Posted by Helen on: 12.16.2008 /
Richard Cizik, national spokesperson and chief lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, resigned last week because of some comments he made in an interview on Fresh Air, December 2.
The most heinous things he said seem to be that he supports civil same sex unions and he voted for Obama in the primaries.
There’s a history to this: last year James Dobson and some other evangelical leaders already called for Cizik’s resignation. They felt he was putting too much emphasis on climate change as an evangelical issue.
I listened to the Fresh Air interview. I liked what Cizik had to say. He showed a sensitivity I appreciated to the realities of Christian engagement in today’s culture. He said that although he’s an older evangelical he tends to think like younger evangelicals. (I realize that’s a generalization - there are probably younger evangelicals who think like those who wanted him to resign, who would object to his comment)
Here are a few articles/blog posts about Cizik’s resignation:
Comment by: Craig
1Another one bites the dust over at the NAE…seems like they are having a bit of a problem in the belief-management department.
Comment by: John Smulo
2Hearing about this kind of thing always deeply disappoints me. It’s sad that there is so much personal fall out due to the narrow prejudices of evangelicals.
Comment by: Helen
3Craig, have other NAE leaders been ‘encouraged to resign’ over beliefs? I don’t remember. I know that Ted Haggard left not so long ago over behavior.
John, all I can say is, I prefer Richard Cizik’s evangelicalism to that of those who wanted him to leave.
Comment by: Craig
4Helen-Yeah, I was thinking of Haggard. I can’t help but wonder how the climate at NAE might be different if so much emphasis wasn’t placed on beliefs.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
5It is an unfortunate misunderstanding of the differing roles of church and state. If the NAE wants the bible to be enacted as the twenty-eighth amendment to the constitution, they should just say so.
Then there would not be any confusion over what recognition the state should pay to sin.
Whether the word ‘marriage’ does or does not apply to ‘gay marriages’ has very little moral significance - only in that one can sin though assent, silence, or counsel (etc), and the use of the word marriage to gay marriage by Christians might convey assent or even counsel.
Much more serious assaults on chastity through bad counsel are being made these days to even the children of young-earthers. I went to a “Christmas” dance recital that could easily have been produced by Brittany Spears and a gang of pedopheliacs. I am confident that some of the young boys who sat on the girls tummies, who showed their underpants to the appreciative crowd will retain those memories in their masturbation hall of fame for many years.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
6The reason that murder is illegal in America is not because murder is immoral and offends God, but because people in America would not put up with forgiving murderers. They would go out and get even one way or another. Same for all laws.
The church attempts to promote God’s laws.
The state attempts to promote man’s laws.
There is no overlap, although there may seem to be on the surface of it.
Vengence is mine, sayeth the state.
Comment by: Eliza
7Thanks for posting the link to the interview, Helen. It was very interesting. Terry Gross is such a good interviewer - she asked questions that really brought out the crux (so to speak) of Cizik’s position & thoughts. And I was amazed listening to Cizik - he shows himself to be quite a progressive! It’s not just his positions (pro-life not usually being considered “progressive”) - it’s his view that positions can be re-thought and revised, words re-read and re-interpreted. Not a view that one imagines would go over well with the rest of the leadership at NAE.
Does anyone here know, was he leaned on to resign? The “voluntary” kind of resignation?
Comment by: Martin Gugino
8I did not find the interview easy to listen to. Too many platitudinous generalities for starters. For example Cizik says early on
What, uh exactly, is he thinking of?
There were a few important points: a look at the condition of heterosexual marriage and the zero option on nuclear weapons.
Comment by: Helen
9Eliza, I’m glad you enjoyed the interview.
Martin, Cizik’s comment made sense to me. I think he was particularly thinking of conservative Christians who were disappointed that Obama was elected President - he’s saying to them, the choice is made and now it’s time to move on and support Obama instead of being upset that someone else who is more in line with (some) conservative Christian values wasn’t elected.
Comment by: Helen
10Eliza, I forgot to answer your final question. Here’s an excerpt from an interview with the President of the NAE:
“We mutually concluded” sounds like he was leaned on to me.
