The word "woke" came to contemporary prominence with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. With origins in Black American history, the word "woke" describes being alert to and aware of systemic injustice and oppression. Just as the word came to be widely used in social justice and activist spaces as a part of the BLM movement, and due to that association, "woke" quickly became a derogatory epithet for those involved with social justice concerns. If "Christian nationalist" is the slur the left throws at the Christian political right, "woke" is the slur the right throws at the Christian political left.

One of the first uses of the word "woke," as we understand it, originated with the blues singer Lead Belly. Lead Belly wrote a song entitled "Scottsboro Boys" about the infamous Scottsboro Boys trial, where nine Black teenagers were falsely accused of raping two white women. In the song, Lead Belly warns Black people that if you "go to Alabama, you better watch out." In discussing the song with an interviewer, Lead Belly says, about Black people visiting Alabama, “I advise everybody to be a little careful when they go along through there -- best stay woke, keep their eyes open.”

In the last post I described how liberalism has borne good fruit and that this fruit needs to be protected and carried forward. What did I mean by that?

As Tom Holland has documented in his book Dominion, the social justice impulses we now call "woke" have their origins in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The last chapter of Holland's book is entitled "Woke." The through line is clear: starting with Moses and the Hebrew prophets, through Jesus and Paul, we arrive today at woke.

When I describe myself as progressive, "staying woke" is what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the social justice emphasis in Scripture. In modern theology this has been most clearly seen in the stream called "liberation theology." Liberation theology emerged in Latin America in the late 1960s amid widespread poverty and political repression. Influenced by the Church’s renewed concern for social justice after the Second Vatican Council and the Latin American bishops’ call at the Medellín Conference to confront structural injustice, the movement centered on the “preferential option for the poor,” the conviction that God shows special concern for the oppressed and that the Church must stand in solidarity with them. This vision was articulated by Gustavo Gutiérrez and embodied by Óscar Romero, whose advocacy for the poor led to his assassination.

Here in America, liberation theology influenced James Cone's development of Black theology, arguing that Christian faith must be interpreted from the standpoint of those suffering racial oppression. Cone insisted that God stands in solidarity with the oppressed and that theology must take seriously the Black experience and the struggle for liberation. Cone developed this vision early in God of the Oppressed (1975) and returned to it decades later in The Cross and the Lynching Tree (2011), where he drew a powerful connection between the crucifixion of Jesus and the history of racial terror in America.

Broadly speaking, and taking a cue from both Gutiérrez and Cone, I describe my hermeneutical posture as liberationist. My reading of Scripture is woke to oppression and injustice. The best description I have for this way of reading the Bible comes from the title of Bob Ekblad's book Reading the Bible with the Damned. That is to say, when we read the Bible within oppressed and marginalized communities, what do they hear as "good news"? What does good news sound like for the poor, the incarcerated, the undocumented immigrant?

When I describe the good fruits of liberalism, this concern about oppression and injustice is the main one I'm speaking about. A liberationist theology is "liberal" in that it places great weight upon the human experience of pain and suffering. This theology tips toward egalitarianism, for example, because it gives great weight to the sufferings and oppressions of women within patriarchal social arrangements. This theology tips toward wokeness, as another example, because it gives great weight to the sufferings and oppressions of Black persons in America. And, yes, given that there are two loci of oppression here, gender and race, such oppressions can "intersect."

And so on. A liberationist hermeneutic stands with an oppressed person or class of persons and asks: What is good news, what is emancipatory and liberating, for this person?

Now, is this the sole and only question we ask when reading Scripture? No, there are other considerations. And many of the postliberal thinkers, theological and political, make many good points about these considerations. Justice isn't the whole of life, individually and collectively. That said, one of my strongest objections to postliberal political thought is its strong rejection of social justice. Just witness how, among them, "wokeism" is a term of abuse. To say nothing about the misogyny and racism that afflict the movement.

All that to say, when it comes to espousing a liberationist hermeneutic, I'm stubbornly "liberal" and "progressive." I'm post-progressive in that I think a reductionist social justice framework is inadequate in many ways and problematic in other ways. I'll turn to that issue next. But for now, let's just say that I'm staying woke.

Referencing the work of Harvey Cox, David Congdon ends his article “What Has New Haven to Do with Hungary? On Theological and Political Postliberalism" with this passage and exhortation:

Cox makes it clear that the error of postliberalism, in both its theological and political manifestations, is first and foremost a theological error—and perhaps especially a Christological error. Whether for us today a theological critique or solution would gain any traction among postliberal Christian nationalists is much less clear. There is a small measure of hope in naming the theological problem; it suggests we have the tools to course correct. But political postliberalism largely uses theology as a mere veneer for what is a nakedly brazen power grab. These postliberals believe they were under the thumb of unredeemable, despotic liberals. There is little chance they will be dissuaded by a sermon or even a treatise. A political problem may now require a political solution. Nevertheless, if theologians are going to play a role in that process, they might start by helping Christians to expand their theological imaginations—to use a favorite postliberal term—beyond the church/world divide and away from homogeneity. Theological postliberalism led Christians into this impasse; a renewed theological liberalism might offer the way out.

That last line catches my attention. Regular readers will be aware that I recently shared some reflections about the good fruit of liberal theology (that series is entitled "When Barth and Schleiermacher Kiss"). In that series I suggested that when God is proclaimed as "Wholly Other," theology risks losing contact with human experience. Relevant to this series, postliberal theology, which was influenced by Barth, can run a similar risk in how it posits a strong church/world contrast. In the hands of the postliberal theologians, liberalism and humanistic pluralism can sound like a cesspool of depravity and moral relativism. And as Congdon notes, this theological description can be weaponized by postliberal political theory, used as the sacred warrant for an illiberal and authoritarian politics.

But let me name the concern that flows the other way. As a liberal theologian, Congdon has recently released a book defending a Christian vision of polyamory. To which traditional and orthodox theologians would say, "A defense of polyamory! See, that's exactly the sort of trashy, heretical thing liberal theology always produces." To which I'd say, I agree. There are dragons in this direction.

But there are dragons running in the other direction as well. If you follow the online writings of Doug Wilson and Rod Dreher, both Christian nationalists, you're aware that they are constantly fighting theological battles to their right: white nationalism, misogyny, Nazism, antisemitism. If liberal theology has to deal with the David Congdons, and the other zany stuff you find at the AAR conference, the postliberals have to deal with Nick Fuentes. Everyone has their dragons.

