Unconservative evangelicals

Jordan Hylden highlights a new book by D.G. Hart on "Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism," noting that evangelicals haven't betrayed conservativism because "they were never very conservative in the first place."  Evangelicals "tend to sit crossways to traditions and established institutions, to get impatient with gradualism and compromise, and to trouble the status quo with sweeping, radical reforms drawn directly from the pages of Scripture."  At bottom, the tension between evangelicals and conservatism is theological, according to Hart's thesis, as evangelicals need to embrace "not only conservatism but the Augustinian anthropology and ecclesiology that undergird it," along with the awareness that "there is no redeemer nation, only a Redeemer's church." 

Though the book may paint evangelicals with a fairly broad brush, and though I believe that the lack of tension between any particular Christian community and any particular political orientation should be taken as a dangerous sign of a potentially compromised witness, the book sounds like a worthwhile read.  On Hart's theological point, I was reminded of the "redeemer nation" vs. "Redeemer's church" distinction last summer, as I attended an evangelical worship service with my family.  The music morphed from a praise chorus to a patriotic anthem and back, complete with an American flag waving on the big screens.  Having grown up in evangelical circles, this hardly fazed me, but my 11 year-old daughter shot me a confused look to signal that something had gone terribly awry in her view.  Having grown up Catholic, she has no experience with a "redeemer nation."  I will maintain that evangelicals have many things they can teach Catholics, but the more-than-occasional blending of patriotism and worship is not one of them.