I’m increasingly grateful to David Brooks for raising the issue of John Stott’s legacy and thought. A must-read is an email I just got from a former assistant of Stott’s. The full email is on the Letters Page. Here’s an extract:
Stott is to global evangelicalism what Cardical Ratzinger is to Opus Dei. His “Issues Facing Christians Today” is the Evangelical catechism. While his positions are relatively nuanced, moderate, and thoughtfully argued in the most exquisite English, at the end of the day, they support the fundamental elements of Evangelicalism used by less elegant ministers to justify division, bigotry, and scapegoating. The absolute uniqueness of Christ’s salvific efficacy, the substitutionary nature of the atonement, the complete and untarnished inspiration of the entire Bible, a quasi-literalist hermeneutic, traditional sexual ethics…John Stott has put his imprimatur on all of these, and his followers have followed suit (among whom are many, if not all, of the key figures in global Anglicanism who have recently used homosexuality as *the* issue on which the hinges the future unity of the church – the Bishop of Sydney and his brother, Michael Nazir-Ali, etc.)
I too find the simple assertion of the literal truth of everything in the entire Bible to be, simply, impossible to understand, let alone believe. The myriad contradictions, myths, metaphors, and stories from ancient times can be understood in many, many ways. But the idea that they are all literally true, or that sexual ethics is the non-negotiable bedrock of Christianity, is impossible to take seriously for very long.
THE VOICE OF THE DEMOCRATS: Here’s a response to Peter Beinart’s bracing essay:
Only one problem with Beinart’s thesis. People like me will not vote for the kind of Democrat he pines for. And people like me are the base of the Democratic party. I would not vote for Joe Lieberman or any Iraq-war supporting Democrat (that includes Hillary, by the way). People like me are the mirror images of the Republican right. We would rather lose than sacrifice our principles. The operative principle here is our opposition to big-foot neoconservatism which views the entire world as America’s playground. You may think we are wrong but understand this: we are the Democratic party (which is why Lieberman sank so quickly). Our model is that of the Goldwaterites. They did not change. They fought and eventually they prevailed. We will prevail too. Iraq is our trump card. And maybe Iran. The continued ascendancy of neoconservatism guarantees the triumph of neoisolationism. As George Mc Govern said, “come home, America.” The day is coming.
Can’t describe the problem more accurately than that, can you?
The Dish 