Co-opting Christianity

Kirsten Powers recently did a puff piece on Democrat presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/04/03/mayor-pete-buttigieg-christian-right-2020-democratic-primary-trump-column/3342767002/

I don't know if this is worth commenting on. I don't know if he will be the nominee of his party. If so, I don't know if he will be the next president. 

It's possible that the 2018 midterms marked the highpoint of the anti-Trump backlash. There was all that pent-up rage at Trump, and this was their first major chance to strike back. It's possible that to some extent the "Resistance" will be a spent force by 2020. But maybe not.

There's the question of whether politicians like Buttigieg and their allies in the media and big business will promote progressive Christianity as a way to co-opt biblical Christianity. That's something we need to be alert to. 

In the interview, Powers plays the role of sob sister. It's unclear how much of this is her summarizing his positions, or offering her own interpretation. 

Mayor Pete Buttigieg's countercultural approach to Christianity is what America needs now

Progressive Christianity is the antithesis of countercultural. Progressive Christianity is riding the wave of radical chic fads. 

In a pugilistic take-no-prisoners era, Mayor Pete preaches grace towards political foes while doubting Trump's Christianity.

A rhetorical tactic to defuse hostility, but his policies take no prisoners. You preaching a conciliatory message to get elected, then once in power you try to crush dissent. 

Does the country need an awakening of the Christian left? Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg thinks so. Mayor Pete, as he is affectionately called…

He's not affectionately called Mayor Pete by me. 

…is having a moment with a first quarter fundraising haul of $7 million and a third place showing in an Iowa poll at 11%. In January, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, held last place at 0%. In the intervening months, Buttigieg has wowed Democrats with his mastery of policy issues and Midwestern charm. The 37-year-old is a military veteran who served in Afghanistan, a Rhodes scholar and speaks seven languages.

His LGBT policies betray the military. 

He has also stood out as a devoted Christian who is speaking against the dominance of the religious right in the public square. 

So Powers thinks he's a devoted Christian, does she? That tells you a lot about how far she's drifted. 

Naturally a progressive Christian will oppose the alleged dominance of the religious right in the public square. That's definitional. That's tautological. 

As Buttigieg told me in an interview Friday, “The left is rightly committed to a separation of church and state … but we need to not be afraid to invoke arguments that are convincing on why Christian faith is going to point you in a progressive direction.”

He isn't committed to separation of church and state. To the contrary, the coercive "equality" he champions rescinds the free exercise of religion. 

Buttigieg criticized right-wing Christians for “saying so much about what Christ said so little about, and so little about what he said so much about.”

Let’s parse this insightful formulation: “Saying so much about what Christ said so little about” applies to the religious right’s treatment of abortion as a litmus test for Christian faith, when in fact Jesus never mentioned the issue. That omission has not stopped many right-wing Christians from using President Donald Trump’s anti-abortion rights judicial appointments as the president’s “get out of jail free card,” and license for them to support a leader who consistently behaves in a way that is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.

Christians are called to defend the poor

As to the religious right saying “so little about what (Jesus) said so much about,” Buttigieg made this observation: “When I think about where most of Scripture points me, it is toward defending the poor, and the immigrant, and the stranger, and the prisoner, and the outcast, and those who are left behind by the way society works. And what we have now is this exaltation of wealth and power, almost for its own sake, that in my reading of Scripture couldn't be more contrary to the message of Christianity. So I think it's really important to carry a message (to the public), knitting together a lot of groups that have already been on this path for some time, but giving them more visibility in the public sphere.”

i) Who or what does Buttigieg think Jesus is? It's unlikely that he has an orthodox Christology. It's unlikely that he thinks Jesus is God-Incarnate, risen from the dead. 

