Recently I heard that author Anne Rice is \u201cquitting Christianity.\u201d\u00a0 According to reports I have heard and read, she believes the term \u201cChristian\u201d is too fraught with connotations of extreme right-wing politics.\u00a0 She prefers simply to be called a \u201cJesus-follower.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have that problem with the label \u201cChristian.\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t give up on good labels easily; I prefer to try to invest them with positive meaning rather than simply discard them because of misconceptions in the popular mind.<\/p>\n
Many of my friends, students and acquaintances have already given up on \u201cevangelical.\u201d\u00a0 I can somewhat better understand that.\u00a0 What they have trouble understanding is why I don\u2019t give up on it with them.\u00a0 They say it is simply too late to rescue the label from the popular associations with the Religious Right.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t do it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been an evangelical all my life and I can\u2019t think of any better label to describe my particular \u201cbrand\u201d of Christianity.\u00a0 I do grieve, however, over the many misconceptions of it spread by the media.\u00a0 Occasionally I see a \u201cspokesman\u201d for evangelicals on a talk show like Larry King.\u00a0 Often the person does not speak for me at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just to illustrate the problem: Some years ago I was listening to a broadcast on National Public Radio about two demonstrations taking place simultaneously in Washington, D.C.\u00a0 One was led by Jerry Falwell and the other by Jim Wallis of Sojourners.\u00a0 The reporter asked Falwell for a comment about Jim Wallis.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what I recall Falwell saying (and I\u2019m confident I remember it well because I felt he would say the same about me!): \u201cJim Wallis is to evangelicalism what Hitler was to Roman Catholicism.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I was growing up in the thick of the evangelical movement and even when I was in seminary in the 1970s Jerry Falwell was widely considered by most evangelicals a fundamentalist.\u00a0 At that time there was a huge rift between\u00a0us who the fundamentalists called \u201cneo-evangelicals\u201d and them.\u00a0 Mainstream evangelicals did not consider Falwell or his like part of \u201cus\u201d even though, theologically (in terms of basic beliefs) we shared much common ground.<\/p>\n
The issues, so I was taught in a mainstream evangelical seminary (point of trivia: James Montgomery Boice was one of my professors), were extreme biblical literalism (e.g., young earth creationism), extreme preoccuption with the \u201crapture\u201d (to the point of believing those who did not agree were not evangelicals and possibly not even Christians!), and \u201cbiblical separation\u201d (opposing even Billy Graham because he allowed Catholics and mainline Protestants to cooperate with his crusades).\u00a0 Associated with all that was a split between fundamentalists and mainstream evangelicals (who they called neo-evangelicals) over the status of doctrines.\u00a0 We thought they elevated secondary matters of belief such as premillennialism to the status of dogmas and they thought we were weak on doctrine because we didn\u2019t insist that one be a premillennialist to be authentically evangelical.<\/p>\n
The general attitude of most post-fundamentalist evangelicals throughout the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and much of the 1980s was \u201cIn essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity\u201d (a motto touted by the National Association of Evangelicals).<\/p>\n
Then something changed.\u00a0 I experienced it first hand.\u00a0 While I was in seminary Harold Lindsell\u2019s horrible book The Battle for the Bible fell like a bombshell on American evangelicalism.\u00a0 The editor of Christianity Today declared quite unequivocally that a person could not be authentically evangelical while rejecting biblical inerrancy (as he defined it).\u00a0 He named names and implied that evangelical institutions should purge themselves of non-inerrantists.<\/p>\n
My seminary never had a doctrinal statement that included inerracy.\u00a0 Neither did or does the National Association of Evangelicals.\u00a0 We were\u00a0satisfied with \u201cinspiration\u201d and \u201cauthority.\u201d\u00a0 But Lindsell scared the grassroots of evangelicals and opened the door to an influx of fundamentalists who now wanted to be called \u201cevangelical.\u201d\u00a0 (Sometime during the 1980s Jerry Falwell, among other self-proclaimed fundamentalists, began to call himself an evangelical and somehow managed to get the media to regard his as a leading spokesman for evangelicals.)<\/p>\n
Gradually a heresy-hunting mentality grew within evangelical ranks.\u00a0\u00a0My seminary, under pressure from pastors, required all faculty to sign an inerrancy statement or leave.\u00a0 I saw professors who had openly criticized belief in biblical inerrancy meekly sign the statement.\u00a0 One courageous one did not and left.<\/p>\n
Over the years since 1976 (the year The Battle for the Bible was published) I have seen my evangelical world rocked by controversy\u00a0after controversy\u2013often\u00a0over relatively minor points of doctrine.\u00a0\u00a0Of course, the issue became \u201cWhat is a relatively minor point of doctrine?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Gradually what would have been considered minor differences of opinion have become issues of division.\u00a0 Professors at evangelical schools have been fired for having opinions that would have caused raised eyebrows but not expulsion\u00a0before\u00a01976.<\/p>\n
