Good Samaritans

David French takes control of The Remnant once again while Jonah is off to the ...

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David French takes control of The Remnant once again while Jonah is off to the long prairies of Texas. His guest is Curtis Chang, a theologian at Duke Divinity School and former Evangelical pastor. Together, David and Curtis explore the nature of vaccine skepticism among Evangelicals and the compatibility of Christianity and classical liberalism. They also preview a new podcast focused on the challenges facing American Christianity, Good Faith, which will premiere on The Dispatch later this month. Despite Jonah’s absence, make sure you tune in with bingo cards at the ready!

Show Notes:

–Christians and the Vaccine

–Curtis: “Our Fellow Evangelicals Need to Get Vaccinated”

–David on Evangelical vaccine rejection

–Curtis and David’s previous vaccine discussion

–David Leonhardt on COVID’s partisan death toll

–Classical liberalism and Christianity

–David’s recent book, Divided We Fall

–The conflict between Evangelical elites

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Comments (69)
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  1. Avatar photo
    T.Kalbach

    I wonder whether the analysis of tribal affiliation driving behavior with respect to COVID response is mistaking the chicken for the egg. Do most consider the national political climate when determining vaccine responses, or are both the response and the tribal affiliation parallel consequences of personality (or some other trait)?

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      T.Kalbach

      . . . yeah, ". . . partisan markers are becoming the fabric of our lives . . ." I would suspect that this gets cause and effect mixed up.

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    CP

    I enjoyed this podcast (perhaps I am the only one, based on the angry comments about Chang’s oversimplifications), and it seems like Chang is casually referring to something that most people aren’t familiar with—and that is the Christian involvement with the sick (and the generally downtrodden) during the first few centuries of Christianity’s formation.

    A big part of the reason for the Church’s growth in the first few centuries (when it was still an illegal religion) was the fact that Christians tended to react differently towards outcasts and
    people with the plague than a lot of people (think your average Roman citizen). They did rescue victims of infanticide (which was a very common Greco-Roman practice). They did establish the first hospitals, full stop. They had a (fairly otherworldly) theology that enabled them to do this. Aspects of this theology remained even after Constantine, though certainly not undiluted. Frankly, I would say this is not because Christianity invented science or something silly like that, but because Christianity is a faith for losers (consider that its most important icon is its Founder being publically tortured and shamed). It always has been a religion for losers, even after Constantine when it tried really hard to also be a religion for winners. I don’t mean that in a necessarily negative way, because to an extent, we’re sort of all losers at one time or another.

    This of course DOES NOT MEAN that Christians today are more virtuous than people of any other faith. I promise you we are not. In many ways, we suck. But I think what Chang was trying to do is remind Christians of THAT PART of our heritage in order to remind us to do better. It seems like he also believed the podcast had a mostly Christian (and possibly vaccine-hesitant?) audience. The idea is, “Hey, look how the Church used to be! Look at it now! We have a long way to go, folks!” And of course, mixed in with that, is the assumption that Christianity is true. If you’re offended by that, ask yourself if you would similarly be offended by Jewish hosts talking as though Judaism was true and emphasizing what the Jewish faith has done to help the world, or Muslims talking as though Islam is true and emphasizing (as all our secular textbooks do in the wake of 9/11) how profoundly Islam contributed to modern medicine. I think it is probably quite correct to say that many of our modern views about caring for the weakest members of society-humanity AS A WHOLE (rather than simply the members of our own communities) would not have occurred apart from Christianity’s sort of universalizing tendencies (EVERYBODY is my family or potential family, etc), but that’s certainly no credit to me or any other Christian.

    The tendency over the last 30+ years has mainly been to remind Christians of all the bad things people who called themselves Christians have done—and I think this has often led either to apostasy or else people trying to excuse those bad things, countenancing more bad things.

    Anyway, the message—to me—wasn’t “You’re sooooo great!” but rather, “Look at who we used to be at one time and what the best versions of our faith call us to be.” But I can only speak for myself.

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    Lisa Lohnes

    The more difficult choice.