As I said at the start of this series, I often find myself in between these debates. As I described in my "When Barth and Schleiermacher Kiss" series, I have liberal theological instincts. The data of human experience looms large for me. This is why my writings have a progressive, liberal leaning. And yet, as regular readers know, I've come to describe myself as post-progressive. For me, this is different from "postliberal." Postliberalism, at least in its political expressions, really means antiliberal. By contrast, when I use "post" I don't mean "anti." I treat progressivism as a starting place and carry its good fruit forward while also articulating the ways in which progressivism fails and struggles. A true, full-blown progressive might really enjoy David Congdon's defense of polyamory. But as a post-progressive, I don't. As a post-progressive, I think the progressive and liberal approach to human sexuality is broken. But also as a post-progressive, I have not swung to how people like Doug Wilson and Rod Dreher think about gender relations and sexuality. Unlike the postliberal political thinkers, I'm not anti-progressive. The progressive and liberal view of the world has born good fruit that needs to be protected and carried forward. I'll turn to that issue in the next post.

For now, however, just the observation that this post-progressive space I'm occupying is an interesting place to find oneself in the current theological landscape. It keeps me busy because I have dragons to both my right and my left.

Before we push on with these reflections, it would be good to reflect a bit about what we mean by "Christian Nationalism" and how I've been using this term.

I'm put in mind here of an article by my colleague Brad East in Christianity Today. In his 2024 article "How (Not) to Talk About Christian Nationalism" Brad suggests that the label "Christian Nationalism" has lost its descriptive usefulness and is now mainly used as a slur. To make the case, Brad helpfully describes how Christian faith relates to politics in ways that are normal but get hysterically branded as "Christian nationalist." Brad delineates six practices and beliefs that he believes should not be described as "Christian nationalist" and I quote a bit of Brad's essay to help you see the point he is making. For Brad, the following should not be described as Christian nationalism:

1. Putting God into politics: "In the United States, people of all faiths and none are welcome to bring their deepest convictions into the public square. No one has to pretend. This is not France. No Christian, Jew, or Muslim is wrong—morally, theologically, or constitutionally—to bring faith into democratic debate."

2. Putting politics into church: "The gospel makes public claims that pertain to the world outside the walls of the sanctuary. These claims concern Christ’s sovereign rule over the nations and his passionate affection for the poor, the marginal, and the vulnerable...Worship of a crucified Messiah can never truly be apolitical..."

3. Supporting Christian candidates for office: "Humanly speaking, there is nothing more natural than the desire for representation in democratic assemblies. Christians are not unique in wanting to vote for people who share our faith, and that tendency isn’t worth worry."

4. Believing divine providence guides America: "I wish fellow Christians would give up this belief...And yet there is nothing more American than American exceptionalism. From our founding onward, this belief has always been with us, often with religious overtones. Christians who disagree with me on this issue aren’t radicals. They’re ordinary Americans."

5. Believing America is, or should be, Christian: "Like American exceptionalism, the notion of an informal “Christian America” is deeply embedded in US history, culture, and law...[Arguing that America should be Christian] is no less American than arguments for a secular America. Both deserve a hearing."

6. Doubting liberalism, democracy, or American order. A surprise here! And Brad admits that this is "the sticking point" in his argument. The word carrying the weight here is "doubting." As we've described, postliberal theologians have raised a lot of "doubts" about liberalism, and those theologians don't support Christian nationalism. As Brad writes, "Dorothy Day, Jacques Ellul, Ivan Illich, Wendell Berry, Alasdair MacIntyre, Cornel West, and Stanley Hauerwas have each placed a question mark next to some modern shibboleth: liberalism, democracy, human rights, capitalism, industrialism, the nuclear family, digital technology, American empire—whatever it may be, they’ve put it in the dock and interrogated it." Point taken. Lots of people raise questions and express doubts about liberalism, democracy, and the American order. And many of those, like Stanley Hauerwas, have been postliberal theologians. So raising questions or doubts about liberalism, democracy, or America doesn't automatically make you a Christian nationalist.

Before turning to my working definition of Christian nationalism, let me point to some of the good points Brad has raised, especially in his first three points. If we believe that democracy involves a rough-and-tumble debate where citizens bring into those debates their values, beliefs, and faith commitments, then we cannot tar Christians as "Christian nationalists" for showing up to that debate as Christians and arguing for Christian outcomes. Abortion is the obvious example. A committed Catholic, for example, who votes for pro-life policies and candidates is not a "Christian nationalist." You might disagree with this Catholic voter, but you have a right to disagree and express your disagreements, loudly and passionately, as a part of the democratic process. And the fact that this debate is often angry and harsh does not make it any less democratic. Far too often, Christians behaving like Christians within the liberal, democratic order are described as "Christian nationalists." Well, let me be more clear: Far too often, Evangelical Christians behaving like Evangelical Christians within the liberal, democratic order are described as "Christian nationalists." I think liberal and progressive Christians need to take this to heart. Evangelical Christians are allowed to be Evangelical Christians as they engage the liberal, democratic project, just as you are allowed to express and vote for your own values and worldview.

So what is a Christian nationalist? Taking a cue from Brad, it has got to be more than raising questions about the health of the liberal order. So here is my definition of Christian nationalism: Christian nationalists are those who believe that the government should use illiberal and authoritarian means to create and control a Christian political and cultural order. Christian nationalists are those who view the liberal, democratic order of America, and the pluralism it produces, as a political obstacle that must be overcome. According to Christian nationalism, the pursuit of a Christian vision of the good must take precedence over the preservation of freedom and liberty. Hungary's Viktor Orbán put the postliberal political vision this way: "The new state that we are are building in Hungary is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state."

I would encourage you to read Laura Field's Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right for an intellectual tour of postliberal political thinking, along with related intellectual movements from Christian nationalism to Catholic integralism. There are thinkers, with Ivy League credentials, who are arguing for an illiberal politics on behalf of their vision of the common good. 

But other examples of Christian nationalism are closer to hand. For example, any and all Christians who supported the "Stop the Steal" narrative, participated in or supported the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol, and who continue to endorse and propagate the Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election meet my definition of Christian nationalism. That is to say, these Christians supported the rejection of a legitimate democratic election in order to keep Donald Trump in power. Political illiberalism was embraced to further the pursuit of a Christian nation. If creating a Christian nation required an illiberal reversal of an election, then so be it

Now, some might respond that many (most?) of these Christians actually believed there were electoral shenanigans going on in the 2020 election. True. But let me connect some dots here. 

Christians who came to believe in the Big Lie found the prospect of a Joe Biden win intolerable, precisely because of their Christian commitments. They faced, however, an electoral loss. Democratic reality and Christian desire (even Biblical prophecy!) came into conflict. That outcome was so tragic it became unbelievable. And yet, these Christians were Americans who claimed to value freedom, liberty, and democracy. Consequently, to make their dream come true these Christians could not consciously and explicitly embrace an illiberal politics, denying the will of the people to keep Trump in office. These Christians experienced what psychologists call "cognitive dissonance." To resolve that dissonance, these Christians were psychologically motivated to view the 2020 election results as fraudulent. By embracing the Big Lie they could reject the democratic outcome of the election, thereby making their presidential dream come true while still believing they were true Americans who championed liberty and "We the People." We might call these Christians "Unwitting Christian Nationalists" or "Functional Christian Nationalists." An unwitting, functional Christian nationalist is a Christian whose desire for a Christian political outcome is so powerful that it overwhelms and biases their perception of political reality, allowing them to reject democratic outcomes while still believing themselves defenders of democracy. And for my part, these unwitting and functional Christian nationalists are just as worrisome as the explicit and self-conscious Christian nationalists Fields describes in Furious Minds.

