I think it is rather funny how two major golden boys in the "Conservative Idol" game have been taken down by infidelity in the past few weeks: Dinesh D’Souza and now General Petraeus.
It is especially sickening, though, that according to “conservatives” the military is supposed to be the virtuous of virtuous groups, we are supposed to honor the living daylights out of them, give them special treatment (even moral license), etc., and yet at the highest levels we find such immoral scumbags. And people still think they can make decisions about who lives and who dies?
I keep growing in my dislike for social "conservatives" because, basically, they are complete and total statists. Oh yes, they say they want limited, small government, low taxes – except when it comes to enforcing their social values at the point of a gun and to making sure the military has unlimited expense accounts to police the world and blow up countries they find nominally offensive.
Even as a theologically conservative Christian, I cannot stand being associated with the socially “conservative” philosophy overall. If I had to label it, I’d say I am socially Biblical, not conservative. Even though God’s theocracy/monarchy in Israel had civil laws that we do not, nowhere in Scripture are we called as Christians to make the State make people moral.
Of course, being socially Biblical as well as a libertarian, I intuitively recognize that you cannot make people moral. People must make the choice to be moral freely. That does not meant there are no boundaries whatsoever (we expect prohibitions on violence), but personal morals must be adhered to voluntarily. If I am to believe the Bible, I cannot be a social conservative, nor a social liberal.
What do you think, is it time to abandon the term “socially conservative,” but not even replace it with “socially liberal”? Can we be “socially Biblical” and retain some nominal kinship to people on both sides? Is calling our position “socially Biblical” even a good idea in the first place? Let us know in the comments.
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christian libertarian,
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social conservatism
It is certainly true that the Church has divided severely over issues throughout its 2,000-year history, but the last few decades have witnessed unparalleled division in recent memory. You’ll hardly hear someone offer that our country (and the Church) has become more politically united in the past decade.
Mike Slaughter and Charles Gutenson wrote Hijacked: Responding to the Partisan Church Divide to both acknowledge and correct a growing problem in the Church. Not only is the divide creating disunity within the Church, it is causing a significant number of younger Americans to reject the church because of the close relationship between partisan politics and religion. Throughout much of the 20th century, the Church’s liberal/conservative polarization was related primarily to theological issues rather than political, Democrat/Republican concerns. Only in the 1980s did theological “liberalism” (or “conservatism”) and voting primarily Democratic (or Republican) become integrally connected.
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Chuck Gutenson,
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N.T. Wright,
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social justice,
Stanley Hauerwas
Norman Horn is the creator and primary writer for LCC. Learn a little bit about him in the 