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Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism

By: Brad Jackson (Diary)  |  January 26th, 2012 at 10:00 AM  | 

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry are joined by Professor Darryl Hart to discuss his book From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism, how conservatism was being undermined by the evangelical movement, and how a post-evangelical community may not necessarily be identified with the Republican party.

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Related Links:

Buy From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism on Amazon
Front Porch Republic
OldLife.org
Darryl G. Hart
Darryl G. Hart at the Westminster Seminary California

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  • ethos

    It would be catchy.

  • rocketeer

    I want to disagree with the summary, but I can’t.

    As a nation we have been well-schooled to believe that religion has nothing to do with the physical world. This is the result of over a hundred years of secular evangelism in the universities, elementary and high schools, both secular and religious. As their graduates to on to teach new students, we have generations of adults who don’t know how to judge the morality they think they are raised up with. (HINT: changing things is a long-term task, and reinforced through unglamorous work.)

    But political conservatism needs Christian wisdom or it becomes rules or advice that nobody will accept. People *want* to believe, and without a Christian vision here socialism / marxism is an attractive alternative religion.

    The trick, and the plea of the book, is to have enough of the great Christian mass to realize that God requires us to be stewards of this world, using the teaching He gave us. This also means not twisting the Bible to match the latest (socialist?) desire.

    Some people, such the Dobsons of the world, apply their faith. Others think that what they believe has no importance to what they do.

  • deanfromohio

    Don’t have time today to listen to the interview, but here is Wikipedia’s list of Prof. Hart’s works:

    –Between the Times: The Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Transition, 1945-1990 (2011)
    –A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State (2006)
    –John Williamson Nevin: High Church Calvinist (New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2005),
    –Deconstructing Evangelicalism: Conservative Protestantism in the Age of Billy Graham (2005)
    –The Lost Soul of American Protestantism?. Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
    –Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (2003)
    –Recovering Mother Kirk: A Case for Liturgy in the Reformed Tradition (2003)
    –That Old Time Religion (2002)

    I guess that Dr. Hart and I would agree that part of “rendering to God what is God’s” would mean being an example of faith, purity and costly devotion to the Kingdom of God, which includes a church that stands as a witness against the world that stands against God. However, his definition of “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s” is obviously very different than mine. It sounds as if he has a great deal of intellectual capital invested against the very idea of letting one’s faith work out in specific political policies. So he would say that to anyone who even mentions faith and politics in the same sentence.

    What I can’t tell is if he makes an exception for those causes taken straight from the DNC party platform, as do Frank Schaeffer, Tony Campolo and other supposed neutrals. I’m not likely to take the effort to find out at this point, but if someone else knows, I’d like to hear it.