It’s interesting to see that some evangelical Christians think that they really flexed their muscles last night by denying Mitt Romney victories in Alabama and Mississippi. I really question that premise. But let’s say it is true. Is it also true that evangelicals are having less influence than ever on the overall culture?
That’s what David French thinks.
I once heard it said that following the social and political disruptions of the 1960s and early 1970s, religious conservatives decided that they had to win elections, while secular leftists decided to win the culture — and both groups succeeded. So now here we are, enjoying unprecedented influence on presidential outcomes even as our cultural foundation rots away beneath our feet.
I guess we can watch Mad About You in reruns, which basically proves that the securalists won the culture, right?
The one thing I particularly enjoyed about Mr. French’s column was the way he approvingly cited Douthat tut-tutting church-swapping and then called for more churches to discipline adulterers.
I believe what he means by “losing the culture” is that evangelicals have failed to put a stop to all this rampant fornication. In that sense he’s absolutely correct, but he’s delusional if he thinks evangelicals ever owned the culture in the first place, or that they’re going to win it back by telling poor people to stop fornicating.
I also liked this:
Douthat agrees and adds an important point:
As it happens, this is one of the themes of my forthcoming book…
well, the stats clearly show that white lower-class folks are giving up on marriage but not on fornication.
This cracked me up: “The secular stereotype of the modern evangelical — as a judgmental moralizer — is so wrong as to be laughable.”
The laughable part is that for some reason God keeps telling different people to run for president. That must be the unprecedented influence he means.
It’s so wrong, but we need more disciplining of the flock. And no church-swapping. Take your beating.
As I like to point out to people who make that comment, God may very well have told them to run. That does not mean that he meant them to win.
Meanwhile Lakoff reminds us that Rick Santorum is busily further normalizing the crazy.
I like to believe that nobody has “won the culture”, at least no politicians. (Marketers could be a different story.) Once the culture is “won” it no longer exists as a culture, but becomes just another commodity.
But it is interesting to wonder whether insanity can become a culture if there are enough inmates in the asylum.
Shrug Churches have generally been very good and getting people to do what they want to do anyway (see the first half of the crusades) and lousy at stopping people doing what they want to do (See the Commonwealth of England under Cromwell)
In somewhat related news, the Fluke scandal seems to have done far more damage to Rush Limbaugh than I thought it would. I’m very pleased to be proven wrong on this.
http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/rush-on-the-rocks/
There’s a nice duet happening in the current issue of Rolling Stone where Jon Stewart interviews Bruce Springsteen about Wrecking Ball then the Matt Taibbi article entitled Too Crooked to Fail-Bank of America. And the frosting on the cake of the day was Smith’s op ed in NYT about the culture at Goldman Sachs.
When I read stuff like this I realize, once again, why I’m an atheist.