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.
more on culture from the online archives
22.3—April 2009
Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by J. Daryl Charles
35.2—Mar/Apr 2022
on Fatigued Christians Deciding to Engage the Culture by Keith Lowery
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