Fallen Evangelicals in America

Evangelical Christians like to portray themselves as the moral saviors of America. They insist that if only the government agrees to their desires - like posting the Ten Commandments in schools and courts - then America’s social and moral problems would be solved. If that’s the case, though, why aren’t evangelicals any better than the rest of the nation?

The Wilson Quarterly discusses the article “The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience” by Ronald J. Sider, in Books & Culture (Jan.–Feb. 2005)

“Whether the issue is divorce, materialism, sexual promiscuity, racism, physical abuse in marriage, or neglect of a biblical worldview, the polling data point to widespread, blatant disobedience of clear biblical moral demands on the part of people who allegedly are evangelical, born-again Christians,” writes Sider, a professor of theology, holistic ministry, and public policy at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, near Philadelphia.

[A] recent study of 12,000 evangelical teenagers who took the “True Love Waits” pledge to postpone intercourse until marriage found that only 12 percent kept the promise. Indeed, a quarter of the most committed, “traditional” evangelicals and nearly half of “nontraditional” evangelicals tell pollsters they find premarital sex morally acceptable.

The biblical injunction to help the poor likewise gets short shrift from many evangelicals. They gave six percent of their income to charity in 1968 and, after decades of growing affluence, only four percent in 2001. That’s better than the three percent given by mainline Protestants, but still much less than the biblical tithe of 10 percent.

Highly committed, born-again Christian believers are apparently more likely than nominal Christians to engage in volunteer work helping the poor. Otherwise, though, born-again Christians are display no greater morality or social conscience than non-Christians — including atheists. Born-again Christians are no more likely to remain virgins until marriage, to give to charities, to remain married, or anything else that they typically insist are benchmarks of moral behavior.

If their comprehensive acceptance of their own doctrines does not cause them to behave any better than other groups in America, then why should they expect a few token expressions of religion (like posting the Ten Commandments) to accomplish anything greater? One has to wonder if perhaps they don’t really believe what they say.

Read More:

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