c. 1997 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ How, I wonder, did”evangelical”come to mean”conservative”?

Evangelical should mean any Christian who believes in personal conversion, the authority of Scripture and the centrality of preaching, as opposed to ritual. But in these divisive times, Christians with a right-wing political agenda have claimed the term for their own.

It reminds me of the word games played during the Vietnam War, when right-wingers claimed that”patriotism”meant favoring the war. In fact, many anti-war activists thought their resistance to the war was the very height of patriotism, that is, love of country.

Conservative Christians seem to contend that a faith grounded in Scripture must inevitably bear conservative fruit: anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-liberal, pro-school prayer, pro-defense, pro-capitalism, pro-Republican Party.

A”Bible-believing”Christian, the suggestion is, can only walk one line, because that’s what the Word of God says. In fact, the Bible is highly ambiguous, sometimes even silent, on contemporary political and ethical issues, even the so-called”evangelical agenda.” Christian Coalition folks might well see the Republican Party as likely to pursue their interests. Politicians courting votes, rather than theological insight, might conclude that Coalition votes are worth chasing. But it is absurd to argue that a God-fearing, Bible-toting believer has no faithful choice but Newt & Co.

It’s time to hear from believers whose devotion to Scripture leads them to radically different conclusions.

Liberation theology, for example, is grounded in the Scriptural view that God is a liberator, that the Gospel is”good news to the poor,”that Jesus was fundamentally on the side of victim and outcast. Instead of searching Paul’s letters and the Law of Moses for rules, liberation theologians read the prophets and the gospels and hear the centrality of freedom.

This is more than a quirk of personality type. Theology serves politics, say liberationists, and white theology serves white control. Moral and political issues may be phrased in terms of fidelity to Scripture, but that’s a ploy to gain political advantage.

Feminist theology is no less grounded in Scripture or in the call to personal conversion. Feminist theologians say believers ought to be reading the Bible with more care, more discernment, but with less cultural overlay.

They see the predominantly male ranks of conservative theologians as doing theology in a way that perpetuates male power. Feminist theologians believe that Jesus specifically _ and radically _ rewrote Hebrew Law as it pertains to women.

The moral challenge of Scripture, moreover, isn’t about sexual practices, but about wealth and its death-dealing hold on human hearts. The primary obstacle to our personal conversion isn’t wrong opinion about biblical interpretation, but the spiritual crisis called control _ the idolatrous illusion that we can control other people, as well as creation and its riches.

It is true that much of the evangelical fervor in America has been among people whose politics are conservative. But one doesn’t lead inevitably to the other. Indeed, many of the liberal preachers who fired up mainline Protestant pulpits in the 1960s drew their inspiration from Scripture, not from the conservatives’ favorite target,”secular humanism.” Episcopal Bishop John S. Spong of Newark, N.J., who drives conservatives to apoplexy, rose to prominence as a Bible scholar. One of his recent books concerned how the Bible needs to be rescued from the right wing.

In fact, when Christians of all stripes are given the opportunity to explain why they believe what they believe, they usually point to Scripture for their widely divergent beliefs.

Christians of all stripes, not just those with conservative political views, turn to Jesus as redeemer. I have yet to hear a good preacher whose primary agenda was anything other than calling his or her people to conversion. Preaching is generally the highest criterion for evaluating prospective clergy _ even in the so-called”liberal”churches.

The conservative vs. liberal paradigm is the heartbeat of American politics. The issues are deep, and American freedom benefits from the clash of views. But it is specious for those who vote Republican on Election Day and then attend church on Sunday to claim that an evangelical faith necessarily dictates conservative politics and ethics.

That’s the bluster of political argument, not good theology.

END EHRICH