April 21, 2005

A More Conservative Christianity

Mark Hasty is not a instant pundit (as opposed to an instapundit) but his take on Pope Benedict XVI is important:

In fact, I think John Paul II’s papacy gave tremendous credibility to the notion that Christianity itself is growing more conservative as the distance from both Vatican II and the tremendous societal upheaval of the 1960s increases. JPII’s papacy wasn’t the end of an era, but rather the beginning of one–one in which the Roman church would care less and less about the world’s approval. This change made strange bedfellows of the Roman church and conservative American protestants, as the two groups found they had more in common with each other than either group had with the great mushy middle of American Protestantism and the last twitching remnants of European Christianity. Consequently, it’s fair to say that the social-justice-based ecumenical movement, which has been with us for about fifty years, got completely overshadowed by an ad hoc coalition of disparate religious factions. The Catholics and evangelicals have created more true church unity than the World Council of Churches could ever dream of–this despite the fact that the Catholic/evangelical alliance hasn’t produced any formalized agreements like we mainline Protestants are fond of.

Benedict XVI may, by his own admission, be a transitional pope, a placeholder who keeps the throne of the fisherman warm while the next pope passes through the refiner’s fire. But we need only look to his election, and John Paul II’s papacy, as signs that modernism and postmodernism are both dead within the church. Global Christianity is not behind the times, but rather ahead of them. What is needed now in church leadership is theological clarity, but not merely that; as we are increasingly able to accept that the ages have not been wrong about everything, the quality of continuity becomes more useful. It will not do to question authority just for the purpose of questioning authority. Today’s world has demonstrated that the only people who still say “don’t follow leaders” are the ones who want to lead you themselves.