Posted on 11/01/2007 10:06:51 AM PDT by WayneLusvardi
A Wolfe in Sheep's Clothing - A Shepherd's Guide to Sociologist Alan Wolfe's Lecture "Who's Afraid of American Religion?"
Fuller Seminary, October 30, 2007
The Pasadena Pundit - November 1, 2007
I believe we are all familiar with Aesop's Fable of "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" where a wolf covers itself with a sheep skin and is able to infiltrate a herd of sheep to catch unawares and devour one of the sheep. And maybe you remember the moral of the fable: "appearances can be deceptive." A real life enactment of this classic fable occurred at Fuller Seminary Tuesday night.
Boston College sociologist Alan Wolfe, a secular Jew and proselyte for liberalism, humorously stated his lecture at Fuller Seminary on Tuesday night had nothing to do with "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?."
Wolfe's lecture was co-sponsored by Fuller and the Center for Research on Ethics and Values at Azusa Pacific University. Professor Wolfe was introduced as a friend of Evangelical Christians for his articles in Atlantic magazine "The Opening of the Evangelical Mind" and his bringing of ten Muslim intellectuals to Fuller sponsored by the State Department.
Wolfe was formerly on the staff of the Marxist journal Kapitalistate, and is a prolific author. His recent works include "Does Democracy Still Work?" and "Transforming American Religion" and he is writing a history of liberal thought. Despite all of Wolfe's Bush-bashing during the evening, oddly he was a George H.W. Bush Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Wolfe has recently authored a scathing and unjustified hit piece on the conservative Catholic thinker Russell Kirk in The New Republic magazine.
Like unsuspecting shepherds Dr. Richard Mouw, Fuller President, and Mark Eaton of APU, graciously praised Wolfe and the crowd of maybe 100, like sheep, mostly uncritically fawned all over his lecture.
The lecture started out with a collegial introduction by Fuller President Richard Mouw in a barren lecture hall without any Christian cross visible or any prayer. This was significant as one of the later main points of Wolfe's lecture was the prophetic "unseriousness" of Evangelical Christians.
President Mouw made no mention that Wolfe's Center for Religion and Life at Boston College is funded by Geoffrey Boisi, a financier who has bankrolled an effort for an alternative Catholicism modeled after Vatican II of the 1960's.
Wolfe disarmed his listeners by first deconstructing the many recent public critics of religion such as Christopher Hitchens ("How God is Not Great:" How Religion Poisons Everything"), Sam Harris ("The End of Faith"), Richard Dawkins ("The God Delusion"), and Kevin Phillips ("American Theocracy") as modern day Cassandras all warning of what they see as a resurgence of radical intolerant religion (while red flagging their own religious intolerance). Wolfe declared their fear unjustified in America. He cited as evidence the fastest growing demographic group is nonbelievers, who have jumped from 7% to 14% of the population. He stated that the separation of church and state in America is in no danger of being undermined. But Wolfe later moved in for the kill.
Wolfe associated Ralph Reed and Rev. Jerry Falwell ("The Moral Majority"), evangelist Franklin Graham, and even Catholic Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things magazine, as all part of the new "Theo-con" movement. What Wolfe is afraid about was the "theo-con" basis for George Bush's religious motivation for the Iraq War; Evangelical proselytization at the Air Force Academy; Franklin Graham's calling Islamics "persecutors" (who burned Christian churches in Sudan); and the "worrisome" movement to install "Intelligent Design" into school curriculums.
As a disguised social scientist, Wolfe made no attempt at objectivity in his selective choice of what he called "theocracy." He made no mention of the many Evangelical Christians involved in medical and social mission efforts in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. Nor did he cite the largest religious movement in the world today, the growth of Pentecostal Christianity around the world which is unassociated with terrorism, intolerance, or radicalism. Dr. Wolfe may pretend to be a sociologist, but his sociological perception is empirically skewed in favor of what he wants you to see and believe. Another glaring oversight was the omission of any discussion of how Evangelicals are addressing women's rights in the Middle East.
