By Chaplain Mike

I’d like to pose an Open Mic question today to our entire Internet Monk community. I’d like input from readers in the United States reflecting our own self-awareness (or lack thereof). I’d also like to get perspectives from our international participants.

This question finds its genesis in a post by theologian Roger E. Olson. At his blog, in a March 5 post called, “N.T. Wright, Richard Bauckham, British evangelicals and Me,” Olson reflects on how refreshing it is to interact with British theologians like those he mentions, who seem to serve in a context that is more generous in spirit and respectful of differences than we here in the U.S. This leads him to wonder why the United States seems to provide such a unique arena for intense theological conflict and conflagration.

Here are a few excerpts from his post:

We seem to be the only country where evangelicals feel compelled to debate not just with vim and vigor but with serious intent to expose heresies among us and even cast each other out of the evangelical movement.

…Only (or primarily) in the U.S., it seems, do we have fundamentalists who have the power to dog cutting edge evangelical scholars and actually force them into constantly defending themselves against charges of heresy for fresh and faithful biblical scholarship.

…I once wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper (where I used to work and live) explaining that Westboro Baptist Church (Fred Phelps’ church that pickets funerals) does not represent all Baptists’ views.  In my lengthy letter (which was published in its entirety) I explained that Baptists are diverse and there is no “headquarters” of all Baptists.  I explained that some Baptists are fundamentalists and some are liberals; some refuse to ordain women and some ordain women; some would never ordain a gay person and some do.  (There were Baptist churches in that city all across that spectrum, but most people were Lutheran or Catholic and tended to tar all Baptists with the ultra-fundamentalist brush.)

My letter contained simply facts; it did not advocate anything except knowledge and understanding of Baptist diversity.  Apparently my president was fine with it until a parent (who I later discovered was also a donor to the college) called him and complained about me to the point of suggesting I be fired!  (I also found out later this man was a King James Only fundamentalist Baptist.)  My president, with whom I got along very well, called me in and chided me for writing the letter and asked me to let him view and censor my letters to the editor henceforth.  Of course, I refused.  Why was he surprised when I left?  (Well, it wasn’t for that alone, but partly, at least, because of that tendency to allow loud fundamentalists to cast a chill over academic freedom even to write completely innocuous letters to the editor!)

Now obviously, Olson is writing from one perspective—that of a “progressive” evangelical being dogged by those he views as conservative, fundamentalist interests. We all know the issue is much broader than this and that condemnation bombs get launched from theological foxholes on every conceivable side against others perceived as heretics, compromisers, and enemies.

So, today’s Open Mic question involves more than how the bad ol’ conservatives persecute the good ol’ progressives or any other single part of the broader conflict. No, my real question is, is there something unique in the American spirit that leads us to engage in such constant theological warfare?

The mic is open. I’m anxious to hear from you.