Steal this Bible!

You have to give this to the modern evangelical movement; it has learned the value of marketing. Evangelicals have learned that in order to compete with modern media culture, they have to adapt to it and excel at its methods. A prime example of how evangelicals have put this lesson to work is a new web and print based endeavor called the Crux Project. Here is part of the mission statement for Crux:

What is The Crux Project?

"Practice and thought might gradually forge many an art."
---Virgil

Quite simply, it is the lone voice in the wilderness, the avant-garde of the avant-garde, the bane of conventional wisdom, a thorn in the flesh of ideology, a last bastion of Truth, and the home of tough questions and even tougher answers. But that barely scratches the surface . . .

Crux is:

* where even "scientific fact" is routinely placed under the microscope
* about rejecting the "culture of cool" and the dictates of "what's hot"
* a refuge for that endangered species known as humanity
* a cry from the center in an increasingly decentered universe
* the cutting of a forgotten edge and the new wave of an ancient way
* the virtual dwelling place of a transcendent reality
* an intellectual counterpoint to the intelligentsia
* a landscape where the law is natural and the logic eternal

Crux is not:

* the lifestyles of the rich and famous
* a pusher of products or the promoter of projects
* a partisan play for power or influence
* a fashion guide for the tragically hip
* a home base for the perpetuation of the status quo
* a haven for the safe or the mouthpiece of the politically correct
* a separatist movement that hides from the dominant culture
* a poor imitation of existing websites

But The Crux Project is first and foremost an idea factory---one bent on challenging the damaging cultural myths that have undercut human dignity, all but destroyed the notions of virtue and morality, and slowly eroded respect for mystery and the transcendent.

From this home base, we plan to produce print magazines and radio shows, to host film screenings and focus groups---to launch a full-scale multimedia assault on all of the tastemakers, artists, scholars, and pundits who would have us live only for today and our own selfish desires.

Think of it as a "onward to the past" message. The language speaks of counter-cultural hipness and bravado, and anti-authoritarian individuality. From the first two paragraphs you would think that the project was about some kind of post-modern effort to deconstruct Western civilization, and in some sense it is about that. Not to move beyond modernity, but to move before it.

The language is transparently a pose, a marketing ploy to engage the youth demographic. When they say they are the "bane of conventional wisdom, a thorn in the flesh of ideology" what they really are about is the reassertion of an older conventional wisdom and a more rigid ideology than anything in operation today.

There is not a single reference to God or religion in this statement, but the underlying direction could not be clearer. Here are some passages from an article from the site titled "How American Politics Became Secularized":

Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that many evangelicals in the eighteenth and nineteenth century failed to recognize what was happening. Having embraced a two-story concept of truth, they assumed that political philosophy was a lower-story "science" that could be pursued apart from any distinctively Christian perspective. As a result, many evangelicals at the time simply adopted secular political philosophies—especially that of John Locke. Whatever Locke's personal religious faith was (which is endlessly debated), there can be no doubt that his political theory was at root secular, grounding civil society not in moral goods like Justice and Right but merely in individual self-interest.

How did evangelicals miss that? As George Marsden explains, "Locke's contract theory of government was, in practice, sufficiently like the Puritan concept of covenant that no one in the revolutionary era seems to have thought it significant to criticize its essentially secular theoretical base." By treating the lower story as philosophically neutral, Christians failed to recognize alien philosophies—and sometimes even adopted them without being unaware of it.

In our own day, this same secularization process explains why politics leaves so many people disillusioned and spiritually dissatisfied. "The liberalism of Hobbes and Locke is founded upon the relatively 'low' human goals of self-preservation and the desire for wealth," writes Stanley Kurtz—which accounts for "the chronic disenchantment at the heart of modernity." At the core, humans are moral beings, and we long to see our highest moral ideals expressed in our corporate life. Ultimately the secular version of civic life fails to satisfy the human longing to live together in moral communities, committed to Justice and Righteousness.

Now that is a very slick way of packaging a message that essentially says "the American experiment is a failure, it is time to re-establish Christian rule". The earlier, less media-savvy generation of Christian radicals wouldn't think it necessary to use code words like "our corporate life" to express their intentions, but then they weren't very successful in generating mind-share, were they?

The Crux Project is also publishing a quartery magazine called "Salvo" aimed at teens and young adults. Its mission statement reads:

Blasting holes in scientific naturalism, marveling at the intricate design of the universe, and promoting life in a culture of deaty.
Critiquing art, music, film, television, and literature, interrupting mass media influence, and questioning the sanity of our consumerist lifestyle.
Countering destructive ideologies, replacing revisionist fictions with undeniable facts, and paring away political correctness.
Debunking the cultural myths that have undercut human dignity, all but destroyed the notions of virtue and morality, and slowly eroded our appetite for transcendence.
Recovering the one worldview that actually works.

In yo' face, homey! Now all the insufferably arrogant know-it-all snobs on campus will be carrying a copy of "Salvo" instead of "Atlas Shrugged".

There is one more bit of posturing from the introductory letter from the editor that is just too transparently bogus to ignore:

And that goes for every issue of Salvo. We will continue to interrogate fallacious and destructive thinking no matter who advocates it or from whence it originates. We do so not out of allegiance to a particular political platform or some other interested party but from the belief that we are suffering, both as a culture and as individuals, from a vast and contagious plague of corrupt ideas and short-sighted desires. Indeed, for the sake of our spiritual, emotional, mental and even physical welfare, Salvo promises to follow wherever the facts may lead, even should they end up challenging a few of our most ingrained and trusted beliefs. We ask the same of you.

If anyone thinks that these people will follow facts wherever they lead, then they've just bought a ticket for a ride. A perusal of the contents of the first issue shows that it is an organ for pushing Intelligent Design and other faith based cultural projects of evangelical Christianity. No facts need apply. A perusal of the magazine's editorial advisory board turns up such names as William Dembski, Phillip E. Joshnson, Robert P. George, Frederica Matthews Green and other luminaries of the conservative Christian logosphere. Also of note is Hugh Hewitt, radio talk show host and champion of God-bloggers everywhere.

So why don't these people just state right up front the religious nature of their enterprise? Why not just say "we will be defending Biblical Revelation against secular materialism." Because it is a bait and switch. They want to attract secular young people and religious moderates, not committed Christians. Lure young people in with a pseudo-scientific pose of brave truth-seeking and iconoclastic rebellion from authority, and then start selling them on conspiracy theories and apocalyptic visions of a decaying secular world run by an atheistic scientific "priesthood". It's a very cynical, manipulative ploy. But you must admit that they have learned the ropes of the new media.