Wolfe may not be afraid of American religion; he is just afraid of conservative American religion. Why he is afraid of it is odd because it is not in power anywhere in the educational, legal, media, or governmental institutions. While disclaiming otherwise, Wolfe is "worried" about every fundamentalist minister's error in wording, every city prayer breakfast, every Christmas manger in a public square, and any discussion of natural (not even supernatural) "design" in science. Apparently, he sees himself in the role of a sociological "hit man" or gate keeper to make sure any incremental encroachment of conservative religion is kept out of secular institutions. Oddly, he calls keeping conservative religion out of secular institutions "pluralism" (it might be dubbed "cartelism" which Wolfe said was unhealthy for religion).
Wolfe discussed how competition among religious sects in American history led to their growth. He said that where you have a State Church, such as in England and Sweden, you have a religious cartel and religion eventually dies. (A bishop in the Church of England sitting next to me informed me that Wolfe was in error in saying that the Church of England was a "State Church" as it receives no monies or sanction from the government). Wolfe made no mention that present-day liberalism is opposed to competition in the public school system and the university (and look at the results!).
Dr. Wolfe went on to say "when you plant religion in politics, you get politics." He frequently cited President George W. Bush's "Jesus as philosopher" statement and Bush's receiving a "commandment" from God to go to war in Iraq as examples.
Wolfe found Bob Jones' (of Bob Jones University) endorsement of Mormon Mitt Romney, a so-called non-Christian, for President a victory for tolerance. "But what does this say about religion?" stated Wolfe. To Wolfe, religion that is too inclusive loses its power. Wolfe set his trap cleverly by continuing to point out that "tolerance" is good for conservative Christians but by being inclusive they will lose their exclusive message. Translated: only liberals can be inclusive and tolerant and conservatives should stay out of the political inclusiveness business.
He said there has been too little talk about religion in the recent Presidential debates. If there was such a discussion in the past "George W. Bush would never be President." He went on to say religion only gains power when it stands against culture. Attempts to move Christianity into an isolated subculture by theologian Stanley Hauerwaus he thought was counter to such cultural confrontation.
He praised seminaries such as Fuller, Wheaton and Calvin Colleges for engaging the culture with intellect rather than emotionalism. Deftly, Wolfe never mentioned that the cultural status quo is secular liberalism. He labeled all attempts to confront secular liberalism as "theocratic," such as both Evangelical and Catholic Christianity's attempts to confront such cultural issues as divorce, abortion and homosexuality. Wolfe said that when conservatives raise such issues they "destroy" their cause (which brought quite a few approving guffaws).
The danger to conservative Christianity of confronting the culture was that it would exact a cost in religious seriousness, said Wolfe. He stated that religion must be inclusive in the political realm and exclusive in the political realm.
Wolfe approvingly cited recent efforts, mostly by liberal Christians at elite secular universities, to address the issue of gambling and gaming as an example of engaging the culture. He asked where the conservative Christian churches were in confronting this issue as we have become a "casino nation." Once again, Wolfe omitted any discussion of how conservative churches are so marginalized that their prophetic voice against the exploitation of low income persons by gambling has not been heard (see here: http://www.bpnews.net/BPFirstPerson.asp?ID=2570). And Wolfe dared not mention that it is political liberalism, multiculturalism, and inclusiveness of American Indians that has brought about the rise of the gaming industry in the U.S. Only Utah and Idaho were without Indian gaming said Wolfe (interestingly both Mormon states).
Wolfe said politics is about money and violence and the spirit of religion would get corrupted if it got involved in religion. He cited Ralph Reed's efforts as an example. He lambasted Rev. Jerry Falwell's theology as self-contradictory in that it proclaimed America as a "city on a hill" which was at the same time decadent. Again, Wolfe made no mention of similar inconsistencies with secular thinking such as his own.
Wolfe concluded saying he had finished his non-sermon "sermon."
Fuller President Richard Mouw led off the question and answer session saying it was "troublesome" that President Bush said that God told him to go to war in Iraq. Mouw added it was not so troublesome when LBJ invoked God to bless the Civil Rights Act.