"the mervelous curtesie and homlyhede of our Fader"

In Chapter 7 Julian continues to describe her spiritual insights while contemplating Jesus' Crown of Thorns. In good medieval fashion, she describes copious amounts of blood flowing from Jesus' brow:

The grete dropis of blade fel downe [the great drops of blood fell down] from under the garland like pellots semand as it had cum out of the veynis [like pellets seeming as if they had come out of the veins], and in the comeing out it were browne rede [was deep red], for the blode [blood] was full thick, and in the spredeing abrade [spreading out] it were [was] bright rede [bright red], and whan it come to the browes, than it vanyshid [and when it came to the brows, then it vanished]; notwithstondying the bleding continuid [notwithstanding the bleeding continued] till many things were seene [seen] and understondyn [understood].

And what does Julian come to understand in this vision of dripping blood? Two things: "the mervelous curtesie and homlyhede" of God.

By "homely" or "homeliness" (Middle English: "homlyhede"), Julian means intimate and familiar, meeting us as friendly equals. Fr. John-Julian translates "homely" as "friendly." In addition, Julian describes Christ's condescension toward us as "courteous." The image she uses is of a king who, despite his high status, meets a lowly peasant with generosity and intimacy. In a similar way, the Lord displays toward us a "marvelous courtesy and friendliness." Julian writes:

This bodily example was shewid so hey [shown so mightily] that manys hart [man's heart] might be ravishid and almost forgettyng himselfe [forgetting himself] for joy of this grete [great] homlyhede [homeliness]. Thus it fareith be our Lord Jesus and be us [fares between our Lord Jesus and us], for sothly [surely] it is the most joy that may be, as to my sight, that He that is heyest [highest] and mightyest, noblest and worthyest, is lowest and mekest, homlyest [homeliest] and curteysest [most courteous]. And treuly and sothly [truly and surely] this mervelous [marvelous] joy shall be shewne [shown] us all whan we se [when we see] Him. And this will [wills] our Lord, that we willen and trowen [believe and trust], joyen and liken [enjoy and delight], comfortyn us [comfort ourselves] and solacys us [soothe/solace ourselves] as we may with His grace and with His helpe into the tyme that we se it verily [until the time we see it truly]. For the most fulhede [fullness] of joy that we shal have, as to my sight, is the mervelous curtesie and homlyhede [courtesy and homeliness] of our Fader [Father] that is our maker in our Lord Jesus Criste that is our brother and our Saviour.

Julian is overcome by God's coming so near to us in Christ. As she describes, when we truly behold the vast distance God traverses in lowering Himself to meet us in courtesy and friendliness, our hearts are "ravished" to the point where we "forget ourselves for joy."

Having described postliberal theology and postliberal politics, we can turn, now, to the debate kicked off by David Congdon's article in The Journal of Religion entitled “What Has New Haven to Do with Hungary? On Theological and Political Postliberalism." 

To recap a bit from the last post. Both postliberal theology and postliberal political theory have decried the impact of liberalism and its inability to form the virtues necessary for human flourishing, personally and collectively. Noting this, postliberal theology posited a hard church/world contrast. Christian virtues could only be formed from within the particular and distinctive Christian community over against the pluralism of the surrounding culture. As Stanley Hauerwas famously said, "the first task of the Church is to make the world the world." The church would carve out a space from within the pluralistic culture, living as a "colony of heaven" in the midst of the world. There the church would function as a counter polis, a community of contrast making visible the politics of the Kingdom of God over against the kingdoms of the world. 

To accomplish this, a degree of cultural quarantine is needed so that the shared life of the Christian community will not be diluted or compromised. This vision of retreat in order to protect cultural homogeneity reached popular expression in Rod Dreher's book The Benedict Option. There has been a lot of debate about what Dreher means by a "retreat" from the world. He is not advocating for an Amish-like withdrawal. But that debate does not concern us here. All we need to note is how postliberal theology argues for the necessity of a thick and homogeneous cultural life carved out from and lived in contrast to the surrounding secular and pluralistic culture.

The postliberal political thinkers reject this "colony of heaven" approach. According to the postliberal political theorists, the forces of pluralism, secularism, and liberalism are so dominant and powerful that they generally overwhelm Christian attempts to form a distinctive identity. The cultural withdrawal demanded is so severe and the costs so high that most Christians balk. Most churches are unable to create thick cultures of community, providing instead a worship service on Sunday morning and leaving their members to navigate the secular and pluralistic culture on their own and as best they can. The results, as you know, have not been good.

Consequently, postliberal political thinkers believe that the church cannot be the sole focus of Christian engagement. The toxicity of the culture must be directly addressed. This will, however, mean a turn toward an illiberal and authoritarian politics that imposes a Christian culture upon the nation. Liberty and freedom are set aside to pursue a particularist vision of the collective good.

While postliberal theology and postliberal politics have different foci—the church versus the nation—Congdon argues that postliberal theology set the stage for the authoritarian turn among many Christians, as seen in their embrace of Donald Trump. An example of this is Rod Dreher himself. After espousing the postliberal theological vision in The Benedict Option, Dreher pivoted to embrace the illiberal political vision of Hungary's Viktor Orbán. Dreher was a champion of Orbán's government as a political model for Europe and America. In turning away from The Benedict Option toward Christian nationalism, Dreher illustrates the church-to-nationalism shift, the slide from the particularist ecclesiology of the postliberal theologians toward the authoritarianism of the postliberal political thinkers.

Here's how David Congdon describes this trajectory:

Postliberal theology erected an entire edifice rooted in the idea that church and world (or state) are in a metaphysical battle to the death, with only one potential victor, in which the only hope for humanity is to gather in small-scale, tradition-homogeneous communities where proper Christian virtue and character may be cultivated and lived out. Most people, however, do not have the capacity to leave their jobs and social networks behind to establish a commune in the woods, and most do not wish to flee to Hungary. Is it any wonder, then, that Christians catechized on a diet of Hauerwas and Milbank would eventually seek to take over the reins of political power in the United States and elsewhere? The idea of having a template for a happy life but resigning oneself to a politics of lament would strike most as an unnecessary form of defeatism....The charge of “sectarian temptation” that Gustafson leveled against Hauerwas has now matured into the authoritarian temptation of the political postliberals. These are not opposed positions but rather two sides of one coin—namely, the antiliberal coin that posits a binary between church and world and requires cultural homogeneity as a precondition for human flourishing...

