospel” that became prominent a century ago more skillfully than anyone else has done in recent decades.

Obama’s profession of faith invigorates many and scares few because it is horizontal rather than vertical, with an emphasis on finding community rather than communing with God. Community organizers Obama worked with two decades ago saw “a part of me that remained removed, detached, that I was an observer in their midst. And in time, I came to realize that something was missing as well — that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone.”

Obama says his joining a church “came about as a choice, and not an epiphany.” Choices do not bother secular Americans, epiphanies do. Joining a church to fight loneliness makes it as unobjectionable as joining a social club, but his affiliation serves as an antidote to evidence-less charges that Obama is secretly a Muslim. He says, “I’ve been to the same church, the same Christian church, for almost 20 years.”

Obama’s Christian affiliation also gives him the opportunity to dip into language that has resonated with many Americans in prior religious left campaigns such as those of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, 1900, and 1908. Bryan, of course, lost all three times, because of the American tendency to – sooner or later – make reality-based decisions. More on this next time.

It was politics as usual this week — staffing gaffes and shrill insinuations — with a few surprises — a beleaguered Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton making a comeback.

On Tuesday, Barack Obama won Vermont, then broke his twelve-state winning streak. Afterwards, Obama aide Samantha Power slipped up and told The Scotsman her real opinion of Hillary Clinton: “She is a monster, too — that is off the record — she is stooping to anything.” She apologized to Clinton and resigned Friday morning.

Susan Rice, Obama senior foreign policy adviser, handed John McCain another great soundbite, saying neither Clinton nor Obama is ready for that famous 3:00 AM phone call. When Obama tried to get tough on Clinton’s tax returns, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson compared him to Ken Starr.

Can Obama survive? He’s stuck because if plays muddy politics as usual, he undermines the entire basis for his campaign. (See David Brooks and The Weekly Standard.)

Clinton had something to crow about this Tuesday when she won Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island. How did Clinton stage a comeback? Some say it’s demographics: Her core groups (women, Latinos) came through. Other entertain the hypothesis that Rush Limbaugh Republicans handed her a Texas victory. (Tom Bevan with Real Clear Politics calls it a “close call.”) Or maybe she’s just tougher. Bob Herbert says, “If there is one thing the Clinton crowd knows how to do, it’s provoke.” Gail Collins echoes this: “While Barack may understand the audacity of hope, only Hillary really gets the audacity of audacity.”

John McCain clinched the GOP nomination and showed up late for his photo-op with former opponent and now-unpopular President Bush. The endorsement of anti-Catholic John Hagee still haunts McCain, although God-o-Meter says Hagee has less clout than the media gives him. According to Crosswalk.com’s exit poll analysis, McCain is still not attracting evangelicals, but Crunchy Con’s Rod Dreher notes that more Texas evangelicals chose McCain over Huckabee.

Now that McCain has muscled Mike Huckabee out of the race, what’s next for Huckabee? He hasn’t ruled out a vice-presidential slot. God’s Politics’ Jim Wallis says Huckabee’s candidacy is a sign that “the monologue of the Religious Right has ended and the evangelical agenda has broadened.” Others say he’s the new, “kinder, gentler” face of the Religious Right.

Ronald Reagan awakened America. He ran on a platform that emphasized standing up to communism abroad and high-taxers domestically. The Bible tells us — eight times in Deuteronomy, Joshua, and 1st and 2nd Chronicles alone — to “be strong and courageous,” and President Reagan was. Using a coalition of conservatives and libertarians he fought both double-digit inflation and Soviet expansionism, and when he left office both bears were tamed. Soon, Republicans gained a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.In 2006 the parties remain differentiated on foreign policy and abortion, but in other areas—government spending and corruption—Republicans are doing no better than the Democrats of 1994. Many have ignored the small-government principles that brought Ronald Reagan and themselves to office. Arrogance and Abramoff crouch at every Washington door, and it’s easy for those in power to think that they’ll use it for purposes of righteousness or riches. Either way, government stays big, and libertarians as well as most conservatives are frustrated. The coalition that Ronald Reagan put together is close to a crack-up.

The future of American conservatism depends on the ability of libertarians to understand that liberty without virtue cannot last, and the ability of Christian conservatives to understand that being strong and courageous does not mean demanding ideological purity. Both parts of the coalition need to follow the Reagan practice of reasoning politely and patiently with those who disagree, giving in on secondary matters, and searching for common ground. Both parts of the coalition may need to sacrifice a little.

