Charles Marsh's 'Wayward Christian Soldiers'

When does faithful contextualisation of the gospel become merely the loss of the gospel's distinctiveness, subsuming it beneath the dominant values of the culture? It is exactly that question that Charles Marsh explores in his book, "Wayward Christian Soldiers: Freeing the Gospel from Political Captivity", with reference to the church in the USA. This is an old discussion, but Marsh explores it in some unique and fascinating ways. Firstly his target for the critique that contextualisation has lead to sublimation has an unusual target. Usually such a critique is offered by the evangelical wing of the church -and directed straight at theological liberals, who have historically sought to minimise any differences between the church and the world, both by the demythologising core Christian belief and in adopting the ethical standards of surrounding culture as the norm. Marsh however, has white, American evangelicalism in his sights in this book, as he charges them (he is one, incidentally) with failing to critique the American national project, Imperial Economics, and expansionist foreign policy with the teachings of Christ. With many references to Bonhoeffer and the Christian resistance in Germany in the 1930s-40s, Marsh sees the American church as having failed in its primary task of loyalty to Christ, and has allowed itself to become the flag-waving and morale-boosting department of the American national project. A grave charge indeed.

Marsh argues that there have been key issues on which American Evangelicals have faced a choice between Faith and Flag, between the claims of Christ and the needs of their nation -and that on successive occasions they have chosen the flag. A particular case-study he makes is of the propaganda battle in the six months running up to the US-led invasion of Iraq, in which US Evangelicalism was a lone cheerleader for the war-effort, in the face of the near universal condemnation of the plan from the world-church. The book begins with the author discovering his local 'christian' bookshop in those days, removing Holy-Spirit, Dove of Peace badges from display, and replacing it with the Stars and Stripes!

To read Marsh's discussion of Franklin Graham's flag-waving click on the image below:

"the masses who cannot tell the difference between the cross and the flag. The Jesus who storms into Baghdad behind the wheel of a Humvee is not the Jesus of the gospels." This is stirring and provocative stuff - which needs to be said.

To read his discussion of Charles Stanley's pro-war propaganda click on the image below:

Marsh here accuses Stanley of the worst kind of theological liberalism; of reducing the gospel to the cheerleading department of a deeply non-Christian regime; of standing in the ignoble tradition of the court-prophets of the Old Testament. They were the ones who refused to deliver the ringing denunciations of Yahweh that fell to minority voices like Jeremiah - but sought the favour of Kings and Princes by the delivery of favourable 'prophecies' and declaring that their various schemes and machinations were the recipients of divine approval.

Marsh pleads with his fellow-believers to recover the integrity of the gospel message by de-coupling it from the religious-right movement (which has in fact merely 'used' gospel language and people for its own ends). He calls for the US church to listen more widely to the world church, to renounce its lust for power and seek again a commitment to quiet service - as a way of helping people see the Christ of the gospel, shorn of the unhelpful baggage of the GOP and its war-mongering foreign policies.

Reading this book as an 'outsider' was fascinating. I am convinced that his general thesis is exactly right, and that he is extremely perceptive and penetrating in his analysis. Obviously though, it is easier for me to (in the words of the old maxim) see the speck in my brother's eye more clearly than the plank in my own. If the use of the 'Prince of Peace' as a tool for war-mongering, stands out a mile as a being as bizarre as it is wicked to me; I wonder which aspects of my own attempts at being a disciple of Christ are equally hopelessly culturally compromised in ways of which I am blissfully ignorant? This book may have been 'just' a cheapo from the Oxford Uni Press summer sale - but it has got me thinking!