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.
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?
These are good points, Clark. Without getting into the details, my point is still that a universal narrative of decline is too general, ignores specifics, and leads to bad emotions and bad actions. Hanania is correct that if you want to make progress on any issue there are actual strategies that have worked. These strategies require more dispassionate planning than the culture-war mentality allows.
Are there actual strategies that have worked that have not been framed in terms of rights, but rather in terms of restrictions, duties, etc.? See my final two paragraphs above.
If not, then Hanania is only correct on limited examples.
This may be the case. However, Hanania's point is to look at what strategies are effective. On restricting destructive social forces, conservatives have tended toward culture-warring and noise-making, rather than forming a Federalist Society for school boards or such. I think he's probably right on that point! I see most conservative Christians bemoaning this stuff, but not choosing careers in the relevant fields, for example. Of course, to even get Christians or conservatives in certain fields may require a "long march through the institutions," but that's the only way to do it.
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.
The Catholic Church “dealt with” this issue at the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s - among a lot of other things, it affirmed the good things in modernity and the Church’s call to engage fruitfully with it rather than embrace a fortress mentality against it.
Now, in theory this is a good development, but unfortunately in practice it’s very much still a work in progress. I don’t think that Catholics have really figured out who we are uniquely in the midst of modernity, so we have glommed on with other cultural blocs on the cultural left and right. I think there is a problematic meshing of Catholicism with Conservative Evangelicism in America particularly that leads to many of the phenomena you describe here.
The Catholic Church has a great document called Lumen Gentium that addresses the relationship of the Church to the modern world. Available free online. I’d recommend since you’re interested in thinking deeply about these issues within your own faith tradition!
Thanks, Sarah! I know I've turned towards the Catholics to get some of what I found lacking in the evangelical world. The Catholic Church has had a more confident and less fearful approach to modernity for the last century-and-a-half. I'd love to see what Lumen Gentium has to offer on these matters.
I'm a pastor of a small, fairly conservative, New England church (I feel like New England conservatives are a little different than others--for example, these ones have a woman pastor 😊) in person, and a group of people in the church margins online, so I've witnessed these fears (and sometimes have to speak directly into them) quite regularly.
Well I totally misread your question. Ha. I thought you asked "*have* you seen..." I feel a little less comfortable giving examples in a public platform like this, though. 😁 Just here to acknowledge that there are some!
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?
These are good points, Clark. Without getting into the details, my point is still that a universal narrative of decline is too general, ignores specifics, and leads to bad emotions and bad actions. Hanania is correct that if you want to make progress on any issue there are actual strategies that have worked. These strategies require more dispassionate planning than the culture-war mentality allows.
Are there actual strategies that have worked that have not been framed in terms of rights, but rather in terms of restrictions, duties, etc.? See my final two paragraphs above.
If not, then Hanania is only correct on limited examples.
This may be the case. However, Hanania's point is to look at what strategies are effective. On restricting destructive social forces, conservatives have tended toward culture-warring and noise-making, rather than forming a Federalist Society for school boards or such. I think he's probably right on that point! I see most conservative Christians bemoaning this stuff, but not choosing careers in the relevant fields, for example. Of course, to even get Christians or conservatives in certain fields may require a "long march through the institutions," but that's the only way to do it.
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.
Love this, Thomas. I desire the same kind of Christian community! A new, distributed L'Abri, if you will.
The Catholic Church “dealt with” this issue at the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s - among a lot of other things, it affirmed the good things in modernity and the Church’s call to engage fruitfully with it rather than embrace a fortress mentality against it.
Now, in theory this is a good development, but unfortunately in practice it’s very much still a work in progress. I don’t think that Catholics have really figured out who we are uniquely in the midst of modernity, so we have glommed on with other cultural blocs on the cultural left and right. I think there is a problematic meshing of Catholicism with Conservative Evangelicism in America particularly that leads to many of the phenomena you describe here.
The Catholic Church has a great document called Lumen Gentium that addresses the relationship of the Church to the modern world. Available free online. I’d recommend since you’re interested in thinking deeply about these issues within your own faith tradition!
Thanks, Sarah! I know I've turned towards the Catholics to get some of what I found lacking in the evangelical world. The Catholic Church has had a more confident and less fearful approach to modernity for the last century-and-a-half. I'd love to see what Lumen Gentium has to offer on these matters.
This is excellent, as usual.
Thank you, Jenn! How have you seen these fears in play?
I sure have.
I'm a pastor of a small, fairly conservative, New England church (I feel like New England conservatives are a little different than others--for example, these ones have a woman pastor 😊) in person, and a group of people in the church margins online, so I've witnessed these fears (and sometimes have to speak directly into them) quite regularly.
Well I totally misread your question. Ha. I thought you asked "*have* you seen..." I feel a little less comfortable giving examples in a public platform like this, though. 😁 Just here to acknowledge that there are some!