Is the Christian Right Driving Liberals Away From Religion?

The following article, Is the Christian Right Driving Liberals Away From Religion?, was first published on The American Vision.

Michele Margolis is a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity. She writes, “some people on the left are falling away from religion because they see it as so wrapped up with Republican politics.”

As someone who identifies with the Religious Right, I could just as easily make the case that it’s the liberalism of the Left that’s driving people to the Republican Party. Once again, liberals are portrayed as religiously neutral. No one is neutral. Democrats have abandoned many of the core principles of their party. JFK would not recognize the politics or the religious secularism of the Democrat Party. It’s become the party of agnostics and atheists and the worship of the State with abortion as its sacrament and the acceptance of homosexuality as its initiation rite.

The government (public/statist) schools are officially atheistic. God was swept out nearly 60 years ago. Any mention of religion is verboten. The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church, State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation have worked to secularize the schools. The same is true at the college level where atheism is the official religion. Darwinism is the accepted secular religion, and it’s having a devastating effect on culture.

The following is from an interview with John West that appears in the September 28, 2019, edition of World Magazine. He is the vice-president of the Discovery Institute and author of Darwin Day in America:

Darwin’s theory wasn’t just about change over time—it was that we’re part of an accidental process. So Darwin has been the greatest gift to people who would like to deny that God exists. But it’s gone way beyond that: We’ve seen Darwinism used to devalue human life, because Darwin thought humans are basically animals. At the end of On the Origin of Species he says it’s through death, disease, and starvation that the best things have come about in nature.

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I have met scholars who say Darwin has nothing to do with religion or morality—it’s just about science. I ask: “Have you read The Descent of Man?” No. That is where Darwin talks about religion, morality, mind, and social policy, about how he thinks we’re destroying the human race by inoculating people against smallpox and helping the poor.

It hasn’t helped that churches have adopted a sacred-secular divide. Religious compartmentalism is a standard fare among many Christian churches. The Bible only applies to a very narrow slice of life. Even among churches that once taught a comprehensive Christian worldview, they have compartmentalized God’s Word into something called Two-Kingdom Theology. This way, the church has self-secularized itself by having nothing to say to the world at large.

Christians are taught not to judge or to impose their morality on others. As a result, secularism, in the name of unfounded neutrality, prevails.

Let’s dig a little deeper. Christians have been told not to get involved in politics because unbelievers are often offended by religion. There is nothing new in this. Many people in Jesus’ day were offended by a gospel that required righteous living. Jesus also took on the religious, economic, and political status quo. It’s no different today.

A Christian worldview says some things are right and other things are wrong. Killing unborn babies is morally wrong and so is same-sex sexuality. More astute Christians also oppose heavy taxation and wealth redistribution since it is a form of government theft. These moral arguments challenge the religious and political ideals of the secularized State.

We often forget that Jesus was opposed by the religious establishment and put to death even though He raised people from the dead, healed the sick, and fed people. The book of Acts is filled with examples of persecution and even murder to tamp down the effect the gospel was having on the status quo.

Peter and others were dragged before the religious courts and warned not to preach this new religion.

The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. They seized Peter and John and, because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. But many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand.

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Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:1-4, 18-20).

Before long, things got out of hand for the religious establishment. The persecution continued because the apostles refused to remain silent (5:17-42). This meant more drastic action had to be taken. Stephen became the church’s first martyr at the hands of a Pharisee named Saul (7:54-8:1-3).

The liberal religious establishment of today is opposing conservative Christians on subjects like abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, and wealth redistribution. It’s a threat to their power base. To counter what they can’t control, they appeal to the State and its courts to shut them down and shut them out.

They did the same thing in the early church. Initially, the Roman government was not opposed to this new religious movement because it was not seen as a political threat. In time, however, the religious establishment maligned the Christians with false claims of political revolution, the same thing they did to Jesus.

It first began with Herod who was a puppet of Rome:

It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them.He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also.

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Then Herod went from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there.He had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon; they now joined together and sought an audience with him. After securing the support of Blastus, a trusted personal servant of the king, they asked for peace, because they depended on the king’s country for their food supply (12:1-3, 20).

