Conservative Christian, Do Not Fear
There is a kind of fear engendered by the conservative Christian take on American culture. But these fears are wrong, and they misguide us. We should not fear the world.
Several years ago, for one day, I was a conspiracy-theorist.
Changes were happening in the world that I could not understand. I sought an explanation, and I dove down an Internet rabbit-hole to find it.
The personality I heeded was a brand-new Christian; he was also a conservative, to say the least. After several hours of taking in his perspective, I was a believer in his brand of conspiracy.
But it was a dark place. It felt like the forces of evil had consolidated power; all these different changes were coordinated; and there was no hope of resistance.
While I soon left behind the specifics of that conspiracy-theory, the dark and pessimistic worldview stayed with me for a couple years. That episode and that season of my life have left me with the impression that much of Christian conservatism is motivated by fear.
If we’re honest, there is a special kind of fear engendered by the conservative Christian take on American culture. The world looks like a scary and declining place, getting more and more unfriendly to Christian believers.
But these fears are wrong, and they misguide us. They make us think that fear is justified; but fear is never justified, though often understandable. We should not fear the world.
Fear of Cultural Influence
But aren’t the cultural trends and forces around us evil, and evil for Christians in particular?
I don’t deny that we should use judgment, analyze the culture, and understand the times. But Christians exhibit fear - rather than careful judgment - when we come to exaggerated conclusions that don’t follow from the facts on the ground, construing the world in a predominantly negative way.
A classic, but still relevant example is the Christian approach to the world of media, music, and movies. Writing off whole musical genres, for example, is usually based in fear. Making informed decisions about what music to listen to requires actually giving it a listen and determining what is enjoyable and wholesome. Fear, on the other hand, promotes a kind of black-and-white thinking that doesn’t allow for complexity.
Fear also misses the fact that music and movies are primarily a form of entertainment, not moral instruction. And the fearful Christian approach to culture is often devoid of mirth. We try to play it safe, but we end up with a joyless and moralistic spirit that we shouldn’t be surprised young people desire to escape.
Fear of Secular Sources
Fear really shows up when it comes to sources of knowledge and information. The phrase “trusted sources” captures this. Partly from the limitations of time, but partly from fear, many Christians operate by finding a few (or one) “trusted sources” on a given topic, usually selected by their theological or political bona fides.
But there is a mismatch between the kind of expertise we use to vet our sources - theological profession - and the expertise we require of them, knowledge of some particular aspect of human psychology, financial markets, or international affairs. You might ask for a “confessional Presbyterian perspective on the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” for instance. What confessional Presbyterianism has to do with the Russia-Ukraine conflict is beyond me. What you need is a wide range of intelligent analysts of that conflict and of people personally affected by it. Their religious convictions are mostly beside the point.
Christian worldview discourse contributes to this pathology. There is a sense that only people who are expert in theology, and who agree with me on theology, are qualified to speak on anything. Everyone else will be corrupted by their non-Christian thinking and the noetic effects of sin.
But this fails to distinguish science and empirical knowledge from ideology. We certainly don’t want young Christian people to attend a sociology course and passively and uncritically imbibe postmodernism and critical theory. But to insist on remaining ignorant of the results of the social sciences is not a form of Christian faithfulness but of anti-intellectualism.
The same goes for psychology, which Christians often dismiss as non-Christian and Freudian. In fact, as psychology has gotten more empirical, it has left behind much of Freud (and Freudian ideology) and now provides invaluable knowledge of the human mind, essential for both understanding and mental health.
An Unduly Negative View of Culture
Perhaps the primary way we see conservative Christian fear is in our analysis of culture. You hear it when Christians talk about how bad things are getting for Christians in the culture. This talk often lacks specificity. We don’t discuss the specific social dynamics for Christians, which part of the culture is experiencing it, or where there are positive developments for Christians.
I once was at a dinner table with some friends, and I heard this kind of negativity, rooted in fear, being expressed. I pulled out an article from Richard Hanania as a counterpoint: “Conservatives Win All the Time.” Hanania - a great non-Christian source for rational political analysis - points out how political conservatives have had several major wins in the last forty years, usually when they did not engage in culture-warring and fear, but when they were politically strategic. (Hanania actually has a pretty negative view of the religious dimension of the right, partly because of these pathologies.)
