Harvey Cox on Evangelical Progressivism

Harvard theologian Harvey Cox heralds the resurrection of a "progressive" wing of American evangelicalism, evidenced in the evangelical leaders who have called for campaigns against global warming and poverty, criticized the Iraq war, and so forth.  "This does not mean they will all vote for Democrats, with whom they still disagree on several matters, but that they are concerned about a much wider range of issues."  Then Cox has something to say about "family values" and the gospel:

One reason the future may belong to these new evangelicals is that they take the life and teaching of Jesus more seriously than the religious right, which bases its positions not on the gospels, but on what they call "traditional values" and "family values." But Jesus himself had little to say about family values; rather, he emphasized love of neighbor, and even of the enemy.

A quick, non-sytematic reaction to this paragraph:  One can agree with Cox that the current Religious Right fails to emphasize some central Biblical themes in its public-policy prescriptions -- I do think this with respect to poverty, the environment, and peacemaking -- and at the same time think that that "family values" are important for a few reasons:  (1) Jesus did say things about family, e.g. condemning divorce or at least its easy availability.  (2) Ideals and commands concerning family appear prominently elsewhere in the scriptures.  (3) The principle of the importance of family is defensible without appealing to the authority of Jesus or scripture and thus is the kind of argument particularly appropriate for a religiously pluralistic society (as progressives often emphasize in other contexts).  (4) Some aspects of "family values" are important to other themes that Jesus did emphasize, e.g. the care of the vulnerable including children (for whom stable, supportive families are important).  (5) An emphasis on the family may therefore be a valuable means of translating elements of Jesus's teaching into today's circumstances, when the nuclear-family household has largely replaced ties such as extended family, village, or clan that would have been central in Jesus' time.

I think we could all agree that what these arguments provide support for is a wholistic focus on family health and stability, not a focus solely on an issue like opposing same-sex marriage (even if the latter is properly part of the wholistic agenda).

Tom