This paper concentrates on what Christian conservatives should do. It first lays out a basic biblical exegesis that frees Christians from reacting defensively, and provides examples of how our goal should be to add, not subtract. It then explores some of the nuances, including: why America is not the new Israel, why theocracy is not biblically warranted here, what the minimal societal goals for Christians should be, how Christians can steer clear of spam evangelism, how the difficult issue of same-sex marriage should be approached, and how Christ’s expansive definition of “neighbor” fits well with the Constitution’s first three words: “We, the people.”

The basics

My oversimplified advice to American Christian conservatives: Be New Testament, not Old Testament. By this I don’t mean that the two parts of revelation are theologically distinct, for as the couplet sums it up, “The New is in the Old contained, the Old is by the New explained.” I am suggesting that the emphasis is different: to generalize enormously, the Old concentrates on subtracting, the New on adding, and the success of the American experiment has hinged on our willingness to add.

The Old Testament emphasizes subtracting a family and then a nation (and its land) from the idol-worship that surrounded first Abraham and then Israel. The emphasis was on purity, not evangelism, so God sent Ishmael and Esau into the wilderness, told Joshua to destroy the Canaanites, and instructed Ezra to insist that the Israelites put away foreign wives. To make the Holy Land holy, God commanded a zero tolerance policy: No abominations among you. Nothing. Nada.

The Holy Land was man’s greatest opportunity to set up a new kind of Eden. It wasn’t the Eden at the beginning of Genesis, because sin still burdened man, the earth yielded its produce reluctantly, and earthly life still ended in death. But it was a semi-Eden—a land flowing in milk and honey—and it had God’s semi-presence as He facilitated prophecy and gave specific advice via the casting of lots and the mysterious Urim and Thummim. God chose a particular nation to live in his semi-Eden, provided commandments so they knew what to do day by day, inspired a history so they knew where they came from, and promised them that if they obeyed all would go well.

This holy land, this semi-Eden, was supposed to be spotless, a serious equivalent of Disneyland in which not a single candy wrapper is to stay on the ground for more than a few minutes. Sadly, God’s model country, like the Model Cities of the 1960s, turned out to be a model for despair. The great tragedy of ancient Israel was that God’s people sinned in a land that of all lands should have been the least conducive to sin. The great lesson is that sin comes from within, not from our surroundings. God was teaching that sin crouches at our door even in the best of environments, whether the original Eden or Israel’s semi-Eden. He was teaching man’s desperate need for Christ: accept no substitutes!

As early Christians came to understand the meaning of Israel’s history, they were ready to understand the New Testament emphasis on adding. The Jewish answer to the question “Who is my neighbor?” was at the most “your fellow Jew,” and more often just the Jews who lived close by. Jesus added to that understanding by eating with tax collectors and others seen as sinners, by stating that anyone in need is our neighbor, and by adding women, Samaritans, and even enemy soldiers to the list of God’s people.

Instructed to take the gospel to all nations and not concentrate on defending one, Christians were free to evangelize and admit to church membership anyone who confessed faith in Christ, regardless of pedigree, past sins, race, or ethnicity. Would some get in who should not, and as a result would the visible church display visible sin? Absolutely, but a Christian understanding of the omnipresence of sin makes even the best screen only as effective as bed nets against malarial mosquitoes in Africa: they will find a way to get in.

Christian conservatives need to apply such thinking to our political processes. In discussing American conservatism a football metaphor seems appropriate: Better to win the game 35-14 than to emphasize the avoidance of mistakes so that the best we can hope for is a 3-3 tie. Instead of fearfully assuming that nothing will get done unless the federal government does it, and rushing to increase spending whenever a problem arises, we can renew Ronald Reagan’s small government coalition by adding to our societal list of problem-solvers the civic and religious groups that often do a better job than government.

We should be willing to work in political coalition with a wide variety of non-Christians, because our goal should not be to subtract the impure by differentiating ourselves from coalition members who don’t share our theology or our particular political strategy. Our goal should be to add new opportunities by enlisting all those who agree with us on some issues, even if they disagree on others. I’ll offer three examples — one cultural, one symbolic, and one that’s life and death – of how Christian conservatives should add rather than subtract.

The first concerns our culture wars. Year after year Christians have called for boycotts of this or that art exhibition, movie, or television show. For example, in 1999 Christian groups wanted government funding removed from a profane show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art that featured a dung-displaying portrait of the Virgin Mary. The protest led to front-page stories about Christians trying to keep people from viewing art, and to record attendance at the exhibit. It would have been far better to push for a parallel show displaying the work of Christian artists. In 2004 and 2005 we had such parallel shows in the movie theaters: Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (which reaped a rich bonanza in evangelism and ticket sales) and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Both Christian conservatives and libertarians could salute these examples of adding.