Comment by: Seren
11Martin:
I’m interested in what you mean here, Martin.
I would have thought that the unwillingness to tolerate vigilantism is an ethical standard - or are you distinguishing ethics from morals?
On the other hand, you might be suggesting that non-religious society only makes laws which foster the preservation of that society. When i’m at my most cynical i’d agree with this!
Comment by: Martin Gugino
12LOL - Have to get back to you… :-)
Comment by: Martin Gugino
13I need to think about this more, but
-No I wasn’t making a distinction between ethics and morality, and not sure how that would work.
-Governments want to control violence, as part of maintaining power. Practicality not ethics.
-I wasn’t thinking of a distinction between secular and religious societies.
-Foster preservation of that society? Well, more practically, that preserve the power of the group in power. Survival of the fittest and all.
As they say about cynicism - I like to be cynical, but it is hard to keep up.
Comment by: marion
14I get tired of seeing ‘evangelicals’ labelled and put into a box as if we are all the same..
the very word, ‘evangelical’ needs to be thought about more, and what it is supposed to mean, [the evangel is the Good News].
I relate, very much, to this Richard, being a ’slightly’ [lol] older evangelical myself than many ‘emerging’ characters I read online, [although had not heard of him before yesterday, as I'm from the U.K.] - but they’re doing to him what they did to ‘our’ Steve Chalke, who is ‘evangelical,’ also, on the things that are core to our faith…
the original meaning of ‘heresy’ was connected to those who divide the Church
Dobson et al are being heretical by that definition…instead of focusing on the Heart of the Matter, which unites, and the love that is supposed to unite.
Comment by: marion
15you mean some evangelicals, as the point of the article/opening post is that Richard Cizik is also an evangelical.
Comment by: marion
16if so much emphasis wasn’t placed on secondary beliefs by some who imagine themselves ‘guardians’ of the faith…and imagine themselves better than God the Holy Spirit in a believer’s conscience.
evangelicals used to unite around who Jesus is, and what he has done [Christ and Him crucified]
Yes, ‘beliefs’ - but if it’s belief in a true/living Christian way then that will be the Hebraic meaning/sense of ‘belief’ which is not merely cerebral, but active.
seems like some of us are getting castigated for the way in which we translate/use what we’re becoming through how those core beliefs have changed us… in reaching out to the world around, and communicating with other human beings.
If we stayed in holy huddles things would probably be fine *sigh*
But some of us see it’s about the Kingdom coming, and not just the Church, which is simply the vehicle, although a dearly loved [by Jesus] vehicle [even if not by some of it's members].
Comment by: Martin Gugino
17IMHO this firing is a mundane calculation. Richard says early in the interview that he feels that he can represent the NAE even though he does not hold some of their beliefs. They say that his public admission undercuts his ability as a negotiator. I will listen again.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
18marion
That definition is a little vague, and somewhat inadequate. It doesn’t contain the notion of “adherence to false doctrine”. Maybe say what it is about Dobson that you don’t like?
Comment by: Martin Gugino
19Helen
Why support him? Even the left is asking themselves that.
It is not just a case of “moving on”. Policy is important, supposedly.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
20Re: Religious Left
I liked Jim Wallis’s article. It recapped Cizik’s importance: getting into the NAE’s brain-box that the destruction of the planet might be a Bad Thing.
What I wondered about was Jim’s formulation near the end: “new faith coalition that will replace the Religious Right, without becoming a Religious Left.”
The “Religious Right”, one supposes, is willing to wait for the free market joined with the free market of ideas to bring about social justice, while using constitutional amendments to bring about sexual morality now. What is wrong with a Religious Left, that wants to do the reverse: use the free market and the free market of ideas to bring about sexual morality, and use constitutional amendments to bring about social justice now
?
Comment by: Helen
21Martin, based on hearing Jim Wallis speak earlier this year, I think he is hoping for a faith coalition that reaches across the aisle; that’s why he says “without becoming a Religious Left”.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
22What was the problem with the Religious Right?
Is the idea that the “Religious Right” was inadequate, and so a “Religious Left” would likewise be inadequate? Inadequate for what, and for what reason?
