Am I a (gasp!) Conservative

Most people who know me would call me a liberal—my relatives and friends as well as other acquaintances. I have generally accepted the “L” word as a wonderful adjective, suggesting as it does generosity and beneficence. Of course I know that for some of my acquaintances it is the ultimate put down. They sometimes preface it with modifiers like bleeding-heart and tree-hugging, but these, too, strike me as words with positive connotations. A bleeding-heart is one that feels compassion for the down and out as Jesus does in the gospels again and again: “He had compassion on them.” And tree-hugging is, in my lexicon, a description of people who care deeply about protecting and preserving the creation—something scripture calls us to do.

Of course, what all these people mean when they call me a liberal is that in matters political, I want to bring about change—especially change in which government programs are employed and government authority is increased. And in matters religious, they might say I am for a departure from tradition, including traditional beliefs. They, as conservatives, would claim to be holding on to the traditional doctrines in matters religious, and in matters of government they espouse the shibboleth “that government is best that governs least.”

In spite of feeling good about this “liberal” appellation, I have had discussions recently with “conservative” friends and relatives that have led me to question whether I might (horrors) be a conservative and they might be the liberals. Let me explain, first, by looking at some current religious trends I have observed or learned about when talking with relatives and friends.

Many Christian churches today who call themselves conservative—including CRC churches—have dispensed with the use of an organ in their worship services and also with the singing of traditional hymns and psalms. Beyond that, some of them no longer use the traditional elements of the worship service. Perhaps they no longer recite the creeds or they have thrown away the oral reading of forms for such thing as baptism, Holy Communion, and ordination of elders and deacons. I have attended services in which such traditional elements of worship as a votum, salutation, service of confession and reconciliation (sometimes called the service of the law), scripture reading and recitation of a creed or use of a litany did not occur. None of them. What did occur were an opening praise band session, sermon, offering, closing song, and benediction, and, of course, an announcement section. Even the oral reading of scripture—which to some can be boring, I guess—is often kept to a minimal two or three verses.

At my church—which I love to attend—we use the organ in the morning service and sing a mix of traditional and contemporary songs. We recite creeds and use the forms when we observe the sacraments. In addition to a sermon, we have a salutation, a service of reconciliation, extensive oral reading of scripture, and a benediction. None of these things necessarily make us superior to the other churches I have attended or heard about, but they do make us more traditional, more conserving of the old ways, more . . . conservative.

Now to matters of doctrine. In my faith tradition, the Reformed tradition, one of our central doctrines expresses a strong belief in the covenant and infant baptism. The two go together like a left and right foot. Yet I hear among some of my conservative Reformed brothers and sisters surprisingly casual attitude about infant baptism: “Baptism or dedication—what’s the difference!” “I believe in one baptism—whether it’s infant or believer’s baptism doesn’t concern me.”

Well, I believe with my whole heart and soul that infant baptism is what scripture requires. That’s what the historic Christian church has taught almost from the beginning. This believer’s baptism that excludes infants is a relative newcomer to the church. So which position is the conservative one? Infant baptism, of course.

Let me take another doctrinal issue: pre-millennialism and the accompanying belief in the rapture. I frequently hear “conservative” church members from the reformed tradition talking about these concepts as if they believe them. And again, I must say that historically these notions are really Johnny-come-latelys to the category of end times doctrines. Yet I, the liberal, am the one who wants nothing to do with them—does that make me the conservative and my conservative friends the liberals?

All that I have said so far is meant to say nothing except that on a number of church issues of doctrine and worship I am more conservative than my conservative friends. In the interest of full disclosure, I must acknowledge that my church elects women to the office of elder and deacon and that my wife has been both and elder and deacon. This, I suppose, is one of the primary reasons I am seen as a theological liberal, for while the question of women in ecclesiastical office is not a central doctrine of historic Christianity, the exclusivity of men in these offices has certainly been the historic practice of the church from its beginning.

Recently I read an article by a reformed clergyman who had been interviewing for a position with a various reformed churches. He said that in four or five interviews he was asked virtually no questions about matters of doctrine but many questions on social/religious issues: especially homosexual lifestyle, war, and abortion. He concluded that the churches were not much concerned about his doctrinal positions but very concerned about his positions on certain social/moral issues. Can churches that displays that sort of indifference to doctrinal issues be called conservative?

Most current Christian conservatives have staked out certain social/religious issues as representative of Christian conservatism.  The two most important social/religious issues for conservatives today are absolute opposition to abortion and gay marriage. These are the political and ecclesiastical litmus tests for entry into conservatism.

But why are most of these conservatives so indifferent to the issue of divorce? Christ speaks out with great clarity on the evil of divorce though he says nothing about homosexuality. Yet most reformed and evangelical conservative Christians these days rather quickly gloss over the sin of divorce. Isn’t it a double standard to accept divorced people who are guilty of adultery (and who, according to Jesus, when they remarry, continue in adultery) yet automatically condemn homosexuals? Here’s another example: Jesus said that to hate your neighbor is as bad as hating God; yet I have seen Conservative Christians livid with hatred toward homosexuals. Am I to believe that these folks are the true representatives of the historic Christian faith?

Many of my conservative friends embraced the Iraq War hook, line and sinker. They never examined Just War criteria to evaluate it, though Christians since Augustine have been using Just War criteria to decide whether a war is justified or not. So if you opposed the Iraq War because it was not a Just War—and no amount of category manipulation can turn it into a Just War—one would think you would be designated conservative. Yet I when I opposed the Iraq War, I was called liberal.

And since we have drifted into issues political, let’s discuss the central political question of our time: How much government is too much government? Most conservative Christians are opposed to government intervention in economics and business, in healthcare, in almost anything except certain moral issues. I hear them singing hymns to a free market almost daily.

Now, one would think that a reformed Christian might look to John Calvin for some direction here. That would be the conservative thing to do. According to former Calvin professor and Banner editor Lester De Koster, “Calvin and Calvinism have stood for the positive intervention of the state in the social and economic life of the people for the promotion of the general welfare.” According to theologian and Calvin scholar H. H. Meeter: “Calvin advocated public loans for the poor and refugee, measures relating to public health . . . the fixing of the price of corn and wine and other commodities, the determination of the proper rate of interest, even the ownership by the State of a silk industry . . . . In fact, so much social legislation was enacted by the Genevan government at the time and through the influence of Calvin that his government has been termed Christian socialism.” Calvin’s commentary on II Corinthians 8: 15 is that “God wills there by equality and proportion among us, that is, each person is to provide for the needy according to his means so that no one has too much and no one too little.”

Calvin, who was at once a staunch capitalist and a social democrat (like Obama, perhaps?), advocated what today would be called liberal policy. Yet who is more likely than Calvin to be called a conservative in matters of faith and doctrine? No one. Does that mean that I, when I endorse Calvin’s biblically based policies 450 years later, might also be a conservative?

I’m just saying . . . .