Words'nTone

Os Guinness, in Dining With the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts With Modernity, quotes Peter Berger, from A Rumor of Angels:

“He who sups with the devil had better have a long spoon. The devilry of modernity has its own magic: the (believer) who sups with it will find his spoon getting shorter and shorter – until that last supper in which he is left alone at the table, with no spoon at all and with an empty plate. The devil, one may guess, will have gone away to more interesting company.”

In the The Gravedigger File Guinness writes:

“It may be true that there are more Christians in America than ever before and that they have never had so much money at their disposal, such powerful technologies to use, such positions of influence to fill, or such a global opportunity to which to respond. But the signs are that the opportunity will be squandered and that much of American Christendom is more modern and more American than it is decisively Christian.””

Os Guinness writes elsewhere:

“After two hundred years of earnest dedication to reinventing the faith and the church and to being more relevant in the world, we are confronted with an embarrassing fact: Never have Christians pursued relevance more strenuously; never have Christians been more irrelevant.”

A few years ago now, when I was a college professor, I had lent an Os Guinness book to our new College President to read.  A few weeks had gone by and I needed to recover the book for a class.  I saw the President walking through the college square, about 25 yards or so away from me. I called his name to gain his attention and shouted, “Are you done Dining With the Devil, yet!” To which he cringed at who might be listening. And I laughed at that serendipitous moment.

Every publication I read (and I read a lot everyday!)…Newsweek, US News & World Report, the NY Times, and countless blogs and sites…lauding or lamenting the Evangelical “pull” with this election.  I am alarmed of this.  On the one hand, it is good for evangelicals to raise their voting-voice; ludicrous, however, to think this actually gives us a political voice to be reckoned with.  Those who need our vote are not our friends, people.  I am hardly opposed to Christians being involved in politics—I am. What concerns me is our own response to this apparent “clout” and its impact on the national politics.

In the wake of the 2004 Presidential election, I was concerned when Focus on the Family founder James Dobson weighed in with a shrill.  Dobson was commenting on President Bush’s victory announcement—namely, that it was short on thanking all the evangelicals for their vote, for putting him over the top. (We should all remember Bush had increased his percentage among virtually all sectors, Hispanics, women, etc. as well.) Dobson said: “The president could have paused to thank all those good people who poured in and gave him power again…The GOP has been given four more years to deliver on marriage and life and family, and if they fumble it…[we’ll] stay home next time” (US News & World Report, 11/15/04, p 42).

I gave pause to the arrogance, the nerve, and the biblical ignorance from what I thought was usually a wiser source. I won’t stay home because Dobson says so this year. With all due respect, who appointed him my leader, my spokes-person?  Plus he should know: Ultimately, despite our evangelical turn out, God is the one who raises and lowers kings—and I assume Presidents. And then to top it off, we have other self-appointed Christian leaders developing lobbying groups to weld power. While voting should be a component of an American Christian’s responsibility and getting involved is good, I am concerned: We need to check whether our spoon is getting shorter—and whether we’re done dining with the devil as well.

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