In the last month or two, I’ve noticed that Christians are using Aaron Renn’s analysis of the “negative world” as a springboard for this same fear. While I think Renn’s socio-cultural analysis is much more sophisticated and specific than the standard evangelical fears, the phrasing still lends itself to this evangelical trope.
Lots of people in the “critical evangelical” camp warn us of the combination of political conservatism and Christianity. But I really see the danger when both political conservatism and Christianity contain a sense of decline and hopelessness. If political conservatism is on the decline and this is tied up with Christianity’s decline, and maybe the coming of the end times, then you’re really in for a heavy dose of fear.
An Unduly Negative View of Non-Christians
At times, like the day I was a conspiracy-theorist, I’ve allowed myself to slide into this kind of politico-religious fear, and I always notice that it engenders a fear of other people. People who are secular and/or liberal become enemies, and not only objects of fear, but also of anger, hatred, and disgust. You know you’ve slid into fear when your view of other people, and non-Christians particular (but also Christians of other political sympathies) becomes predominantly negative.
When you unplug from the media sources - often conservative political commentary - that engender this feeling, you’re able to talk to normal people and find that they don’t think about politics that much. Few of them are out to get anybody. The Twitter/politics world, with its elevated emotion and animosity, is more like a bad headspace that all of us are tempted to sometimes but in which none of us should really spend much time.
This is a place where I think a better philosophy, theology, and psychology of other people can really help. Other people shouldn’t be objects of fear; they are morally mixed. They have good motives, and their bad motives always come from a place of suffering or insecurity. Other people are driven by fear just like we are. And other people aren’t totally depraved, but often exhibit practical wisdom and what the theologian Francis Turretin called “civil righteousness.” (Not “common grace.”)
The Conflation of LGBTQ+ People with the “LGBTQ+ Rights” Movement
The conservative theological world’s response to the Side B movement of celibate, gay Christians and the Revoice conference has been particularly emblematic of this fear. It has become common to refer to Side B as no different from Side A, the gay marriage/sex-affirming side, and to call it all “Gay Christianity.” Rosaria Butterfield has been very explicit about this, including in her recent address at Liberty University and in her recent book, Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age, a book I do not recommend, and about which I am disappointed that Kevin DeYoung endorsed by writing the preface.
Given conservative political fear about the “LGBTQ movement,” it is understandable that conservative Christians would be wary when a Christian comes along using the vernacular and symbolism of that movement. However, the inability to distinguish celibate, gay Christians believing in and abiding by the traditional Christian sexual ethic from those not doing so is difficult to explain except due to fear.
This showcases one of the hallmark problems with conservative Christian fear. When your response to the culture is rooted in fear, you cease to be able to see the dangers on your own side. “The accusation of ‘homophobia’ can be nothing but a slur against Christians.” It couldn’t possibly be an accurate description of the selective fear and disgust Christians have toward a particular class of individuals.
Fear and Precaution
People may object that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Shouldn’t we be afraid of what God warns us of, like being influenced by the world?
No. The fear of God should lead us not to be afraid of anything or anyone else.
The conservative Christian fears I have described are fears of created things, other people, and cultural forces. All of these are subject to God’s will and power. None of them are worthy of our fear. That’s why God in Christ commands us not to fear. We are to have attitudes of joy and confidence, not anxiety or fear.
Many people will deny being motivated by fear, instead saying that they are taking reasonable precautions.
But where the conservative Christian approach becomes too narrow and its perception of the culture too negative, fear is arguably to blame. And whether or not you agree with a particular point of my analysis, fear is a real danger.
What is more, in feeling these fears, we neglect something else that perhaps we should fear: Committing the errors that Jesus condemned far more than he condemned the sins of the world: The sins of religious believers, the Pharisees. In fact, the fears I have described often reinforce a kind of Pharisaism. We create extra laws around sources of information, kinds of music, and who to befriend. We judge people by their purity per the rituals of conservative American evangelicalism. We cease to be a light to the nations and just become another traditionalist sub-culture. I dare say that most conservative Christians are not nearly fearful enough of committing that error.
