The Prophet Incontinent

I'm struggling to figure out how David Brooks could possibly have written such a mendacious and cowardly op-ed as this. While I don't have the highest regard for Brooksian pop-sociology and wouldn't trust anyone who used the term "bobo," I've always thought of him as intelligent, honest, and decent. Indeed, his piece in support of gay marriage rights was downright moving.

Nevertheless, his effort at excuse making for the evangelical Right is a simple disgrace. Let's just state pre-emptively that a London based evangelical author doesn't have the influence over the politics of the evangelical movement that Jerry Falwell does, and that no amount of cordial, engaging conversations with the former will reverse those circumstances.

In any case, try not thinking of an elephant really hard. That's the experience anyone who is semi-informed about the religious right would have in reading Brooks' glaring omission of any consideration of James Dobson. Dobson is the pope of the evangelicals, not Falwell, and certainly not James Stott. To talk about the leadership of the politicized evangelical movement without mentioning Dobson isn't just misguided, it's semantically contentless.

That's bad enough. Now take a closer look at the man Brooks touts as epitomizing the compatibility of reason and evangelical Christianity. This is supposed to be the money quote:

It is not because we are ultra-conservative, or obscurantist, or reactionary or the other horrid things which we are sometimes said to be. It is rather because we love Jesus Christ, and because we are determined, God helping us, to bear witness to his unique glory and absolute sufficiency. In Christ and in the biblical witness to Christ God's revelation is complete; to add any words of our own to his finished work is derogatory to Christ.

I guess this is too complicated a thought for a buffoon like Falwell to entertain, but if that's the point of the article, then the Times could learn to conserve ink by not printing column-length tautologies.

Stott's last remark bears repeating: "In Christ and in the biblical witness to Christ God's revelation is complete; to add any words of our own to his finished work is derogatory to Christ." What can this possibly mean except an outright negation of empiricism and science, among other things we hold dear. I'd like to say that Brooks should know better, but that's not imminently obvious.

UPDATE: Via Andrew Sullivan, Striding Lion summarizes the influence of Stott on the evangelicals:

He can't make policy - but it was Stott who declared maybe 10 years ago that he would leave the CoE over the homosexuality issue - that if Canterbury ever publicly declared homosexuality not to be a sin that he would see that as the ballgame, and he would prefer schism to unity with such a doctrine.

Now, its still debated whether or not Stott meant this to be an 'ultimatum,' but it has come to be treated as such and it has helped to contribute to the 'elevation' of homosexuality as a dealbreaker sin in the eyes (and teachings) of evangelical Christians.

Charming fellow, no?