Dead Evangelicalism Walking

Dead Evangelicalism Walking October 15, 2019

Darrell Lackey wrote a post that has so much rich and provocative detail that I felt I should highlight it here on my own blog, and not just share a link to his post on social media. He writes:

Only pride would ever lead a religious group or tradition, produced by an enormously complex matrix of historical events, to believe (as if similar events could not arise in the future) they were somehow a permanent feature of temporal time–blessed above all others.

He is referring to the demise of Evangelicalism, about which he writes a number of insightful criticisms including this:

The good news isn’t turn or burn.  That’s the message of a sociopath.  The good news, as just noted by Christ in Luke’s gospel, is truly good as it announces a new paradigm, a new Kingdom, a way of life that subverts whatever structures and powers were in place (including our own hearts), that led to the creation of the categories of persons he identifies, in the first place.

It is primarily something lived and not just, “shared.”  One cannot bring such a message without doing something about these very categories making up the audience, the recipients of this good news (otherwise, we are hypocrites).  This is something evangelicals have always reversed, putting mouth before foot, with a view toward a supposed future hell, rather than any present ones.

The good news isn’t about saving people from a future hell of eternal torture, but about the announcement hell has been harried and all the gates and locks have been destroyed by the death and resurrection of Christ.  The “how” or strategy of this announcement is in the loving and serving of others, especially our enemies—thus, the Kingdom comes.  What will evangelicals do when they realize the so-called “social gospel,” is really…just…the gospel?

Much of what he writes in the post is memeworthy. Read the whole thing, and share quotes from and links to it however you best see fit. But please do also discuss his diagnosis and prognosis for Evangelicalism’s future in the comments section below. Do you agree that Evangelicalism is terminally ill?


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