Once “the world” is perceived as a vast wasteland of heresy and ungodliness, it is but a short step from we must avoid the world to remain pure to we must purify the world. Postliberal theology taught Christians to see the cultural Other as utterly alien, incapable of understanding or engaging with the truth revealed to the church. After a generation of being conditioned to view others this way, is it at all surprising that some have decided such people should not be allowed to govern society?

This is a provocative and contentious claim. To blame theologians like Stanley Hauerwas, given his theology and witness, for the rise of Donald Trump is pretty outrageous. So there has been pushback. David Fitch has written a series of responses on his Substack, the first of which is here. (Fitch's posts were how I became aware of Congdon's article.) James K.A. Smith shared a critical yet more sympathetic response on his Substack. Congdon replied to Fitch on his Substack.

Okay, I've taken two posts to set this controversy before you. The question before us is this: Does postliberal theology tempt us toward a postliberal politics? Does, as Congdon argues, a hard church/world contrast teach Christians to view the "cultural Other as utterly alien"? Is there a dehumanizing temptation at work in "the first task of the Church is to make the world the world"? Relatedly, have the postliberal ecclesial expressions proved so severe and costly, and churches so impotent in forming their people, that pastors and church leaders eventually concluded that something more drastic was warranted by way of addressing the culture? If being the postliberal church is very hard in a liberal and pluralistic world, might it be a good idea to create a nation where it is easier to be the church?

While I understand why people will want to rush to defend Hauerwas from what they take to be an ugly smear from David Congdon, implicating him in Trumpism, I find myself pondering the questions above, if only for my own benefit. As I've shared recently, I love Hauerwas. But I also have a progressive, liberal, and humanistic streak in me that inclines me to adopt a more positive posture toward "the world." Consequently, on one of the central issues in this debate—Is pluralism good or bad?—I find myself pulled in two different directions. So I'm going to try in this series to think aloud and sort a bit of this out. Feel free to follow along and share your own thoughts.

I want to use these series to tease out what I think about a recent debate concerning how postliberal theology may or may not have contributed to postliberal political theory. As I've pondered this debate I find myself, as is often the case, "in between" the positions. So I'm going to use this series to nail down exactly where I am. 

But to bring everyone along with me on this journey I'll need to catch many readers up.

The stimulus for this particular debate was an article published by David Congdon in The Journal of Religion entitled “What Has New Haven to Do with Hungary? On Theological and Political Postliberalism." The thesis of Congdon's essay can be simply stated: Postliberal theology laid the groundwork for postliberal politics. Provocatively stated, Stanley Hauerwas brought us Donald Trump.

If none of that makes any sense to you, let me back up and explain. 

Postliberal theology was a reaction toward what is called "liberal theology." Liberal here doesn't mean "Woke" or "Democrat." Liberal theology was an attempt to reinterpret Christianity in light of modernity. Beginning with figures like Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), it grounded faith in human experience rather than in supernatural revelation or metaphysical claims. Doctrine was understood less as a set of objective truths about God and more as symbolic, moral, or existential expressions of religious consciousness. Later theologians such as Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923), Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930), Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976), and Paul Tillich (1886–1965) continued this trajectory in different ways, interpreting Christian claims in categories intelligible to modern culture.

Postliberal theology emerged as a critique of liberal theology’s reduction of doctrine to expressions of universal religious experience. But postliberal theology was not antiliberal in the political sense. It assumed the pluralistic conditions of modern society and did not seek a return to cultural dominance. Rather than translating Christianity into the categories of human experience, they emphasized learning to inhabit the Christian narrative and practices as a way of life within a pluralistic world. By doing so the postliberals sought to recover the particularity and authority of Christian doctrine, carving out space for a thick Christian community within the pluralistic order. By treating doctrine as the grammar of a distinctive way of life, the postliberals aimed to sustain Christian distinctiveness without retreating from modernity or translating the faith into its prevailing categories.

A key influence here was the work of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951). Wittgenstein argued that language gets its meaning from how it is used by a community sharing a common life. Words function within “language games,” patterns of speech and practice governed by rules that communities learn over time. Postliberal theologians, like George Lindbeck, applied this insight to Christian doctrine. Christianity, Lindbeck argued, is a distinct cultural-linguistic community that has its own grammar, habits, and practices which shape how believers speak about God and how they inhabit the biblical story. To be a Christian is to join this particular community, learning its language, its patterns of worship, and its way of life. Truth, on this account, is not detached from this communal grammar but is learned and embodied within it.

Stanley Hauerwas is a theologian who fused postliberal theology with virtue ethics. Drawing on the cultural diagnosis of Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue, and connecting it with the Anabaptist ecclesiology of John Howard Yoder, Hauerwas articulated a powerful vision of Christian life and spiritual formation. From MacIntyre he took the claim that virtues only make sense in light of a telos, a shared account of the good. From Yoder he identified the life of Jesus, especially his nonviolence, as the telos which defines that good. And drawing on George Lindbeck, Hauerwas argued that these cruciform virtues are formed from within the practices and language of the Christian community. The church becomes the school in which believers learn the grammar of the faith until its story and practices are embodied as habits of character.

Okay, that review should catch everyone up on the postliberal theology side of the debate. Let's now turn to what has been called "postliberal politics."

While postliberal politics has deeper historical roots, it rose to contemporary prominence through Patrick Deneen and his bestselling book Why Liberalism Failed, which Deneen followed up with Regime Change. Deneen, along with other postliberal political theorists, argues that liberalism has "failed" because it cannot articulate a thick account of the common good. On this point he echoes Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue: without a shared telos, a society cannot cultivate the virtues necessary for its own survival. Absent such formation, liberal democracies slide into fragmentation, moral incoherence, and cultural decay.

But here is the tension. Liberal democracies are explicitly premised upon liberty. Within broad constitutional guardrails, citizens are free to pursue diverse visions of the good. Liberalism does not arbitrate between those choices. Liberalism protects, rather, the space in which these competing goods coexist. Pluralism is the expected outcome. A feature, not a bug.

And yet, for Deneen and his postliberal allies, pluralism is the disease. Toleration tends toward decadence. Freedom leads to fragmentation. The refusal of the state to privilege one comprehensive moral vision over others inexorably brings about national, cultural, and civilizational collapse.

If so, what follows?

The answer, stated plainly, is that the state must decide. Where liberty had once been the organizing principle of America it has to be, going forward, subordinated to a thicker, state-enforced account of human flourishing. The state must privilege certain goods over others, even against the dissent of its citizens. The state must discipline the culture. In short, the state must become illiberal and authoritarian in order to secure and save the good.

Okay, do you have those two visions in mind, postliberal theology versus postliberal politics?

The key point both agree upon is the view that liberalism cannot form virtue. Which is why both groups use Alasdair MacIntyre in their arguments. 

The contrast between the views might be put this way. Given liberalism's inability to form virtue, postliberal theology, like that of Stanley Hauerwas, argues for the particularity of the Christian community. The church is the place where virtue is formed. Formed from within a community carved out from within a pluralistic culture. 

