Scot McKnight's avant-garde attitude toward American politics expressed in criticism toward Louie Giglio

Allow me a brief follow-up word to last week's trending topic of discussion--Louie Giglio's withdrawal as President Obama's choice to offer the benedictory prayer at the presidential inauguration early next week. One of post-evangelical's chief scholarly representatives, Scot McKnight, took a brief flight out of the cuckoo's nest today with a short piece entitled "Louie Giglio and Inauguration Day Prayer" wherein he claimed that while Giglio did the right thing by backing out of the inaugural event, Giglio surely would have done the "right-er thing by never accepting such an invitation" in the first place   >>>

Citing two of his friends--Gabe Lyons and Tim Dalrymple--as giving the LGBT a hard time for picking on Giglio, McKnight offers what he calls a "different take":

I have a different take, noted already in the top of this post. Any evangelical on the platform of any Inauguration, Democrat or Republican, is being used. No one’s prayer will be acceptable to specific faiths… and if you tailor your prayer to all you shift your theology.

In addition to both "being used" and "shift[ing] your theology" McKnight goes to offer other reasons why it would have been the "right-er thing" had Giglio--or presumably any evangelical for that matter--not to get one's self into established political events. Consider:

• "When you enter politics you risk sullying the gospel. In DC everything is political."
• "If you don’t agree up and down the platform of the Democrats, don’t pray on their platform."
• "What happened to Louie is what happens when pastors and Christian leaders become complicit in politics. Politics determines everything...And the pastor who stands on that platform makes the gospel complicit in that platform’s politics."
• "Christian leaders and pastors need to be at the Prayer Breakfast or the Easter Breakfast, but not on the Inauguration Day platform"
• "May all of us learn the lesson that Caesar is Caesar and Jesus is not Caesar"

McKnight usually has some reasonable contributions to make upon the subject he considers. But this time, he throws a rotten egg.

The impression one gets reading McKnight's piece is for Christians to stay out of DC period. We have no business being there unless we either stand without reservation on a particular political platform agenda, or we attend a special religious breakfast. In fact, from what I gather from McKnight's reasoning, Giglio apparently would have done the Kingdom proud had he accepted an invitation to a Prayer or Easter Breakfast; he just did the wrong thing to accept an invitation to the inaugural event. One has to wonder: if everything in DC is definitively politics as McKnight thrice suggests, what makes him think a Prayer or Easter Breakfast is any different?

And, while Giglio's invitation and subsequent withdrawal perhaps teaches us some lessons, I doubt it teaches us "Caesar is Caesar and Jesus is not Caesar." Who among us actually believes anything differently? On the other hand, McKnight seems to indicate that since Washington is the Emperor's Palace, we have no business in Washington lest we sully the Gospel.  How far we've come from the Apostle Paul who "purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome" (Acts 19:21, italics mine). I don't think the Apostle had a site-seeing tour in mind.

Why of course we "risk sullying the gospel" when we enter the Emperor's domain. We risk its sullying in most any context where the gospel is either hostilely rejected or entirely unknown. Sullying the gospel cannot be limited to the politico-cultural context.

Therefore, we remain obligated to be, on the one hand, faithful witnesses to its saving powers while on the other hand, salt and light toward its preservation powers until our Lord's return. And, the radical attitude toward politics--avant-garde attitude toward politics, if you will--some (post-)evangelicals like McKnight seem to suggest would ultimately surrender our unique Judeo-Christian underpinnings we possess in the judicial, democratic, and cultural institutions we've established for over 200 years.  

Comments

[Todd]

Hello Peter,

A few clarifying questions. What constitutes McKnight as post-Evangelical? How would your analysis have been altered by a consideration that McKnight is a thorough-going Anabaptist thereby setting the context for his take on the matter? How is your reference to Paul not an egregious reach for a Biblical comparison in this matter? Is it possible you simply hold a different position on how we interact in the world as the People of God than does Scot which could easily constitute in others' eyes the laying of your own rotten egg?

