If Stephens and Giberson’s book is supposed to encourage us evangelicals to become more intellectual and engage the ideas of our secular culture, I suspect that in most cases it will backfire.  For many evangelicals the book will serve as an object lesson in the dangers of compromising with “secular knowledge.”  It might make them more wary, rather than more open, to engaging with intellectuals. 

The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age. By Randall J. Stephens and Karl W. Giberson. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011.

“Secular intellectuals say it, I believe it, and that settles it.”  While this is not exactly Randall Stephens and Karl Giberson’s point, it is too close for comfort.  Their recent book, The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age, provides a stinging critique of many evangelical leaders.  They suggest that evangelicals should shut up and believe secular experts, not only in fields like evolutionary biology and history, but even on moral issues such as homosexuality and child training.

“The Evangelical Rejection of Reason”

Ironically, they criticize most evangelicals for rejecting reason, but they never provide reasoned arguments for their own positions.  Rather, they simply try to refute other evangelicals by proclaiming: “Thus saith the secular intellectuals” (and even one or two evangelical scholars for good measure).  They never exegete Scriptural passages to try to prove their points, though they do sometimes inform us that such-and-such a biblical scholar has refuted the prominent evangelical they are criticizing.  Their entire book rests on repeated appeals to authority, rather than providing cogent reasons for their positions.

Though they are self-identified evangelicals, their book, published by a division of Harvard University Press, mercilessly pillories many leading American evangelicals of more conservative stripe for their “anti-intellectualism” and opposition to secular knowledge.  Ironically, one accusation against their more conservative evangelical foes is that the conservatives are combative and prone to divisiveness.  These evangelicals, whom they sometimes tar with the term fundamentalist, allegedly thrive by creating “out-groups” as enemies.  This seems to me a rather hypocritical stance, since The Anointed is one of the most polemical, combative books I have read in quite a while.

The book relentlessly attacks fellow evangelical Christians (in front of a secular audience, so this goes beyond mere in-fighting), portraying them as “amateurs,” “professional outsiders,” and “idiosyncratic Bible teachers” who purvey “gibberish” rather than listening to the reasonable voices of (allegedly irenic and tolerant) secular intellectuals.  Oddly, Stephens and Giberson admit that many of the evangelicals they discuss are often blasted by the secular press and by secular intellectuals, so it is not clear to me why secular intellectuals are portrayed as calm and tolerant, while the conservative evangelicals are blamed for combativeness.  The will to fight seems to work in both directions, and Stephens and Giberson sling their share of invective, too.  Unfortunately, not all of their accusations are even accurate.

Stephens and Giberson advertised their book with a scathing article in the New York Times entitled “The Evangelical Rejection of Reason.”  It accused those disagreeing with evolution or climate change of embracing “red-state fundamentalism” that demonstrates “unyielding ignorance.”  They suggest that evangelicals inhabit a “parallel culture” that embraces “discredited, ridiculous, and even dangerous ideas” (such as opposing homosexuality).  This is an irenic, tolerant spirit?

Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age

As the subtitle suggests, what is at stake in this debate is the status of truth.  What counts as knowledge?  What and whom should we believe?  Why do we believe the things we do?  These are important questions for anyone to reflect on.

Unfortunately, Stephens and Giberson’s answer seems fuzzy.  On the one hand, they continually affirm the necessity of evangelicals embracing “secular knowledge.”  For them this means that we should affirm biological evolution (including evolutionary psychology), and reject outmoded ideas like Satan, demons, hell, end-time prophecies (of all kinds), spanking children because they are sinful, and the sinfulness of homosexuality and abortion.  They state, “Often an evangelical ‘crisis of faith’ is resolved with a simple liberalizing, whereby specific beliefs—biblical literalism, young earth creationism, homosexuality as perversion, eternal torment of the damned in a literal hell, the sinfulness of abortion—are abandoned and other beliefs—the Bible as literature, concern for the environment, racial and cultural equality for oppressed groups, universality of salvation, an emphasis on social justice, tolerance of diversity—move to the center as animating ethical and theological concerns.  The evangelical spectrum encompasses both of these camps.” (216)  They clearly hope that evangelicals will discard the former more conservative set of evangelical beliefs and replace them with the more liberal ones.

The authors also reject at least some biblical miracles, such as the sun standing still for Joshua or an axehead floating, and while admitting the possibility of some miracles, they redefine the miraculous as follows: “More analytical evangelicals would hasten to point out that a ‘miracle’ does not entail breaking the laws of nature.  A miracle is simply an act of God that can be accomplished by working through rather than against the natural order.” (265)  Real divine intervention is apparently unthinkable, because it doesn’t fit into the modern secular outlook.  One would almost conclude from reading this book that we should always, or at least usually, bend our Christian beliefs and practices to conform to whatever is being promoted today as secular knowledge.

On the other hand, Stephens and Giberson continue to self-identify as evangelical Christians, and in most chapters they point out one or two other evangelical intellectuals who agree with their positions.  Thus, they apparently do not always embrace “secular knowledge.”  However, they provide no criteria to tell us when we should listen to secular intellectuals.  Why should we listen to secular intellectuals when they tell us we should reject certain biblical miracles, deny Satan and hell, and accept homosexuality, but then not listen to them when they tell us that Jesus did not rise from the dead, or when they argue that adultery is morally permissible or killing the disabled is compassionate.  How do Stephens and Giberson decide in their own lives which elements of “secular knowledge” to accept and which to reject?  I searched their book for an answer, but never found one.

The authors recognize that many evangelicals are suspicious of secular knowledge, and they even quote some favorite biblical passages, such as Rom. 12:2 (“Do not be conformed to this world”), that evangelicals invoke to justify their skepticism.  However, they simply dismiss these concerns.

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