Notes from the (Ongoing) Controversy at Taylor University
by William Trollinger
In looking at Excalibur – the self-advertised “publication of the Taylor University conservative underground” — here is what we see:
- The authors of Excalibur claim that – because of “our current cultural climate” as well as “leftist trends” on campus — they have chosen to remain anonymous so that they can “focus on the issues.” While the authors are trading on the notion that they are victims of a hostile cultural and campus climate, such a suggestion involves a weird twisting of roles, given that the two faculty members presumably have control over curricular content in their classrooms. As Barton Price (IP-Fort Wayne) noted on Facebook, “I’m always intrigued by the efforts of conservatives to claim the ‘underground’ or ‘marginalized voices.’ I am sure this may be true in some settings of higher education, but not at many (most?) evangelical schools.” Actually, Excalibur’s whining about the lot of conservatives at Taylor is prima facie evidence that the victimhood trope has captured much of American evangelicalism.
- Excalibur is yet another example of the problems white evangelicalism has with race. According to the newsletter, “a conservative-libertarian approach to race relations is most respectful of racial minorities and holds out the most promise for long term racial justice in this country.” Not only is this statement from four white guys profoundly patronizing, but there is also no historical evidence to support this claim, and no apparent awareness that white evangelicals in the United States were among the very last to support the civil rights movement. And while Excalibur proudly asserts (again, without evidence) that “our nation has enabled more freedom and prosperity for more people, including racial minorities,” there is nary a word about America’s structural racism, police shootings of African Americans, and overwhelming white evangelical support for a president who trades in thinly-veiled racist demagoguery. No wonder African Americans are leaving white evangelical churches and abandoning the label “evangelical.”
- In the section, “Imago Dei,” the argumentative strategy employed by Excalibur – a strategy employed by many conservative evangelicals – is very clear:
- Announce a starting point, i.e., “a single, Christian conviction regarding human nature . . . that [as stated in Genesis 1] humans were created in the image of God.”
- Assert that Christians must agree on this starting point, or they are not truly Christian: “one who rejects this crucial tenet of biblical anthropology no longer espouses an essentially Christian theology.”
- Claim that there is a list of propositions – e.g., opposition to abortion, euthanasia, and animal rights (?) – that inevitably result from this starting point and that must also be accepted by true Christians. That is to say, disagree with them, and you are at odds with Christ.
- This demand that we must all start from exactly the same premise (despite the complexity of Christian thinking/teaching/texts) and that the premise inevitably leads to one set of correct conclusions is all about shutting down debate, not opening it up. This is particularly clear in “The Shepherd’s Voice,” where the “other” with whom you disagree is constructed as a “stranger” and a “threat” from whom a true Christian will “run.” This binary also applies to social justice: one approach is good and aligns with Christianity and the US, and the other is a threat to both. All of this suggests that Excalibur is all about naming the enemies of Taylor, and silencing them or rooting them out.
- And this leads to our last point. Despite the fact that President Haines responded to Excalibur with a statement lamenting that “the unsanctioned, anonymous, and suspect distribution of the publication sewed discord and distrust,” the controversy at Taylor appears to be just beginning. The second issue of Excalibur has appeared; it is now called (only a little less pretentiously) ResPublica and the contributors are listed, but the byline indicates that the victimhood trope remains firmly in place: “The Conservative Voice You Are Free to Ignore.” In response, a colleague of ours – who knows all about purification campaigns at evangelical institutions – writes that these folks are obviously “in this for the long haul.” They may already be getting traction. According to the March 9 issue of the campus newspaper, President Haines – “reflecting back on his earlier campus-wide released statement” – is now saying that “those who believe he stood against the content of Excalibur misread his statement,” as he was simply asserting that “’Taylor is a place where we wrestle with ideas of all kinds.’” As Bill wrote in an essay on “Independent Christian Colleges” (in which his first example is Taylor), “while fundamentalist schools are much more concerned with strict, impermeable boundaries, and while a good number of faculty members at evangelical schools would not be allowed to teach at a fundamentalist school,” evangelical schools also can be quite willing to “engage in a purge.” Whether Taylor goes that route, only time will tell.
Law-Defying and Sexually Permissive Marxist Evolutionists Take Over Midwestern Evangelical College (Really?)
by William Trollinger
The headline in Christianity Today says it all: “Taylor University Still Shaken by Unsanctioned Conservative Newspaper.”