The Beginning of Wisdom
What is the alternative to fear?
Rather than being fearful, we should be shrewd, prudent, wise.
Two weeks ago, I wrote about ways that evangelicals are ineffective, and the fears I have described could all be added to that list. But my conclusion was that Christians need to heed Christ’s words: “For the sons of this world are more shrewd than the sons of light.”
Fear leads us to a fight-or-flight reaction. Shrewdness leads to an accurate judgment of ours and others capacities so we know when and how to face the world, and what challenges are beyond our capacities. Fear leads us to black-and-white thinking. Prudence leads us to identify the shades in between. Fear leads us to suspect that some of our friends are actually our enemies. Prudence allows us to love even our enemies while remaining cunning as serpents and not naïve.
The result is a worldly kind of piety that is free of worldliness. Without fear, we can learn from, enjoy, and make friends for ourselves in the world God created. We can avoid the bad, but not at the cost of neglecting the good. Admittedly, this path is winding and dangerous, but it rejects the illusion that there is an alternative path, a shortcut to safety. Instead, Christian faithfulness must brave the world with its dangers and temptations, all while discerning and following the narrow path that leads to life.
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” - Jesus Christ (John 16:33 NIV)
I read Richard Hanania's blog post, "Conservatives Win All the Time," and I think it is a good generator of discussion. But it is not too encouraging when even some of the four "wins" for conservatism are long term defeats.
He mentions that abortion has been declining, especially in light of the Dobbs decision. But the subtlety here is: What is your starting point for measurement of the issue? If you start sometime around 1990, when abortions per year were peaking, there has been progress. What if you compare 1960 to 2023? What are the chances of recent declines continuing until abortion looks like about 1960?
Likewise, laws permitting lightly regulated home schooling are one of the wins. But this is more a matter of an issue going from obscure or completely unknown to most people (let's take 1960 as a starting point again), then starting to grow, running into conflicts with antiquated laws, leading to publicized absurdities in those conflicts, leading to changing those laws. Out of obscurity and into a more reasonable light. Unless some other issue is closely analogous, I am not sure how this example will be a template.
Hanania, in the same section, cites the increase in home schooling, public charter schooling, and the departures from public schools during and after the COVID pandemic as evidence of a conservative win. But these are all examples of conservatives failing to stop the decline of public schools, followed by people getting disgusted and leaving. In 2023, those public schools are terrible by comparison to, say, 1960. That cannot be the model for future "wins," can it?
His example of making progress on gun rights is accurate, as is the progress on reducing marginal tax rates.
One of the commenters quoted a political commentator saying that conservatives win only when they are pushing for expanded rights, like the right to life, gun rights, home schooling rights, keep more of your paycheck. When pushing for restricting the influence of destructive social forces (e.g. race quotas, overwhelming immigration numbers, porn in schools), conservatives don't do well at all.
That leads to the BIG question in all of this: Can a civilization survive in the long term with no progress on any issue except issues that can be framed as giving expanded rights? Can we entirely do without constraints?
Love the post!
I find it quite interesting/infuriating that much of the popularity of evangelicalism is based on leaders telling others what to think as opposed to encouraging them to work out the gospel in their own lives.
My wife and I were talking last night about the fear mindset we grew up with. The concept of the slippery slope, if you take one drink you're headed for alcoholism, or the concept of the holes left in your life by sin. You may or may not be familiar with this anecdote. Basically it is that it we are a fence post sin is nails stuck in us, Jesus pulls out the nails but the holes remain.
While there is wisdom in avoiding some things this mindset so often causes people to miss the beauty in front of them.
I would love to see/find a Christian community that bravely steps into the world and engages with people, culture, and art, knowing that mistakes will be made, some things will work out, others will not, but even in the mistakes and errors we are still covered by the blood of Christ. This seems to be to be what true freedom in Christ would look like.