Evangelical Hypocrisy Deepens

Last updated on: March 18, 2020 at 12:47 pm by D. G. Hart

Evangelical Hypocrisy Deepens 2020-03-18T12:47:49-04:00 D. G. Hart

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

By now, the number of people who know about American evangelicals’ hypocrisy in voting for Donald Trump is almost as high as the number of people unaffected by COVID-19 (which is high, over seven and a half billion). What is less well known is the hypocrisy that pervades even those sectors of evangelicalism opposed to the POTUS.

Consider the example of Randall Balmer in a recent piece for Sojourners. There he shows somewhat convincingly that nineteenth-century evangelicals opposed capitalism, which functions as a not so subtle (or convincing) endorsement of Bernie Sanders:

If we return to evangelicalism in the 19th century, we see that evangelicals were highly suspicious of free-market capitalism. Indeed, many evangelical sentiments in the antebellum period would be considered radical by the standards of both the 20th and 21st centuries. Charles Grandison Finney’s understanding of the Christian faith and duty led him to a suspicion of capitalism because it was suffused with avarice and selfishness (a critique shared by many Roman Catholics as well). . . .

The excoriations of capitalism and wealth on the part of evangelicals in the 19th century make Bernie Sanders’s perorations sound timid by comparison. Evangelicals of an earlier age, long before the advent of the Religious Right in the late 1970s, understood the spiritual perils of acquisitiveness. They warned against the seductions of wealth, and they recognized that the tenets of capitalism — selfishness, greed, “the desire to possess” — ran counter to the mandates of the gospel and the words of Jesus to care for “the least of these.”

Few evangelicals of the 19th century identified explicitly as socialists. But their jaundiced view of free-market capitalism place them far closer to the ideas of Bernie Sanders than to the rhetoric emanating from leaders of the Religious Right.

The difficulty in Balmer’s argument is that he holds an endowed chair at Dartmouth College, an institution in the Ivy League with — at least until COVID-19 infected Wall Street — an Ivy-League sized endowment. Here is how well endowed Dartmouth was only a year ago:

Dartmouth’s endowment generated a return of 7.5% for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, bringing its total value to $5.7 billion.

In fiscal year 2019, Dartmouth’s endowment contributed over $250 million to the annual operating budget in support of priorities such as robust financial aid packages and faculty compensation, both of which assure Dartmouth’s competitive edge in providing a world class liberal arts education and research environment for all of its students and faculty.

Unless I am missing something, capitalism has benefited Dartmouth College and its endowed chair holders well.

This does not mean that professors like Balmer cannot recommend socialism or candidates like Bernie Sanders simply because their paycheck comes at least partly from funds that depend on capitalism. It does mean, however, that that you may want to acknowledge, in a self-disclosure kind of way that you seem to benefit from the very economics you denounce. Otherwise, your own venting about evangelical hypocrisy could well turn out to be another version of Captain Renault’s experience at Rick’s Cafe.

Image

2016 Presidential Election

Previous Post

March 16, 2020

Can You Change Evangelicalism's Spots after Billy Graham?

Next Post

March 20, 2020 Fear of Death

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 2016 Presidential Election 2020 Presidential Election Apocalypse Bible in American Life Biblical authority Books and culture Calvinism Church Life Civil Religion Culture Wars Doctrine evangelicalism Gullibility Heaven and Hell Intellectual life Jesus Ministry modernity moralism Nationalism New Testament Old Testament Otherworldiness Otherworldliness Paul Peter Piety Popular culture Protestantism Psalms Puritans Race Roman Catholicism sacred/secular distinction Sex Shameless Self Promotion Sports Ten Commandments U.S. politics Uncategorized vulgarity worship

Select a Month January 2022 October 2021 August 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz