Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Rumors of the Suicide of the Liberal Church are Exaggerated: A
Response to Chris Hedges
________________________________________
Rumors of the Suicide of the Liberal Church are Exaggerated: A Response to
Chris Hedges
By Mark Hulsether [1] / Religion Dispatches [2]
February 12, 2016
Within the first dozen words of Chris Hedges' recent articl [3]e [3] on
liberal Protestants we learn both that its institutions are "demonic" (bad!)
and that it is committing "suicide" (also bad, or at least lamentable).
It is not clear whether both things can be true at once-can it be so demonic
if it is dead, and can its death be unfortunate if it is demonic? Nor do
Hedges' arguments-which start from a controversy about funding Union
Theological Seminary in New York (UTS), then range widely to condemn liberal
church leaders and valorize left-of-center activists-advance his agenda.
Rather he offers an instructive example of an all-too-common genre: radicals
who, in effect, echo right-wing talking points about the dysfunctions of the
Protestant left: fomenting conflicts, exaggerating weaknesses, and
presenting dilemmas in the least flattering light.
I wanted to like this article because Hedges' good guys are about the same
as mine-peace and justice activists and intellectuals with a foot in
religious traditions. Appealing to Reinhold Niebuhr for authority, he
presents them being driven to the margins of his demonic, and now suicidal,
institutions. We agree that liberal churches include people who sell out
overtly to neoliberal imperialism-Hedges calls this "Christian heresy"-or
sell out covertly with rhetoric of tolerance and "tepid church piety." Both
of us would like to see more good guys; both are exasperated when existing
institutions do not provide room for them to maneuver.
Unfortunately, he moves the cause backward.
Much of his article examines a decision by UTS, one of the Protestant left's
flagship institutions, to raise money by selling "airspace" above the
northeastern part of its quadrangle for luxury condominiums, with the
proceeds to be used largely for deferred maintenance and renovations of the
rest of its property. Hedges quotes a student activist who sees this as a
"middle finger" to nearby Harlem-although one wonders why the steeple of
next door's Riverside Church, other high-rises in the neighborhood, or even
the surrounding Columbia University as a whole have not already nailed down
this role.
The key reason UTS needs money is because of the stands, mainly commendable
in Hedges' terms, that it has taken over the years. Many of its high-rolling
trustees and donors abandoned it over its social justice stands in the
1960s, and neoconservatives have been trying to shovel dirt on its grave
ever since. There is nothing new about this. UTS has sold off parts of its
property several times in the past to stay afloat, and Columbia University
has already taken over parts of its quadrangle.
Will the current sale be enough to stop the bleeding? Maybe. This depends
largely on the wider trajectories of liberal churches, as well as fine print
to which Hedges and I are not privy. Is it a fatal compromise? I seriously
doubt it. Is the UTS leadership perfect? Surely not, but let's get real:
perfect compared to what? Anybody appealing to Niebuhr should be smart
enough to ask that question.
Hedges frames his complaint with boilerplate about numerical declines in
mainstream churches. We could slow down to debate whether this is
insightful, since for 150 years mainline churches have been a minority that
could not credibly speak for Catholics, evangelicals, or racial minorities;
and activists have long been a minority within that minority.
It is far less clear than pundits assume that its limitations are more
severe today than before its struggles after 1970-although its collapsing
cultural prestige is a real problem.
But rather than slow down, let's grant a steep decline for the sake of
argument. Decline to what level? Hedges notes that Catholics, who still have
a 21% demographic slice, are "being decimated," yet this is seven times more
people than watched the Democratic Presidential debates. That number,
combined with 36 million liberal Protestants (with "growing irrelevancy"),
is just a bit below the viewership for the Super Bowl.
As to causes of decline, if we move to the margins of demonic institutions
does this slow it down or speed it up? He calls for greater vitality on the
left, and I agree that this is better than steering right or being tepid-but
at best what has happened on this front has been a wash for liberal
Protestants in institutional terms. As I've argued before [4], amid decline
from birthrates, leftward moves (not least by institutions like UTS) have
probably repelled roughly an equal number of people as they have
attracted-and meanwhile there has been a net loss of wealthy donors and
elite allies. One might expect Hedges to approach this as a trade-off.
Indeed it is a sort of tradeoff for him-"a heads you win, tails we lose"
variant between selling out and abandoning ship.
It is unclear how invested Hedges is in the survival of liberal
institutions-but either way, it's hard to see how his intervention is
constructive. He poses a lose/lose choice: be a neoliberal tool or a lonely
radical taking potshots at institutions attempting to figure out ways to
thrive.
Granted, a win/win approach that maximizes the benefit of doubt in Hedges'
excluded middle ground is not more illuminating in every case. In fact, a
signature problem of Protestant liberals is their tendency to hold out hope
that rings false. Yet shouldn't a flagship institution of liberation
theologies get any benefit of doubt?
There is also a problem-more attuned to geeks but nevertheless galling-that
the historical importance of Niebuhr was to argue against the sort of
reasoning Hedges advances (mocked by Niebuhr as "purist" or
"perfectionist"). This matter is complicated because Hedges is rightly
accenting how pragmatic choices by institutional leaders are often
dubious-yet a classic case in point is Niebuhr himself, who made pragmatic
compromises that were largely commendable in the 1930s but far less so in
the 1950s.