Founded in 1847, Taylor is now an independent Christian college of approximately 1900 undergraduate students located in Upland, Indiana. In keeping with its roots in the holiness branch of Methodism, all members of the Taylor community are expected to adhere to the Life Together Covenant, which prohibits (among other things) alcohol consumption, most forms of dancing, and “homosexual behavior” (see Adam Laats on the effort of evangelical colleges to “thread the needle” when it comes to homosexuality.)
To most folks outside the world of evangelical higher education Taylor seems quite conservative. But on February 21 a newsletter appeared throughout campus, in which the anonymous authors charged that Taylor was moving leftward:
We perceive a growing trend on campus of . . . permissivist views of human sexuality, hostility toward creationist perspectives, rejection of the rule of law (especially on the immigration issue), and uncritical endorsement of liberal-progressive ideals (e.g., in the form of Marxist-inspired critical race theory).
The newsletter – grandiosely entitled Excalibur, after King Arthur’s sword – was presented as “a publication of the Taylor University conservative underground.” But the newsletter produced almost immediate controversy, and within two days the school’s president, Paul Howell Haines, weighed in with a “community letter” in which he lamented that
The unsanctioned, anonymous, and suspect distribution of the publication sewed discord and distrust, hurting members of our community.
The resultant uproar has forced the publishers of Excalibur to reveal their identities: soccer coach Gary Ross, biblical studies professor Richard Smith; philosophy and religion professor Jim Spiegel; and, marketing director Ben Wehling. But as the Christianity Today article makes clear, the controversy at Taylor is far from over.
Below is a copy of Excalibur (as well as President Haines’ response), so you can read it for yourself (and if you have comments, please free to share them). In our next post we will make a few observations as to what we see here.
Excaliburandresponse (1)
White Anger Will Not Have the Last Word
As it is Holy Week for Christians, and just a few days after the March for Our Lives, it seems appropriate to post this poetic reflection from our old friend Rod Kennedy.
Rodney Kennedy has a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University and 45 years of preaching experience. Among other publications, he is co-author Will Campbell, Preacher Man: Essays in the Spirit of a Divine Provocateur (Cascade, 2016). He is currently Interim Pastor at the First Baptist Church of Peoria (IL).
Students Participating in the March for Our Lives. (c) CNN, 2018
Staring out my office window, distracted from the last run through of my sermon as twelve inches of snow on March 25 give my mind a metaphorical turn. Spring started days ago and yet here is all this white stuff on the ground. For a day it poured forth from the sky as if having an anger fit over the end of winter.
Since the stuff is so pure and white, I couldn’t help but think that this late, last-gasp snow represents the last stand of angry white people across America. While they keep attacking gays, Muslims, immigrants, human rights, and almost everything that is diverse and good, our children and grandchildren are massing across the country to demand an end to gun violence.
Yes, the snow is here but will be gone soon. Winter is almost over and Spring will have her time in spite of Winter’s last all-out blitzkrieg. I sip my vanilla latte, delete a sentence from my sermon, smile at the idea of warmth and the arrival of all the colors of the human race. Welcome to Spring!
P.S. In an event sponsored by the Ohio Humanities Council, today (Mar. 29) at 6:30 P.M. Bill is speaking at the Barberton Public Library (near Akron) on the topic, Ohio’s Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s.
Fundamentalism, Creationism, and the Escape from History
by Jason Hentschel
Jason A. Hentschel has a Ph.D. in theology from the University of Dayton, and is currently senior pastor at Wyoming Baptist Church (Wyoming, OH). His research focuses on the intersection of evangelicalism and modern American culture. He has contributed chapters to The Bible in American Life and The Handbook of the Bible in America, both of which were published by Oxford University Press in 2017. He is currently revising his book manuscript, “Inerrancy and the Evangelical Quest for Certainty,” for publication.
When in 1992 Ron Numbers published the first edition of his masterpiece, The Creationists, there was virtually no one else engaged in the academic study of creationism. But thanks to Ron’s groundbreaking book and ongoing research, here we are, decades later, and the work on creationism has simply exploded (see pp. 314-316 in Righting America for a listing of some of this work). So it was that last weekend at the Ohio Academy of History to the point that there was a session devoted to creationism. Dustin Nash (Muhlenberg College) presented on “Dinosaurs and Jews at the Creation Museum”; Carl Weinberg (Indiana University-Bloomington) spoke on “Adnan Oktar’s Turkish Creationism as a Mirror on America”; and, we (Bill and Sue) discussed “Patriarchal Creationism and the Feminist Challenge.”