Postliberal politics, by contrast, wants to turn the entire nation into the church. Basically, Christian nationalism (or Catholic integralism). Instead of "carving out" spaces within the culture, the culture itself needs to be comprehensively disciplined toward the "Christian" conception of the good. (I put "Christian" in scare quotes for a reason, because it is an open question, for me at least, whether the postliberal politics of "the ends justify the means" approach toward the good is a Christian vision.) Schematically we have:

Postliberal theology = Be the church from within the pluralistic world

Postliberal politics = Turn the pluralistic world into the church

Given this contrast, we can return to Congdon's article. Postliberal theology and postliberal politics seem to be quite different. Postliberal theology focuses upon the church. Postliberal politics focuses upon the nation. Postliberal theology views pluralism as a mission field. Postliberal politics views pluralism as a tumor that must be removed. But if this is true, how can Congdon claim that postliberal theology created the conditions for a postliberal politics? How could the theology of Stanley Hauerwas bring us Donald Trump? 

We'll turn to that contested and controversial question in the next post. 

Fun fact: Paul never mentions hell.

Jesus, by contrast, talked a lot about hell.

As I point out in The Book of Love, this contrast surprises us. In our popular imagination, Paul comes off as the rigid fundamentalist, whereas Jesus is full of love, tolerance, and sunshine. But Jesus spoke of hell a great deal, and it was part of his evangelistic urgency.

That said, Jesus’ hell was different from how we tend to imagine it. Our vision of hell tends to be medieval. Hell is a space reserved in eternity where the damned suffer eternal and perpetual torment. Many of Jesus’ references to hell, by contrast, pointed toward a geographical location outside the walls of Jerusalem. This was the Valley of Hinnom, called “Gehenna,” and it was associated in the history of Israel with child sacrifices to Moloch. Gehenna came to symbolize God’s coming apocalyptic judgment upon the forces of darkness. To be sure, there are references to hell being “eternal” in the Gospels (Matt. 25:46) and that the fires of Gehenna are “never quenched” (Mark 9:43–48), but Jesus’ references to Gehenna concern judgment more than torment. Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom was eschatologically pressured. The Day of the Lord was approaching, when humanity would face the Great Sorting. Jesus was not engaged in speculating about the ultimate fate of the damned but was, rather, bringing God’s judgment to bear upon today in order to prompt a change of heart. Jesus wanted to bring his audience into a state of crisis.

For my part, this is how hell should function in evangelism. God’s judgment impinges upon life and brings it into crisis. The goal is not to abstractly speculate about the ultimate fate of humanity but to prompt repentance. As Paul puts it, today is the day of salvation.

It’s also important to notice how Jesus used hell to evangelize for social justice. The classic examples here are the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:19–31) and the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt. 25:31–46). These two parables are noteworthy for two things. First, they are the two parables with the richest images of judgment and hell. Second, both parables are evangelistic in demanding concern for the poor and oppressed. 

Recall our reflections over the last few posts about hell being more about hamartiology than eschatology. Jesus’ references to hell press that claim. Jesus' parables are not speculations about the afterlife. They are confrontations. They name the kinds of people who stand under judgment. And they bring these people into crisis. They begin to feel, in John the Baptist’s image, the ax already laid at the root. The Rich Man is is a warning. The Goats are mirrors. Hell, in Jesus’ preaching, exposes sin and makes God’s judgment immediate and personal. And the aim is evangelistic, summoning repentance and calling hearers to believe the Good News.

Some readers of The Book of Love might be disappointed with how I handle the issue of eschatology. Throughout the book, it’s clear I’m on the more hopeful side of the debate. But in my chapter on Judgment Day I ultimately land on mystery. And such an ending, even an equivocation, might strike long-term readers as too equivocal, even disingenuous.

A couple of reflections about all this.

First, as I state in Part 1 of the book, I didn’t want to write for an echo chamber. My book isn’t polemical. I didn’t want to write a book for the already converted. I don’t like preaching to the choir. So I tried to avoid connecting all the dots. I tried, rather, to point toward a horizon of possibility and gently invite readers to take a stroll in that direction. My hope is that, as people make this journey, they will start to ask questions, explore, and begin connecting some dots. And there are a lot of books already on the market that can help with that task.

Phrased differently, I was actually interested in trying to change people’s minds. I know! Most books aren’t interested in this project at all. Rather, books about the Bible tend to show you how to read the Bible in light of your current moral, religious, and political convictions. But if you want to change people’s minds, you’ve got to back up a bit and till the soil. You have to work with background assumptions and hidden worldviews. You’ve got to break the ice up a bit. And a book that does this sort of work looks different from your run-of-the-mill “This Is How Progressives Read the Bible as Progressives” and “This Is How Evangelicals Read the Bible as Evangelicals” type of book.

So, when I approached eschatology as a mystery in the book, a lot of that was due to the agenda of the book and its overall goals and strategy. Admitting mystery is a hospitable, open, and humble way to invite people into a conversation.

But beyond this consider-your-audience pragmatism, what about my eschatological convictions?

In the debates about so-called “universalism,” a contrast is often made between “hopeful universalism” and “dogmatic universalism.” Dogmatic universalism makes a strong doctrinal claim: that all persons will in fact be saved, treating this as a settled theological conclusion. Hopeful universalism, by contrast, stops short of that assertion. Hopeful universalism refuses to claim knowledge of the final outcome, yet maintains that Christians may rightly hope and pray that God’s saving will, revealed in Christ, might finally encompass all. Figures such as Hans Urs von Balthasar are often associated with hopeful universalism due to his book Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved?, which argues for eschatological hope grounded in the mercy of God. Many also consider Karl Barth to be a hopeful universalist.

I have many friends who would describe their beliefs this way:

1. Biblically, I am committed to the view that hell exists and that people are going to hell.
2. And yet, I hope many of these people, perhaps even most or all of them, will eventually be saved.

To which I say, that’s good enough for me. I don’t debate the point much past this. And it’s here that I would like to talk about the varieties of dogmatic universalism.

One type of dogmatism would be dismayed at my charity toward my friends who express a weak hope. These dogmatists are more evangelistic than I am, feeling compelled to debate and argue people into changing their views. I am not dogmatic in this way. I have lived with minority views for most of my adult life within my denomination. I tolerate differences of opinion. I’m good to agree to disagree.

Concerning the coherence of the Christian faith as it relates to eschatology, I’m more dogmatic. I am argumentative on this point, and any dogmatism I’ve displayed in debate, personally and online, concerns this issue. I just don’t think Christianity is theologically and morally coherent unless all of creation, humanity included, is restored and reconciled to God. I think Colossians 1:19 is the lynchpin to the entire worldview:

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

“To reconcile to himself all things.” Creation theology. Soteriology. Eschatology. Theodicy. Ontology. Morality. Logically, the theological edifice is held together by this crucial commitment. Pull that pin and the whole falls into fractured incoherence. This is why Karl Barth, our most systematic modern theologian, ended up with a hopeful eschatology. Barth saw the whole better than anyone and knew how it is held together. Piecemeal theologians never glimpse the gestalt Barth viewed.

