A Thinking Reed

Are evangelicals forgetting their history?

Written by

Lee M.

in

Any article that begins with this awesome story is worth reading:

Thomas Jefferson stood, dressed in a black suit, in a doorway of the White House on Jan. 1, 1802, watching a bizarre spectacle. Two horses were pulling a dray carrying a 1,235-pound cheese—just for him. Measuring 4 feet in diameter and 17 inches in height, this cheese was the work of 900 cows.

More impressive than the size of the cheese was its eloquence. Painted on the red crust was the inscription: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” The cheese was a gift from religious leaders in western Massachusetts.

Steven Waldman goes on to discuss how modern evangelicals have departed from the tradition of their 18th-century forbears who “provided the political shock troops for Jefferson and Madison in their efforts to keep government from strong involvement with religion.”

Comments

5 responses to “Are evangelicals forgetting their history?”

  1. Eric Lee

    You and your cheesy stories.

    (couldn’t resist! 😉

    Reply
  2. CPA

    I liked the article, and it has some truth, but it all depends on how you define “evangelicals”, doesn’t it?

    If we define “evangelical” as Christians who are opposed to state churches, opposed to old creeds, existing denominational structures, and having a low view of the sacraments and insist on credo-baptism, then sure, Steve Waldman has a good point. The people holding this point of view were generally Democrat-Republicans because they opposed the colonial state churches

    But if you mean evangelical as Protestants holding to Biblical inerrancy, exclusivity of the Gospel, necessity of rebirth, traditional positions on sex roles and sexuality, etc. (and that’s what is meant by evangelical in the political realm and popular press), then there were many, many evangelicals who were hard-core Federalists. In fact, simply due to the fact that established churches were still the majority of the population, there were probably many more “Bible-believing” Christians who hated Jefferson than the reverse. Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Hopkins, Joseph Bellamy, Lyman Beecher: these were all evangelicals in the second sense, but not the first, and those around in the 1780s-1810s were fervent enemies of Jefferson and lovers of the Federalist cause.

    So in a sense Waldman is kind of playing a trick on his readers: using evangelicals in one sense, when in fact its usually used in a different sense in political discourse.

    Reply
  3. Joshie

    Damn, that’s what I was going to say. Is there room for two history know-it-alls around here?

    Reply
  4. Lee

    That’s all well and good, but can we get back to discussing the giant cheese wheel please?

    But seriously folks, I think Waldman’s point gains a little more credibility if you agree to see groups like the Southern Baptists as a major player in politically assertive evangelicalism, since they’re “evangelicals” in both senses, and thus, at least prima facie acting in ways that are in tension with their history. But, yeah, I think it’s true that in the popular press (and American politcal discourse more generally) the defining characteristics of evangelicals are much closer to the second cluster of traits identified by CPA.

    Reply
  5. Joshie

    so are you saying the cheese was cheddar or no?

    Reply

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