It was a very lively session, with many questions and comments from those in attendance. In fact, there were so many questions that Jason Hentschel, session chair and respondent, graciously turned over his allotted time to the audience. But given that Jason’s prepared remarks are so insightful – particularly regarding the effort of fundamentalists to escape history – we are very happy to publish them here.
Do you know what’s great about a good panel? I think a good panel is one that, even while each paper raises its own specific questions and concerns, when you put all of them together, a common theme or two seem to arise independently. Well, I think we have a good panel, and, to me, the common theme that rises to the surface is this: Creationism, whether the American Christian brand or the Turkish Islamic brand, is trying to get away from history, at least as how we think of history today: as the story of change, the story of complexity, the story of contingency.
Let me give some examples. In “Dinosaurs and Jews” Dustin notes that the Creation Museum erases the “memory of Judaism from the totalizing story of time” that the museum wants to tell. For Answers in Genesis (AiG), the Christian story remains fully coherent even when you slash out two or three thousand years of it. This cavalier approach to the complexity and stickiness of history is echoed in loads of evangelical theology. Whenever I think of this, I think of Charles Hodge’s description of the theologian’s task. (Hodge, a theologian at Princeton during the late 19th century, is in many ways the father of American evangelical theology.) As Hodge explained in his Systematic Theology, the Bible is a storehouse of God-given facts “which the theologian has to collect, authenticate, arrange, and exhibit in their internal relation to each other.” What theologians are supposed to do is mine the Bible’s story for the true propositions hidden underneath all the miscellaneous historical or narratival junk, and then put all those truths into a more systematic and coherent form. Well, here’s the deal: When you read Hodge, you get the feeling that once we do this, we don’t really need the Bible and its story anymore. We’ve taken from the Bible what God really wanted us to know . . . and now we can discard the Bible. No wonder the Creation Museum can extract “David the psalmist” from “David the Jewish king,” and then lay claim to David as some sort of proto-Charles Wesley. David’s history doesn’t really matter.
We can mildly see the same sort of thing in Adnan Oktar’s appropriation of a kind of “Berkleyan” idealism. Oktar’s point, as Carl puts it in “Turkish Creationism as a Mirror on America,” is to argue that the only real absolute being is Allah. Everything else is illusion, and so we have “no basis for concluding that external reality exists.” The payoff for Oktar, it seems, is that he can then claim that social evolution is nonsense, because the only thing that really exists is the stable, immutable, and timeless mind of God. God does not evolve and neither do his precepts.
It is ironic that Amerian fundamentalists took the opposite epistemological route – they sided with Thomas Reid’s common sense realism over Berkeley’s and Hume’s idealism – but only to come to the same conclusion, i.e., that what we have are timeless truths drawn straight from the unchanging mind of God. Those truths are just located in a biblical story. But if we are willing to take the text “naturally” – as Ken Ham would put it, which means without the clouding lens of evolutionary thinking – then we can see what God really wants us to know. We can access the mind of God and thus cut through all of history’s subjectivizing contingencies and muddying complexities.
When we come to Bill and Sue’s paper on “Patriarchal Creationism” this effort to escape history becomes quite blatant. The shift in the evangelical argument for patriarch – from looking at the Fall as the source of patriarchal inequality to looking at patriarchy as inherent in the Trinity (Jesus is subordinate to the Father and the Spirit is subordinate to both) – is an explicit example of the attempt “to lock things down” for all time and for all places. This is how AiG – and most of the evangelical world – understands divine authority. We have it; it’s just a matter of listening to it. One of the more fascinating things I’ve found when talking with my evangelical friends and family about male headship is that evangelical women tend to hold the position more strongly than evangelical men. God said it; we obey it.
At the end of their paper Bill and Sue wonder how people who claim to be the “real guardians of true Christian doctrine” could so readily embrace what has historically been understood as Trinitarian heresy. A key reason, I think is because the creeds themselves are seen as historical – and thus human – constructions. Simply put, history just does not really matter. What matters is God and what God says. So, yes, Eve is “stripped of all moral agency whatsoever,” but that state of being is actually the ideal state. Ideally, whatever moral agency we have will evaporate. We will become like God – timeless, changeless, perfected. Outside of history.