Now, does all that sound a wee bit dogmatic? Yep. If you want to argue about the coherence of Christianity, I am absolutely dogmatic on this point.

And yet, there is a third type of dogmatism. Which brings me back to The Book of Love. Does my dogmatism about theological coherence mean that I’m right? Well, no. I'm not dogmatic about ultimately being right. You can hold your views with conviction and still espouse epistemic humility. Lord knows I think I’m right. And I’ll argue with anyone who thinks otherwise. But I’m humble enough to admit that we’re arguing about mysteries. We are children playing on the shore of a vast apophatic mystery. Here’s an analogy from Albert Einstein regarding science’s attempt to explore the cosmos:

In our endeavor to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way of opening the case. If he is ingenious he may form some picture of a mechanism which could be responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. He will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility or the meaning of such a comparison.

If this is true of physics, how much more true of theology? Like the scientist positing an explanation for the closed watch, I think a hopeful eschatology is the best explanation for the “mechanism” of the Christian faith. Others disagree. And so we’ll argue about those rival visions, just like the scientists argue. But at the end of the day, we’re unable to open the watch to see who is right. I think belief in eternal conscious torment is wrong. A horrible explanation for the watch. For their part, believers in eternal conscious torment think I’ve got it wrong. And both of us are pretty darn dogmatic in our opinions. And yet, at the end of the day, we're unable to resolve the question. We’ll both have to wait until the watch gets opened.

Like I said, it's a mystery.

"for treuly our lover desireth that our soule cleve to Hym"

In Chapter 6 of The Revelations Julian ponders how prayer, at her time, invoked many intermediaries, from the Holy Cross to Mary to the saints. But what Julian perceives in each and every intermediary is the goodness of God. As she writes: "Wherefore it pleaseth [pleases] Him that we seke [seek] Him and worship be [by] menys [means or helps], understondyng [understanding] and knoweing that He is the goodness of all." 

And it is this seeking after His goodness, continues Julian, that God most desires. As she says: "for treuly [truly] our lover desireth [desires] that our soule cleve [cleave] to Hym [Him] with all the might and that we be evermore clevand [cleaved] to His godenes [goodness]."

This is the first time Julian calls God our "Lover" in The Revelations. It will become a common description going forward, and it highlights the romantic aspect of Julian's spirituality. By using erotic imagery—God as our lover—Julian stands solidly within the contemplative tradition. For example, the most famous treatise of the Christian mystical tradition, St. John of the Cross' The Dark Night of the Soul, is a commentary upon an erotic love poem entitled "Stanzas of the Soul." I shared this during my series on the Psalms, David Lewis's translation of St. John's poem:

I.
In a dark night,
With anxious love inflamed,
O, happy lot!
Forth unobserved I went,
My house being now at rest.

II.
In darkness and in safety,
By the secret ladder, disguised,
O, happy lot!
In darkness and concealment,
My house being now at rest.

III.
In that happy night,
In secret, seen of none,
Seeing nought myself,
Without other light or guide
Save that which in my heart was burning.

IV.
That light guided me
More surely than the noonday sun
To the place where He was waiting for me,
Whom I knew well,
And where none appeared.

V.
O, guiding night;
O, night more lovely than the dawn;
O, night that hast united
The lover with His beloved,
And changed her into her love.

VI.
On my flowery bosom,
Kept whole for Him alone,
There He reposed and slept;
And I cherished Him, and the waving
Of the cedars fanned Him.

VII.
As His hair floated in the breeze
That from the turret blew,
He struck me on the neck
With His gentle hand,
And all sensation left me.

VIII.
I continued in oblivion lost,
My head was resting on my love;
Lost to all things and myself,
And, amid the lilies forgotten,
Threw all my cares away.

The lover goes out into the night for a moonlight tryst with the Beloved. St. John of the Cross uses the romantic rendezvous to expound upon "the way and manner which the soul follows upon the road of the union of love with God." 

Julian echos the same romantic longing when she writes, "For truly our Lover desires that our soul cleave to Him."

In The Book of Love I have a chapter reflecting upon Judgment Day. I start the chapter with Johnny Cash's last great song "The Man Comes Around", along with "God's Gonna Cut You Down," a song Cash recorded late in his life with Rick Rubin. 

Here are some of the lyrics of "The Man Comes Around":

There's a man goin' 'round takin' names.
And he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won't be treated all the same.
There'll be a golden ladder reaching down.
When the man comes around.

Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers.
One hundred million angels singin'.
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettle drum.
Voices callin', voices cryin'.
Some are born and some are dyin'.
It's Alpha and Omega's Kingdom come.

And here's some of the lyrics from "God's Gonna Cut You Down": 

You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down

The point I make in The Book of Love about these songs is how popular they were (and are), especially with the younger generations who were tuning into Cash during the American Recordings years with Rubin. Here's the question I ask: Why are songs about hell, Judgment Day, and damnation so appealing?

Psychologists have described what are called "just world beliefs." Just world beliefs refer to our cognitive tendency to believe that the world is morally ordered, that people generally get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Just world beliefs assume that good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people, and that life outcomes reflect moral worth or effort. Overall, these beliefs provide a sense that the world is stable, predictable, and fair.

As the popularly of Cash's Judgment Day songs and the research on just world beliefs illustrate, everyone believes in hell. Maybe not as Scripture imagines it. But we believe in things like karma, fate, and "what comes around, goes around." We long for a morally coherent world, and this longing draws us toward the lyrics of Cash's music. 

To be sure, as I pointed out over the last few posts, conservatives and progressives disagree about who, exactly, God is going to cut down. To say it again, the issue here is hamartiological rather than eschatological. Eschatologically speaking, the man is coming around, deciding who to free and who to blame. Eschatologically speaking, God's going to cut somebody down. But there is sharp debate about who these people might be.

But here's the point I want to make in this post. I get why ex-evangelicals and progressive Christians worry about speaking about hell and Judgment Day. As I've described so many times, there are worries here, often Oedipal in origin, about inducing guilt and shame. To these worries I'd just say, look at how younger audiences were drawn to Cash's songs. True, we want to be clear about our vision of sin, but there is a longing for moral seriousness among young people, even moral severity. It's a longing for a just and morally coherent world. A belief that goodness makes some eternal difference and that evil will, one day, face the music. That the moral arch of the universe is long, but bends toward justice. 

Simply put, we long for Judgment Day because Judgment Day is good news. 

Preach it.

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

A Sermon Preached at Enfield, July 8th, 1741. 

By Jonathan Edwards.

Pastor of the Church of Christ in Northhampton.

