Sunday's Cool: The Empty Promise of the Third Way

Neither conservative nor liberal, but a secret third thing (worse).

"I am too conservative for liberals and too liberal for conservatives." 

- Every Christian following the whole Jesus

Nashville’s Christ Presbyterian Church Pastor Scott Sauls tweeted this twice in as many months, suggesting he’s pretty sure he’s hit on something good here. It was interesting to follow the reactions. You had a lot of enthusiastic endorsement (“Yes! Finally, someone’s saying this!”) and just as many vehement critics. I fall into the latter camp. 

But here’s the thing about a centrist take like Sauls’, which Christians are fond of calling the Third Way: It’s pretty easy for a centrist to just take every criticism as a de facto reinforcement of their point. If someone from the Babylon Bee criticizes Sauls’ tweet, he can just say “see? This far right wacko is just too conservative for Jesus.” And if someone from Sojourners dunks on him, he can flip it to “this leftwing nutjob is just too liberal for Jesus.” 

It doesn’t matter what the actual substance of the criticism is. If you hold that centrism is inherently good for no other reason than that it’s in the middle, anyone who criticizes you is already wrong simply because their opinion is either right or left, both of which are sides, and sides are bad. Only the middle is good. 

“I’m all for moderation but sometimes it seems moderation itself is a kind of extreme,” as Andrew Bird puts it. And if Sauls’ assessment is any indication, Third Wayism has become an extreme. Anytime someone starts claiming any political opinion — right, left or center — is the exclusive domain of “Christians following the whole Jesus,” we’re already precariously far down a very dark road with a very ugly history.

In any case, if you want to put a “too liberal for conservatives, too conservative for liberals” paradigm on a religious figures’ shoulders, I’m not sure Jesus is the best fit. I find it extremely unwise to try to graft Jesus’ political praxis onto our modern framework, but it’s safe to say he wasn’t crucified for the crime of being too moderate. 

So, lest Sauls and any other Third Way folks want to accuse me of being too pigheaded for the whole Jesus, let me cut you off at the pass there. First, yes, I am too pigheaded for Jesus but he is nevertheless highly pleased to count me as his friend because of his infinite mercy, so jot that down! 

And second, whatever my personal opinions, centrism is a valid political stance. I can certainly see the appeal for a lot of Americans. We live in a two-party technocratic oligarchy in which every four years voters are granted the illusion of choice between two guys we don’t like. Not a great system. Pretty much all of us have a little dream faction within either the Republicans or Democrats we wish would either ascend to party leadership or get enough clout to breakaway altogether and become a electoral force to be reckoned with.

But my problem with Sauls and the Third Way crowd generally isn’t strictly that they are centrists. Lots of people fall into this camp. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it. My problem is with the implication that this “too liberal for conservatives, too conservative for liberals” middle ground is the obviously Christian route and anyone who doesn’t follow it isn’t quite as Christian as they should be. 

This is a dangerous idea. Lots of people have rightfully criticized the extremely American idea there’s something inherently Christian in being conservative. I recently took issue with the idea that there’s something inherently Christian in being a leftist. But the growing number of otherwise smart people who seem to think there’s something inherently Christian in being a centrist seem to have gotten a pass, and that’s a real problem.

One big, obvious issue is that centrism is, by definition, a moving, nebulous target. The Overton Window shifts every few years as Right and Left lurch in directions that are not necessarily equal and opposite in either direction. Is it the duty of every Christian following the whole Jesus to adjust their political views accordingly, making sure they are still too conservative for liberals and too liberal for conservatives? 

Let’s talk brass taxes. A lot of people pushed Sauls for a real example of a “too conservative for liberals, too liberal for conservatives” position. The only example I could find him offering in response was this blog post about the overturn of Roe V. Wade, in which he concluded that Christians should “aim for building community and living in a society where abortion, due to the love ready to be given to any child and any mother, is not merely illegal, but unthinkable.” One way of doing that, he writes, is for Christians to “consider supporting measures that help those with limited resources afford housing, healthcare, and all the costs that go with raising children.” 

I suppose if you squint you could read a little concession to the libs in there in terms of providing affordable housing and healthcare. But when you weigh the decades’ worth of remarkable, organized efforts conservatives went to flip Roe against a call to “consider supporting measures,” you can understand why not everyone sees this as a serious attempt at a middle ground. Overturning Roe was one of the most formidable flexes of conservative muscle in American history. And statistically speaking, not many people, conservative or liberal, say they are actively against providing poor moms with resources to get by. So how does any of this pass as “too liberal for conservatives, too conservative for liberals?” 

What I would be interested in seeing and what, in reality, very few of us (centrist or otherwise) actually have is a consistent, coherent set of convictions about the world we want to live in and what role politics should play in achieving it. This is a lot harder than putting together a Frankenstein’s Monster of Republican and Democratic policy goals with “Christian vibes.” Saying you’re a conservative on abortion and gender stuff, but a liberal on caring about racism and some poor people isn’t going to cut it. Say what you will about the tenets of Christian Nationalism’s Seven Mountains Mandate, dude, but at least it’s an ethos! You might not agree with everything Rehumanize International stands for, but at least you can follow the plot. And when you measure political visions like these up against “Third Wayism,” it’s no surprise that critics on both sides find it pretty anemic. 

Because if all you’re aiming for is too liberal for conservatives and too conservative for liberals, it can be pretty hard to come up with coherent politics. Who owns the means of the production? How much paid leave should employers be required to provide? Where does every Christian following the whole Jesus land on offshore drilling and deforestation? Labor unions? The industrial prison complex? Qualified immunity for police? There are conservative and progressive positions on all of these with a fairy extensive amount of thought and research by pretty smart people. Are you prepared to tell those assembled scholars and activists on all of this that the way of Jesus is simply “too conservative for liberals, too liberal for conservatives?”

No, what we need is spine. Not a constantly evolving set of reactions to whatever we perceive to be “left” and “right” but a robust, informed politic. These little political compasses have their limitations, they’re also very real! You can claim to be above it all, but your politics do land somewhere in these quadrants. Are you prepared to argue that if Jesus took this test, he’d land in the dead center? And even if he did, are you then prepared to argue that his first-century Palestinian politics will map onto our current oligarchy? 

Probably not. But that doesn’t mean Jesus is useless to this conversation. It just means Christians need to form actual opinions beyond “I’m just in the middle of everyone else.” I do tend to think followers of the whole Jesus will indeed find their politics to be pretty weird, but I don’t think they’ll necessarily be in the middle. Why not dream bigger?

For me, bigger has meant more extreme. I’m not an idiot. I don’t think I’ll live to see healthcare free to all, capitalism abolished and the environment protected against our deranged ravages. But I think those are good things worth fighting and sacrificing for, even if they’re not exactly in the middle.

You might disagree with me. You might think I’m naive or extremist. I can own that. But I do hope you can at least grant that holding these political opinions doesn’t mean I’m following Jesus any less than you.

---

• I enjoyed Perrotta’s The Leftovers but have heard a few of people say they found it (and Perrotta in general) pretty hostile to religion. That wasn’t my read, but I’m curious if anyone who’s read him more than I have has picked up on that.

• Currently reading Anna North’s Outlawed. It’s good! Just maybe angling for that HBO Max adaptation a little too blatantly.

• Spending the next few weeks housesitting in the Cincinnati suburbs. Going to be a Suburban King out here. Cargo pants and polos. Jacob Collier on the Spotify mix. Pot of chili on the stove before the boys come over for the big game. Just a real Suburb Head.