From an interview with Rodney Stark:
What happens with “progressives” is that they cannot get any traction amongst evangelicals. Their audience, or their intended audience, is largely among the “mainline” congregations and the media that favor them. I don’t think they have found much traction amongst most evangelicals — and I think that’s for the same reason that everybody has fled the old mainline. You get tired of hearing that capitalism is sinful and that Cuba is the way of the future, and other kinds of idiocy like that. Yet when I look at evangelicals using survey data, they are not a bunch of right-wing Republicans. They’re conservative, but they’re about equally Republicans and Democrats. It’s religious and not political conservatism that defines them.
Very clearly, evangelicals don’t like abortion. They do like school prayer and a few things like that. If those were right-wing issues, then sure, evangelicals would be right-wing. But if they’re not right-wing issues — and the majority of Americans agree with evangelicals on those issues — then I fail to see that there’s anything right-wing or scandalous about it. But when it comes down to meat and potatoes politics, evangelicals are not that different from the rest of America, and that’s important for people to understand. A whole lot of them voted for Obama. Whether they will do so again, I don’t know.
So, I think those guys are entirely wrong. I am tired of people like Mark Noll worrying about “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.” What do they expect? I don’t consider it a scandal that a bunch of laymen don’t want to read academic books. It’s not a scandal that ordinary evangelicals are not left-wing seminary professors.
Too many evangelical intellectuals want to be the house conservative at the liberal banquet. So Martin Marty will invite you to his table because you can be the token evangelical. I’m sorry, but I’m not a token anything.
Agreed! I noticed at Wallis’ Sojo web side that most of the “Christians” are mainline “liberal” in theology, which turns of the evangelicals that Wallis claims is the heart of his movement. There are virtually no evangelicals in Wallis’ circle, though he loudly proclaims that his is an evangelical organization.
I think he’s too harsh on Dr. Noll, but, otherwise, he’s right on target. Those of us who are intellectual introverts shouldn’t expect the average person to mimic our preferred leisurely habits of excessive reading and reflection.
“I am tired of people like Mark Noll worrying about “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.””
Loud standing ovation from this corner of the blogosphere!
Thanks for the excellent thoughts from Rodney Stark. I don’t always agree with him, but I think Stark is one of the most insightful, clear and honest “intellectuals” in the church today.
Stark isn’t “in the Church,” if he’s an “independent Christian.” There are atheists that match that qualification. And yes, he totally misread Noll (if he even read him at all).
“Most of all, it is a scandal because it scorns the good gifts of a loving God.” — Yes, the inbred anti-intellectual character of Evangelicalism is an affront to God. Whether individual laymen are intellectually engaged is not Noll’s complaint, and I thought that was rather obvious from reading his book. But to consistently devalue and disparage vast areas of human endeavors is more than just an unhealthy tendency.
Actually, as anyone who actually read the book should know, Stark is right on the money in his summary of Noll’s argument in “The Scandal…”
Dittos, Pastor Bayly.