A Response to Nick Kristof

Most of you have probably seen Nicholas Kristof's encouraging piece (by mainstream media standards) in the NY Times about evangelicals. If you have not, I would recommend you read it and pass it along. Here is one helpful portion:

Centuries ago, serious religious study was extraordinarily demanding and rigorous; in contrast, anyone could declare himself a scientist and go in the business of, say, alchemy. These days, it’s the reverse. A Ph.D. in chemistry is a rigorous degree, while a preacher can explain the Bible on television without mastering Hebrew or Greek — or even showing interest in the nuances of the original texts.

Those self-appointed evangelical leaders come across as hypocrites, monetizing Jesus rather than emulating him. Some seem homophobic, and many who claim to be “pro-life” seem little concerned with human life post-uterus. Those are the preachers who won headlines and disdain.

But in reporting on poverty, disease and oppression, I’ve seen so many others. Evangelicals are disproportionately likely to donate 10 percent of their incomes to charities, mostly church-related. More important, go to the front lines, at home or abroad, in the battles against hunger, malaria, prison rape, obstetric fistula, human trafficking or genocide, and some of the bravest people you meet are evangelical Christians (or conservative Catholics, similar in many ways) who truly live their faith.

I’m not particularly religious myself, but I stand in awe of those I’ve seen risking their lives in this way — and it sickens me to see that faith mocked at New York cocktail parties.

My buddy Adam Jeske wrote a very thoughtful follow up piece to Mr. Kristof that I would also commend to you. Here is one section:

But I’m writing because of the end of your piece:

“Because religious people and secular people alike do fantastic work on humanitarian issues — but they often don’t work together because of mutual suspicions. If we could bridge this ‘God gulf,’ we would make far more progress on the world’s ills.”

Yes, we would. I’m hearing and having conversations daily with people who note the shift in the past fifteen years in the evangelical churches—justice is on the agenda that God has set for himself and therefore for us. More and more of us are seeing our faith to include working on justice issues like you mention. And a lot of us are thrilled to work together with secular people on the issues mentioned above (and others). And like you, we are “sickened” when we are mocked or sidelined because of our faith.

However, we are bound and compelled by our ancient text. We know that some parts are anachronistic, and (truth be told) we might prefer to excise some bits. But our integrity demands that we be obedient to the God of the Bible.

And here’s the rub—Jesus is our king, not all our orthodox doctrines are politically correct, and yes, we want you to believe in and follow Jesus, too. The living God who we have met and know calls us to do the good that you admire and also work toward. But this same Lord calls us to proclaim the truth we have in our ancient text. This is not because we’re mean or bigoted. Rather, that is the logical result of concluding the Bible actually is true and that, crazy though it seems, we believe Jesus was dead and raised to pay a punishment that we will pay if we do not accept his sacrificial love. We need to be able to talk openly about our worldview, even as we collaborate with you on justice efforts. But we promise to listen to yours, too.

If secular people doing good work can be tolerant with our attempts to be faithful to our King, I’m sure the collaboration we both love will increase. The “God gap” will not disappear, but if we can have open and caring dialog, we will be able to do more that both helps others (and honors our God).

Read the rest. You can follow Adam's blog here.