As the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill went through Parliament, Channel 4 aired a documentary about “the rising influence of Christian fundamentalism in the UK”, which I watched with very mixed feelings.
The documentary was very selective and frustratingly one-sided. It failed to properly define fundamentalism: the way it portrayed it seemed to be Young Earth Creationism plus any kind of Christian political engagement. But despite this it raised a lot of questions in my mind about how Christians engage with politics.
Many of my fellow evangelicals would say that the problem with what people like Stephen Green of Christian Voice are doing is basically just the right thing done in the wrong style. All that’s really needed is better PR skills.
But it seems to me that the rot is deeper than just poor communication. And while I’d agree with the so-called fundamentalists on many moral issues, there’s something wrong not just with their style, but with their basic approach to politics.
One of the questions that it made me ask is how can evangelical Christianity avoid descending into fundamentalism? Evangelical Christians are often very careful to define themselves against secularism and theological liberalism, and rightly so. But I sometimes see evangelical Christians, with the best of intentions, slipping into ugly attitudes and modes of thought that are reactionary and driven by fear. We need to resist fundamentalism, in the modern sense of childish belief with adult aggression, rather than the historical theological definition of fundamentalism, just as strongly as liberalism.
But what distinguishes this middle ground between capitulation to contemporary culture on the one hand, and a reactionary fortress mentality on the other? How should Christians engage properly with politics and culture? It’s a big question, and I need time to think it through. As I do so, I’ll share my further thoughts on the subject right here on this blog.