    I truly enjoyed your podcast with Curtis Chang and look forward to more lively discussions on the new Good Faith edition. I am now going to comment on the last portion of your discussion when you addressed pro-choice/pro-life. You are deeply compassionate and respectfully I understand at your core the need to overturn Roe v Wade. From your perspective, I’m not sure you really have any other option. However as we know life is about being responsible, making extremely difficult choices and not always those that meet with the acceptance of others. The nation that is free and embraces liberty must allow Americans with the ability to make these choices. I believe we can be both pro-choice as a nation and pro-life as our individual right. The overturning of Roe v Wade, in pieces or in parts, will have a causal effect that we have not seen even in our recent history. When we as woman are considered subjects of the government in decisions so personal and so profoundly life-changing that we are forced into what will be called some sort of “child producing slavery”, there will be backlash. Surprisingly most by those who probably would never even be considering an abortion, young or old. It often isn’t about abortion per se but about the subjugation of personal rights and freedom. If you look at the core at what is being decided, it is the government taking over the decision of an American woman. Granted Roe v Wade truly isn’t making that decision and the decision will ultimately go back to the states, but that just kicks the can back to another government entity to make and enforce their laws, however extreme. I am deeply concerned that turning this clock back and delegating the states to make their own decisions of women’s fates, will generate new and harsher laws when we know, as fact, women who are desperate will do whatever it takes to accomplish the goal. There will be states possibly charging the mother with first degree murder. Such passion and emotion on this topic will no doubt evolve into punishments like none we have ever witnessed maybe ever in this country. This door, when opened, will be more about personal rights and freedom than really abortion itself. My real prayer here is that we continue to reduce the amount of abortions by staying the course, as you highlighted in the last few minutes of your podcast, through continued support, education, safe harbor for those women in crisis and finding the joys in giving life. That is truly the way to make change. Pro-choice is something that must stay as ghastly as I know that sounds to many. We can have both exist and tip the scales in a more positive direction and really isn’t that the better choice to make?

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    John D. Gibson

    It's useful to point out how the term Evangelical is losing its meaning given that so many who don't seem to be practicing Christians are self-identifying as such. A great illustration of this was in the 2016 primaries, when polling data showed that Evangelicals voted in large numbers for both Trump and other GOP candidates, but when you dug in to the data, in turned out that the "Evangelicals" voting for Trump attended church infrequently, while those voting for the other candidates attended at least weekly.
    However, I think you need to be really careful not to suggest that you have to attain some standard of theological literacy or biblical knowledge to be a genuine believer. Many of the brothers and sisters in my congregation know God's love, have accepted Him into their hearts, and understand that they are saved by His grace. However, they still haven't always had a lot of experience reading the Bible or are unfamiliar with the theological differences between denominations. In contrast, one could have a great deal of theological and biblical knowledge, but have their life be unchanged by it.

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  5. steve hurlburt

    It would be impossible to say how much I don't care about what "evangelical" Christians (who elected Trump once and tried to do it again) think of their institutions or of classical liberalism.

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    Jason Gibson

    Having a new podcast debut on an old podcast is like Harry McGraw being debuted on Murder She Wrote before getting spin off show. (points for people who remember enough to get that deep cut)

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    Jason Gibson

    If this is a preview I will LOVE this podcast! So I attended catholic seminary in the 1990's and am engaged in social work now. Theological praxis is still central in my mind. (I still get emails from Duke because I considered getting a degree in theology about five years ago and asked for information) I really crave an intelligent reflection on living out Christian witness in the modern world while shining a positive light on classical liberalism

    I'm so excited for the new podcast David. I've been waiting for you to do something like this since I joined the dispatch in august of 2020.