For a way to deal with symbolic issues, compare Judge Roy Moore’s plopping down a 2.5 ton block of granite in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s defense before the U.S. Supreme Court of a six-foot-tall red granite monolith located about 75 feet from the Texas state capitol building in Austin. Moore’s in-your-face Ten Commandments monument gesture gained whoops of support from some Christians but hisses from libertarians, and of course an aggressive response from federal courts. But Abbott, also a Christian, gained broad support by pointing out that a representation of Aztec mythology was already in the state capitol, and he had no problem with that, so others should not have problem with a Judeo-Christian monument. The U.S. Supreme Court and conservatives of many stripes agreed with his “add, don’t subtract” thinking.

My last example is the life-and-death matter. Christian conservatives would like to see a constitutional amendment adding protection for human life, but neither culturally nor politically are we there yet, since journalists and many others depict pro-life activities as subtracting freedom. We can save lives and also build support by adding options for women surprised by pregnancy: Instead of asking them to choose between abortion and single parenting—which to many women seems a choice between legal homicide and life imprisonment —we can save lives by making real a third choice, adoption, and not overlooking the possibility of a fourth, marriage. We can add soul-stirring information to the decision process by using ultrasound machines to show the baby who could be killed. We can add other people to the decision process by requiring that parents and the unborn child’s father be informed.

Few of my recommended actions would be sufficient for those who demand an Old Testament defense of America as the new holy land, but they’re consistent with the New Testament approach practiced by Paul and others in mixed cultures from Rome to the present: Instead of working fruitlessly to subtract evil from the land, add the good. American conservatism can have a bright future, with God’s grace, if we are strong and courageous in developing positive alternatives to the cultural negativities around us. But if we merely praise our own Christian circles and curse the darkness outside them, we will soon be surrounded by it.

This type of guerrilla cultural warfare can be more difficult than an invasion of Canaan—but God calls Christians to help transform the societies surrounding them. In the history books of the Old Testament “Be strong and courageous” clearly had a military edge. Yet by New Testament times, when the early Christians were in a culture war without clear front lines, the apostle Paul was telling the Corinthians, living in one of the empire’s most dissolute cities, “Be strong. Let all that you do be done in love (I Cor. 16:13).

Strength and love—we rarely see them put together in that way, but Paul did so appropriately because he was teaching people to walk in Christ’s steps. Certainly no one was stronger than Jesus: His strength was so great that he did not sin, unlike everyone else in history. But this strongman was gentle with ordinary people, seeing them as sheep without a shepherd. He was particularly gentle with those outside of Israel, like the Samaritan woman (John 4) and the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7).

Certainly, Jesus was harsh to the ostentatiously religious: “You Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.” Certainly, he knocked those who invented laws beyond those biblically demanded: “You load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers” (Luke 11:39, 46). But his most famous speech, the Sermon on the Mount, is far from Joshua’s commanded violence, and far even from the style of violent prophetic speech that we call Jeremiads. Christ was calm rather than clamorous, beckoning rather than beheading.

Christians should walk in Christ’s steps and mirror his tone in talking with those heading in the wrong direction. That’s the big picture. But having shown that, I’d like to offer not ten commandments but ten thoughts about nuances, starting with one that further explains the Old Testament/New Testament difference.

Nuance 1: The importance of location

The Old Testament is highly location-specific. For example, when God teaches Israelites in the wilderness how they should behave in the Promised Land, He says plainly, “you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you.” He then provides a long list of what the Canaanites do and what His people should not do, and specifies (Lev. 18:26, 28) that “You shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you… lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean….”

This emphasis on not only pure people but a pure country is frequent in Old Testament passages about life in Israel. Deuteronomy 18:9 is typical: “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone” who does these things. Note well: Israelites should not follow these practices at any time, but the emphasis is on when “you come into the land.” The land must be cleansed from defilement. It must be preserved as holy.

Penalties for disobedience in the land were severe, as noted in Leviticus 20: 10,13: “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death…. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death….” OBEY, God shouted, so “that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out” (Lev. 20:22). God established many specific practices for that land: familial property cannot be sold permanently; certain cities of refuge must be established; on it goes.

