"I Didn't Move; You Did" (Part 16): The Shift Away From Honoring The Imago Dei In Everyone

One of the things evangelical Christianity taught me was that every human being bears the image of God. Probably everything in this series references this is some fashion: the help of the poor, the care for the immigrant and refugee, the rejection of racism and unjust discrimination, the interest in alleviating global poverty, the concern for the environment so that deadly pollution is curbed, the rejection of war as the preferred way to solve conflict, the importance of honoring the autonomy of people, etc. 

All these things were embedded in the evangelical creeds that formed my life and my evangelical church community for decades.

That conviction helped make me "pro-life" (though these days I prefer the term "whole-life".) I believe human life should be protected and honored from the moment it begins until the moment it ends. But honoring life means more than keeping someone physically alive. It means treating people with dignity, justice, mercy, kindness, and love.

The unborn child bears the image of God. So does the immigrant at the border. So does the prisoner. So does the person with a disability, the elderly person, the poor person, the Muslim, the atheist, the political opponent, the transgender person, the Republican or Democrat politician...the list goes on.

Human dignity cannot depend upon whether someone looks like me, votes like me, worships like me, shares my citizenship, or seeks my approval. If the image of God means anything, it means that human beings possess a dignity we did not give them, and we cannot take away.

That is why the last decade has been so disorienting for me.

Something has changed in significant parts of American evangelicalism. Language and behavior that Christians once would have recognized as cruel, vulgar, degrading, or dehumanizing are increasingly excused—and sometimes celebrated—when they come from the right political leaders.

We seem to have lost something more fundamental than civility. We have lost some of our capacity to walk in another person's shoes—to do and say unto others as we would have them do and say unto us. We have lost not only sympathy, but empathy.

Perhaps it shouldn't surprise us. Charlie Kirk famously said that he couldn't stand the word empathy. Books with titles such as The Sin of Empathy and Toxic Empathy have found receptive audiences in conservative Christian circles.

Of course, empathy can be misguided. Feeling another person's pain does not require agreeing with everything that person believes or does, and it doesn't mean we have to avoid truth and confrontation.

Yet the Christian tradition that has often spoken about orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right action) has an underused third "ortho" -  orthopathy (rightly ordered affections). It asks. "What kind of heart am I cultivating? Or, more simply: am I learning to feel about people the way Jesus does?

I am concerned that conservative evangelicals will win political battles while losing something far more important: empathy. We can become the kind of people who no longer recognize dishonor and cruelty when we see it - or, even worse, when we do it.

So, let’s look at how the administration that evangelicals have put into office twice is doing in the areas of orthopraxy and orthopathy when it comes to viewing, treating, and speaking about everyone as image bearers of God.

A Reformation Is Overdue

It all started while I was reading Tom Holland’s book Dominion. At one point he quotes one of Neitzsche’s observations about Christianity: “The measure of a man's compassion for the lowly and the suffering comes to be the measure of the loftiness of his soul." 

To be sure, Neitzsche didn’t mean this as a compliment. He hated Christianity. He thought the compassion Christianity drew out of people was despicable, enabling the weak to survive when evolution demanded they die. 

This compassion was one of the first hallmarks of the fledgling movement of Christ-followers in the 1st century. The Romans famously complained about how annoyed they were by the Christians taking care of everybody to the point of showing up the government. When early Christian apologists made a case for why hostile rulers should be lenient, they always highlighted the kindness and love Christians had for all people. It’s hardly surprising that the early church filled with women, orphans and slaves – the marginalized and oppressed of the 1st century.  Historian Rodney Stark noted how this sharing of lives has looked throughout church history:

“Christianity revitalized life in Greek and Roman cities by providing relationships able to cope with urgent problems. To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services.”
(The Rise of Christianity)

Justin Martyr wrote to Emperor Antoninus Pius and described the new Christian believers in this way:

"We formerly rejoiced in uncleanness of life, but now love only chastity; before we used the magic arts, but now dedicate ourselves to the true and unbegotten God; before we loved money and possessions more than anything, but now we share what we have and to everyone who is in need; before we hated one another and killed one another and would not eat with those of another race, but now since the manifestation of Christ, we have come to a common life and pray for our enemies and try to win over those who hate us without just cause."

Fast forward 2,000 years.

I posted this quote from Neitzsche on my Facebook page. A couple responses from some long -time friends highlighted a sobering reality for me: the reputation of the church is in trouble. Their comments align with what research is showing, so this is not an anomaly. 

You might think what they have to say is unfair, and you may be right. In fact, I hope your personal experience in evangelicalism makes what follows sounds bizarre. But it still needs to be heard and pondered. No matter what our experiences our with our family, friends and church, we are situated in a huge group in a large nation, and our reputations are intertwined. American Evangelicalism is certainly bigger than us, but surely not unconnected to us.

So I offer this not to say you have to agree, but to beg of you to take seriously how American evangelicalism in increasingly perceived by a watching world. If we want to be part of a church movement whose light shines brightly and compellingly as a blessing to the world, we've got some lamps that need trimming. 

The First Conversation 

Friend: “Oh, I think [Neitzsche] would totally be into American Christianity 2020.” 

Me: “We are overdue a Reformation.”

Friend: “You of all people had me convinced that the awful things people said about conservative Christians were exaggerations that applied to a vocal subset at best. The rallying of white evangelicals behind one of the most corrupt, pernicious, cynical, incompetent, and dishonest administrations in history, I mean... they were right all along, weren’t they?”