Since the November election, news coverage of religion has been unfathomably shallow. At best, evangelical Christians have been portrayed as shrewd political strategists; at worst, as insensitive dolts caring only about embryos, fetuses, tax savings, and cheap oil. Whether Republican or Democrat, Christian students now cite election aftermath and "backlash" as one of the most difficult issues to navigate in their relationships on campus. Amidst all the red-blue reductionism that fails to see shades of purple, what many Christians object to most is the caricature of evangelicals as uncaring and economically selfish persons. Indeed, there are reasons to object; many Christians live among and serve the poor and needy at great personal sacrifice, and many more support them generously.

For those of us inclined to think that evangelicals would be more highly regarded if only the media were more fair, Ron Sider's Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? (Baker, 2004) is a jolting dose of reality. Sider reviews reams of sociological data on evangelicals, and it is not pretty. Twenty-five percent of evangelicals are divorced--the same rate as Americans generally; 26% don't believe premarital sex is wrong; 13% have no moral objection to adultery; 9% tithe. And then this: "White evangelicals are the most likely people to object to neighbors of another race." Unwilling to blame evangelicals' unpopularity on the media, Sider concludes that "It is not surprising that non-Christians have a very negative view of evangelicals."

We might say that cultural accommodationism has run its course. Sider puts it more bluntly: "By their daily activity, most 'Christians' regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment." Indeed, American Christians have always been more pragmatic than prophetic.

The cost of this accommodationism--this "treason"--is that the simple truths of balancing word and deed, of loving the sinner while hating the sin, are now commonly regarded as hollow aphorisms. If it is true, as Lamin Sanneh has said, that the cultural captivity of Christianity in the West is nearly complete, then the question at hand is, Where do we go from here?

One place to go is back to the Bible. According to George Barna, when Christians with a "biblical worldview" (those who affirm a number of propositions akin to historic creeds) are distinguished from the more general categories of "evangelical" or "born again" Christians, the former fare much better on the behavioral scales that concern Sider. At the end of all the bad news, Sider writes, the good news is that orthodox Christian theology does make a difference in the lives of those who embrace it.

Sider's concern--the lack of Christian worldview thinking--is the very deficit that Chesterton House exists to address. It is toward the end of considering the implications of Creation, Sin, Redemption and Consummation for everyday life that we sponsor a variety of conferences, lectures, seminars, and discussions each semester. Our first event this semester is our annual Institute of Biblical Studies (IBS), entitled Communicating Grace and Doing Justice: Being the Church in Every Culture, featuring Paul Borthwick and Stephan Fairfield.

Borthwick is a professor of missions at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and author of 15 books. He is a frequent and well-travelled speaker dedicated to cross-cultural global missions. Fairfield serves as CEO of a ministry that has developed over 500 jobs and 1000 affordable homes for minority and low-income individuals and families in Houston, TX. A Harvard Loeb Fellow, his current research is exploring ways of increasing the civic engagement of low-income families. This year's IBS is co-sponsored by Community Faith Partners (CFP), a group of local Christian doing the hard work of serving the neediest members of our local community through jail visitation, drug court advocacy, and job skill training. We may not conquer media caricatures, but we will be promoting Christian worldview thinking on the twin topics of proclaiming the gospel and serving the poor. Ron Sider, I imagine, would approve.

CFP will kickoff the weekend with a Thursday evening dinner and lecture by Fairfield entitled "How Faith Can Change the Neighborhood." Friday night Borthwick will provide a public lecture on campus entitled "Does Your Christianity Matter on a World Scale?" Saturday will feature plenary sessions by the speakers, as well as a large book table with over 100 titles available for browsing or purchase. The conference will conclude with Sunday morning sermons at Bethel Grove and New Life Presbyterian Church. Please see additional information below. Special thanks to Dave Jones for all his work in organizing this conference.

Also below is information on several other Chesterton House events, and our recently announced $100,000 matching challenge grant. Thank you for your continued interest in and support of the Chesterton House ministry.

-Karl E. Johnson

Weekly when Cornell is in session:

Fridays, 1:00-5:00pm -- Resource Room Open Hours

Paul Borthwick & Stephan Fairfield

Institute of Biblical Studies

Thursday: CFP dinner, Women's Community Building.  RSVP: 607-272-7081.  Donations appreciated. 

Friday: Free public lecture.  Call Auditorium, Kennedy Hall

Saturday: Plenary sessions, Bethel Grove Bible Church

Sunday: Bethel Grove & New Life Presbyterian Church

Full schedule & Registration: http://www.bg.org

Dr. David Mustard, Economist, University of Georgia Terry College of Business

Graduate Christian Fellowship Roundtable

Cornell University Big Red Barn

Movie Night:  "The Decalogue"

Campus Crusade for Christ

Kaufman Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall

Ryan Messmore, Trinity Forum Academy

Cornell Christian Fellowship

Auditorium D, Goldwin Smith Hall              

"Speeding & Shrinking: Living Biblically in Technology-Saturated Times"

Dr. David Lyon, Sociologist, Queen's University

Upstate NY InterVarsity Faculty Conference

One World Room, Anabel Taylor Hall

Register: http://www.chestertonhouse.org

Movie Night:  "Big Fish"

Cornell Christian Fellowship

Auditorium D, Goldwin Smith Hall

Dr. Ian Hutchinson, Physicist, MIT

Graduate Christian Fellowship

Big Red Barn

All Chesterton House events are open to the public.

Featuring Mark Noll, Randall Balmer, David Neff, and others

Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wynnewood, PA

http://www.esa-online.org

Featuring Chuck Colson and others

Princeton, NJ

http://www.christian-union.org

Two Cornell faculty families have pledged a total of $100,000 to Chesterton House as a challenge matching grant to help us reach our goal of raising $100,000 in regular, annual support!

The goal of the matching gift is to encourage a broad base of friends and alumni to give generously toward the ministry's vision of assisting students integrating faith with learning. Future plans for Chesterton House begin with hiring a full-time director and increasing our level of programming, including offering classes for credit, hosting multiple reading groups, mentoring, and developing new on-line resources.  We invite you to prayerfully consider joining our growing list of supporters.  More information, including guidelines for the matching gift campaign, can be found at http://www.chestertonhouse.org/funding

And there can be no spiritual knowledge of that of which there is not first a rational knowledge."
-Jonathon Edwards