The prophets were indignant when the Israelites trashed their semi-Eden. God had Jeremiah proclaim, “Thus says the Lord… ‘I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled me land and made my heritage an abomination” (Jer. 2:7) Jeremiah denounced the betrayal: “The Lord once called you ‘a green olive tree, beautiful with good fruit.’ But with the roar of a great tempest He will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed” (Jer. 11:16).

The charter of the ancient Israelites was to protect the purity of the land God had given them. Evangelism was not a priority; when some Israelites married foreign women, leaders from Moses to Ezra did not look upon this as an opportunity to evangelize the newcomers and increase the numbers of Israel, but instead looked upon intermarriage with horror. The Israelites were to purify the Holy Land by killing or driving out the nations that inhabited it and surrounding their land with a theological and cultural fence to keep out others. The prime directive was defense, with the goal maintenance of holiness.

Most Christians understand that Old Testament history teaches all of us not to become full of ourselves and think we can create earthly utopias or even sustain the ones handed to us. But other questions also arise from Israel’s experience: If ancient Israel’s laws, given by God, did not bring about righteousness in this most likely of environments, how likely are holiness laws to succeed in less favorable environments? And should those who want to be strong and courageous strive to make whatever country they inhabit the semi-Eden that ancient Israel was to be?

Nuance 2: Examing the “New Israel” view

The records of New Haven, Conn. in the 1640s show this decision: “It was ordered that the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses… be a rule to all the courts in this jurisdiction in their proceedings against offenders.” From the Puritans to the present, some Christians who view America as the new Israel have been unwilling to accept unholy activities on what they see as holy ground.

To take one 20th century example, the idea that it was sacrilegious in America to have anti-biblical doctrines taught in government-funded schools was part of the thinking of many Tennessee legislators in the 1920s when they forbad public school teachers to teach “that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” John Butler, the legislator who introduced the anti-evolution bill, told reporters, “I am not opposed to teaching of evolution, but I don’t think it ought to be taught in state-supported schools.” If an anti-biblical doctrine were given governmental backing, this holy land would be profaned.

The debate over the Ten Commandments monument in Alabama also showed the potency of the New Israel view. Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore wrote in his autobiography So Help Me God that “our country is being led to deny the existence of the Creator God. This turning away from God is known as apostasy and, unfortunately, is nothing new.” He then described the situation in ancient Israel, and particularly remarked upon the situation of the southern kingdom, Judah: “Like America today, Judah was a nation that called upon God’s name but refused to recognize his sovereignty or abide by his law.”

Throughout his Jeremiad, Judge Moore treated America as the new Israel and mourned its departure from biblical ways. His supporters similarly argued that court-ordered removal of the monument was blasphemy: Before the dirty deed, Rev. Greg Dixon of Indiana said, “To remove those commandments would be to replace them with men’s commandments that would elevate man to godhood which would replace the divine Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” Afterward, Covenantnews.com cited chapter five of Deuteronomy, where Moses recites commandments listed in Exodus and then states, “You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.” Since “the word ‘gates’ of Deuteronomy 6:9 refers to public places,” Covenantnews.com declared that the monument must be displayed.

That website, like many others, took a question about which Christians can disagree and transformed it into a test of faith. Those who did not back Moore suddenly were heretics. Seeing America as the new Israel, though, was wrong both in principle (biblically, the Church—not any particular nation—is the new Israel) and practice. Practically, the battle for granite gave media a terrific opportunity to further the sense among scoffers that Christianity is primarily about cold do’s and don’ts rather than about a warm-hearted relationship with God.

Predictably-biased coverage of monument defenders advanced the media stereotypes of Christians demanding political victory rather than showing forbearance. More people began or continued to see Christianity as a power-seeking faith rather than one emphasizing grace. If the chief Christian goal is the defense of America against the defilement produced by the absence of governmental recognition that God is sovereign, then Judge Moore fought for a noble cause, regardless of the predictability of defeat. But if evangelism is central, then the monument contretemps was for Christians a self-inflicted wound.

Non-Christians now typically believe that Christianity takes away freedom rather than adds to it. Two weeks after Judge Moore’s stand hit the headlines I asked students in my University of Texas course on Journalism and Religion to give top-of-the-head, anonymous responses to this question: “How do Christians act?” Here were typical answers: “Fanatical. Cram religion down others’ throats. Want to push their religion on others. Trying to force others to do everything their way. Bossing, not helping, others.”

Nuance 3: How the “New Israel” view plays out across the country

Judge Moore received national attention, but many localities sport small groups with views similar to his. For example, Michael Marcavage, leader of the Philadelphia-area “Repent America,” trumpeted on his website that organization’s success in reclaiming at one demonstration a piece of pavement that gay activists had seized: “As soon as we arrived at the protest, I placed my wooden chair in the medium strip facing the protesters. Then, I stood upon the chair and held the Christian flag high. Almost immediately, the crowd across the street turned, surrounded me, and began chanting and taking pictures.”

