As I was reading about how Rebecca Davis untwisted the Scriptures and the teachings that told her to be self-disciplined and live obedient to a set of rules, Rev. Mariann Budde was in the new for encouraging the US administration to show empathy, mercy, and compassion.
We don't show empathy or love by our own willpower or self-discipline. The Bible says the Spirit empowers us and produces the fruit of kindness, gentleness, and love. As we strive to walk with Christ, the Spirit will bear good fruit in our lives.
It occurred to me that a new brand of Christianity was taught in the 80s and 90s. They taught Rebecca Davis that while Jesus saves her through faith, it was up to her to be self-disciplined and live morally to earn sanctification. This new brand of fundamentalism focussed on judgement, self-discipline, on earning God's love.
It drew lines between Us and Them; who's in and who's out. It excluded the Jesus Revolution of the 1970s and it excluded mainline Protestants. This new brand of evangelical Reformed thinking calls it a sin of empathy to show compassion; they would prefer to promote doctrine and so-called biblical truth rather than promoting mercy, empathy, and love. It made me realize how far Christianity has changed from the 70s Christianity that formed my faith.
70s Christianity: Anti-racism
By the 1970s most Christians agreed with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King in ending segregation, knowing God does not privilege whites over blacks (though Baptist televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr promoted racial segregation until year 2000). Christians agreed to work together, seeing through the first Catholic President - J.F. Kennedy - that Catholics were due the same respect as Protestants (Some of today's evangelicals deny Catholics are Christians; Greg Locke, Global Vision Bible Church, burned rosaries as objects of sorcery). Christians saw the negative impacts of the Vietnam War and questioned the US involvement. There was a yearning for peace and love.
We learned it was being a good Christian to accept one another's differences:
"Take a look at yourself and you can look at others differently - by putting your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee!" (Anne Murray)
70s Christianity: Give Peace a Chance
In the 1970s, Christianity was hip and popular. Songs about faith and lyrics from the Scriptures were on pop radio. Young believers often ignored organized church traditions or doctrine in favour of spiritual experiences and personal authenticity. The Bible was the authority and many new translations were released. Christian rock and folk music got its start.
"One Tin Soldier" was an anti-war song that hit the top of the Billboard charts in 1969 and 1971. The song warns that hating your neighbour and cheating a friend will be judged on that final day. The valley people in the song attacked and won a great treasure:
Now they stood beside the treasure On the mountain, dark and red Turned the stone and looked beneath it: "Peace on Earth" was all it said.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor, Go ahead and cheat a friend, Do it in the name of heaven You can justify it in the end. There won't be any trumpets blowing Come the judgment day. On the bloody morning after One tin soldier rides away.
70's Christianity: Love as God Loves
We learned it was being a good Christian to have empathy, to see with God's eyes:
She's got her Father's eyes... Eyes that find the good in things When good is not around ... Eyes full of compassion, seeing every pain Knowin' what you're going through, and feeling it the same Just like my Father's eyes..." (Amy Grant)
We sang about how all people need love, not just our neighbours. In this 1965 hit, we prayed for God to enable us to love one another:
What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of. What the world needs now is love, sweet love - No not just for some but for everyone
70s Christianity: Forgiveness and Freedom
Unlike those who attended fundamentalist conservative churches in the 80s and 90s, I was not taught to continually bear my burden, strive to obey a list of rules, to die to self daily, and make myself smaller. As I grew up, we sang about finding joy in Jesus, being accepted as full heirs in God's family, no longer struggling with heavy burdens. Here are a few samples of lyrics sung by evangelical Christians in the 1970s:
The Gaither Vocal Band sang about no longer bearing guilt or shame, no longer striving to please God by obeying a list of rules:
"All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife But he made something beautiful of my life".
Elvis Presley recorded this Gaither song for his album.
"Shackled by a heavy burden, 'Neath a load of guilt and shame, Then the hand of Jesus touched me, And now I am no longer the same".
Conservative Resurgence
The conservative resurgence has separated from the peace, love, and acceptance of 70s Christianity. That's why today's Christians are deconstructing their faith. The Bible opposes racism, advocates for peace and love, and offers God's forgiveness and freedom.
The Conservative Resurgence that began around 1980 impacted not only the Southern Baptist Convention but most evangelicals. Rebecca Davis, whose faith was formed in the 80s, took training from Bill Gothard's fundamentalist seminars and Focus on the Family and learned that it was immoral to be gay (while Bill Gothard's sexual abuse of underage women was forgivable). Fundamentalist and Reformed evangelicals taught Rebecca Davis that she must worry about being judged by God and losing her salvation. On her website, https://heresthejoy.com/ Rebecca Davis untwists these teachings, explaining the great joy in knowing that Christ took away our guilt and shame. We do not need to die daily. Christ did all the dying that was necessary.
Evangelicals whose faith was formed in the 80s learned that equal rights for women is a worldly desire and women wanting to do ministry is vanity. They coined the term biblical womanhood and defined it to force women to stay at home with no birth control, no ability to 'say no' and no freedom of movement. They learned that women could not be police officers, corporate managers, or political leaders. They learned that empathy is a sin. It has now been revealed that many churches have supported abusers and blamed women for tempting men. For decades, these churches have lobbied for far-right politicians who would limit women's rights. AP News reported that 8 in 10 white evangelical Protestant voters supported the US current administration.
Today's conservative fundamentalist-style Christianity has moved far away from 70s Christianity as well as distancing itself from traditional Christian beliefs. Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, and Reformed Christians often taught that mainline Protestants or Catholics were not true Christians. Many evangelicals are promoting heretical ideas about the Holy Trinity illustrating submission and opposing the traditional Catholic teaching of mutual submission in marriage. Some evangelicals feel entitled to judge and to withhold God's assurance of pardon. They have mischaracterized God as angry and vengeful, forgetting all the ways that God has reached out to offer grace, redemption, and love. That is why we find Catholic and mainline Protestant church leaders speaking out against the current brand of fundamentalist or evangelical Christianity. Enough is enough.
All of this is, in fact, unbiblical and comes to the core of why I write. I write to show that God loves us all, and does not show favouritism by gender, race, or sexual orientation. The Holy Spirit lives in us, empowering women and men with wisdom and guidance and boldness.
Elaine Ricker Kelly, Author
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