If he means we should act without becoming only political and forgetting God (and the despised ones into the bargain), of course I agree: if I give my body to be burned and have not love…
Comment by: Helen
23Martin, yes, I think that’s what he means.
Comment by: marion
24Jim and others, increasingly, including myself, are fed up of being put into boxes, labelled…
assumptions being made about what we believe, or don’t believe, as Christians
it means that each situation is considered on it’s own merits, and with the inner wisdom that the Living, active God gives to us about each new cultural thing or news item as we consider it in His Light
…rather than having things set in stone in polarising positions.
I thank God for Jim Wallis and Brian McLaren, and those who ‘get it’ - Christians aren’t to be left or right, or even centre.
Yet some positions that we eventually take might sound that way to others who stick rigidly to various positions, and then find security in ‘knowingly’ labelling us as left or right [inaccurately].
Comment by: Martin Gugino
25Tell me more… :-)
Comment by: Helen
26Marion, I hear you - and, for what it’s worth, people who aren’t Christians also don’t like being put in boxes and labelled and have assumptions made about them.
I suppose we can never be sure about motives but it does seem that some people find security in labelling others.
Comment by: marion
27thanks Helen
yes, I understand…being human, too, and also someone who hasn’t always been a believer.
No-one really likes it.
I mentioned it as it was relevant to explaining Jim’s position, and what I sense is his heart, [as I get Sojourner's updates and read at their site].
I find it frustrating because it hinders effective communication, especially written communication between people on the internet.
I must thank you that you do not stereotype people - and that is why I read and post here when I can.
Comment by: Helen
28Thanks marion.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
29Re: Fed up
There are some people that I just do not even listen to any more and make me sick: Oliver North immediately springs to mind, and I never went out of my way to listen to Alberto Gonzales either.
However normal it is to be ‘fed up’, isn’t it better to be ‘long-suffering”?
Comment by: marion
30yes, although maybe both are better than being nitpicking and missing the spirit, the point, of something.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
31That was the only part I felt I understood.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
32Re: way to the Left
Just now watching Leslie Stahl and the congressional Black Caucus on CNN. Leslie says “One of Obamas challenges will be resisting you (the black caucus). Because you are all way to the Left”.
I found the video on the web, and this exchange is at 33:30
They do not like the characterization.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
33Re: Left and Right
I think the labels Left and Right can be useful to indicate one’s location along the ‘economic policy’ dimension.
The farthest right is the “Black Market”. This is “off the scale”.
Moving left is the “Far Right” that includes contract law, laws of ownership, and a judicial system, but is otherwise unregulated capitalism.
Then moving “leftward”, one folds into the price certain overheads, certain “externalities” via regulation; externalities such as the cost of fairness in hiring, protection of the commons, truth in advertising, health and safety, the costs of “Free market” conditions (availability of information and equality of power).
The “Far Left” would presumable be where no fraction of the price is set by market conditions.
With this understanding of Left and Right, the comments of the Black Caucus are somewhat disingenuous. I agree with them all the same.
Comment by: gecko
34I can see a common developement in all big movements. First there’s something new, unique or very fitting into a specific need. Then groups, churches or societies form out of the originally unorganized “movement”. Next step is that anybody who wants to belong has to fulfill certain basic things. Then, as there are more and more people, rules have to be made. Rules become laws. And those laws get more and more narrow… and because there are so many people now, it gets harder and harder to question the laws, because the danger of being excluded grows, and then one’s entire social network, activities one likes and perhaps even one’s job are at stake…
I have seen people freed to a “normal” lifestyle, that means to me: no addictions or huge debts, friends, a job, maybe hobbies, having goals and that life has a meaning again. And then they were stamped rebels and excluded because they dared not to consent in one or two details; and to talk about it; and to listen to other preachers, too…
Just look how the pentecostal movement began, a small group, all having this “new” Holy Ghost-thing in focus. And now this ship is so big that it can hardly be steered any more. Now there is a discussion in our church (pentecostal, you might have guessed it) if a Christian can be obsessed by a demon. The leadership says NO, so we all have to say NO. I never visited a bible-school, but there are very studied people who say YES! But if you tell that to a pastor, they question your loyalty.