Growing up as a Baptist in Cameroon, it was drilled into us that a Christian ought to manifest certain moral attributes. While the grace of God was central in understanding the nature of salvation, it was also important that Christians lived the lives befitting their calling as followers of Christ. Drawing from many places in the New Testament, including the Book of Revelation, we were taught that our Christian Character has something to do with our ultimate salvation. That was about thirty years ago but that teaching is still significant to Cameroon Baptist life today.
When I came to America I realized that Baptists belong to that group of people called Evangelicals. While Evangelicalism is diverse in America, as in many other places in the world, I noticed that the people called Baptists have a very ambiguous attitude towards the importance of morality in the Christian life. (This may surprise some given that Baptists in America are seen as morally legalistic.) More especially, I noticed that the people called Baptists do not only belong to Evangelicalism, they are also part of the broader Protestant movement and Protestantism, I came to learn, is made up of people for whom Christian morality is not central. In fact, I came to read that it was a Roman Catholic thing to claim that morality has any significant role to play in the salvific process. For Protestants, however, emphasizing morality is being legalistic, focusing on the law rather than grace in the salvific process. While Roman Catholics have saints who are seen as people who had lived commendable Christian lives, Protestants scorned at saints. After all, Martin Luther had taught that we are saved by faith alone through grace alone not by what we do.
This undermining of morality in the salvific process congealed in a fatalistic view that we cannot expect perfection from anybody. In fact, does not the Bible itself say that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God? How then can we expect anyone to be good? Thus developed a doctrine that hides behind the impossibility of perfection to promote license, as if the impossibility of perfection implies license. This doctrine of imperfection has become the hallmark of Evangelicalism in America where focus is now placed on what Christians are unable to do rather than what they can do.
It is this theology that brought us to yesterday, when an Evangelical group gathered to endorse Donald Trump, the racist Republican nominee for President of the United States of America. Evangelical leaders who have been endorsing Trump have been arguing that they may do so in spite of his grossly unchristian life style because they are not voting for a pastor but a president - as if the morality of a pastor is supposed to be superior to that of a lay person. Then yesterday one of their own argued that they are not voting for a perfect candidate, as if the opposite of a decent candidate is a perfect one. And so Evangelicalism wallows in moral incongruity in which in becomes difficult to hold anyone accountable for anything. (This has not stopped Evangelicals for choosing sides, though.)
If it is true that no one is perfect - by the way this is a claim that has to be tested - what then would be the difference between voting for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton? Does the fact that no one is perfect not apply to both of them? What this does is that Christian morality becomes a coin toss. Do Evangelicals then have any good grounds for voting for Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump? Not quite. This situation is even compounded by the fact that Evangelicals teach that all sins are the same - whether one shoplifts from WalMart or murders someone there is no difference. Where Roman Catholicism has created a gradation of sins to help Christians put things into perspective, for Evangelicals, no sin is greater than the other.
It is in this state of moral confusion in which Evangelicals find themselves that they can't tell the difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In this state of moral confusion, one even wonders how they may defend their protest against abortion, a sin that seems to be more than divorce to Evangelicals. It is this state of moral confusion that may be seen to be leading Evangelicals to defend racism and deceit in Donald Trump. This moral confusion is leading Evangelicals to amorality. It will take a long time for Evangelicals to recover from descent into moral wilderness.
When I came to America I realized that Baptists belong to that group of people called Evangelicals. While Evangelicalism is diverse in America, as in many other places in the world, I noticed that the people called Baptists have a very ambiguous attitude towards the importance of morality in the Christian life. (This may surprise some given that Baptists in America are seen as morally legalistic.) More especially, I noticed that the people called Baptists do not only belong to Evangelicalism, they are also part of the broader Protestant movement and Protestantism, I came to learn, is made up of people for whom Christian morality is not central. In fact, I came to read that it was a Roman Catholic thing to claim that morality has any significant role to play in the salvific process. For Protestants, however, emphasizing morality is being legalistic, focusing on the law rather than grace in the salvific process. While Roman Catholics have saints who are seen as people who had lived commendable Christian lives, Protestants scorned at saints. After all, Martin Luther had taught that we are saved by faith alone through grace alone not by what we do.
This undermining of morality in the salvific process congealed in a fatalistic view that we cannot expect perfection from anybody. In fact, does not the Bible itself say that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God? How then can we expect anyone to be good? Thus developed a doctrine that hides behind the impossibility of perfection to promote license, as if the impossibility of perfection implies license. This doctrine of imperfection has become the hallmark of Evangelicalism in America where focus is now placed on what Christians are unable to do rather than what they can do.
It is this theology that brought us to yesterday, when an Evangelical group gathered to endorse Donald Trump, the racist Republican nominee for President of the United States of America. Evangelical leaders who have been endorsing Trump have been arguing that they may do so in spite of his grossly unchristian life style because they are not voting for a pastor but a president - as if the morality of a pastor is supposed to be superior to that of a lay person. Then yesterday one of their own argued that they are not voting for a perfect candidate, as if the opposite of a decent candidate is a perfect one. And so Evangelicalism wallows in moral incongruity in which in becomes difficult to hold anyone accountable for anything. (This has not stopped Evangelicals for choosing sides, though.)
If it is true that no one is perfect - by the way this is a claim that has to be tested - what then would be the difference between voting for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton? Does the fact that no one is perfect not apply to both of them? What this does is that Christian morality becomes a coin toss. Do Evangelicals then have any good grounds for voting for Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump? Not quite. This situation is even compounded by the fact that Evangelicals teach that all sins are the same - whether one shoplifts from WalMart or murders someone there is no difference. Where Roman Catholicism has created a gradation of sins to help Christians put things into perspective, for Evangelicals, no sin is greater than the other.
It is in this state of moral confusion in which Evangelicals find themselves that they can't tell the difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In this state of moral confusion, one even wonders how they may defend their protest against abortion, a sin that seems to be more than divorce to Evangelicals. It is this state of moral confusion that may be seen to be leading Evangelicals to defend racism and deceit in Donald Trump. This moral confusion is leading Evangelicals to amorality. It will take a long time for Evangelicals to recover from descent into moral wilderness.
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