It seems unlikely that they were taking pictures to illustrate a book on effective techniques of evangelism. When I interviewed him last year Marcabage stated that he considered it his duty to reclaim those several square feet for Christ, since America should be a holy land as Israel was. Every October he and several of his supporters march through “OutFest,” a gay pride event that sprawls over many city blocks in downtown Philadelphia, carrying signs that say “God Abhors You” and reciting imprecatory psalms through a bullhorn.

Marcavage now has a long record of arrests for demonstration-related charges such as disorderly conduct, and one year he added felony charges for allegedly trying to start a riot and disobeying the police.
The felony charges were clearly overwrought, and even the liberal Philadelphia Inquirer said so, so it was good and right that the charges eventually were dismissed. But the Inquirer correctly scolded the protestors for refusing to obey police orders to take their bullhorns and signs to the periphery of the demonstration.

Should he let gays have their day in the fall sun without the benefit of Repent America’s bullhorn? Many Christians not known for wimping out publicly criticized Marcavage’s approach. The Rev. Peter Lillback, pastor of Proclamation Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr and a radio evangelist, stated that “drowning people out with a bullhorn is inappropriate.” The Rev. Herb Lusk, pastor of Greater Exodus Baptist Church and an ex-NFL tailback who preached regularly to the prostitutes who used to close deals on his doorstep, said biblical opposition to homosexuality “should be preached without apology, [but] that preaching has to be coupled with love and compassion or there’s a problem with it.”

Bill Devlin of the Urban Family Council and Calvary Chapel called Marcavage’s tactics “a classic case of the messenger getting in the way of the message,” and that’s what is key. Marcavage’s work was counter-productive: gays who need Christ, as all of us do, are now more likely to associate Christianity with a bullhorn than with compassion. Marcavage’s behavior emerged not from bad manners but bad theology: Identifying
America with ancient Israel and himself with Jeremiah, he responded to criticism of his activities by saying “This is what we should expect from the world. They killed all the prophets.”

Yes and no: the ancient Israelites regularly killed prophets, but some outside of Israel—such as Jonah and Daniel—survived, through God’s grace, and even succeeded: the kings of Assyria and Babylonia both listened to them. One problem with expectations such as Marcavage’s is that they can be self-fulfilling prophecies, leading Christians to think they are failures unless others consider them repulsive.

Nuance 4: Living outside Israel in ancient times

The basic Old Testament/New Testament subtracting vs. adding distinction holds, but the division becomes more complex when we examine several Old Testament books that deal with the situation of God’s people living outside God’s model country. Significantly, Jeremiah—the same Jeremiah whose godly fury led to our word “Jeremiads”—had a very different tone when he spoke to Israelites living not only outside the semi-Eden but in the anti-Eden, Babylonia.

Look at what Jeremiah wrote to Israelites living in the capital of that very ungodly country: “This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce…. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, because in its welfare you will find your welfare’” (Jer. 29:4-7).

Other parts of the Old Testament also indicate that Israelites outside the borders of Israel could have a different political agenda than those inside. Deuteronomy 18:9 banned from ancient Israel “anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a wizard or a necromancer, for whoever does such things is an abomination to the Lord.” And yet the book of Daniel shows how Daniel had to hang out with enchanters, sorcerers, and the other wise men of Babylon. Daniel thought and acted independently, but he nowhere indicated a plan or desire to wipe out these ungodly people. A stranger in a strange land, he had to coexist with them.

The books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther show how the Jews of Persia, part of an empire comprising 127 provinces and a vast number of ethnic groups and languages, also lived under laws not their own. The evil that God had said Israel must ban was often just around the corner in Persia, but Israelites showed themselves to be often the most patriotic of subjects: Cupbearer Nehemiah was the last defense against attempts to poison the king, and Mordecai in the book of Esther broke up an assassination plot. When Esther and her uncle Mordecai later had an opportunity to have the king promulgate legislation, they only requested that the Jews of Persia have the right to fight back militarily against their persecutors.

