Saving Faith: How American Christianity Can Reclaim Its Prophetic Voice
()
About this ebook
Survey data and anecdotal evidence agree that Christianity is losing its hold on American life. The Roman Catholic hierarchy struggles to regain its credibility following the pedophilia scandals, mainline Protestantism wrestles with issues of sexual identity and attrition, and white evangelicalism has merged with the far-right precincts of the Republican Party. Moral authority, it seems, is hard to come by, with all three of the major Christian traditions--Roman Catholicism, mainline Protestantism, and white evangelicalism--facing a crisis of credibility.
Finger-pointing abounds. Many people of faith blame the rampant secularization of society in recent decades, while critics contend that Christians themselves, or at least their leaders, are blind to their own shortcomings. Some of the proposed remedies--an appeal to nostalgia, an attempt to undermine the separation of church and state, trying to throttle religious diversity, and asserting the supposed "Christian" origins of the nation--are historically misguided and would only deepen the crisis facing Christianity.
Saving Faith argues that any attempt to arrest the decline of Christianity in America must first reckon with the past, especially America's "original sin" of racism, with which Christians have been far too complicit. Christians also need to turn to the Bible, from the creation accounts of Genesis and the prophetic calls for justice, to the words of Jesus, the Word of God. We can also profit from the examples of Christians in earlier days, especially those in the nineteenth century who advocated for the abolition of slavery, for prison reform, for public education, for women's equality, and against the ravages of unbridled capitalism. The Social Gospel remains a worthy example, and the Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern sought to remind evangelicals of their once-robust prophetic voice.
Prophetic Christianity, affirming Jesus as the Word of God, renounces temporal power in favor of speaking from the margins.
Randall Balmer
Randall Balmer is the John Phillips Professor in Religion at Dartmouth College. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including Evangelicalism in America, Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter, and Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America, which is now in its fifth edition and has been made into an award-winning three-part series for PBS.
Read more from Randall Balmer
Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Immaculate Mistake: How Evangelicals Gave Birth to Donald Trump Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEvangelicalism in America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPassion Plays: How Religion Shaped Sports in North America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Future for American Evangelicalism: Commitment, Openness, and Conversation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRevelation: The Education of a Priest Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRedeemer, Second Edition: The Life of Jimmy Carter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Saving Faith
Related ebooks
Not Your White Jesus: Following a Radical, Refugee Messiah Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAtheists in America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConfronting Christofascism: Healing the Evangelical Wound Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJesus v. Evangelicals: A Biblical Critique of a Wayward Movement Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhen Heaven and Earth Collide: Racism, Southern Evangelicals, and the Better Way of Jesus Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Love the Church, I Hate the Church: Paradox or Contradiction? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power Over Christian Values Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Public Pulpits: Methodists and Mainline Churches in the Moral Argument of Public Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fighting Political Gridlock: How States Shape Our Nation and Our Lives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGetting to God: Preaching Good News in a Troubled World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDefending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCalled to Bless: Finding Hope by Reclaiming Our Spiritual Roots Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Fracture of Good Order: Christian Antiliberalism and the Challenge to American Politics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Myth of Colorblind Christians: Evangelicals and White Supremacy in the Civil Rights Era Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAre We Done Fighting?: Building Understanding in a World of Hate and Division Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCollateral Damage: Changing the Conversation about Firearms and Faith Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsValues, Truth, and Spiritual Danger: Progressive Christianity and the Age of Trump Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Politics of Evangelical Identity: Local Churches and Partisan Divides in the United States and Canada Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOwnership: The Evangelical Legacy of Slavery in Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHidden in Contradiction: Humanity in Christ before, during, and after the Fall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiberation through Reconciliation: Jon Sobrino's Christological Spirituality Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlue in a Red State: The Survival Guide to Life in the Real America Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Persuasion in Parallel: How Information Changes Minds about Politics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Economic Other: Inequality in the American Political Imagination Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Religious History of America: The Heart of the American Story from Colonial Times to Today Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus the Refugee: Ancient Injustice and Modern Solidarity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Christianity For You
Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Four Loves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boundaries Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Law of Connection: Lesson 10 from The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Screwtape Letters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mere Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Changes That Heal: Four Practical Steps to a Happier, Healthier You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Enoch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Winning the War in Your Mind: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wild at Heart Expanded Edition: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Lead When You're Not in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex: Creating a Marriage That's Both Holy and Hot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better (updated with two new chapters) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Boundaries Workbook: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5NIV, Holy Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bible Recap: A One-Year Guide to Reading and Understanding the Entire Bible Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Your Brain's Not Broken: Strategies for Navigating Your Emotions and Life with ADHD Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Saving Faith
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Saving Faith - Randall Balmer
Praise for Saving Faith
Randall Balmer is, all at once, one of our most discerning scholars about religion, one of the most passionate voices within his tradition, and one great storyteller. Saving Faith is both a gift and a challenge. Like Pope Francis, Balmer calls for a prophetic Christianity that positions itself at the margins.