Interpreting the Ark’s Apocalypse: Responding to Praise from Answers in Genesis
by Emma Bloomfield
Today’s post comes from our colleague Emma Frances Bloomfield, an Assistant Professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who studies the intersection of science, religion, and politics from a rhetorical perspective. She received her PhD from USC Annenberg and wrote her dissertation on the similarities between science denial in the human origins and climate change controversies. She has written and presented on topics of the environment, digital rhetoric, narratives, political communication, and health.
I strongly believe in the value of scholarly engagement with the public, so the work that academics are doing can reach those who might benefit from it. Because of this belief, I was pleased to hear that Answers in Genesis (AiG), a group I had studied in my dissertation and the creators of the Ark Encounter, had read my article in the Southern Communication Journal about their newest attraction and responded to it. In the spirit of engagement, I happily continue the conversation about what I feel is an important topic: public engagement with science.
To begin, it is incredibly important for academics to find agreement with their subjects on their descriptions and interpretations in their work. I was pleased when reading Dr. Purdom’s post that my writing resonated with her (and I’m assuming others at AiG) as being an accurate and “valid” description of the space. Dr. Purdom summarizes my argument well in noting how the Ark contains many elements common to apocalyptic argument, in both discursive and material forms.
The key point of this post, however, is to address the important distinctions between Dr. Purdom and myself when it comes to interpretations of both the Ark and my article. It is my hope that this post continues my protesting, for the fact that Dr. Purdom reads my article as “complimentary” suggests that I have protested not enough against what I view are potentially damaging structures like the Ark.
The biggest contentions Dr. Purdom raises in my summaries of the Ark appear to be my focus on the material elements of the space, specifically its ramps. I readily acknowledge that the decisions to make pathways through the Ark are unintentional and simply a practical concern. Dr. Purdom describes my writing as “forc[ing] her apocalyptic views,” but she has misinterpreted these views as ones that I hold. Instead, these interpretations emerge from the space themselves that align with other apocalyptic features of the Ark. Whether they are intentional or not (and Dr. Purdom writes they “were not really designed with that intention”), their presence nonetheless contributes to the rhetorical power of the Ark’s arguments. Intentionality is not necessary to send a message, just as Dr. Purdom notes her own surprise at the readings of apocalypse from the Ark by both myself and the documentary crew. Part of the goal of rhetorical criticism is to uncover words, symbols, and physical features that may be influencing us in ways that we may only be unconsciously aware.
Dr. Purdom agrees with many of the arguments I make about the Ark’s appeals to authority, evil, and time. Our primary difference, however, is the interpretation of those descriptions. For example, Dr. Purdom quotes a summary sentence from the article regarding what I perceive to be the Ark’s argument: “If Noah’s story is true, the rest of the Bible, including passages about the return of Jesus to Earth and the next global judgment before the apocalypse, are infused with accuracy and truth” to which Dr. Purdom writes, “Agreed!”
But Dr. Purdom is not agreeing with me. Instead, she is agreeing with my characterization of what the Ark is attempting to argue. In this sense, I am again glad that I am correctly analyzing the site, but I must correct Dr. Purdom’s idea that my writing should be interpreted as lending support for or validating the Ark’s arguments. Instead, I am attempting to analyze how those arguments take shape, in what I view as an insidious way of influencing the Ark’s visitors to go against mainstream science and accept young Earth creationism out of fear.
In reading both my article and Dr. Purdom’s response, it is integral to recognize that we have very different worldviews regarding science and religion. I embrace my bestowed title of “unbeliever,” and do not hide but acknowledge that status within the original article. I am a firm advocate of “better science education,” but my version of “better” does not include a literal reading of the Bible (which leads AiG, for example, to conclude that the Earth is a mere thousands of years old instead of billions). My view relies on the evidence we can find in the fossil record, the similarities across animal life down to the genetic level, and the overwhelming scientific consensus on evolutionary theory. Dr. Purdom’s view (and AiG as a whole) relies on a strict, literal interpretation of the Bible to contain scientific and historical fact. These differences in worldviews shape our understanding of the Ark and the implications of its apocalyptic arguments. While Dr. Purdom embraces the strategy of apocalypse as a way to “effectively share the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” I intend to point out the Ark’s apocalyptic arguments so that we may be aware of strategies that disrupt the public’s understanding of science.
