Christians & mud

A gullywasher blew through our Texas Panhandle village one summer afternoon, leaving a large puddle between our sidewalk and the street.

The reason our fight began has been lost to the ages.  But soon, Martha and I were slinging mud while eyeing the front door, expecting mother to run across the yard and stop us. By the time we wore ourselves out, we wore mud like a new skin. We sneaked around to the backyard, where Mother caught us before we could creep in the door. She stripped us to our skivvies, washed us down with the water hose, and chased us into the house. I think she threw our clothes away.

A half-century later, U.S. Christians stand on opposite sides of a theological/ecclesiological puddle. They're siblings, but they're divided along the liberal/conservative spectrum, and they're slinging mud for all they're worth.

Directional perspectives

The latest slinging took place in major media for all the world to see.

Ross Douthat, a conservative Catholic columnist, wrote a piece for the New York Times Sunday Review, "Can liberal Christianity be saved?" His launching point was the every-third-year meeting of the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops and its vote to bless same-sex unions. He noted Sunday Episcopal attendance has dropped 23 percent in the past decade. He suggested liberal Christianity has been declining in America since the 1960s. And he announced the impending death of liberal faith.

Diana Butler Bass, liberal Protestant author of Christianity After Religion, fired back from The Huffington Post with an essay called "Can Christianity be saved?" She pointed out liberals aren't the only ones in decline. For example, the Southern Baptist Convention, easily the nation's most conservative Protestant group, has been sliding. And without the influx of Latino immigrants, the Roman Catholic Church, to the right of the SBC, would be losing members, too. Bass admitted liberal Christianity slid into decline before its conservative siblings. But she provided anecdotal evidence of a "quiet renewal" of liberalism that may save U.S. Christianity.

On a smaller stage, Rachel Held Evans, a moderate author and speaker, responded to Douthat and Bass from her blogsite, www.rachelheldevans.com, with "Liberal Christianity, conservative Christianity, and the caught-in-between." She provided a detailed list of ways she resonates with aspects of both liberalism and conservatism. To buttress her point, she provided the plaintive pleas of her blog readers, who poignantly described the pain of ostracism and alienation fostered by strident voices from the poles of the faith spectrum. She also urged a "peacemaking" process that includes transparent conversation, nurturing diverse faith communities and learning to "argue better."

In the scheme of things, the Douthat-Bass-Evans exchange is one of the mildest mud fights on record. Even Douthat, who started it all, was fairly even-handed and civil. And Evans clearly echoes the Rodney King refrain, "Can't we all get along?"

Fallout of all that mud …

The broader range of mud-slinging between Christian conservatives and liberals propels their recent decline. Why would non-Christians, and particularly young people, even want to join them? The harshness of their criticism of the "other" Christians repels, not compels. And their inclination to side up with political parties-many conservative Christians seem to equate salvation with voting Republican, and their liberal counterparts see similar salvation in voting Democratic-blurs any distinction between partisan faith and partisan politics. So, who needs it?

Stop slinging

The most intriguing—not to mention scalable—possibility for stopping the mud fights between conservative and liberal Christians is to start individually.

Mother didn't intervene in the mud fight between Martha and me because she knew we loved each other. She knew we were best friends. She knew we'd tire of making a mess of each other and come to the house to clean up.

Something similar happens-or at least can happen-between conservative and liberal Christians. Here, I speak from experience. Wonderful friends and I interpret Scriptures differently and cancel each other's vote every election. But we care deeply for each other. We know each other's story. We can't help but realize we hold far, far more in common than we hold apart. And so we agree to disagree. Our times together are blessings, not to mention downright fun.

If we begin by strengthening our relationship with contrary-minded fellow Christians and making friends with others, we can begin weaving the strands of relationship that can pull us together.

Idealistic? Sure.

Difficult? Of course.

Possible? Certainly.

I'm conservative enough to believe in miracles and liberal enough to want them to happen to people who don't even like me. For now, anyway.