If, however, Jesus is just another dead guy, then presumably Buttigieg doesn't think the teaching of Jesus has any more wisdom or authority than the teaching of Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, or the Dalai Lama. 

ii) On the one hand he suggests that we should focus on the teaching of Jesus while on the other hand he appeals to "where most of Scripture points". So there's no consistency.

iii) Jesus revered the OT and cited the OT as an authority on a wide range of issues. Jesus appointed disciples to be his spokesmen. Christian ethics was never confined to the teaching of Jesus, but Scripture in general. 

iv) Biblical concern for the "the poor, and the immigrant, and the stranger, and the prisoner, and the outcast" are more fine-grained than Buttigieg's dragnet. 

v) We've seen the results of the Democrat war on poverty. Their social programs exacerbate the problem. Indeed, Democrats like to keep the poor dependent on gov't largesse because that empowers Democrat officials. 

vi) The question at issue isn't how Trump behaves but the policies of his administration. But as far as that goes, the lifestyle of an active sodomite is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. 

He’s alluding to a burgeoning Christian left led by pastors and writers like Jim Wallis, the Rev. William J. Barber II, Rachel Held Evans, the Rev. James Martin, Lisa Sharon Harper, Diana Butler Bass and many others. But nonconservative Christians generally do not receive the same level of news media attention as the religious right, despite their deep understanding of Scripture and thriving faith traditions. Because most journalists are secular, they can be gullible in looking to the religious right as arbiters of biblical interpretation, especially as it relates to hot-button cultural and political issues. Because of this, many Americans aren’t even aware of the rich tradition of progressive Christianity.

When I asked Mayor Pete his favorite Bible verses, he cited a perennial favorite from the Book of Matthew: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these … you did for me.” 

Which, in context, refers to the duty to care for fellow, persecuted Christians. 

Less frequently cited is his other choice of Matthew 6:5, in which Jesus says, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.”

He's reluctant to call Trump a Christian

Buttigieg didn’t explicitly apply this passage to the religious right. Nonetheless, it’s hard to overlook the evangelical and fundamentalist Christian leaders who make a spectacle of praying publicly — in particular over President Donald Trump — as evidence of their holiness. Jesus himself warned against this kind of showy spirituality and said, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father.”

Notice that Buttigieg is flaunting his own religiosity. Making a public spectacle of his progressive Christianity, to indulge in moral preening. 

There are so many other examples of how members of the religious right, who claim allegiance to a literal interpretation of the Bible, ignore the literal words that Jesus spoke. Hypocrisy, something Jesus railed against, has become perhaps the most prominent feature of the religious right in the Trump era.

The religious right isn't monolithic. Jeffress and Falwell Jr. don't speak for the religious right in general. 

Does Buttigieg think Trump is a Christian? “I'm reluctant to comment on another person's faith, but I would say it is hard to look at this president's actions and believe that they're the actions of somebody who believes in God,” he said. “I just don't understand how you can be as worshipful of your own self as he is and be prepared to humble yourself before God. I've never seen him humble himself before anyone. And the exaltation of yourself, especially a self that's about wealth and power, could not be more at odds with at least my understanding of the teachings of the Christian faith.”

At most, this means that Trump and Buttigieg are both infidels. 

While Buttigieg is a gay man, married in the Episcopal Church he attends, he urges those who support LBGTQ rights to “beckon people onto the right side of history (rather) than … drag people there. If someone feels harassed and put upon by us, at the very moment we're demanding tolerance and acceptance, one consequence is that we can leave them with nowhere to go but the religious right.”

I'd rather be on the wrong side of history than be on the wrong side of eternity. 

I pressed him on how he could advocate showing so much grace to those who continue to perpetrate a biblical interpretation that has caused so much harm to gay people like him.

How has he been harmed by biblical norms? Actually, it's homosexuals who harm other homosexuals through their destructive, dysfunctional relationships. 

“Well, obviously, I want them to change,” he noted. “But I also want to recognize the struggle they might be having and get them there. And in getting there, I want some kind of healing to go on, so that they can recognize ... that our marriages are just as good as theirs.”

Homosexual marriages are a counterfeit travesty of the real thing.