May 12, 2003

Liberal Clergy?

Liberal Clergy?
Donald Sensing is looking at the growing divide between clergy and laity in America, and points to some good stuff from Armed Liberal as well.

The clergy controlling the agendas in the churches concerned see the lay people as deeply "acculturated" by traditional American secular values, namely, love of country and other accoutrements of patriotism. That is, the laity are seen as rooted in the "kingdoms of the world" rather than rooted in the Kingdom of God (like the clergy are convinced they are). Laity are seen as enmeshed in rampant consumerism, and self-serving, unexamined ends, for which their religion is more socially, economically and culturally affirming rather than transformative and challenging.

The lay people, on the other hand, see the clergy as overtly political, intolerably authoritarian and frankly anti-American even at the expense of supporting morally and materially a tyrant like Saddam Hussein. To the lay people, the clergy are seen as having lost their religious center, the Good News of Jesus Christ as the unique Son of God and redeemer of all humankind, and exchanged it for a political agenda that uses Christ and Bible as a prop, but which has an insipid religious content and is often nearly indistinguishable from the latest press release of the Democratic party.