...The God that holds you over the Pit of Hell, much as one holds a Spider, or some loathsome Insect, over the Fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his Wrath towards you burns like Fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the Fire; he is of purer Eyes than to bear to have you in his Sight; you are ten thousand Times so abominable in his Eyes as the most hateful venomous Serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn Rebel did his Prince: and yet ‘tis nothing but his Hand that holds you from falling into the Fire every Moment: 'Tis to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to Hell the last Night; that you was suffer’d to awake again in this World, after you closed your Eyes to sleep: and there is no other Reason to be given why you have not dropped into Hell since you arose in the Morning, but that God’s Hand has held you up: There is no other reason to be given why you han’t gone to Hell since you have sat here in the House of God, provoking his pure Eyes by your sinful wicked Manner of attending his solemn Worship: Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a Reason why you don’t this very Moment drop down into Hell. 

O Sinner! Consider the fearful Danger you are in: 'Tis a great Furnace of Wrath, a wide and bottomless Pit, full of the Fire of Wrath, that you are held over in the Hand of that God, whose Wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the Damned in Hell: You hang by a slender Thread, with the Flames of divine Wrath flashing about it, and ready every Moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no Interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the Flames of Wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one Moment...

///

It's sad that Jonathan Edwards is only known by the general population for this famous, and infamous, sermon, assigned as it in schools as a specimen of early American oratory. You might not know this, but many scholars consider Jonathan Edwards to be America's greatest theologian. For those unfamiliar with Edwards, reading his Treatise on Religious Affections is a good place to start.

But, let's get back to the sermon. 

How could Edwards get away with it? Well, he was preaching to Puritans. And if you're a Puritan that sermon slots right in. It fits the worldview. Hits all the right buttons. Pulls the motivational levers. It was also catching a cultural wave, preached during the Great Awakening.

I hope I'm getting this attribution correct, but Tim Keller described what he called "revival evangelism." Revival evangelism assumes a cultural Christian backdrop. There is enough residual Christianity in the culture where you make a frontal eschatological attack culminating in an altar call. When I was growing up you could ask people, "If you were to die today do you know where you'll spend eternity?" That question sounds quaint by today's standards. But a few decades ago there was still enough Christianity in the air that the question could catch someone's attention and give them pause. The eschatological query could prompt a sudden moment of introspection and self-assessment. 

But today? As our culture slides deeper into post-Christianity, this sort of revival approach—hitting people with Judgment Day—would be confounding and off-putting. Nowadays, sinners in the hands of an angry God just isn't an effective way to start a conversation about God.

Now, does that mean that hell doesn't exist? Or that we no longer believe people are going to hell?

The point I'm trying to make is that, if we've noticed that talking about hell from the pulpit, or in evangelistic conversations, has waned, this has less to do with our eschatological beliefs than with our missiological intelligence. I have no doubt hellfire and brimstone preachers continue to prowl their stages. But notice to whom they are preaching to. Just like Jonathan Edwards preaching to the Puritans, the hell-forward preachers are preaching in front of a room full of committed and converted Christians. In the greatest of ironies, hell is being preached to the insiders! Consequently, speaking of hell to the already converted is no great demonstration of evangelistic courage or urgency. It's performative evangelism.

And I think it's worse that that. Why do the saved love sinners in the hands of an angry God sermons? Because the sermon isn't really about them, it's about the people who aren't in the room. Hell is for the sinners not in attendance. Hell is for the culture wars, the church growth strategy of evangelicalism. Hell is how you grow big sick churches. For there is nothing more consoling or comforting than contemplating the fate of the lost when you're convinced you're not among them. Hell is always for other people. 

And far too many churches delight in warming themselves by that crackling fire. 

Let me underline a couple of points from the last few posts.

First, many hopeful eschatologies believe in hell. So to claim otherwise is to traffic in bad faith arguments or outright lies. Going forward, I'm focusing on hopeful eschatologies that believe in hell. 

Second, these beliefs in hell are often grievous visions. Sparing people this suffering is compassionate, the very same compassion that motivates all evangelistic urgency.

Third, the fact that the sufferings and harms are finite does not undermine our compassionate urgency to intervene. The examples abound here. Consider the passion of a climate change activist or a social justice warrior. Given how these perceive the grievousness of these harms, to the environment or to oppressed persons, they are filled with an evangelistic fervor. The same goes for when we witness self-destructive behaviors in our loved ones. If we see a friend slowly destroying their marriage and family, we act to intervene. If we see a drinking problem develop, we don’t sit on our hands until they kill someone in a drunk driving accident. If we see a bad habit developing in our child, we head that off at the pass. This is natural and compassionate human behavior.

As I shared in the last post, the pressing issue here concerns hamartiology rather than eschatology. Conservatives often say that progressive Christians “don’t believe in sin” or are “soft on sin.” Really? Progressive Christians don’t believe in sin? Being a progressive, Christian or not, means being obsessed with sin. As everyone knows, progressivism and Wokeism are very moralized worldviews. And because of this, as I pointed out above, progressivism and Wokeism are driven by an evangelistic passion. The contrast here with conservatives and evangelicals concerns the nature of sin. As I said, the issue is hamartiological. With different visions of sin, we have different evangelistic expressions. So the simplistic “no sin, no evangelism” frame just doesn’t apply. Both groups—conservative and progressive—believe in sin, and both groups are characterized by evangelistic urgency. Their disagreement isn’t fundamentally about eschatology, about whether there is a hell. They disagree about who is going to hell. 

So what’s all this noise that conservatives make about progressive Christians not believing in hell?

When conservatives lament progressives not believing in hell what they are really going on about is the progressive Christian vision of sin. There are folks conservatives want progressives to say are going to hell. Progressive Christians, for their part, think different sorts of people are going to hell. Once again, the debate isn’t about hell but about a theology of sin.

My point here isn’t to adjudicate between these groups. To do so would wade into the culture wars. My goal here is to simply draw attention to how, in these debates, the issue isn’t really about hell at all but about competing visions of sin and God’s judgment. The claim that progressives think that “no one is going to hell” isn’t true. Just ask them. They have a list.

Let me start with a programming note, so people can be clear about what this series is about and what it is not about.

This series isn't about the gospel and evangelism. It's not a series about the mission of God and evangelism. It's not a series about the kingdom of God and evangelism. And more broadly put, it's not about evangelism generally considered, about its primary motives, defining content, and desired goals. This series is, rather, about a very narrow and particular subject, the relation of hell to evangelism. So just to clarify here, you're not going to get in this series a big, lovely, and proper view about what I think evangelism should and must be about. What I'm pondering in this series is how hell, or a proclamation of God's judgement, is related—properly or improperly—to evangelistic urgency. That's it, that's the only thing I'm focusing upon. So if you ask me, "Do you think evangelism is primarily warning people about hell?" My response is: Of course not! That's not what this series is about. This series is about how, if you lack a belief in hell or embrace a hopeful eschatology, how that might that affect—for good, ill, or not at all—your passion for evangelism.

