How Left and Right Discuss Evil, and Can We Meet Halfway?




The original post
About three years ago (December 1, 2020), Clint Schnekloth posted this piece on his Patheos blog about how right- and left-wing Christians choose to address evil in human society.  I think this is good food for thought on how conservatives and "progressives" look at the actions of individuals and whether broader conditions are worth taking into account.  Here are two key passages:

Since one’s relationship to God is, in evangelicalism, primarily personal, it is no wonder Christian reflection in this vein is attracted to a personal understanding of sin. As in: “I did something wrong and God, if it were not for Christ, would hate me for it.”

Progressive Christians, formed as we have been by a liberal social gospel tradition diverging from the more dominant evangelical understanding, think about sin not in this personal sense, but as part of world historical and cultural forces.


 And here's my two cents on that:

I grew up mostly unchurched, but joined the RCC as a teenager, then quit that for the Episcopalians during the first great wave of sex-abuse complaints. I'm more progressive than conservative, but I believe that "handsome is as handsome does," and that Jesus had plenty to say about individual as well as collective demerit. The concept of individual sin and unworth needs some serious rehabbing in progressive circles, both Christian and otherwise. We've seen entirely too much evidence for it in the way the Trump administration treats illegal immigrants and their children, in the way it hand-waved the need for a real Covid relief program, in Donnie's tweets and hissy fits, and in the inaction of our non-voters last month. Matthew 25 spells it out pretty well, and so does Luke 16:19-31.

Posted by Jennifer A. Nolan

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