Alan Wolfe commented that the model of Evangelical Christian engagement of the culture was Martin Luther King's civil rights movement his anti-Vietnam war efforts.
Wolfe apparently likes it when conservative Christians make dorks of themselves, such as when Rev. Rick Warren ("The Purpose Driven Life") answered "yes" to the question: "as a Jew will I go to hell if I don't accept Jesus?"
Glen Stassen, a vocal anti-war member of the Fuller faculty, asked "what do you mean by separation of church and state?" Wolfe replied that politics dealt with money and violence and that religion dealt with the "spirit." He said religion would get corrupted if it entered politics.
At this point an apparent Native American with his hair tied by a rubber band came to the microphone to launch an incoherent monologue about the wronging of American Indians and had to be asked to withdraw.
Next, a female student dressed in jeans popped up to the microphone and stated that the "harder question" of the Christian Gospel had not been addressed because no one is grounded in the Bible's injunctions against racism and injustice. If I understood her right she self-righteously claimed to be the only student at Fuller who had read the entire Bible!
Dr. Wolfe commented that the conservative use of the term "Islamofacism" is horrible because it declares war against Islam. He said it was beyond the pale to go to war against a religion. Of course this was a clever twisting of the term "Islamofascist" that went right over the heads of the flock of sheep in the room. Wolfe labeled as "sick" Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani recent hiring of "theo-con" foreign policy consultants who believe a war against "Islamofacism" should be pursued. The demonization process of conservative Christians and Bushites proceeded all night.
Another woman student said in Berkeley the favorite put-down bumper sticker to conservative Christians is "My karma ran over your dogma." No mention was made by her or Wolfe that the message on this bumper sticker is a bald attempt at shutting up conservative Christians instead of allowing religious pluralism which Wolfe pretended to advocate.
Wolfe said politics benefits from many religious voices. What he would not come right out and say, however, was that to him politics didn't benefit from conservative Christian voices in the academy, courts, or government. Wolfe wants an "exclusive" right for only liberals to address government and to be involved in politics. He sees his role as delegitimating any attempts by conservative Christians to engage the political status quo except the politically correct "intellectual" Christians such as at Fuller, Wheaton, and Calvin seminaries.
How Fuller Seminary could invite the "point man" for the cultural left to speak on its campus and heap so much praise on him given liberalism's obvious lack of moral superiority in its ideology of unilateral disarmament, a vague socialism, and an assault on the family is beyond me. One can say the same things about those who would make a "gospel" of a right-wing agenda of Christian empire, advocacy for an unbridled market, or hating gays. Whatever happened to the notion that the Christian gospel is not to build "socialism," not to defend "building a just society," because, apart from the fact that we don't really know what those things are, all our notions of justice are fallible and marred by sin? Whatever happened to the Christian concept of "works righteousness?" All of human projects, whether wars or social and environmental programs, almost never yield the results we intend. We get no moral brownie points for good intentions or noble goals. The moral measure of actions can only be found in their consequences.
Alan Wolfe wants no establishment of a state religion. Yet he wants to proselytize conservative Christians that a particular liberal political agenda is essential for Christians who want to be involved in politics. Christian scriptures warn about such false prophets; and about wolves in sheep's clothing.
Fuller has gone liberal. What is unusual about them bringing in a liberal speaker?
First Things has frequently, and unfavorably, commented on Wolfe's writings. He is more sophisticated than the usual religion bashers, but also more dangerous.
Fuller is being consistent with its liberal theology. Liberalism is liberalism is liberalism.
Nothing wrong with bringing Alan Wolfe to Fuller - problem is not taking his brand of liberalism to task in light of the Christian Gospel
Fuller is a mixed bag
mark
Asking a straightforward question straightforwardly is making a dork of yourself?
Yikes.
(BTW, I say this as no great fan of Warren. I'm surprised he answered so forthrightly, if he did.)
Oh, Warren is to be praised for his answer. But it is the cleverness of those setting him up to say that and making him, and conservative, Christians out as intolerant “dorks” that is the point.
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