Worth noting is that none of the Israelites’ public tolerance of differences indicated a failure to keep God’s commands in their own lives and within their own households. In chapter three of the book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar sets up a 90-foot-tall image of gold and commands all his officials to bow down and worship it. Three Israelite refuseniks do not stand on a chair in front of it and harangue the assembled pagans; they merely do not show up. In chapter six, when King Darius orders that for thirty days all prayers must be addressed to him, Daniel prays in his own home, as he always did, until his enemies spy on him and arrest him. Biblical heroes typically did not go looking for trouble. Trouble went looking for them.

Nuance 5: More about location

It might be said that these societies had no tradition of free speech and public demonstration, and so the relevance of the Bible commanding a very hard line in ancient Israel, versus a “Why can’t we all got along?” posture elsewhere, is limited. But in New Testament times when greater liberty did exist for Roman citizens in some parts of the empire, the apostle Paul and others emphasized proclaiming the gospel at every opportunity, without calling for the imposition of biblical law.

Gideon in Israel had destroyed an altar of Baal (Judges 6). About 1,000 years later the Maccabees had destroyed Greek altars erected in Israel. Paul, though, did not damage the numerous altars he saw during his walk through Athens. Instead, he reasoned “in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there,” and also spoke before the city’s philosophical elite (Acts 17). Paul never hesitated to demand his rights as a Roman citizen, but he also never tried to subtract from city streets pagan altars and idols. Proper action in one place was not proper in another.

The bottom line: location, location, location. We even see this in the work of Jesus: He drove the moneychangers out of the Temple, the holiest place in the world, but did not drive them out of other places. Israel had already become a most unholy land by 70 A.D., when Roman soldiers destroyed the Temple, and after that there was no reason to consider one land holier than another, and to institute outside of Israel what was made for Israel.

The early Christian church dropped the defensive posture that had characterized Israel and went on offense. Without a land to preserve but with a gospel to proclaim, the prime directive was evangelism rather than maintenance of purity. New people rapidly joined the church at the risk of dilution, but leaders impelled by the Great Commission of proclaiming the gospel in all nations took risks that Jewish leaders directed to maintain purity were never willing to accept.

Nuance 6: Three types of Biblical law

Now, let’s move to America and theological writings essential to the Founding. I’ve written elsewhere that an alliance of Christian conservatives and libertarians led to the successful prosecution of the Revolutionary War and adoption of the Constitution. If Christian conservatives then had been determined to impose a theonomic structure on the new United States, the result would have been continued disunity. Christians had flexibility, though, because they had grown up on the two theological works that (besides the Bible) were the most influential in colonial America, John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536-64) and the Westminster Confession of Faith (1644-46).

Some portray Calvin as a theonomist, but he emphasized the lessons of the biblical books I’ve cited and noted in his blunt fashion (Book IV, Chapter 20, section 14), “There are some who deny that a commonwealth is duly framed which neglects the political system of Moses, and is ruled by the common laws of nations.” He called such a view “perilous and seditious… false and foolish,” and proposed instead a classic tripartite formulation in his heading for section 15: “Moral, ceremonial, and judicial law distinguished.”

The moral law, Calvin wrote, is “contained under two heads, one of which simply commands us to worship God with pure faith and piety; the other, to embrace men with sincere affection. Accordingly, it is the true and eternal rule of righteousness, prescribed for men of all nations and times, who wish to conform their lives to God’s will.” Or, to translate that into the words of the movie Casablanca, “A kiss is still a kiss… the fundamental things apply, as times goes by.” (Christians should be fundamentalists of that sort.)

After toasting the moral law, Calvin roasted the ceremonial law, made up of those sections of the Bible dealing with sacrifices and Temple worship: “The ceremonial law was the tutelage of the Jews, with which it seemed good to the Lord to train this people, as it were, in their childhood, until the fullness of time should come.” He quoted Paul’s explanation (Galatians 3:23) that, “the law was our guardian until Christ came” – but since then, Christ’s sacrifice has rendered all other sacrifices unnecessary and thus disrespectful of God.

The hard question then and now concerned the third kind of law, that known to the ancient Israelites and defined by Calvin as “the judicial law, given to them for civil government.” He opposed the idea that the legal code of ancient Israel should be transplanted into different societies: “The statement of some, that the law of God given through Moses is dishonored when it is abrogated and new laws preferred to it, is utterly vain.” Legislators should pay attention to “times, place, and nation… For the Lord through the hand of Moses did not give that law to be proclaimed among all nations and to be in force everywhere.” In other words, location, location, location.