[lydia]

I do not really understand this thinking that the government is separate as in a "political" domain in this discussion. We are not Rome in the 1st Century. We ARE the government, right? Granted there are many different views and it gets sticky. Welcome to a democratic republic.

There was a situation a few years back with the National Day of Prayer when Ravi Zacharias agreed not to mention the Name of Jesus in his prayer so as to not offend the Jewish folks attending. The Dobsons went along. I was a bit surprised there was not more of an outcry on that one.

[Ryan Abernathy]

Peter,

I don't think Paul had any political reason to go to room and I din't think there is any textual evidence to support such a claim. Rome was the center of the world in Paul's time and I would imagine Paul wanted to go to Rome to help establish the Church in the center of the known universe, since he had already helped to establish the church all over the fringes of said universe.

I would also add that while I don't agree with McKnight that Giglio should have turned down the invite, I do agree that all such events are political. Further, I agree with his assessment that marrying the Gospel with politics sullies the Gospel. We are reaping that whirlwind right now in our country with conservative churches being almost unilaterlly linked with the Republican party. That creates a huge evangelistic hurdle for reaching people who are opposed to much of the Republican party's agenda but still in need of Christ.

[peter lumpkins]

Ryan,

"I don't think Paul had any political reason to go to room [sic] and I din't [sic] think there is any textual evidence to support such a claim." Nor I. Nor did I claim such, Ryan. In fact, my assumption concerning his going to Rome very much matches yours...

Todd,

"Is it possible you simply hold a different position on how we interact in the world as the People of God than does Scot which could easily constitute in others' eyes the laying of your own rotten egg?" Most certainly. I have no reason at all to believe that...for many, I've failed to both lay and throw my own hen's share of rotten eggs. Thanks for asking!

Lydia,

Nor do I get the 'government is separate as in a "political" domain in this discussion' if I get your meaning. The way I read McKnight, the idea that because Washington is "all politics"--an assertion with which I fully agree but apparently Ryan wrongly thought I contested--we'd do well to stay out of Washington since we risk "sullying the gospel." My point was and remains, Paul left us no literary evidence he wanted to stay out of Rome because a) in Rome, all was political; or, b) he'd risk sullying the gospel...

[lydia]

In fact, Paul used his Roman citizenship to advantage.

[Todd]

Peter,
What criterion are you using to categorize Scot as post-Evangelical?

[peter lumpkins]

Todd,

You seem to be making more out of my passing descriptive adjective than it actually warrants, since I obviously used 'post-evangelical' in a very loose way (note the second usage was even in parenthesis). Nor did I have disparagement in mind as I used it, particularly toward Dr. McKnight, whom I happen to regard as one of evangelicalism's (or, if I may be so brash, post-evangelicalism's) preeminent scholars--unless it would be my inclination about the collapse of evangelicalism as a whole is concerned. Those who follow me carefully are aware of my theological suspicions toward modern/postmodern evangelicalism and consequently is a theological identity from which Southern Baptists should distance themselves.

Hope this helps. Thanks for logging on and have a great day...

[Max]

I've listened carefully to inaugural prayers for several years. Most have been diluted too ecumenically and sanitized with political-correctness. The last "real" inaugural invocation I heard was offered in 1993 by Billy Graham for President Clinton. When he prayed the following words, Clinton looked up from bowed head and stared at Brother Graham as if wondering “what in the world are you doing?!” Graham’s prayer:

“We thank you for the moral and spiritual foundations which our forefathers gave us and which are rooted deeply in scripture. Those principles nourished and guided us as a nation in the past, but we cannot say that we are a righteous people. We’ve sinned against you. We’ve sown to the wind and are reaping the whirlwind of crime, drug abuse, racism, immorality, and social injustice. We need to repent of our sins and turn by faith to you.”

Twenty years later, America continues to sow to the wind and reap the whirlwind ... and we need faithful preachers of the Gospel to remind of us of that in all arenas. These cute generic "God bless America" prayers we throw up on public platforms aren't scaring the devil much.