Dr. Purdom notes that the Ark Encounter presents both the positions of creationism and evolution, but, having toured the Ark, my opinion is that its scientific appeals do not hold water. The Ark does not persuade through scientific rigor, but through the sheer size, impression, and scope of the structure and its contents. In this sense, Dr. Purdom is right that I was “impacted” by my visit. But, the impact was not to be persuaded by the Ark’s apocalyptic argument, but to recognize its function as a contemporary, felt tactic of creationism.
My goal is not to remove religion or chastise its presence at the Ark (or at any religious site), but to question the implications of these arguments when they challenge public knowledge about science. People leaving the Ark will not have learned accurate information about science, but they may leave scared of the perceived consequences of questioning literal interpretations of the Bible. When these discourses intersect and potentially imperil scientific knowledge, I feel it is my duty and responsibility to protest.
P.S. This weekend the Ohio Academy of History meets here at the University of Dayton. As part of a session in honor of the late Jake Dorn, Sue and Bill will presenting their paper, “Patriarchal Creationism and the Feminist Challenge.” The panel will be at 10.30 AM in Kennedy Union 207.
Students on the Ark
by Susan Trollinger
I (Sue) am teaching a class this term on the argumentation and visual rhetorics of two non-Catholic religious traditions. One of those traditions is fundamentalism, particularly, young Earth creationist fundamentalism. Last week, I took my class to Ark Encounter so that they might experience some of those arguments and visual rhetorics first hand. In the post below, students offer their initial responses to what they experienced at Ark Encounter. Some are quite insightful!
*It is impressive to observe the time, energy, and thought that went into the Ark. AiG put together a fascinating argument that comes to life within the walls of the Ark. Due to the nature of the facility, I can imagine being a little boy and seeing all of this as factual. It is also quite interesting to view how their interpretation of Genesis impacts their views on capital punishment, the family, and politics.
*I thought the Ark was a mind-blowing and intense sensory experience. Overall, what interested me the most was that it didn’t feel like a museum. Instead, it felt like a theme park, almost like I was walking around Disney World. They do a great job of immersing you.
*The Ark was really slick and polished but maybe a little too much so. It felt more like a theme park or something like that, rather than a realistic depiction of the ark, which all the plaques claimed it was. The constant efforts to sell you stuff didn’t help with this. In a way, I almost felt too old for it. So many of the exhibits had bright pictures, moving eye candy, and simple or few words of description (at least less than most museums). It felt like it was designed to entice and grab little kids and, by extension, the parents who bring them there. If today’s crowd was any indication, it works.
*I found it very interesting to see how so much effort was put into creating the Ark. The members of AiG are very concerned with establishing an argument for creationism and protecting themselves from counterarguments.
*I noticed that many of the questions posed were given a response but not an answer. That made me think more about the arguments they make. For example, they state that music was a sign of the Fall, yet throughout the Ark, music was played and some of Noah’s sons played instruments.
*One thing that I noticed was that everywhere you turned in Ark Encounter someone or something was posing questions. Lots of placards were titled with questions. The videos were about people questioning. And you could even ask Noah questions. I thought that, by providing viewers with tons of questions, it keeps them from asking their own questions. It gives the illusion that the Ark Encounter has thought of everything.
*AiG only uses faith as an explanation when they cannot use their scientific reasoning. For example, they cannot explain why animals stopped being carnivorous on the ark using science, so they tell visitors to believe that God can do anything.
*It was astonishing to walk through the Ark and see just how thorough each exhibit’s explanation is. The most surprising feature of these placards, however, was the language. Words like “if”, “could”, “maybe”, and “possibly” can be found throughout the explanations. Language like this makes any and all of their arguments for “same evidence, two views” much less compelling.
*I thought they were asking a lot of questions I was asking. For example, how did so few people feed the animals? But they failed to answer any of the questions posed satisfactorily. I thought the area about life on the Ark was crazy because it was “artistic license.” They could have said that the clouds rained hamburgers, and that would have been as valid as that whole section. I was also interested in the “racism” part because it gave some very vague lines about anti-racism in the Bible, but it never said anything about slavery.