The political threat was intensifying. “When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue” (17:1-2). What did the religious establishment do? Accuse the Christians of being a political threat to the Roman Empire:

But other Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city officials, shouting: “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. Then they made Jason and the others post bond and let them go (17:5-9).

Again, what we are seeing today has a long history. Some of the moral arguments may have changed, but in the end, it’s all about human autonomy, personal peace and affluence, political influence, and money. It’s no accident that the Apostle Paul mentions the “love of money” three times (1 Tim. 6:10; 3:3; Titus 1:7; also, Col. 3:5).

Being a friend of Cesaer is crucial for so many secularized Americans: “From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, ‘If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar” (John 19:12). The religion of dependency runs deep, but the Christian religion breaks the need for it. Moreover, it’s an idol. Christianity demands allegiance. Herbert Schlossberg’s masterful study of power in his book Idols for Destruction is both prophetic and frightening:

Rulers have ever been tempted to play the role of father to their people…. The state that acts like a wise parent instead of a vindictive judge has been an attractive image to many people. They include ecclesiastical authorities who have completely missed the point of the gospel warning to “call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven” (Matt. 23:9). The father is the symbol not only of authority but also of provision. “Our Father who art in heaven…. Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt. 6:9, 11). Looking to the state for sustenance is a cultic act [an act of worship]; we rightly learn to expect food from parents, and when we regard the state as the source of physical provision we render to it the obeisance of idolatry. The crowds who had fed on the multiplied loaves and fishes were ready to receive Christ as their ruler, not because of who he was but because of the provision. John Howard Yoder1 has rightly interpreted that scene: “The distribution of bread moved the crowd to acclaim Jesus as the new Moses, the provider, the Welfare King whom they had been waiting for.”2

Power is most dangerous in the hands of people who believe what they are doing is for our well being because they contend that their intentions to help the less fortunate are righteous and just. It’s the intention to do good things that matter not the actual results. In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the power of the ring is not something to be desired even by good people. Even Gandalf and the elves shun the power of the ring. Tolkien is doubtful that any person has the ability to resist the temptation of absolute power promised by the ring, even if that power is used for good. Schlossberg continues:

The paternal state not only feeds its children, but nurtures, educates, comforts, and disciplines them, providing all they need for their security. This appears to be a mildly insulting way to treat adults, but it is really a great crime because it transforms the state from being a gift of God, given to protect us against violence, into an idol. It supplies us with all blessings, and we look to it for all our needs. Once we sink to that level, as [C.S.] Lewis says, there is no point in telling state officials to mind their own business. “Our whole lives are their business.”3 The paternalism of the state is that of the bad parent who wants his children dependent on him forever. That is an evil impulse. The good parent prepares his children for independence, trains them to make responsible decisions, knows that he harms them by not helping them to break loose. The paternal state thrives on dependency. When the dependents free themselves, it loses power. It is, therefore, parasitic on the very persons whom it turns into parasites. Thus, the state and its dependents march symbiotically [in close union with one another] to destruction.4

Once the State gains power, its rulers work relentlessly to maintain power. Since the State gained power by promising the masses security, it must offer more security to maintain its power. Power replaces justice, the true role of civil government:

When the provision of paternal security replaces the provision of justice as the function of the state, the state stops providing justice. The ersatz [artificial and inferior substitute] parent ceases executing judgment against those who violate the law, and the nation begins losing benefits of justice. Those who are concerned about the chaos into which the criminal justice system has fallen should consider what the state’s function has become. Because the state can only be a bad imitation of a father, as a dancing bear act is of a ballerina, the protection of this Leviathan of a father turns out to be a bear hug.5

Politicians pick up on the desire for security and dependency and use them for political gain: “The idol state uses the language of compassion because its intention is a messianic one. It finds the masses harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, needing a savior.” ((^[1]S

1. John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus: Vicit Angus Noster, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), 34–35.
2. Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: The Conflict of Christian Faith and American Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, [1983] 1993), 183.
3. C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids, MI: Erdmans, 1970), 314.
4. Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, 184.
5. Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, 184.

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