Relatedly, this isn't a series about what I think about the traditional view of hell, eternal conscious torment. For what it's worth, I find that view abhorrent. But as a psychologist, I recognize how such a view creates evangelistic urgency. And, consequently, how a rejection of that view might dampen such urgency. So, again, this series isn't about throwing stones at the traditional view of hell but thinking through its motivational impact and the potential loss thereof. 

All of this, I know, can be confusing to new readers. The grooves of online debates surrounding these topics are deep and worn and tired. But my thinking rarely travels down those ruts. My interests are more idiosyncratic and odd. Consequently, what people think I am talking about is often not what I'm talking about. Readers tend connect the dots they've always connected in these debates and thereby miss my point.  

 

Clarifications made, now back to the series. 

Why does the prospect of hell create so much evangelistic urgency and passion?

The answer is pretty obvious: Compassion.

If we behold a person moving toward a future filled with pain and suffering, we’d try, as we are able, to save that person from that dark eventuality.

If a loved one of yours was in the grip of a destructive habit, you’d act to intervene.

If a child of yours was behaving in ways that would create durable defects of character, you’d act to intervene.

If a friend of yours was making poor choices, you’d act to intervene, if only with a gentle conversation expressing concern and worry.

If your place of work was failing or making bad ethical decisions, you’d act to intervene.

If your nation was falling apart, you’d act, at least with your one vote and voice, to intervene.

If the culture around you was sliding into sickness and depravity, you’d act to intervene.

If you see people harming others, you’d act to intervene.

And if you see people being wounded by sin and destined for hell, you’d act to intervene.

All this and more. It is the compassionate thing to do.

In the last post I described the varieties of hopeful eschatology. Throwing around the word “universalism” isn’t very helpful in these discussions. And one of the biggest misunderstandings concerns belief in hell. The accusation that “universalists don’t believe in hell” is a falsehood. And brothers and sisters in Christ shouldn’t traffic in falsehoods. To be sure, tempers flare in theological debates. But it's an ethical duty to get your facts straight. As I described in the last post, there are varieties of hopeful eschatologies that (1) make exclusive claims about Jesus and (2) believe in hell (as a purgative consequence of sin).

That said, as I mentioned in the first post, there does seem to be a lack of evangelistic urgency among progressive, liberal Christians. Is this because, unlike what I shared above, they don’t believe in hell?

They might not. But a lot of liberal mainline churches do believe in hell. At least in their confessional statements and catechisms. For example, from the Anglican tradition, not known for Trumpy evangelicalism, this is from The Book of Common Prayer:

Q. What do we mean by heaven and hell?

A. By heaven, we mean eternal life in our enjoyment of God; by hell, we mean eternal death in our rejection of God.

So a belief in hell is there. But, of course, an endorsement of that belief, among both the clergy and the laity, is a wholly different thing and likely varies widely from person to person and parish to parish.

And yet, I think all this is missing the crucial point. The issue isn’t really about who believes in hell or not at the creedal, dogmatic, doctrinal, and catechetical level. People might “believe in hell” but lack evangelistic fervor. Importantly for this series, this also doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not hell is infinite or finite. Hell can be both finite and grievous.

So what is the critical issue for evangelism? If it’s not belief in hell or about the duration of hell, then where is the urgency coming from?

My answer is this: The issue concerns the severity of sin. If sin is grievous, a location of suffering, pain, and harm to self and others, then it demands urgent remedy.

Go back to my examples above. In every case, except the debatability of the last one, the pain and suffering is finite. And yet, we’d intervene. Because it is compassionate to alleviate suffering, pain, and harm.

Given this reframe, that the issue is less about “believing in hell” than alarm about the grievousness of sin, let’s revisit the role of hell in motivating evangelistic urgency. Simply stated, I think evangelistic passion is more about hamartiology than eschatology, more about what we believe about sin than about the ultimate, mysterious destiny of human persons. Is sin a big deal or not? That, to my eyes, is the key question. Set eschatology aside, I think that’s the root problem with regard to evangelism in progressive, liberal spaces. Whether or not hell is real and infinite really isn’t the main issue. These are, truly, abstract metaphysical questions akin to counting the number of angels that can dance on the head of a needle. The pressing pastoral issue is whether you think sin is a grievous location of pain, suffering, and harm. Our beliefs about hell (our eschatology) sit downstream of this hamartiological assessment. If sin is no big deal, then evangelistic urgency wanes. But if sin is a five-alarm fire, then a compassionate desire to rescue and help wells up in your soul.

When it comes to evangelism, hamartiology, rather than eschatology, is primary.

Now, could not a fire-and-brimstone evangelist throw a little eschatological wood on the fire? That is, in addition to drawing attention to the grievousness of sin—its effects upon our lives, the lives of those we love, and upon the wider world—could we not also mention that an eternity of torment awaits you upon your death?

You could, but I think fire-and-brimstone gospel proclamations face some issues in an increasingly post-Christian culture. I’ll turn to some of those issues in the coming posts.

"He shewed a littil thing the quantitye of an hesil nutt"

 

In Chapter 5, Julian continues to meditate upon her first showing, Christ wearing the crown of thorns. But within this showing there is nested another vision, the most famous showing of The Revelations: 

Also in this He shewed a littil thing the quantitye of an hesil nutt [the quantity of a hazel nut] in the palme of my hand, and it was as round as a balle. I lokid there upon with eye of my understondyng and thowte [thought], What may this be? And it was generally answered thus: It is all that is made. I mervellid [marveled] how it might lesten [last], for methowte it might suddenly have fallen to nowte [naught] for littil [littleness] . And I was answered in my understondyng [understanding], It lesteth [lasts] and ever shall, for God loveth it; and so all thing hath the being be the love of God. 

In this littil thing I saw three properties: the first is that God made it, the second is that God loveth it, the third, that God kepith it.

Over the last few chapters I've pointed out how Julian's spirituality is connected to Christ's "dearworthy" Passion. And how this can be off putting to contemporary and progressive readers. But here in Chapter 5 we encounter one of those visions that has made Julian so famous and beloved. 

In popular iconography of the vision, a literal hazel nut is depicted. But what Julian sees is something that is "the quantity of a hazel nut." This was a unit of measure at the time. So the object Julian sees is a bit unclear. One could imagine the earth shrunk down to the size of a hazel nut, like a blue-white marble, sitting in the palm of your hand. But the voice in the vision says, "It is all that is made." The entire cosmos. So perhaps we should imagine a black marble flecked with pinpricks of light from all the galaxies floating within it. 

What strikes Julian is the littleness of the thing. A littleness that creates a sense of ontological precarity and existential panic. "Methought," Julian says, "it might suddenly have fallen into nothingness because of its littleness." How can such a little thing exist and continue in being? It's so small it teeters on the edge of nothingness.

The answer comes: "It lasts, and ever shall, for God loves it."