Our affection for Fred Clark’s Slacktivist is well documented. Clark is a journalist, but also an evangelical Christian frankly dismayed by what’s become of his church. He’s made much sport of the Left Behind books in a series of posts described as “reading them so you don’t have to;” they are at once hilarious and depressing.

He’s in the midst of a new series of posts now worth a review if you find yourself confused by the vision of a church based on Christ’s compassion being so obsessed with contempt for homosexuals. Check out “The Gay-Hatin’ Gospel:”

• Part 1: The Safe Target
• Part 2: Inner Demons
• Part 3: The Innocent Backlash
• Part 4: The Exegetical Panic Defense, which includes this:

Part of the answer, I think, has little to do with homosexuals or homosexuality per se. It has to do, rather, with epistemology — with the need for certainty and the panicked hostility that surfaces when that certainty is threatened. “We see through a glass, darkly,” St. Paul said, warning against the temptation to chase the will-o’-the-wisp of certainty. But American evangelicalism is largely based on the idea that certainty is not only possible, but necessary. Mandatory, even. This certainty can be achieved thanks to the one-legged stool of the Evangelical Unilateral. That’s a made-up term, but it describes something real. It’s a play on the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” — an approach to theological thinking that relies on the four foundations of scripture, tradition/community, reason and experience. The evangelical approach to theological thinking is exactly like this Wesleyan method, except it doesn’t include tradition or community. Or reason. Or experience.

• Part 5: It’s the politics, stupid
• Part 6: In which critics who believe there really IS some sort of moral struggle happening are answered, and he illustrates how a longing for legislative enforcement of religious mores paints a picture of weak moral fiber

I’m sure he’s more to say on the subject, but read these. It’s illuminating.