Still, the key point is straightforward if you want to think with the
radical Niebuhr: keep your eyes on the prize, but be humble and realistic
enough to embrace lesser evils.
Hedges and I agree that liberal churches are internally contested and that
our "good guys" do not always win. We seem to disagree over whether
significant institutional space is still available and what kinds of
compromises are worth making to keep it. We also seem to have a different
sense of whether religious contestation is somehow less important than
contestation over Democratic politicians or TV programs-or than defending
space in academia or journalism.
Are the choices available to the Protestant left as stark as Hedges presents
them: either sell-out to "demonic" capitalist expediency or abandon the
ship, and then, while bobbing in a lifeboat with other moral exemplars, jeer
as it goes down? If this bleak vision accurately describes our options in
some cases, so be it. It may be a place to unleash Niebuhrian realism. But
does this accurately describe most cases? Why not push back against the
conservative talking point that the Protestant left is dying and deserves to
die sooner?
If there are both win/win and lose/lose cases to choose from, which choice
is more suicidal?
Mark Hulsether [5] is Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies at
the University of Tennessee and the father of Lucia Hulsether [6]. His most
recent book is Religion, Culture and Politics in the Twentieth Century
United States [7] (Columbia University Press, 2007).
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [8]
[9]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/rumors-suicide-liberal-church-are-exaggerated-respon
se-chris-hedges
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/mark-hulsether
[2] http://religiondispatches.org
[3]
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_suicide_of_the_liberal_church_201601
24
[4]
https://books.google.com/books?id=MCCja27G0AAC&pg=PA531&lpg=PA531&am
p;dq=The+Mainline+Protestant+Press+and+the+Idea+of+%E2%80%98Declining%E2%80%
99+Liberal+Religion&source=bl&ots=JSP3xbUMjE&sig=EHVRNfR7IZ4dPXv
5QqkCoUW_pRk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj0qr3sidrKAhUJGz4KHWE4DsQQ6AE
IJzAC#v=onepage&q&f=false
[5] http://web.utk.edu/~hulseth/default.html
[6]
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/552/rdgenerations%3A_
youth_and_liberal_religion
[7]
http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Culture-Politics-Twentieth-Century-Columbia/d
p/0231144032/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225209772&sr=1-1
[8] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Rumors of the Suicide of
the Liberal Church are Exaggerated: A Response to Chris Hedges
[9] http://www.alternet.org/
[10] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Rumors of the Suicide of the Liberal Church are Exaggerated: A
Response to Chris Hedges
Rumors of the Suicide of the Liberal Church are Exaggerated: A Response to
Chris Hedges
By Mark Hulsether [1] / Religion Dispatches [2]
February 12, 2016
Within the first dozen words of Chris Hedges' recent articl [3]e [3] on
liberal Protestants we learn both that its institutions are "demonic" (bad!)
and that it is committing "suicide" (also bad, or at least lamentable).
It is not clear whether both things can be true at once-can it be so demonic
if it is dead, and can its death be unfortunate if it is demonic? Nor do
Hedges' arguments-which start from a controversy about funding Union
Theological Seminary in New York (UTS), then range widely to condemn liberal
church leaders and valorize left-of-center activists-advance his agenda.
Rather he offers an instructive example of an all-too-common genre: radicals
who, in effect, echo right-wing talking points about the dysfunctions of the
Protestant left: fomenting conflicts, exaggerating weaknesses, and
presenting dilemmas in the least flattering light.
I wanted to like this article because Hedges' good guys are about the same
as mine-peace and justice activists and intellectuals with a foot in
religious traditions. Appealing to Reinhold Niebuhr for authority, he
presents them being driven to the margins of his demonic, and now suicidal,
institutions. We agree that liberal churches include people who sell out
overtly to neoliberal imperialism-Hedges calls this "Christian heresy"-or
sell out covertly with rhetoric of tolerance and "tepid church piety." Both
of us would like to see more good guys; both are exasperated when existing
institutions do not provide room for them to maneuver.
Unfortunately, he moves the cause backward.
Much of his article examines a decision by UTS, one of the Protestant left's
flagship institutions, to raise money by selling "airspace" above the
northeastern part of its quadrangle for luxury condominiums, with the
proceeds to be used largely for deferred maintenance and renovations of the
rest of its property. Hedges quotes a student activist who sees this as a
"middle finger" to nearby Harlem-although one wonders why the steeple of
next door's Riverside Church, other high-rises in the neighborhood, or even
the surrounding Columbia University as a whole have not already nailed down
this role.
The key reason UTS needs money is because of the stands, mainly commendable
in Hedges' terms, that it has taken over the years. Many of its high-rolling
trustees and donors abandoned it over its social justice stands in the
1960s, and neoconservatives have been trying to shovel dirt on its grave
ever since. There is nothing new about this. UTS has sold off parts of its
property several times in the past to stay afloat, and Columbia University
has already taken over parts of its quadrangle.
