Last month, a friend of mine brought to my attention an October 17th blog post by Ken Ham in which he commented on an article by Religion News Service about new children’s books written by progressive Christians. I proceeded to read Ham’s post, as well as the article in question, and realized that when it came right down to it, I didn’t really like either one. Now, anyone who reads my blog, as well as anyone who has read my book, The Heresy of Ham, knows full well, I’m not a fan of Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis at all. I think he is completely wrong in how he interprets Genesis 1-11 and I think he is completely wrong in how he tries to make a literal, historical interpretation of Genesis 1-11 a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith. When it comes down to it, I think Answers in Genesis engages is faux-science that is based on horrible exegesis of Genesis 1-11 that has never really been universally held in the history of the Church.
That being said, I wasn’t too thrilled with everything in the “progressive Christian” article either. And so, in this post I’m going to try to explain what I found so troubling with both that article, as well as Ham’s post. I first, though, want to give a very brief overview of both. You can obviously read them for yourself, but here is what both are about in a nutshell.
First, a Summary of the Progressive Christian Article
The Religion News Service article focuses on a number of progressive Christian authors who are seeking to provide children’s curriculum that reflects their progressive Christian values and not so much the conservative Christian values you’ll find in Lifeway Christian bookstores or Focus on the Family material. Of course, “conservative” Christianity in the article is equated with Fundamentalism, particularly a Fundamentalist Baptist church is mentioned, as is 7th Day Adventism. One of the progressive Christians in the article even mentions that when he grew up in an independent Fundamentalist Baptist church, there was a depiction hell in Sunday school in which Barbie was burning in flames.
In the course of the article, “progressive Christian values” are spelled out in more detail to include the following: (1) An emphasis on being created and adored by God and having a purpose, (2) An emphasis on kindness and social justice, (3) Emphasizing Jesus was a brown, Middle Eastern man, (4) More grace and love, and less sin and shame, (5) A focus on science that challenges Young Earth Creationist groups like Answers in Genesis, (6) Creating “safe spaces” for theological reflection that embrace mystery, imagination, and doubt, (7) Gender-neutral language, not using “ableist language,” avoiding “toxic theology, masculinity, and patriarchy,” and (8) Speaking to issues like gun violence, immigration, and LGBTQ issues.
Now, although I understand that there are problems with a lot of the conservative Christian curriculum for children (particularly the more ultra-Fundamentalist material you see in publications like A Beka Books, Bob Jones University Press, as well as Answers in Genesis itself), what struck me about the kinds of things these progressive Christian material were promoting weren’t so much Christianity itself, but rather certain political issues within a decidedly liberal agenda. Sure, some of the points I outlined above are absolutely correct and are at the core of what the Gospel is about. But then again, some of the points are less about Christianity and more about a very left wing/liberal agenda. If you happen to have those views, fine; if you feel your Christian faith drives you to those positions, fine. But don’t present those views as if they were core tenets of the Christian faith. It’s one thing to let your Christian faith impact your political views. It’s quite another to let one’s political views reshape Christianity.
Next, a Summary of Ken Ham’s Post
Ken Ham’s post, in predictable Ken Ham fashion, cuts to the chase: progressive Christians don’t believe Genesis is history, and that affects how they read the rest of the Bible. That is why they don’t want to emphasize sin—they reject the idea that God created an originally perfect creation and that it was marred by sin when Adam fell from his state of original perfection. As he has said countless times before, Ham writes, “You need the foundation of the history in Genesis in order to fully understand the gospel!”
Ham then doubles down on his stance against that “progressive” notion found in (3) above and says that Christians have to teach their children that there was an original, perfect, very good creation, and that sin screwed all of the created order up, and that the only way to avoid hell is to put one’s faith in Jesus, so one can have eternal life. He ends his post with the following: “These ‘progressive Christians’ (who are largely secularized in their thinking) ignore God’s Word and come up with their own ideas about God, values, and a gospel that is different from the gospel given to us in God’s Word. (Really, it’s a gospel of social justice, which is no real gospel at all.) Once we abandon the Bible as absolute truth, anything goes, and anyone can just make God and his gospel message in their own image.”