Since God did give Israel its judicial law, we can learn from the equity of that law—the principles of justice that it embodies. But equity, Calvin emphasized, “cannot but be the same for all…. Constitutions have certain circumstances upon which they in part depend. It therefore does not matter that they are different, provided all equally press toward the same goal of equity… Whatever laws shall be framed to that rule, directed to that goal, bound by that limit, there is no reason why we should disapprove of them, howsoever they may differ from the Jewish law, or among themselves.” The stereotype of Calvin has him as doctrinaire and unbending, but in this area and many others he wanted flexibility.

A century later, the Westminster Confession of Faith framed Calvin’s argument in a way that proved highly influential in the United States, particularly through the influence of the Presbyterian Church. Westminster noted the Bible’s basic ethical principles and continued: “Beside this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly, holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the new testament.”

Here’s the crucial passage: God also gave Israel “sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.” Or, as Rev. Ligon Duncan, moderator of the 2004 general assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (theological successor to the Westminster divines), put it, the judicial code “was given in a unique situation, under temporary circumstances, to a particular people, serving in a special capacity. Thus when the nation-state of Israel expired, its civil code expired with it.”

One example that illustrates the meaning of “general equity” concerns the Old Testament law that homeowners put a fence around their roofs. That’s because the flat roofs served as sleeping areas and living rooms, especially during hot months, and the goal was to protect life and limb. One equivalent today, when many roofs are pitched and most are not used for parties, is to place fences around swimming pools.

Nuance 7: Defense and offense

Free from having to defend a particular piece of land, and free from having to maintain ceremonial laws or the judicial laws of ancient Israel, what should we still defend and how should we defend it? That is exactly the question the Jerusalem Council of the early New Testament church had to decide when Paul returned to the central city with news that non-Jews were coming to faith in Christ. Church leader James suggested a three-part answer: “abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled and from blood” (Acts 15:20, English Standard Version).

Other apostles and elders agreed with him, and that became the official church policy. The Jerusalem Council sent a letter to Antioch, where Gentiles were becoming Christians, noting that “it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements…. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.” The Council was trying to keep newcomers from thinking that Christianity (or, at that time, their new perspective on Judaism) was primarily about law rather than grace.

But, as we have seen over the centuries, abstaining from sexual immorality is more easily suggested than done. Look at Paul’s insistence to the Corinthian Christians, living in one of the Roman Empire’s most dissolute cities, that they purify themselves “from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.” (II Cor. 7:1). He similarly told the Ephesians that they “must no longer live as the Gentiles” who “indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more” (Eph. 4:17-19).

Churches, wherever their locations, were and are to be the new holy lands. During Christianity’s early history that emphasis seemed to have an impact: In the second century Aristides wrote that Christians “walk in all humility and kindness, and falsehood is not found among them, and they love one another. They despise not the widow and grieve not the orphan.” Justin Martyr wrote, “Those who once delighted in fornication now embrace chastity alone.” Both Aristides and Justin Martyr were promoting Christianity, but critics also took notice. Tertullian, for example, was impressed by “how they love one another and are ready to die for each other.”

As Christianity spread believers lived in many lands, yet proper conduct among them did not change from one place to another: in every country, husbands and wives were to be faithful to each other out of faithfulness to God, not out of governmental coercion. Christianity has almost always stressed the centrality of the heart, the desire of the individual to follow Christ through God’s grace and not external pressure. Once a culture has to resort to blue laws to enforce Sabbath rest, the battle is already largely lost. Obedience has to be volitional or it will not last, and rules enacted to enforce obedience typically provoke resentment.

Today, while many Christians work hard to promulgate laws designed to improve societal morality, many churches are far from being holy lands. Pollster George Barna has compared the total U.S. population with the 35-43% of Americans who call themselves “born-again” and the 7-8% of the population who are theologically orthodox evangelicals. He found divorce rates about the same, with most of the divorces among born-agains coming after they accepted Christ.

Ron Sider provides a story about one church that is all too common: “a man and a woman from two different married couples had an affair, divorced their spouses, married each other, and assumed they could continue in good standing in the congregation in spite of their defiance of Jesus’s teaching and the destruction of two families. Not even in this blatant case of stark disobedience could this evangelical congregation muster the courage to exercise church discipline.”

And yet, all is not lost. One recent survey showed that even though only 9% of evangelicals tithe, they do give away twice as much money as the average American, and a third more than mainline church members – 4% of income rather than 2% or 3%.

Massive improvements are elusive but small changes are evident. A government-funded study of 12,000 adolescents with some church connection showed that 88% of those who had taken a “True Love Waits” pledge not to have sexual relations before marriage had broken the pledge at some point over a six-year period. Nevertheless, girls who took the pledge delayed their age for first having sex from 16.7 years to 19.9 years. Principal investigator Peter Bearman, the chair of Columbia University’s sociology department, concluded that “the delay effect is substantial and almost impossible to erase. Taking a pledge delays intercourse for a long time.”