*One thing I found interesting was how little there was that mentioned Jesus. The one place where we did find mention of Jesus they didn’t even use his name. The roles of women throughout the Ark was interesting too. They always followed a man.
*Something I noticed was the lack of inclusion and agency for women. In the beginning, we see Adam and Eve where it talks about Adam’s sin. It doesn’t give Eve any agency. Then later at the living quarters and other sections, Noah speaks and answers questions but Emzara’s animatronic figure doesn’t speak. So, again, women aren’t given agency.
Students at Ark Encounter. Photo (c) 2018, Sue Trollinger.
Anti-Intellectualism at Warp Speed
by William Trollinger
In the end, is the point to make it possible for evangelicals not to think?
Bryan Osborne of Answers in Genesis (AiG) has recently explained the organization’s purpose thusly:
The revelation that the Bible’s plain history is true, that real science confirms historical events in the Bible, and that Christians have solid answers to the skeptical questions of this age is absolutely revolutionary! . . . This is why we are so passionate about the calling God has placed on this ministry! It’s why we built the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter. It’s why we have a daily radio program and hold Bible-upholding and evangelistic conferences all over the world. And it’s why we publish books, DVDs, curricula, and our award-winning Answers magazine.
As we note in Righting America, AiG “is a creationist juggernaut” (11). But when one looks closely at the whole enterprise – as we did in Righting America – it is striking how thin the “solid answers” are. In fact, there seems to be an obsession at AiG with selling materials that dispose of theological, scientific, and moral questions as quickly as possible.
For example, one can purchase an AiG movie, “Check This Out!,” that “is loaded with six mini-videos, each covering a distinct ‘hot topic’ in the creation/evolution debate.” Topics include “Radiometric Dating,” “Pain and Suffering,” and, to wrap things up, “Evolution Refuted.” Best of all, each of these videos address “the controversy at warp speed,” i.e., in 3-4 minutes.
For another example, AiG’s Osborne and Bodie Hodge (Ken Ham’s son-in-law, who writes on nearly every possible topic) have now produced Quick Answers to Tough Questions, which is described at the AiG store as an “excellent resource for teens and young adults” who “don’t have the time to read a big manual.” With Quick Answers “you don’t have to be an expert,” as this “graphic style book” provides “concise answers” – 500 words or less — regarding (among a host of topics) “creation and evolution,” “death and suffering,” and the “origin of life and missing links.”
Perhaps there are some young adults and teenagers who are persuaded by three paragraphs or three minutes from AiG on questions pertaining to evolution or pain and suffering. But we know from our experience of teaching at evangelical colleges that many youth – particularly, the brightest, the most inquisitive, and (interestingly) the most devout – find answers like those provided by AiG to be intellectually unsatisfying, at best.
And if these youth have been successfully indoctrinated to believe that fundamentalism = Christianity, if they have been convinced that to be Christian requires one not to think except in the most superficial fashion, then they simply leave the faith.
In our churches and in our culture we pay for anti-intellectualism.
Even at a Funeral, Seeing the Past
by Matthew Sutton with William Trollinger
In Charlotte today 2,000 people gathered in a white tent outside the Billy Graham Library for the funeral of the famed evangelist. It is estimated that Graham, who died February 21 at the age of 99, preached to 215 million people in his lifetime.
Most of the responses to Graham’s death have been predictably eulogistic. More critical pieces, including Laurie Goodstein’s recent New York Times article, have focused on Graham’s highly partisan Trump-loving son, Franklin, who has claimed that the current president “has supported the Christian faith more than any president . . . in my lifetime.”
But Matthew Avery Sutton, Edward R. Meyer professor of history at Washington State University and author of American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (Harvard University Press, 2017) has had a different response. In a recent Guardian article that appeared on the day Graham died, Sutton offered a searingly trenchant critique of Graham’s message and his legacy. As the article concludes:
Graham had good intentions, as his work desegregating his crusades demonstrated. But when his influence really would have counted, when he could have effected real change, real social transformation, he was too locked into last-days fearmongering to recognize the potential of the state to do good. . . A different kind of last days may soon be upon us. Racial tensions are rising, the earth is warming, and evangelicals are doing little to help. That may be Graham’s most significant, and saddest, legacy.
