Delusions of Engagement
Preston Jones on Christians & Popular Culture
There’s been a good bit of talk recently among Evangelicals on the merits of Christian political activism—or, more accurately, on the merits of conservative Christian political activism. So far as I can tell, no one has a problem with Jesse Jackson or Jim Wallis mentioning God in public. But what about Bible-thumper Fred from Alabama who wants the Ten Commandments up on his kid’s public-school walls? Forget it.
Sniff the air for a second and what you’ll detect is an Evangelical intelligentsia just dying to win points with this country’s liberal establishment, or the “vital center,” or the forces of thoughtful “ambiguity” on matters moral, or whatever you want to call it. Upper-middlebrow Evangelicals call it “engaging the culture.”
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Preston Jones teaches history at John Brown University.
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more on culture from the online archives
19.4—May 2006
The Culture War Is Between Religious Believers on Both Sides by Howard P. Kainz
34.1—January/February 2021
Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents by Rod Dreher by Hans Boersma
18.2—March 2005
On Conservatism as Vexation, Vanity & Near Impossibility by Graeme Hunter
more from the online archives
18.4—May 2005
The Idylls, Idols & Devils That Corrupt the Moral Imagination by Vigen Guroian
31.6—November/December 2018
Victimhood Culture Scapegoats Its Very Source by Michael P. Foley
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