Can ‘convergence’ lead to truce in culture wars?

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (ABP)—Many Americans emerged from the 2012 election season convinced the nation’s political and religious divisions are wider and more hostile than ever—and getting worse.

But not Duke McCall, 98, a Baptist elder statesman who led various Southern Baptist agencies and the Baptist World Alliance before his retirement in the 1980s.

“I think we are moving toward a time when we will not be quite so antagonistic in the world of politics and religion,” McCall said.

He may not be alone. Consider the convergence movement, a small-but-growing alliance of disillusioned conservatives and liberals optimistic about the future of American Christianity.

“This is a meeting ground between what might be called … post-evangelicals and post-progressives,” said Eric Elnes, a Nebraska megachurch pastor and author whose Darkwood Brew Internet ministry caters to this spiritual demographic. Elnes leads a United Church of Christ congregation in Omaha and was the author of the Phoenix Affirmations, which called Christians to treat others fairly regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation.

But convergence Christianity, he said, is different because it seeks to avoid theological extremes on either end. Participating conservatives yearn for a kinder, less dogmatic theology that embraces mystery. The progressives desire a faith that values evangelism, firm beliefs in Christ and avoids political correctness, Elnes said.

“People are trusting that they have more common ground than differences,” he said.

Some experts point to signs Baptists may be feeling the convergence vibe and joining hands across a chasm that’s divided them since the 1980s. But other Baptists—such as Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—are more skeptical, and they describe the trend simply as rebranded Christian liberalism with little chance of success among faithful believers on either side.

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“It doesn’t look like there’s some middle refuge there,” he said. “It’s rather wholesale theological liberalism.”

Nor does Mohler believe the trend will gain much headway among conservative and liberal Baptists, because the gulf remains too great between them—especially on biblical inerrancy, homosexuality and same-sex marriage. That separation will continue to preclude cooperation on missions because Baptists as a whole “end up associating with the Baptists with whom we agree,” he said.

But seemingly insurmountable differences can be overcome, said Frank Schaeffer, the son of famed conservative theologian  Francis Schaeffer. Schaeffer once embraced his father’s teachings, which are considered the foundation of the rise of the Religious Right. But he eventually converted to Orthodox Christianity and wrote Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of it Back.

Schaeffer now is friends with former theological opponents—including Elnes—and said he sees the seeds of similar transformations in the convergence movement.

“There is not going to be a future to the witness of the gospel unless these sides can agree to back down and meet—not in some mushy middle—but in respect for each other,” Schaeffer said. “This isn’t regional … this isn’t liberal. It’s rejecting the hard edge of the theological right and the political correctness of the theological left.”

And “this is happening already” among Baptists, said Bill Leonard, professor of Baptist studies and church history at the Wake Forest University divinity school. Younger Baptists—liberals and conservatives—are forging relationships through social networking around common causes such as concern for the environment.

Younger evangelicals are reportedly less interested in the homosexuality issue than their elders, Leonard said. Meanwhile, others disavow the “anti-Jesus talk” in some liberal congregations, Leonard said.

Albert Mohler

Both groups, he added, worry the church too closely reflects the nation’s hostile political divisions. 

“A younger generation is just tired of the constant bickering and division in the church,” he said.

The kinds of friendships being developed in convergence Christianity once were the norm in America—even among Southern Baptists, McCall said.

Back in the day, McCall said, he was a close friend of conservatives such as W.A. Criswell, with whom he vigorously disagreed and argued.

“If he thought it was black, I thought it was white,” McCall said.

Yet those disagreements were never considered personal. “I believed in the sincerity of his Christian commitment, and he in mine,” McCall said.

Even in retirement in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., McCall said, he’s been reaching out to conservative institutions and individuals to arrange activities.

So far, to no avail. “I have friends who make fun of me because of my efforts,” he said. “But I still believe there’s hope.”