Chalcedon Report No. 5..........................................................

to neutering the church to keep it in a
quadraplegic condition, permitting the
power state/welfare state to rush in and
fulfill all useful societal functions (given
that nature abhors a vacuum).
Brace yourselves.
Hugh Urban
on America Left Behind:
Bush, the Neoconservatives, and
Christian Evangelical Fiction
Hugh Urban is associate professor
of religion at Ohio State Univesity.
Hugh Urban alluded to Max
Weber’s concept of “elective affinity” to
describe the “mutually beneficial and reinforcing”
relationship between neoconservative
foreign policy and the best-selling
Left Behind volumes. In this, he has
probably come close to a general truth
(with notable exceptions). Of course,
the political implications stemming
from various theological views of Israel’s
ultimate destiny run the gamut of options:
Urban has chosen to focus on the
one currently enjoying bestseller status.
Christians who reject the eschatology of
the Left Behind series simply don’t fall
anywhere on Urban’s radar screen. Since
Urban has a specific axe to grind, he
doesn’t mention that other eschatologies
(such as Rushdoony’s) would void his
glittering generalizations.
Urban, to his credit, provides compelling
evidence that one’s eschatology
has consequences ranging all the way up
to the domains of international diplomacy
and realpolitik. His implicit thesis,
that works of fiction written by pretrib
Christians may have an impact on
international politics, causes Christian
Reconstructionists to shudder as much
as Urban does. He just doesn’t choose to
notice the Reconstructionists’ aversion.
Charles Strozier
on the Psychology and
Theocracy of George W. Bush
Charles Strozier is professor of history at
20 Faith for All of Life September/October 2005
Faith for All of Life
John Jay College, CUNY, New York.
Here we are, back to the imputed
idea of Christians seizing power again,
expressed in even more dramatic terms
than those found in Chip Berlet’s
jeremiad. Strozier relished rhetoric like
“The Right began to lick its chops”
and “neocons chomping at the bit for
power.” Strozier embodies the emotional
depths of the antipathy marking today’s
partisan politics when he effectively
excuses hatred for George W. Bush.
(Strozier describes a Bush opponent “so
blinded by his hatred for Bush — an
understandable error — etc.”) His aside
obviously played to a delighted crowd.
Strozier’s theological diagnosis
of current events is inexplicable. He
pinpoints a shift in emphasis “from the
Sermon on the Mount to the Book of
Revelation.” Strozier comments that
the latter block of Scripture describes
those who “swim forever in the Lake
of Fire — and there are no lifeguards.”
He apparently regards the Sermon on
the Mount as far more irenic. Really?
“Every tree that bringeth not forth good
fruit is hewn down, and cast into the
fire” (Mt. 7:19). “Whosoever shall say,
Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell
fire” (Mt. 5:22c). And in two places
(Mt. 5:29 & 30), the verse concludes
“…for it is profitable for thee that one
of thy members should perish, and not
that thy whole body should be cast into
hell.” In other words, pitting Scripture
against Scripture (which presupposes
their non-authorship by a sovereign,
omnipotent, omniscient God) is an
empty exercise.
Waxing apocalyptic in his own
right, Strozier pointed out that “we
don’t need God to bring about the
end.” In his view, nuclear weapons have
shifted this to human agency. Therefore,
“nuclear weapons represent the religion
of our age.” His view competes with
one enunciated in The Early Universe,
edited by Hawking, Gibbons, and Sik-
los, which broaches the idea of a “vacuum
eschatology” bringing our world
to a sudden end without the agency of
God or nuclear weapons. Such theories
— which are God-free — appear
to comfort those who embrace them,
blocking out the ominous dread with
which mortal man regards the specter of
ultimate justice. Perhaps in their heart
of hearts, humanity recognizes that “it is
a terrible thing to fall into the hands of
the living God” (Heb. 10:31). Death is
no safe haven from Him with whom we
have to do
(Is. 28:15-18).
The statement, “nuclear weapons
represent the religion of our age,”
is a confession of idolatry. It reverts
sovereign control over mankind’s fate
back into man’s hands. As Rushdoony
pointed out in “Chalcedon Position
Paper No. 15: The Meaning of Theocracy,”
Isaiah 9:6-7 declares that “the
government shall be upon His shoulders,
and of the increase of His government
and of peace, there shall be no
end….” In The Roots of Reconstruction,
he continues:
The essence of humanism, from Francis
Bacon to the present, has been this
creed: to be human, man must be in
control (Jeremy Rifkin with Ted Howard:
The Emerging Order, p. 27.). This
is an indirect way of saying that man is
not man unless the government of all
things is upon his shoulders, unless he
is himself god.” (p. 66)
In short, man fully intends to shift
the government from Christ’s shoulders
onto his own. The Infiltrated Church
(shot through with pietism and humanism)
is willing to help switch out
Christ’s iron scepter for a limp reed.
The Lord Jesus Christ is Alpha and
Omega (Rev. 1:8). In contrast, modern
cosmology has proposed that the
formula “In the beginning, Hydrogen”
replace the obsolete statement, “In the
beginning, God.” Nuclear weapons,