The Overview (Monday, May 10)
My thoughts on a very strange year, Andrew Walker on the importance of religious liberty, Alissa Wilkinson stirs the pot on CCM, and more.
This has been, without a doubt, the strangest year of my professional career.
As our university approached the Fall 2020 semester, we did not know what to expect. Our preparations to welcome students to campus in the midst of a global pandemic were about as detailed as you could imagine. Social distancing required ditching small classrooms and transforming large spaces on campus (including the basketball arena, the performing arts center, and a residence hall basement) into makeshift learning environments. Capacity in the cafeteria shrank significantly. Quarantine space was set up in an underpopulated residence hall. And, of course, the masks, a ubiquitous reminder of the precariousness of our situation.
Even then, prior to students arriving in August, we had no idea whether this would work, whether all of it would be enough to remain on campus. Whether we would be able to absorb another financial hit of the kind we did months before, as everything shut down. Whether we would survive.
But God, being rich in mercy, provided for and safeguarded our campus in innumerable ways. We never had to shut down our meaningfully adjust operations, a real concern at the end of the summer. While we did have positive cases among students, faculty, and staff, the system put into place was able to handle these cases without serious disruption to our academic mission. Positive cases in the Spring semester have been close to zero for weeks. And we have hosted several vaccination clinics for our community, vaccinating several hundred faculty, staff, students, and people in our town.
And so, as this year prepares to end and we turn our attention to preparing for Fall 2021, we are conscious of and thankful for the goodness of God. We are thrilled to be in a position to be able to continue, with confidence, our mission of Christian higher education. And we look forward to a return to normalcy on campus, as we steward yet another group of young adults who have entrusted us to prepare them for their various callings. Praise be to God.
With that, here’s the Monday, May 10 edition of The Overview:
1) Writing for Newsweek, Southern Seminary’s Andrew Walker argues religious liberty could alleviate the pressures of political and social polarization. He argues that even as traditional religion declines in the United States, there is still reason to invest in robust religious freedom, through both law and cultural values:
Secularization is ascendent today. But the branch of religious conservatism I represent is not going anywhere, and we have to find ways to live together. Deliberation and persuasion must rise to the surface of our public discourse to settle conflicts. I'm going to continue to exercise my religious liberty to point to the truths that I believe are necessary for human beings and societies to flourish.
Walker’s latest book, Liberty for All, was just released last week. Stay tuned for a thorough review of this book alongside another recent book on the importance of religious freedom in an increasingly secular America.
2) Writing for Christianity Today, Baylor’s Matthew Anderson highlights the role that Christian cultural engagement played in the development of the pro-LGBT rights movement, culminating with the advancement of the Equality Act. Specifically, Anderson argues that one reason for the aggressive advocacy of some LGBT activists today stems from past Christian actions and rhetoric toward the LGBT community, including during the debate over Colorado’s Amendment 2 nearly 30 years ago. This rhetoric eventually softened, but the damage was done:
From the outside, it was easy to believe that social conservatives tolerated degrading sentiments toward the LGBT community up until those calloused words became a political liability. But even then, the people responsible … were often quietly sidelined rather than actively repudiated.
As a result, Anderson asks, is it any wonder there exists animosity for religious freedom arguments opposite desiring expanded civil rights protections for LGBT Americans? One path forward is for Christians to center our arguments concerning marriage and gender identity on a positive gospel witness, rather than fear of an evolving society: “Only when we embrace the joy of the living God, Jesus Christ, will our commitment to marriage between a man and a woman ring out to the world with a clarity and grace that inclines them to take heed and listen.”
3) Writing for The Gospel Coalition, sociologist George Yancey discusses new research on the political proclivities of different elements of Christianity. Curiously, and counter to prevailing narratives, he and his coauthor finds that progressive Christians tend to be more politically driven than their conservative counterparts. But that’s not all — they find there are differences among progressive and conservative Christians in terms of their social networks, with implications for tolerance:
Our quantitative and qualitative analysis indicated that conservative Christians are more likely to create social out-groups based on theological than political differences. In other words, they’re more accepting of political progressives than of non-Christians. They’re also quite willing see different types of Christians as friends. Our qualitative work indicated that conservative Christians often see progressive Christians as brothers and sisters with slightly different beliefs.
The reverse is true for progressive Christians. They’re more likely to create social out-groups based on political differences. In other words, they’re more accepting of non-Christian groups than they are of conservative Christians. In fact, the acceptance of non-Christian groups is part of the inclusion and tolerance they tend to champion. So, naturally, they’re less likely to reject those of other faiths.
This is just a sliver of a thought-provoking article, which is itself a sliver of the authors’ forthcoming book. I wasn’t aware of the book prior to this, but it’s definitely going on my reading list.
4) The Atlantic has two excellent pieces on the pandemic:
David Graham equates “vaccine hesitancy” with “COVID-19 denialism,” tracing the political and cultural fault lines highlighting people’s different responses to vaccinations. Specifically, Graham identifies a segment on the political right that not only distrusts medical experts, but seemingly revels in not trusting others. And unfortunately, this is a problem quite difficult to address:
Standard vaccine hesitancy is a public-health problem. So is COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. But its apparent roots in COVID-19 denialism suggest that combatting it will require more than just persuading Americans to trust medical science—it may take convincing them to trust each other, too.
Emma Green reports on progressive enclaves hesitant to move forward following positive vaccination campaigns and declining COVID-19 cases. Ironically, Green argues that the same people so adamant about trusting scientific experts are not following their own advice at this stage of the pandemic:
Last year, when the pandemic was raging and scientists and public-health officials were still trying to understand how the virus spread, extreme care was warranted. People all over the country made enormous sacrifices—rescheduling weddings, missing funerals, canceling graduations, avoiding the family members they love—to protect others. Some conservatives refused to wear masks or stay home, because of skepticism about the severity of the disease or a refusal to give up their freedoms. But this is a different story, about progressives who stressed the scientific evidence, and then veered away from it.
Green’s story created quite the firestorm on social media, with many accusing her of downplaying the severity of the pandemic or overlooking the hundreds of thousands of deaths attributed to the pandemic — which kind of proves her point, doesn’t it?
5) Finally, consider this question from Vox film critic and The King’s College professor Alissa Wilkinson:
The thread is chock full of classics from the Christian contemporary music genre, including DC Talk, Avalon, Newsboys… I could go on. For my money, though, one song stands alone. Saddle up your horses and take a listen.
The Overview (Monday, May 10)
The Great Adventure, always evergreen. I really should get around to writing a full scholarly article on the eternal impact archetype of the "Cowboy" in American culture (and therefore world culture) but it's a topic that is best conversationally communicated.
I would like for someone at some point to suggest a solution to radicalization/polarization and all this mess. I've heard about it pretty constantly for about three years, and at this point, I don't really care if the solution is supposedly "crazy," I'm all for hearing it and discussing it's feasibility and consequences. Anything beats "we're polarized and it's getting hilariously worse" for umpteenth time.
All in all, thank you for the update, Dr. Bennett.