Not your normal obituary! In response, rightingamerica posed a couple of questions to Sutton, who graciously replied:
RightingAmerica: Why do you think journalists and academics are so loathe to connect Billy Graham with the emergence and development of the contemporary Christian Right?
Sutton: I think in most cases people have been too quick to take Graham at his word rather than to explore his actions. He claimed over and over again that he was not interested in politics, and yet his actions and many of his sermons and publications screamed otherwise. Because he was generally not as shrill as some of the leaders of the Religious Right, scholars have been basically willing to look past the very conservative politics that he preached and championed, and to let his own self-representation stand.
RightingAmerica: Can you imagine a scenario in the near future whereby evangelicalism becomes a force for good when it comes to politics and the environment?
Sutton: Although I study the history of evangelical prophecy, I try not to do too much forecasting. I don’t see a lot of hope at the moment. I think the bigger issue for now is going to be the fight to decide who gets to define and shape evangelicalism. Until we can decide what ‘evangelical’ means in the age of Trump, we can’t know what its future is.
Thanks Matt! And here’s a link to the full article: “Billy Graham was on the wrong side of history”
Seeing the Past
Nations reel and stagger on their way; they make hideous mistakes; they commit frightful wrongs; they do great and beautiful things . . . And shall we not best guide humanity by telling the truth about all this, so far as the truth is ascertainable?
E. B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction (1935)
by William Trollinger
At its most basic level, thinking historically requires the courage to see.
A few weeks ago the Southern Poverty Law Center released Teaching Hard History: American Slavery. Based on surveys of high school seniors and social studies teachers as well as analyses of high school history textbooks, the report concludes “that our schools are failing to teach the hard history of African enslavement.”
See, for example, how many high school seniors understood these three key concepts regarding the history of slavery:
- 32% understood that “slavery was an institution of power designed to create profit for the slaveholder and break the will of the enslaved, and was a relentless quest for profit abetted by racism.”
- 22% understood that “protections for slavery were embedded in the founding documents [and] enslavers dominated the federal government, Supreme Court, and Senate from 1787 through 1860.”
- 8% understood that “slavery was the central cause of the Civil War.”
This is not about high school seniors being ignorant. This is not about high school teachers failing to do their jobs (thankfully, teachers scored markedly higher on these questions, but they may find it uncomfortable or difficult to press these issues in the classroom). Instead, it is about a culture that does not want to acknowledge the realities and legacy of slavery and racism in American life.
Still, there are many of our fellow citizens who – when given the opportunity – are able and want to see the past and present for what it was and is. This was evident last Saturday at the Milan (OH) Public Library, where I (Bill) spoke on the Second Ku Klux Klan in Ohio in the 1920s. Here are just a few of the questions that came up in the Q/A period:
- How did people justify owning other people as slaves?
- Why do Americans seem much more knowledgeable and concerned about Holocaust in Europe than they are aware of the horrors of slavery here in America?
- Does the US fear melanin more than other people? Are we simply more racist than other people?
- How was lynching used politically, and what was the message that was being sent?
- Why are so many people flying Confederate flags in my town and nearby rural areas?
- Has the current administration emboldened white supremacists?
One woman lamented the fact that her daughter has been taught that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. As I pointed out, what is so ridiculous about this claim is that, at the time they were leaving the Union, southern leaders candidly and explicitly asserted that they were leaving the Union in order to preserve their “peculiar institution.” See, for example, South Carolina’s “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina,” Mississippi’s “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina,”, and CSA Vice-President Alexander Stephen’s infamous “Corner Stone” speech.
That these statements are so obvious in linking slavery to secession make the point. To see the past, you have to be willing to see the past for all that it was. Sometimes it is beautiful. Sometimes it is hideous. You have to be willing to see.
The Devil’s Music, Part Two
by Randall Stephens with William Trollinger
In Righting America we note that “in the twenty-first century, the study of American fundamentalism has really come into its own, with a surfeit of outstanding works, many of which pay close attention to economics and politics” (315). Now add rock ‘n’ roll to the list of topics, with Randall Stephens’ The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock ‘N’ Roll (Harvard University Press, 2018). In this post and the next we feature Randall’s interview with rightingamerica, which certainly should motivate readers to purchase the book!