Correlations between church involvement and resistance to wrongful activity are particularly strong in inner city areas, where the difference between the churched and unchurched in everything from arrests to crisis pregnancies has been well-researched both statistically and anecdotally. Given sin within and lures without, churches will never become pure holy lands for the same reason the original Holy Land was unsuccessful. And yet, churches can certainly do more and show more, not by setting up new rules but by affecting hearts through preaching, teaching, worship, and the practice of compassion.

Nuance 8: Adding, not subtracting, in Ten Commandments cases

As noted earlier, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, out of his Christian and constitutional understanding, developed an approach to Ten Commandments monuments far different than that of Judge Moore in Alabama. When Abbott appeared a year ago before the U.S. Supreme Court to present his oral defense of the six-foot-tall red granite monolith located about 75 feet from the state Capitol building in Austin, he did so in a way deliberately designed not to enrage Supreme Court secularists.

Abbott noted that the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated the monument in 1961 and that lawmakers accepted it “to commend the Eagles for their efforts in fighting juvenile delinquency—a constitutionally secular reason in the court’s eyes.” He argued that “the Ten Commandments are undoubtedly a sacred religious text, but they are also a foundational document in the development of Western legal codes and culture.” He also pointed out that hanging inside the Texas Capitol building is the seal of the Republic of Mexico, which “contains an eagle holding a serpent in its mouth, perched on a cactus that grows from a rock surrounded by water. A representation of Aztec mythology, this religious display is neither Jewish nor Christian, but is an acknowledgment of the historical and cultural contributions made by people of differing faiths.”

This is important: Abbott was saying that both the Aztec symbol and the Ten Commandments monument should remain. Here was a Christian saying that Christians can live in a land filled with anti-Christian emblems without being forced theologically to attempt to eliminate them. Here was a Christian saying that a Christian monument could be one among many monuments — and the Supreme Court, after ducking Ten Commandments cases for 25 years and refusing to hear Judge Moore’s appeal, listened to Abbott (who already had a favorable decision from the 5th Circuit) and ruled in his favor.

Moore vigorously attacked Abbott as essentially a sub-Christian traitor whose case “den[ied] the sovereignty of God while my case was predicated upon that acknowledgement.” Abbott, Moore said, displayed “hypocrisy and lack of faith” by “trying to justify a display of God’s law as only secular in nature and in no way representative of the true God.” Moore contended that the Supreme Court’s 5-4 willingness to let the Texas monument remains was “a devastating loss for America,” since to win the case on the grounds of the Commandment’s historical significance was to deny their religious significance.

This is a theological debate. If America is the new Israel, Moore is right. If America is a land of religious diversity, Moore is wrong, and Abbott’s defense of the Texas monument as a tool for teaching history can be expanded. On the same day that the Supreme Court allowed the Texas monument it upheld the 6th Circuit Court’s order that framed copies of the Commandments be removed from the walls of two Kentucky county courthouses and a public school, since the decalogues were placed there with obvious religious intent. And yet, that 6th Circuit ruling suggests an opportunity to add rather than to subtract.

In his ruling Judge Eric Clay wrote that merely posting the Ten Commandments fulfilled no “educational function,” but he also opined that the outcome of the case may have been different had the Ten Commandments been “integrated into the school curriculum.” The judge alluded to previous U.S. Supreme Court musings that the Ten Commandments have a place “in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics….” He suggested that the court could look favorably on a display if the Ten Commandments were incorporated into a comparative religion course or a course on how the Founders’ religious beliefs affected late 18th-century history and the structure of the U.S. government.

The U.S. Supreme Court did not take a position on such speculation, but Christians should. Wouldn’t it make sense for Ten Commandments proponents to work harder on day-in, day-out teaching rather than on merely putting up a display? Why not stipulate that, as part of their “core knowledge” all children should know the Ten Commandments as well as the central points of the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence, just as they should know where the fifty states are located? Why not place in school lobbies memory aids, such as Ten Commandments displays and maps of the United States, that support classroom teaching?

Courts might balk at that, but the debate then would be about teaching minds rather than about symbolically claiming a piece of ground or a building. Christians would be on the side of adding substance to the curriculum, and letting principals and teachers figure out how to fit it in, rather than lobbying to subtract (“censor”) what they don’t like. Similarly, when the University of North Carolina as