    Signed
    BFF of Good faith podcast

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  8. Laurie

    I was captivated by this spiritual discussion (until I heard the words "classical liberalism") As a disillusioned former Republican and very lonely evangelical, I think I'm the target audience here. I see from the comments that people are questioning Curtis' explanation as to how evangelicals became so vaccine sceptical. He maintains that it goes back to Trump, and I agree. (I hate that I'm spending yet another moment on the topic of this particular human btw). But early on Trump mocked masks and minimized Covid. That is why his supporters do.
    It's impossible to explain the deep psychological, emotional, or spiritual inner workings that make us who we are, but I'll share one experience with a friend as I see it. She is basically every one of my Christian friends. L is a dear spiritual mentor to me, and I cancelled her vote with mine in 2020. When we spoke in June 2020, as we gingerly talked politics, she professed the following opinions: that our governor (Whitmer) was power hungry, that doctors were inflating Covid numbers for money, that some of the female reporters were unfair to the President, and that the President really loves this country. I didn't argue with her, and I can't remember my exact words, but she knew that I didn't share her confidence in him. Later, as I was thinking about her comments, I realized that every statement she had expressed had come from Trump's lips first. Her opinions were indistinguishable from his. In church, every single week, I hear right wing political stuff that's usually whatever is on Fox news.The merging of the Republican party with Christianity, the us (righteous) vs them (unrighteous) attitude in the church, the substitution of the word "liberal" or "socialist" for "sinner," and a militant gospel instead of one of peace, all of these have been negative developments for believers.
    I know I'm only dunking on Republicans; it's because these are my peeps. People of both parties have put their primary faith and trust in politicians: ("Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm mmm") and I hated when Democrats did it too.

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    Dina

    I am Jewish and I mostly enjoyed the podcast, but I was troubled by some comments Chang made that seemed to disparage Judaism.

    For one thing, he assumes that Christianity invented the ideas of human dignity and helping the needy. (Thank you, David, for correcting him on this.) He seems to have no knowledge of the mixed bag of Christianity's treatment of non-Christians. As a Jewish woman who has studied the history of Christian-Jewish relations, I am painfully aware that nearly all Christians for nearly all of Christian history did not view Jews as their fellow humans. What followed from this view? Over the course of about 1500 years, over 70 expulsions, countless blood libels that often resulted in torture, executions, and/or massacres, pogroms, forced conversions, and more (not to mention the Crusades and the Inquisition). A continent-wide culture saturated in specifically Christian Jew hatred prepared the climate in which the Holocaust could happen.

    Even in their treatment of each other, Christians fell far short. The pages of Christian history are soaked with the blood of victims of holy wars and persecutions of sects who differed from the prevailing orthodoxy.

    Christianity has produced good, as well--but Chang should be educated enough to be aware that the moral legacy of Christianity is mixed.

    But his comment comparing Christians' religious exemption argument to legalistic Jewish purity laws was as ignorant as it was contemptuous of Judaism. Jewish purity laws have nothing to do with the English word "purity." There is no English word for the Hebrew טהרה (tahara). It is defined as ritual purity for lack of any other word. And it is completely unrelated to his comparison. Furthermore, there is simply no position in Jewish law that holds that medicine is tainted if the research involved cells from aborted fetuses.

    In fact, the opposite is true. In Judaism, the imperative to save a human life is paramount. Thus, if life-saving medication contains extracts from non-kosher animals, a Jew who needs that medication is actually obligated to take it. I'm talking about outright animal products, not a taint of a taint. How much more so in this case.

    The sneering at Judaism as a legalistic religion can only come from someone who has never observed the love and joy of Jewish worship. Perhaps Mr. Chang should spend a Shabbat with an observant family. It would be quite edifying.

    I think of my grandmother hiding out in France during the Holocaust. She did not have candles to light on Friday night. So she stepped outside, turned her gaze heavenward, and said the special blessing on the stars.

    I am Jewish today, Mr. Chang, because my forbears clung to the Torah at great personal cost. Do you think a cold, legalistic institution inspires that kind of devotion?

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      CynthiaW

      That is a wonderful story about your grandmother. I will share it with my spiritual director when we talk tomorrow.

      I think people can become mechanical rule-followers with any religious background; it's a feature of the individual and his circumstances, not the specific faith. Yesterday, I listened to Jay Nordlinger's interview with Leopoldo Lopez, the Venezuelan democracy activist and political prisoner, now in exile. Mr. Lopez said he was "automatically Catholic" until he went to prison, where he developed a real relationship with God based on a spirit of thanksgiving.

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    Ben Connelly

    I was wondering what you’d do with the sign-off. I like it. Look forward to the actual debut.

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