Paradoxically, it is from the margins that faith can have its most transformative effect.
—E. J. Dionne Jr., author, Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent, and coauthor of 100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting
Widely known and much respected, the master storyteller Professor Randall Balmer offers his readers what we have come to expect—a clear-eyed and carefully researched historical perspective of American Christianity. In Saving Faith, he diagnoses the multipronged disease of greed, politicization, and racism that has spread to infect multiple strands of Christianity, from evangelicalism to Roman Catholicism. But lest we lose hope and give up on a deeply flawed American religious tradition or accept that this is the norm,
Balmer offers us a prescription to make a sick Christianity healthy. The medicine to cure Christianity will require multiple doses over time. It will cause pain in the interim and will require sacrifice, love, bridge-building, and reestablishing the separation of church and state. While the cure will not be easy, what will emerge is a healthy, restored religion that is prophetic, principled, and disentangled from the world. Balmer offers Christians a way out of a troubling past and present and shows us that hope is warranted.
—Kristy Nabhan-Warren, associate vice president of research, and professor and Figge Chair of Catholic Studies, University of Iowa
There is no more incisive, prolific, and enlivening interpreter of American religion than Randall Balmer. Saving Faith is a well-documented sermon from history that proves the point. In it new villains and heroes will be discovered, as Balmer explains why we are at an inflection point unlike any other, with evangelical megachurches, mainline Protestants, and Catholics each experiencing crises of their own making. His breathtaking explication of the American Christian rush toward ecumenism while growth was happening for exclusive—not inclusive—churches is alone worth the price of the book. He finishes this tour de force with a concise walk through the American founders’ faith, with many surprises. To some this may read like a stinging indictment of Christianity in America, but to others it is the long-awaited healing treatment that we have needed.
—Rob Wilson-Black, president and CEO, Faith & Politics Institute
Saving Faith
Saving Faith
How American Christianity Can Reclaim Its Prophetic Voice
Randall Balmer
Fortress Press
Minneapolis
SAVING FAITH
How American Christianity Can Reclaim Its Prophetic Voice
Copyright © 2023 by Randall Balmer. Published by Fortress Press, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email copyright@1517.media or write to Permissions, Fortress Press, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV
and New International Version
are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023933063 (print)
Cover image: Abstract Oil Painting Smudged Textured Brush Strokes, ©oxygen | Getty Images
Cover design: Kristin Miller
Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-8806-6
eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-8807-3
Also by Randall Balmer
Passion Plays: How Religion Shaped Sports in North America
Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right
Solemn Reverence: The Separation of Church and State in American Life
Evangelicalism in America
Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter
First Freedom: The Fight for Religious Liberty
The Making of Evangelicalism: From Revivalism to Politics and Beyond
God in the White House: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush
Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America
Religion in American Life: A Short History [with Jon Butler and Grant Wacker]
Protestantism in America [with Lauren F. Winner]
Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism
Growing Pains: Learning to Love My Father’s Faith
Religion in Twentieth Century America
Blessed Assurance: A History of Evangelicalism in America
Grant Us Courage: Travels Along the Mainline of American Protestantism
The Presbyterians [with John R. Fitzmier]
Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America
A Perfect Babel of Confusion: Dutch Religion and English Culture in the Middle Colonies
For Douglas Frank and Sam Alvord
who introduced me to the life of the mind
and the music of the spheres
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way.
—Isaiah 53:6
I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds and the grossest of all libels.
—Frederick Douglass, 1845
It is customary to blame secularism for the eclipse of religion in modern society. But it would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive and insipid. When faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain, when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion—its message becomes meaningless.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel, 1976
. . . there is an enormous number of people, and I am one of them, whose native religion, for better or worse, is Christianity. We were born to it; we began to learn about it before we became conscious; it is, whatever we think of it, an intimate belonging of our being; it informs our consciousness, our language, and our dreams. We can turn away from it or against it, but that will only bind us tightly to a reduced version of it. A better possibility is that this, our native religion, should survive and renew itself, so that it may become as largely and truly instructive as we need it to be.
—Wendell Berry, 1993
Contents
Preface
1. How Bad Is It?
2. Misguided Remedies
3. The Fantasy of Christian Nationalism
4. Reclaiming the Faith
5. Back to the Bible
6. Worthy Examples
7. The Case for Prophetic Christianity
Appendix
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Preface
Anyone who sifts through the ashes of American Christianity in the early decades of the twenty-first century owes his readers the clarity of knowing who presumes to do so.
I identify myself as a follower of Jesus, even though I’m acutely aware that I often fall short of that aspiration. It’s well beyond my pay grade to assert that my faith is necessarily superior to others’; that discussion holds little interest for me. I’ve examined other traditions from time to time, and I’ve come away with appreciation for their integrity,