Will the current sale be enough to stop the bleeding? Maybe. This depends
largely on the wider trajectories of liberal churches, as well as fine print
to which Hedges and I are not privy. Is it a fatal compromise? I seriously
doubt it. Is the UTS leadership perfect? Surely not, but let's get real:
perfect compared to what? Anybody appealing to Niebuhr should be smart
enough to ask that question.
Hedges frames his complaint with boilerplate about numerical declines in
mainstream churches. We could slow down to debate whether this is
insightful, since for 150 years mainline churches have been a minority that
could not credibly speak for Catholics, evangelicals, or racial minorities;
and activists have long been a minority within that minority.
It is far less clear than pundits assume that its limitations are more
severe today than before its struggles after 1970-although its collapsing
cultural prestige is a real problem.
But rather than slow down, let's grant a steep decline for the sake of
argument. Decline to what level? Hedges notes that Catholics, who still have
a 21% demographic slice, are "being decimated," yet this is seven times more
people than watched the Democratic Presidential debates. That number,
combined with 36 million liberal Protestants (with "growing irrelevancy"),
is just a bit below the viewership for the Super Bowl.
As to causes of decline, if we move to the margins of demonic institutions
does this slow it down or speed it up? He calls for greater vitality on the
left, and I agree that this is better than steering right or being tepid-but
at best what has happened on this front has been a wash for liberal
Protestants in institutional terms. As I've argued before [4], amid decline
from birthrates, leftward moves (not least by institutions like UTS) have
probably repelled roughly an equal number of people as they have
attracted-and meanwhile there has been a net loss of wealthy donors and
elite allies. One might expect Hedges to approach this as a trade-off.
Indeed it is a sort of tradeoff for him-"a heads you win, tails we lose"
variant between selling out and abandoning ship.
It is unclear how invested Hedges is in the survival of liberal
institutions-but either way, it's hard to see how his intervention is
constructive. He poses a lose/lose choice: be a neoliberal tool or a lonely
radical taking potshots at institutions attempting to figure out ways to
thrive.
Granted, a win/win approach that maximizes the benefit of doubt in Hedges'
excluded middle ground is not more illuminating in every case. In fact, a
signature problem of Protestant liberals is their tendency to hold out hope
that rings false. Yet shouldn't a flagship institution of liberation
theologies get any benefit of doubt?
There is also a problem-more attuned to geeks but nevertheless galling-that
the historical importance of Niebuhr was to argue against the sort of
reasoning Hedges advances (mocked by Niebuhr as "purist" or
"perfectionist"). This matter is complicated because Hedges is rightly
accenting how pragmatic choices by institutional leaders are often
dubious-yet a classic case in point is Niebuhr himself, who made pragmatic
compromises that were largely commendable in the 1930s but far less so in
the 1950s.
Still, the key point is straightforward if you want to think with the
radical Niebuhr: keep your eyes on the prize, but be humble and realistic
enough to embrace lesser evils.
Hedges and I agree that liberal churches are internally contested and that
our "good guys" do not always win. We seem to disagree over whether
significant institutional space is still available and what kinds of
compromises are worth making to keep it. We also seem to have a different
sense of whether religious contestation is somehow less important than
contestation over Democratic politicians or TV programs-or than defending
space in academia or journalism.
Are the choices available to the Protestant left as stark as Hedges presents
them: either sell-out to "demonic" capitalist expediency or abandon the
ship, and then, while bobbing in a lifeboat with other moral exemplars, jeer
as it goes down? If this bleak vision accurately describes our options in
some cases, so be it. It may be a place to unleash Niebuhrian realism. But
does this accurately describe most cases? Why not push back against the
conservative talking point that the Protestant left is dying and deserves to
die sooner?
If there are both win/win and lose/lose cases to choose from, which choice
is more suicidal?
Mark Hulsether [5] is Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies at
the University of Tennessee and the father of Lucia Hulsether [6]. His most
recent book is Religion, Culture and Politics in the Twentieth Century
United States [7] (Columbia University Press, 2007).
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [8]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[9]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/rumors-suicide-liberal-church-are-exaggerated-respon
se-chris-hedges
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/mark-hulsether
[2] http://religiondispatches.org
[3]
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_suicide_of_the_liberal_church_201601
24
[4]
https://books.google.com/books?id=MCCja27G0AAC&pg=PA531&lpg=PA531&am
p;dq=The+Mainline+Protestant+Press+and+the+Idea+of+%E2%80%98Declining%E2%80%
99+Liberal+Religion&source=bl&ots=JSP3xbUMjE&sig=EHVRNfR7IZ4dPXv
5QqkCoUW_pRk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj0qr3sidrKAhUJGz4KHWE4DsQQ6AE
IJzAC#v=onepage&q&f=false
[5] http://web.utk.edu/~hulseth/default.html
[6]
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/552/rdgenerations%3A_
youth_and_liberal_religion
[7]
http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Culture-Politics-Twentieth-Century-Columbia/d
p/0231144032/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225209772&sr=1-1
[8] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Rumors of the Suicide of
the Liberal Church are Exaggerated: A Response to Chris Hedges
[9] http://www.alternet.org/
[10] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