Now, even though Ken Ham doesn’t spell out in detail any kind of political agenda, anyone who knows anything about him and AiG knows full well that they blur the lines between Christianity and conservative politics on a regular basis. To be honest, I sometimes find some of Ham’s criticisms about liberalism, secularism, and progressive Christianity actually valid. Case in point, I think having drag queens come in to read stories to children and teach them how to twerk is utterly insane. And no, math is not a construct of white privilege. I have no problem saying that I find some things, indeed many things, in the “liberal agenda” to be horrible and dangerous. That being said, I think Ken Ham and AiG are guilty of presenting the GOP party platform as if it was the Kingdom of God itself. Now, I’m fairly conservative to moderate, but I find conflating conservative American politics with Christianity itself to be extremely dangerous and detrimental to the Christian faith.
My Overall Reaction to Both Pieces
When it gets right down to it, both pieces gave me the creeps. Both pieces reveal, at least for me, a very dangerous trend that Christians on both the political left and right need to be wary of: the twisting of the Christian faith to suit a particular political agenda and the attempt by progressives and conservatives alike to co-opt Christianity into to their own political movements. Or perhaps I should put it another way: the attempt to remake Christianity into their respective political images. Don’t be fooled, both of those images are gross distortions of the Christian faith. So, ironically, what Ham says at the end of his post about people who remake God and the Gospel message into their own image is actually true—he’s right. Many progressive Christians do that. So does Ken Ham.
We shouldn’t.
Sadly, though, it seems that more and more that these are the only two options among Christians in America these days: are you are “progressive” Christian or a “conservative” Christian? Do you vote Democrat or Republican? Because, after all, if you vote for Trump and are against abortion, then you can’t be a Christian, right? You’re clearly a misogynist. And if you vote for Elizabeth Warren and are pro-choice, then you can’t be a Christian, right? You obviously hate babies. If you vote Republican, you really are a fascist and you want to oppress the LGBTQ community, right? If you vote Democrat, you are a godless secularist who wants drag queens reading children stories to second-graders, right?
The more we allow ourselves to be manipulated by people with political agendas who routinely paint anyone who doesn’t agree with them with the most extreme stereotypes of the other side, eventually we will find those extreme stereotypes will become the only options. And that is quite scary. I think we’re already seeing those extreme positions metastasize into all areas of our society, and they are killing everything.
This is not to say you shouldn’t have political opinions. You just shouldn’t mistake your political views as being the major tenets of the Christian faith. Sure, make your argument and try to convince others your position is right, but don’t define the Christian faith in terms of your political views on those issues. When you start doing that, you’re bowing down to a foreign image and a dark god.
That is what I find troubling about both Ham’s post and this progressive article. Each one defines itself over and against the most extreme caricature of the opposing political side, and then concludes, “My side is the Christian side, and your side is for…” and the list is simply political, partisan fodder that further divides and pushes people to further extremes.
Now it certainly seems that the progressive Christians in the Religious News Service article came from very extreme Fundamentalist backgrounds. Their rejection of that kind of thing is warranted. They see the folly of YECism; they see the harm that many of those extreme Fundamentalist groups have inflicted on people. The answer to that kind of right-wing politization of Christianity by ultra-Fundamentalists, though, isn’t to engage in left-wing politization of Christianity. Neither one is good.
I don’t want to condemn the children’s books the progressive article mentions. I haven’t read them. They might be great. But there were a number of things in the article that gave me the same kind of sinking feeling I get whenever I read something from AiG about “the culture war.”
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think the best thing for a Christian to do is to refuse to use either “progressive” or “conservative” as an adjective to “Christian.” Be a Christian, think through every political issue separately, and come to your own conclusions. Don’t just march in line to either political party’s talking points and bleat along, “Four legs good, two legs bad.” If you do that, then you’re just following swine. If you find that ultra-Fundamentalists like Ken Ham call you “liberal” and “secular,” while ultra-progressives accuse you of being a “fascist” or “Fundamentalist,” chances are you are exactly where you need to be…not in either camp.
“Be a Christian”
Sounds good to me.
All of this reminds me of comments by the late Dallas Willard in his book *The Divine Conspiracy,* in which he basically said that over the past several centuries, Christians have tended to reduce Christianity either to one of a “social gospel,” which pushes an often rather liberal social agenda and tends to ignore themes such as sin, the cross, salvation, grace, resurrection, etc. or on the opposite extreme, one which he called “the gospel of sin management,” whose sole aim was/is to teach people how to be saved so they can go to heaven when they die. Both of these views are/were equally confused according to Dr. Willard.
Pax.
Lee.