Context Matters [SK]

(Note: Please read until the end of this post for an important update from Frank Turk.)

Frank Turk (not to be confused with Frank Turek, the fine Christian apologist) has a post taking on J.P. Moreland (and Hugh Hewitt) for allegedly putting politics above all else in church life, or, if you will, using the church to promote a (conservative) political agenda.

I generally like Turk's stuff, but in this case, he's not read carefully. Simply put, he's taken Moreland completely out of context as anyone who actually reads the Moreland/Hewitt interview can see. I’m going to quote Turk at length to show what I mean.

Turk says:

This is why Hugh Hewitt gets my goat: he sees the church as a means to a political end. I find his views in that respect reprehensible.

Which is why it surprised me a little to see that J. P. Moreland was on Hewitt's show recently advocating for the same clap-trap Hewitt is selling. I mean: J. P. Moreland. He's a respected apologist -- same class as William Lane Craig and Francis Beckwith, right?

I'll leave that part to the meta.

But on Hewitt, we can see Dr. Moreland saying stuff like this:

"Being involved in politics is not unchristian. In fact, it’s a part of our calling as Christians. Why? Because we are supposed to do good to all people including the household of faith. And to do good to all people means establishing just laws and a just and a stable social order. And that’s the job of the state. It’s political. So the first thing a pastor should do and the Church should do is to enlist people like the dickens to be involved in the political process and vote. It is unconscionable that we have these rights, and that we have an obligation as disciples of Jesus to try to bring goodness and truth to society, that we don’t use all means available to promote just laws and a just and stable social order through the political process. And so voting is absolutely critical."

Get that? The first thing we should be concerned about as Christians is inhabiting the political process.

The first thing. Seriously: that's the first thing the pulpits of our churches should be used for? (Emp. in the original.)

There’s only one problem. Moreland never said the first thing a pastor (church) should do is use the church to get involved politically (as opposed to preach the gospel). He did not say politics was the first thing the pulpits of our churches should be used for. Rather, he was responding to a specific question from Hewitt, a question Turk managed to omit in his remarks. And that single question sets the entire context for Moreland’s remarks. Here’s the question, in context, that Hewitt asked Moreland:

And in a very practical sense, I think there are a lot of pastors and a lot of lay leadership wondering what should we do. In a very practical way, what’s your recommendation to a pastor who thinks that okay, the country’s gone very far to the left, or to his lay board that thinks he needs to step up and get involved without endorsing people from the pulpit which is verboten under the tax code...Which practical steps do you advise?

To which Moreland replied:

First practical step is that we simply have got to realize that we must mobilize our people to vote. Being involved in politics is not unchristian. In fact, it’s a part of our calling as Christians. Why? Because we are supposed to do good to all people including the household of faith. And to do good to all people means establishing just laws and a just and a stable social order. And that’s the job of the state. It’s political. So the first thing a pastor should do and the Church should do is to enlist people like the dickens to be involved in the political process and vote. It is unconscionable that we have these rights, and that we have an obligation as disciples of Jesus to try to bring goodness and truth to society, that we don’t use all means available to promote just laws and a just and stable social order through the political process. And so voting is absolutely critical. That’s step one.

See the problem with Turk’s take? In short, the “first thing” Moreland refers to answers a specific question from Hewitt: What practical steps can a church take to get involved politically without endorsing candidates? Moreland’s answer in no way suggests that the first thing we should be concerned about as Christians, generally, is inhabiting the political process.

As I’ve said before, I’m glad guys like Frank and Phil Johnson are part of the conversation on the relationship between evangelicals and the political process. But taking quotes out of context and spinning them in the most uncharitable light possible is not helpful to the overall discussion.

Important Update: Frank has graciously responed to Justin Taylor's concern that Dr. Moreland's comments were taken out of context. (I was unaware that Justin, Frank, and Dr. Moreland had interacted on this point when I posted my own remarks above.) Frank, to his credit, now says that he did not pay careful enough to the context of Moreland's remarks and regrets the error. My hat is off to Frank for correcting the error.