Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Can’t seem to get it through my head

Can’t seem to get it through my head

Last updated on: March 20, 2024 at 4:03 pm by Fred Clark

0 Comments

Can’t seem to get it through my head 2024-03-20T16:03:02-04:00 Fred Clark

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.

• “[White] Evangelical bestsellers reveal diverse — and sometimes dangerous — ideas about morality” — literature professor Christopher Douglass takes a deep dive into the Left Behind series, using the framework of Moral Foundations Theory.

Douglass’ piece at “The Conversation” links to his academic publication, for The Journal of American Culture, “Evangelical literary tradition and moral foundations theory.” The most interesting bit of that, to me, was the end section in which he admits that Moral Foundations Theory may just be a crock:

But Moral Foundations Theory itself has come under criticism in the last decade for trying to (re)habilitate conservative tendencies as being ethical after all. MFT in some sense attempts to “both-sides” moral psychology by arguing that both liberals and conservatives are moral, but in different ways. …

Indeed, a simple thought experiment suggests the obviousness of this problem: MFT might regard Nazis as very good people, scoring high on authority, loyalty, and purity scales—just very good in ways different from, but not worse than, their victims.

Yeah, MFT is very John Goodman in The Big Lebowski: “I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos. …”

If hierarchical authority, in-group loyalty, and purity are treated as “moral foundations” equivalent to love and justice, allowing for a “conservative morality” that elevates the former at the expense of the latter, then I don’t think the words “moral” or “morality” have any business in this discussion. MFT ain’t about morality, but about alignment — as in Dungeons & Dragons. It may be very important to your evil wizard that he’s lawful evil, but that still doesn’t make him good.

A simpler, more accurate summary of the conservative morality foundational to the Left Behind series can be found, again, in Wilhoit’s Law: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

In any case, I respect Christopher Douglass for diving into the literary cesspool of the Left Behind series and engaging those books with straight-faced, straitlaced academic seriousness and rigor. I can’t imagine trying to do that without indulging in lots of off-color jokes, bad puns, and theological tangents just to make things bearable for myself and my readers.

• On a related note, I am linking to this Texas Monthly piece by Ben Rowen — “A Wild Trip Into the World of Far-Right Novels” — because in order to write it Rowen had to read several “novels” from the self-described “right-wing fiction” publisher Defiance press of Conroe, Texas.

So let me just say, Ben, I know what you’re going through. I’m here if you need to talk to someone who understands.

• Also on a related note, I would be much more receptive to critiques of “The Incoherence of Post-Christian Morality” if they in any way acknowledged The Incoherence of Christian Morality[-ies], rather than being presented as a lamentation for some mythical lost age of Coherent Christian Morality.

If you want to presume that there is any identifiable, coherent, comprehensible thing that can be usefully labeled “Christian Morality,” then you’re going to need to overcome several formidable obstacles. Such as, for example, history from, oh, let’s say 313 through 2024. Or the irreconcilable diversity and disagreement over basic matters of morality that has existed and exists today among more than a billion Christians.

This is where we Christians are tempted into the fallacy — and sin of pride — of a True Scotsman argument, suggesting that none of that history or diversity or disagreement has any bearing on some curated core of real, true, authentic Christian morality which is self-evidently legitimate in a way that every other competing Christian morality is not.

(Part of the problem here, too, is that “coherence” isn’t an especially helpful way of sorting through this. That leads us back to Walter Sobchak and Gary Gygax. “I mean, say what you want about the clerics of Talos, Dude, at least …”)

• Here are a couple of items from early December that seem newly relevant because they are not from now but from early December.

In late February 2024, “the Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law.” And for the past two weeks, Republicans have been awkwardly backpedaling, trying to explain why this is what they were trying to sow, but not what they wanted to reap.

But the GOP’s attacks on IVF didn’t start with that ruling. And they weren’t fringe or hidden either. So here are a few links from before that Alabama edict:

Receipts. Just in case anyone has too short a memory to remember what Republicans were saying two months ago, or to remember what they’ve been arguing for the past 40 years.

• Some of you saw the title of this post and thought to yourselves, “Aha, it looks like he’s still on this weird kick of trying to revive interest in Green’s 1987 indie power-pop masterpiece, Elaine MacKenzie.”

And you would be right about that.

Uncategorized

Left Behind

Satanic baby-killers

Previous Post

March 20, 2024

It's not deception. It's permission.

Next Post

March 21, 2024 All I ever wanted was a good job and some bus fare ...

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

""Do your worst, I have already won" lol"

Daniel McLellan

Cycling down the widening gyre

"Their power level clearly didn't go up to five thousaaaaaaaaaaaaand!(I mean, honestly, good on that ..."

Jim Roberts

Cycling down the widening gyre

"Doing training at work on spotting Deepfakes.But why is it every example Deepfake looks so... ..."

Two Pi Man

Cycling down the widening gyre

"Truss has always claimed that her plan would have led to success if only the ..."

Two Pi Man

Cycling down the widening gyre

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 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 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the last judge of Israel and also a prophet?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Nathan Saul Eli Samuel