Sorry Dan!

by Frank Turk

Joe Carter and I will be on Paul Edwards today at 3:30 PM CT to talk about The Gospel and Politics. You follow that link, and you can hear the stream.

Pray for all of us that we put Christ first.

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Frank: I listened to you and Joe Carter on Paul Edwards via streaming feed. Great, great job—all three of you. But I especially liked your input. Joe is no doubt correct that actual grassroots evangelical involvement in the political process is pretty low. But the number of professing Christians willing to turn off "American Idol" and take the Great Commission seriously is surely even lower. Joe seems to think all this evangelical apathy proves my whole argument is invalid. But he is actually proving my point. See: I didn't suggest that Evangelicals have done well organizing, mobilizing, and integrating their own rank-and-file into the political process. In fact, I said nothing at all about the level of grassroots involvement. What I complained about was the inordinate amount of energy and resources that are spent on politics rather than evangelism by evangelical organizations and leaders. Here's a major part of the problem with trying to drum up evangelical zeal over something as mundane as politics: It's uninspiring compared to the challenge of the gospel, and it has helped breed a generation of evangelical couch potatoes who think sending Dobson or the Republican party a check fulfills their duty to "engage the culture." But the typical fad-driven evangelical is no more a true activist than the liberal fat cat or Hollywood celebrity who thinks if she buys enough carbon credits she is really helping change the world. The answer isn't to invest more energy and resources into political lobbying. It's to get off the couch and back into the world with the gospel. You made that clear. Thanks.