I sense we are all weary of Christians who embrace political power and not Christ. I offer you three great reads this week to contemplate why we need to protect Christianity from the unexamined atheism on the left and the barbaric Nietzscheanism of the right.
Sheluyang Peng: Nietzsche’s Eternal Return in America
“Thus, in the custody war between American Protestants over who got to define Christian morality, the two branches cut the baby in half: evangelicals got Christian, the mainline got morality.” I hesitated recommending an article by the right-leaning but generally polished, articulate and factually accurate American Affairs Journal. Please do not take this addition as any indication that I am suddenly embracing Peter Thiel and JD Vance. I think this is an important read for painting a picture of the frustration I and other progressive Christians feel. So many on the left seem to embrace Christ’s morality while also rejecting Christ. Meanwhile the right has embraced the name of Christianity and abandoned all of its morality. Certain elements of this essay may rub you the wrong way as if they are a defense of conservative values. What I take from the essay is the importance of fighting for progressive christianity:
“By separating nominal Christian identification from the Christian concern for victims, there exists four combinations that can be visualized on a two-by-two matrix. The first two positions are woke secular progressivism and right-wing Christian traditionalism or (for American Protestants) evangelicalism, as detailed above. The third position is progressive Christianity, the faith of mainline seminaries and cosmopolitan churches with Progress Pride flags hanging outside. Finally, there is an increasingly popular fourth position: a new right-wing Nietzscheanism.”
David Bentley Hart on On what’s so offensive about humility
Almost as a perfect palate cleanser to the long essay above, DBH discusses how Nietzsche was horrified of a God who was a humble slave, who died on the cross — yet it is this God who won the battle for the center of our moral imagination about real human value.
Spiritual Practice and Social Renewal
Esteemed CAC teacher and colleague Dr. Barbara Holmes (1943–2024) draws wisdom from theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in moving forward through political despair by focusing on the work of God’s kingdom.
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