Randall J. Stephens is an Associate Professor and Reader in History and American Studies at Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. He is the author of The Fire Spreads: Holiness and Pentecostalism in the American South (Harvard University Press, 2008); The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011); and editor of Recent Themes in American Religious History (University of South Carolina Press, 2009). Stephens has also written for The Atlantic, Salon, Wilson Quarterly, Christian Century, The Independent, Chronicle of Higher Education, and The New York Times. In 2018 he will be taking up a new post as Associate Professor of British and American Studies at the University of Oslo.
Read Part One of our interview here.
One of the arguments in your book is that Christian rock involves a fusion of popular culture and political conservatism. Could you elaborate on this argument, and are their progressive strains within Christian rock that work against this fusion?
This is a point that religion scholar David Stowe has made before me, and probably more effectively. For all of the experimentation and use of innovative, new music, much of the energy behind the genre comes from the right end of the spectrum. Of course, some artists and fans would say that they are not political. But, it’s pretty clear from the theology of the music and the social outlook over the decades that it has been more conservative than anything else. In 1972, an AP reporter did a short feature on the Jesus people in California who were registering as Republicans. One of the young enthusiasts the reporter interviewed said bluntly that “The conservative Republican viewpoint is closest to the laws of God.” Also in ’72, a peak year for Jesus people and Jesus rock visibility, a Southern Baptist seminary professor thought that the Jesus people represented a “strange shotgun marriage of conservative religion and a rebellious counterculture.” Most might have kept their distance from partisan politics, especially in the early years. Still, the widespread premillennialism, the biblical literalism, conservative views about gender and sexuality and the family, and a range of other topics put them in a certain camp. A preacher like the pentecostal Jimmy Swaggart spent quite a bit of time and energy denouncing Christian rock. In fact, though, performers and fans had views that were quite similar to those of Swaggart.
In the final chapter and the epilogue I spend some time talking about more recent developments that don’t quite fit this pattern. There’s also groups like Jesus People USA, which Shawn David Young writes about, that also had a strong progressive/social justice dimension. Progressive views or just more of an openness to culture and the variety of human experience are evident in a minority of bands and solo artists. I’m thinking of Mark Heard, T-Bone Burnett, Sam Phillips, Over the Rhine, Bruce Cockburn, the Lost Dogs, Adam Again, and other more recent ones.
There’s good evidence from the Pew Foundation and other sources that younger evangelicals also are now not animated by the same old red-meat conservative issues that inspired their parents and grandparents. Church worship in emerging churches and magazines like Relevant, Sojourners, or one I used to read long ago called Prism, reveal an alternative way of being Christian. Environmental issues and concern for the poor and the oppressed might now be more central than in previous years. In some ways, Bono is a kind of patron saint of this version of the culturally and socially aware Christian.
Ok, your book just came out, so it is probably not fair to ask. But what is your next project?
Thanks for asking. I just finished up a chapter for an edited volume on anti-communism and the stirrings of political activity among 20th century evangelicals and fundamentalists. I’m planning some work on a few transatlantic topics around evangelicalism, politics, and pop culture. My new post at the University of Oslo will be in British and American Studies, so my new work will reflect that a bit more. I’ll be heading to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library soon to dig into a new, related project.
Another work in progress covers environmentalism, religion, and the Dust Bowl. There’s a good story to be told here about how liberal and conservative groups diverged on how they handled the environmental calamity that shook the nation and forever changed the region and its inhabitants. The apocalyptic element is strong among evangelicals, pentecostals, and fundamentalists, while more socially conscious denominations like the Congregational Church and their Social Action Committee were at the forefront of relief and support of the New Deal and conservation efforts.
Another project, at a very vague/early stage, is one I’ve toyed with about sham evangelists and revivalists in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Tales of jackleg preachers, frauds, hucksters, and the like have such an interesting history, from the days of newspaper reports about swindles and Mark Twain’s interest, to coverage and parodies by H.L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis, to more contemporary tales of televangelism, the prosperity gospel, and corruption. Anyhow, it’s early days on all of these.
Thanks for the great questions and the interest in the book!
P.S. In an event sponsored by the Ohio Humanities Council, this Saturday at noon (Feb. 24) Bill is speaking at the Milan (OH) Public Library on the topic,
“Terrorizing Immigrants and Catholics: The Ohio Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.”
