I recently wrote a letter to one of the pastors we have been watching during this pandemic season. I thought it might be of interest so here is the letter reproduced in full.
I have been enjoying your messages, especially in the last two weeks where you have addressed the importance of restoring relationships during these contentious times. Truth, listening, patience, and humility do indeed go a long way to show the world what our God is like. Choosing the way of Christ’s Kingdom rather than choosing to win honors the gospel. Adopting a posture of Christ-like influence rather than a posture of partisan reactance honors His mission.
The truth imperative, the first and essential part of the armor of God, is tricky business and a most difficult hill to climb. It’s tricky because we live in post-truth age where the refrain “but I don’t know what to believe” is commonly heard – especially from my evangelical friends. It’s difficult because we get in the way, reminiscent of the story reputedly told about G. K. Chesterton when a newspaper asked him, ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ The Catholic thinker’s response was brief and to the point: ‘Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely Yours, G. K. Chesterton.’
We assert that the Word says…and the Word is truth. Or that the Spirit says…who guides us into all truth. And if you say otherwise, we’ll say biblical worldview. And if you ask again, we’ll say the Bible says. But all along the “I am” stands in the corner, unknown to us, but with enormous power to shape our identity, colorize the “other,” change our loves, and filter our world. Like a Trojan Horse, it takes over our understandings, shaping our “biblical” assertions. And like an Oculus headset, we become immersed in a new reality that’s created and fashioned by the “I am.”
Founding father John Adams once said “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” That’s probably a minority opinion today, yet I thought it would helpful to throw out some data with minimal commentary to show the daunting length of this truth hill we face along with its intense steepness in parts.
1. Truth assessment is difficult, but not impossible. Many of our truth issues lack baselines, reference points where we can all agree what is true. Its science v science or expert v expert and in today’s post-truth world, finding agreement is difficult even when credentials are lopsided. But sometimes we find issues where baselines are known or where the probability of knowing is very high. Consider the next three graphs which compare actual data
with perceptions of that data first from one conservative-liberal ideology and second from the perspective of trusted news sources.
Now the preceding data focused on political ideology but I’m more interested in how truth is handled by people in our tradition which is predominately white evangelicals. So here are some survey results regarding recent events where Republicans are split into two groups: evangelicals and non-evangelicals.
Note that for three of the four questions we have baseline truth or a very high probability thereof:
A. Widespread voter fraud: Those in authority, from election officials, to secretaries of state to governors to Trump’s attorney general, to 90 judicial appointments including the Supreme Court of which many were Trump appointed has said Biden was legitimately elected. I’ve read a number of the 61 court cases Trump lost. There is a 0% chance otherwise.
B. Deep State undermining the Trump administration: Likely not, but still an uncertain proposition
C. Antifa responsible for the capitol attack: Trump’s DOJ investigated the claim and found it baseless.
D. Trump secretly fighting a group of sex traffickers: that’s QAnon – enough said.
2. Partisanship = hate your enemies and the other side is the enemy. Full stop. The partisan divide is deep with distrust on both sides. Assignments of “they the enemy” are normative as extremists on both sides cancel the other. Such canceling, of course, is nothing new, long seen in American history: e.g., Nathaniel Whitaker, the Massachusetts minister, who spoke the “curse of Meroz” in 1775 to anyone loyal to the crown.
3. White Evangelicals almost equal the mirror image of the republican party. Here are some data from pastor and sociologist Ryan Burge of Eastern Illinois University (and, to be fair, black protestants approximately mirror the democratic party). He has data on other types of questions, but I found these interesting due to their long history in public opinion research gauging animus and prejudice toward minority groups.
4. Polarization R us. Increased devotion, as measured by church attendance, doesn’t move the needle on partisan polarization. And the more one believes in an “American is a Christian nation” type of Christian nationalism the less open they are to changing their opinion or to consider alternative opinions given new information.
5. Peculiar people. Here is a graph about Christian Nationalist’ endorsement of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy ideology.
These four categories, which you saw in a previous graph, are derived from combining responses to six questions, each scaled from 1-5: (1) “strongly disagree” to (5) “strongly agree” with (3) “Undecided” in the middle. This index ranges from 6 to 30 and has a Cronbach’s α = 0.86, which means that these questions yield consistent results when repeated. Index values are then separated into four types of responses to the questions with those at the low end of the scale called Resistors and those at the top end Ambassadors.
A. “The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation,”
B. “The federal government should advocate Christian values,”
C. “The federal government should enforce strict separation of church and state” (reverse coded),
D. “The federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces,”
E. “The success of the United States is part of God’s plan,” and
F. “The federal government should allow prayer in public schools.”
In the graph below, the column on the left has 10 discrimination categories and the different colored dots are the six different demographic groups for which their perception of the discrimination categories is provided. Here we see 59% of white evangelicals think there’s more societal discrimination against Christians than transgender people (52%) or Muslim people (49%). Note also the spread in discrimination perception. White evangelical perception of marginalized groups such as Muslims, LGBTQ, black, and transgender people are much different than the perceptions of other Americans.
Note that unless cited, all graphs are from Twitter posts with the source provided on most graphs. Those without source information but labeled “PDES” are from Whitehead and Perry, of which some can be found here. Also note that these data are statistically derived from scientific surveys. What you see are mean values. What you don’t see is the dispersal of the underlying data. For example, although 59% percent of white evangelicals may believe that Christians experience a lot of discrimination, there are some that think otherwise (e.g., me) and hence pull the mean value down. Nonetheless, through these statistical surveys/analyses (instead of anecdotal perspectives), we gain important insight into the underlying beliefs, attitudes, and behavior which are driving America’s faith and social communities.
I will stay true to my promise of minimizing commentary on the foregoing graphs. I primarily focused on white evangelicals for three reasons: (1) that is my background and hence what I understand, (2) they make up the majority of our congregation, and (3) they are the largest segment of Christianity in America. Given that change must start at home, if we are going to deal with truth in the body of Christ, it seems like we will need to deal with, inter alia:
a) strong partisanship on both sides that sees the other side as the enemy
b) white evangelicals are highly partisan, nearly the mirror image of the Republican party.
c) highly resistant polarization within white evangelicals, no matter how devoted they are to their faith
d) an increasing unwillingness to change one’s opinion or consider new information the stronger the belief in a Christian Nation (78% of evangelicals are in the top two Christian Nationalism categories)
e) white evangelical perceptions markedly different than the rest of American, especially when it comes to having empathy for people not like them.
f) An appetite among many Christians for disinformation and conspiracy theories (although for brevity sake, I’ve only given a couple examples and haven’t shown the breadth and depth of that appetite).
There are many additional graphs I could provide that would be helpful, showing many additional dimensions generally consistent with those provided. But first of all, I’m interested in what you see. And then if you have any thoughts about the sort of steps needed to meet our calling, which is, as Stanley Grenz once said, “at the heart of the biblical narrative is the story of God bringing humankind to be the imago dei, that is, to be the reflection of the divine character, love, where we show the world what our God is like.”