Theologian calls election cycle 'dumpster fire,' finds silver lining
A Southern Baptist seminary professor called the current election cycle a “nearly unmitigated disaster” and a “colossal dumpster fire,” but he’s found a silver lining.
The polarizing 2016 presidential election has pushed some evangelical Christians to care less about what political parties and news outlets say they should believe and care more about how their views reflect the gospel, said Bruce Ashford, of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina. Ashford shared his frank but hopeful remarks Thursday during the national conference for the public policy arm of the Nashville-based Southern Baptist Convention.
"I say nearly unmitigated because I think it has taken something of this magnitude maybe to awaken many of us or most of us to the fact that we should not be beholden to any narrative," Ashford said. "As I see it, every modern political ideology has idols working underneath it ... I think this election has been unsettling enough that we might once again realize the gospel transcends and calls into question all of those things."
Russell Moore: Embrace Christianity's 'strangeness'
Neither presidential candidate was the focus of Thursday's session on "2016 and Beyond: Reshaping Evangelical Political Engagement," which was held on the first day of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission's national conference. But evangelicals are divided on their support for Republican nominee Donald Trump. Ashford has previously criticized Trump and questioned why some evangelicals support him in an opinion column published by Fox News in May. (Ashford has criticized Hillary Clinton, too.)
On Thursday, Ashford's comments were prompted by a question from Andrew Walker, the policy studies director for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Walker was moderating the four-person panel and wanted to know what positive shifts or trends they've seen in the way evangelicals are engaging politically. Jennifer Marshall of the Heritage Foundation and Steven Harris and Travis Wussow of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission also were on the panel.
Like Ashford, the other panelists pointed to ways political issues are pushing evangelicals to think more deeply about their own faith, or prompting them to figure out how best to respond to the world around them. Marshall pointed to changing views on marriage and gender as catalysts for this.
"These issues are causing many people to go back and think through why do we believe like we do? Why are these things important for our society? And great work is emerging out of that," Marshall said.
The third annual ERLC national conference touches on topics such as pop culture, politics, race, sexuality, parenting and millennials. It continues Friday at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville. A post conference on Saturday morning will cover the presidential race, religious liberty and the future of the church.
Reach Holly Meyer at 615-259-8241 and on Twitter @HollyAMeyer.