The Only Thing Evangelicals Will Never Forgive Is Not Hating the ?Other?

My friend Matt sent me the link to an excerpt of the book that appeared here.  He wanted to know what I thought.  In this section, Schaeffer has a harsh critique of modern-day, mega-church evangelicalism — and particularly for people like Rick Warren… but more specifically, the whole paradigm of modern evangelicalism. (And for the record, while I am absolutely an evangelical, that does not mean I buy into the paradigm for church that is modern evangelicalism.  Being an evangelical is a statement of theology and praxis; modern evangelicalism is a sub-culture.)

In one stinging critique, Schaeffer writes this:

You should really read the whole post from Schaeffer.  While his critique is harsh, sadly, I also think it is accurate.  While I am a fan of Rick Warren (strange language, I admit, to talk about a local church pastor!), in many ways, he has become a caricature of himself.  So often, American Evangelicalism looks much more American than evangelical.

One of the implications of this, according to Schaeffer, is the important of “hating the other” to modern American Evangelicalism.  Here is what he writes:

[Rick] Warren knows that he must park his conscience at the door of his golden cage, or his empire will melt away under the intolerable weight of the gossip of the Church Ladies. Warren got a whiff of this when he was foolish enough to go on Larry King Live in the spring of 2009, and mention that maybe he wasn’t as firmly against gay marriage as he was said to have been in the wake of the battle over gay marriage in California last year. As the Washington Times reported on April 11, 2009, “I was extremely troubled,” said Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. “Absolutely baffling,” huffed Wendy Wright, president of the far-right Concerned Women of America organization. Warren learned, if he didn’t already know, that the only thing evangelicals will never forgive is any letting up on hating the “other.”

That’s what my friend Richard Cizik, former vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, learned. He was being interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air in 2009 and mentioned that maybe he wasn’t against gay civil unions. He didn’t even mention gay marriage. He was fired within days. Rich told me that he was never even asked by the board what he’d meant by his remarks and was never given a chance to respond.

Cizik had almost been forced out several years before when James Dobson, of Focus on the Family fame, wrote to the NAE board demanding Cizik’s dismissal for saying that he thought global warming was real. Cizik got away with that apostasy against the Republican Party, which had long since come to be a stand-in for the “true church” for power-hungry evangelical/fundamentalist leaders such as Dobson. But when Cizik didn’t hate gays enough, game over!

It is worth reading the whole post here.  I would love to hear what you think…  both about the “hating the other” idea, as well as Schaeffer’s fuller critique of modern American Evangelicalism.

Looking forward to your comments…