In a recent essay at the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, one of the most important journals in the study of religion, historian Matthew Avery Sutton writes: “…post-World War II evangelicalism is best defined as a white, patriarchal, nationalist religious movement made up of Christians who seek power to transform American culture through conservative-leaning politics and free market economics.”
Some of these “white”, “patriarchal”, Christian “nationalists” gathered this week at Ohio State University.
Watch:
Read all about it here.
The event was sponsored by Cru, 614 Church, Revive College Church, The Capital Church, Young Life, and Ohio State Chi Alpha. Check out their websites. You can decide for yourself whether these are “white, patriarchal, nationalist religious” organizations and churches “made up of Christians who seek power to transform American culture through conservative-leaning politics and free market economics.” On first glance, I don’t think that they look particularly racist, patriarchal or Christian nationalist. I don’t see any reference to politics on their sites. Nor are there any statements about free market economics. I checked out the topics of some of their recent sermons and the nature of their upcoming events and I did not see anything related to promoting such themes. Maybe I’ll go back and look again. Over the years I’ve probably looked at thousands of church websites. I think I’ve gotten pretty good at finding references to the things Sutton describes in his definition of evangelicalism. But perhaps I missed something.
If we take Sutton’s definition to its logical conclusion, these Ohio State football players and students were not driven primarily by a belief in life-transforming spiritual conversions. They were not driven primarily by centuries-old Christian beliefs that Jesus died on the cross for their sins. They were not driven primarily by the belief that the Bible is inspired by God. And they were not driven primarily by a belief that it is important to share their faith with others. Nope. Don’t buy into the hype! What was really happening at Ohio State last week was this: A bunch of white, patriarchal, Christian nationalists got together under the guise of these spiritual and theological beliefs. They really gathered outside of Curl Market last Sunday to “transform American culture through conservative-leaning politics and free market economics.” I am guessing that such a claim would be news to those who participated in this evangelical event. But let’s face it, they don’t fully understand themselves and their motives in the way the scholars do. They think they are practicing what David Bebbington describes as “conversionism,” “crucicentrism,” “biblicism” and “activism,” but they are actually just a bunch of racist patriarchs who only care about Christian nationalism and free market economics.
Sarcasm aside, there is very little in Sutton’s definition of evangelicalism that would explain what happened at Ohio State last week. Yet this is the definition of evangelical Christianity that he wants to see American historians adopt in their textbooks. We are now back to the days of Paul Johnson’s Shopkeepers’ Millennium or Charles Sellers’ Market Revolution or Alan Heimert’s Religion and the American Mind. These were books that saw evangelical Christianity less as a spiritual movement defined by theological convictions and more as a tools for social control, a stimulator of a capitalist economy, or a cause of the American Revolution. Evangelical Christianity, in this view, is not about theology or beliefs, it’s about something else.
Anyone who reads this blog knows that evangelicalism is not a perfect movement. It never has been. Throughout American history people whose primary identity has been shaped by spiritual conversions, the centrality of the cross, a belief in the inspiration of the Bible, and the Great Commission mandate to share the Gospel with others have done and continue to do some pretty bad things. They have taken some pretty immoral positions. And historians should not ignore these things. But hopefully future historians of evangelicalism will be a little more responsible before they offer blanket definitions of a movement based on a handful of books, some of which were written by scholars with axes to grind about their own evangelical backgrounds.
I see what you did up there, with your Neo-Bebbingtonian Quadrilateralism!
Sutton’s definition of evangelicalism is simply academia gone to seed, prejudiced mental idolatry.