A number of times, he warns of the excesses of capitalism-whatever he believes that term to mean (he never really defines it). For him, the Overton window is well into progressive territory. Camp appears to be much more captive to modernity and postmodernity than he realizes or is willing to admit. Moreover, his claim that his propositions are some sort of neutral ground between two extremes is farcical. The reader is left to fall back on whatever pre-existing notions he or she bears about these terms-or to rely on the shallow, provincial typifications advanced by Camp in the book. But this is only the beginning of the woes.Ĭamp says his propositions are 'neither right nor left nor religious.' But he never actually provides a systematic definition of right or left. If one of the central claims of the book is that Christianity is a politic, and the definition of politic is not up to the task, then the thesis is in trouble. Moreover, it gets the book started on the wrong foot. So, the whole affair seems needlessly complicated and could have been almost entirely excised from the book. Third, the definition Camp provides for the alternative term is woefully inadequate to expound the Christian religion. Second, the alternative term is susceptible to its own misunderstandings (so why not retain the initial terminology and correct the misapprehension?). Why is it so important to discuss this in the review? First, the word trading is unnecessary because the privatizing problem is not inherent in the term religion. Instead, he introduces an alternative term-politic-which he defines as 'an all-encompassing manner of communal life that grapples with all the questions the classical art of politics has always asked.' Does this really subsume all that Christianity is? May it never be! If Camp believed this impurity needed to be corrected, he could have easily addressed it and continued to implement the term religion.

Hence, Camp says, it's not a religion.īut privatizing is not an essential attribute of religion-it's just a warped characteristic some people have infused into it. Because the Gospel makes sweeping claims when it comes to the lives and affairs of individuals, families, the church, and the state, it can't be private by definition. According to Camp, religion is private and is therefore socially and politically insignificant. This word trading is apparently rooted in a hang-up about the definition of the former. Toward that end, he lays out fifteen propositions, which he calls 'neither right nor left nor religious.' Why not religious? Oddly, he insists that Christianity is not a religion, but a politic. In Scandalous Witness, Lee Camp sets out to 'rehabilitate' the Christian witness to the world-or more narrowly the American Christian witness to the world. Or perhaps those endorsements should have served as a portent. What can I say? Despite receiving turgid acclaim from Greg Boyd, Walter Brueggemann, David Gushee, and others, this book is a serious debacle.

Scandalous witness lee camp