"The Christian Left" is a horrible book
Why did I read this book? It made my head hurt...but it did get me thinking
Ok so I should preface this entire post with a warning of sorts. This past month I’ve been busy, mentally fatigued and, thanks to a wakeful three-year-old, sleep deprived. I have a handful of podcast interviews coming up with books on my shelf that I can’t wait to read but, alas, my brain just feels full.
Anticipating, I suppose, the tryptophan-induced torper I’m planning to enter on Thursday, my intellectual curiosity has taken a bit of a nap on the floor in front of the football game.
Enter The Christian Left: How Liberal Thought Has Hijacked the Church, a book by Lucas Miles. I saw it in the free neighborhood lending library and like any self-interested, self-respecting Christian leftist, I figured I should check it out.
On the front cover, bingo! An endorsement by Mike Huckabee (unclear if this endorsement was made before or after the former governor of Arkansas and now TBN star sold a vacation home for $9.4 million last February). My resistance weak, I started thumbing through the pages, checking out how a high-brow theologian from the political right might dismantle my desire for a $15 minimum wage with a crafty set of biblical references.
In the three days since I picked up the book I literally could not put it down. Even when I was accused of being a Nazi sympathizer (I mean, I was disappointed that it took him an entire forty pages to get there but still). Even when I was repeatedly cut to the quick for my comrade’s bloodthirst for unborn life. And even when I was denounced for being in league with Satan due to my support for LGBTQ rights.
I wasn’t disappointed when Miles included homemade diagrams to illustrate the drift from orthodoxy the Christian left has engaged in throughout the years. No, there is nothing in the Apostles’ or Nicene Creeds that are violated by his enemies. Orthodoxy, apparently, has everything to do with inerrancy, the nuclear family and making sure babies get born no matter the physical or material consequences to the mother.
I also wasn’t disappointed, at least from a comedic standpoint, that the author identified everyone from Brene Brown to Ed Stetzer (the Billy Graham Distinguished chair at Wheaton College) as Christian leftists. I mean, I guess correctly identifying major voices like Chris Hedges or Cornell West in the list might have been useful but I digress.
I do have to say that my favorite part was when Miles traced a throughline from Calvinist theology to a socialist politic (finally someone gets me). Of course, when he set up Augustine as Calvin’s enemy and further accused us Calvinistic socialists of being Pelagians I thought he might have taken one too many hits of the good stuff but I digress again.
If the reader was anticipating a book full of arguments to back up assertions, they might be sorely disappointed. I’d include a bunch of references here but honestly I don’t even know where to start, and like I said, I’m tired.
So I’ll wrap up with a couple of thoughts. First of all, don’t buy this book. For more details I include a review from a conservative SBC pastor who puts it more clearly than I have the energy to accomplish right now:
But more to the point what this work of fantasy pointed out to me is the absurdity of demonizing our political (and theological) enemies. I’m pretty sure Lucas Miles isn’t going to get rich from this book. And I’m definitely sure I’m not getting rich dunking on it.
While we careen from one reason to hate each other to another the machine rolls on. Since the beginning of COVID, while we’ve all been screaming about the unvaccinated, mandates and masks, billionaires have increased their wealth by sixty-two percent. That’s 1.8 trillion dollars extra for the richest people on the planet. Meanwhile twenty-eight percent of Americans can barely meet their pre-pandemic expenses.
And like I said, I’m tired. I’m tired of the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer. I’m tired of religious conversations that don’t establish a preferential option for the poor. I’m tired of trying to figure out who is and who isn’t Hitler.
The truth of the matter is we only have so much energy, time and space. For myself, I’m gonna rest up and then use what energy I have to throw a wrench in the machine of mammon itself.
But first, a tryptophan nap.