A rigid, dogmatic, intolerant attitude toward diversity of opinion and interpretation has set into many sectors of the evangelical movement.\u00a0 It is an attitude reminiscent of old-style fundamentalism.\u00a0 I have seen my evangelicalism gradually taken over by people who would have been\u00a0considered fundamenatalists when I was in seminary.<\/p>\n
This change came to a crisis for me when I was teaching at a well-known evangelical liberal arts college and seminary in the 1980s and 1990s.\u00a0 Certain constituents began to pressure the school to\u00a0teach against women in ministry (a point about which that particular school and denomination had never taken a position) and against open theism (an admittedly unusual view of God\u2019s foreknowledge but not\u00a0ruled out by the statement of faith).\u00a0<\/p>\n
The turning point for me was a heresy trial (called by the administration a \u201cDay of Theological Clarification\u201d) over one of my colleagues who was open about his\u00a0open theism.\u00a0 What especially troubled me was that all of the crucial theological arguments being used by\u00a0constituent pastors against open theism would, if\u00a0valid, work just as much against classical Arminianism.\u00a0 Nobody seemed to be noticing that except me.\u00a0 One pastor leading the charge against my colleague told me he would get me fired for not standing with him against my colleague.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one thing to have a civil debate about a theological issue; I\u2019m not against that.\u00a0 But, in my opinion, there was nothing civil about this crusade to purge the institution (and then all evangelicalism) of open theists.\u00a0 Many of those raising their voices against my colleague and against open theism knew little about it.\u00a0 And in some cases the tactics were ethically questionable.<\/p>\n
(One pastor asked me to have lunch with\u00a0him \u201cjust\u00a0to find out what made me tick.\u201d\u00a0 He assured me that it was not an inquisition.\u00a0 But the whole conversation revolved around open theism.\u00a0 At the end of our two hour conversation he said \u201cRoger,\u00a0what may I tell the pastors who know we had lunch today about your position on open theism.\u201d\u00a0 It was clearly what is colloquially called an attempted \u201csucker punch.\u201d\u00a0 This same pastor went around calling open theism \u201cSocinianism\u201d as if open theists denied the deity of Christ or the Trinity!)<\/p>\n
These were attitudes and approaches to theological issues that resonated more with fundamentalism than with classical, mainstream evangelicalism.\u00a0 I saw my days numbered in that beloved school, not because I was an open theists (I was not and am not) but because I didn\u2019t consider it a heresy and I didn\u2019t \u201cside with\u201d the\u00a0right people.<\/p>\n
This was not just an isolated incident.\u00a0 Across the board among evangelicals a spirit of fear settled in: fear of heresy lurking behind every bush OR fear of heresy hunters who were out in the open seeking heresies where\u00a0nobody had yet found them.<\/p>\n
Most of those leading the charge against open theism were Calvinists and I detected in their\u00a0rhetoric a decidedly anti-Arminian thrust.\u00a0 As one leading\u00a0Calvinist opponent of open theism said publicly\u00a0about Arminians \u201cThey are all headed there.\u201d\u00a0 I came to believe it would soon no longer be safe to be\u00a0publicly Arminian in that environment.\u00a0 (That school and the denomination that controls it has a history of allowing both Calvinists and Arminians without discrimination in its ranks.)<\/p>\n
My heart has grieved over what has happened to the evangelical movement.\u00a0 On the one side one finds popularizers peddling a \u201cgospel\u201d of health and wealth through positive thinking.\u00a0 On the other side one finds fundamentalists trying to exclude as non-evangelical everyone who doesn\u2019t think just like them.\u00a0 The middle (which I think of as\u00a0the\u00a0historical evangelical position of tolerance of differences of opinion within a general embrace of historic Christian orthodoxy) is hard to inhabit.\u00a0 People there get shot at from both sides.<\/p>\n
It seems to me that PERHAPS what held the post-WW2, post-fundamentalist evangelical movement\u00a0together were two powerful forces: the NAE (founded in 1942 to be inclusive of many different \u201cstyles\u201d of being evangelical) and the huge organizational influence of Billy Graham (who was disliked by fundamentalists for his inclusiveness).\u00a0 Now, both are waning in influence.\u00a0 How\u00a0many contemporary evangelicals listen to the NAE?\u00a0\u00a0Many know little about Billy Graham and his influence is minimal (although he is still considered\u00a0an icon).<\/p>\n
In the absence of any central, unifying force(s) evangelicalism is simply\u00a0fragmenting.\u00a0 So, these days, when asked if I\u2019m an evangelical my answer takes a long time.\u00a0 Most people aren\u2019t willing to listen that long.\u00a0 My answer is \u201cYes, but\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 When asked about my\u00a0evangelical heroes I have to draw mainly on people of the past: in theology\u00a0Bernard Ramm, in politics Mark Hatfield, \u00a0in biblical studies George Eldon Ladd.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that I haven\u2019t kept up; I certainly try to.\u00a0 But where are the giants of evangelical life and thought like those men who, during their lifetimes, influenced two or three generations of evangelicals?<\/p>\n
So, I can longer call myself simply \u201cevangelical,\u201d but neither can I give up on the term.\u00a0 So I have to say I\u2019m a \u201cpostconservative evangelical\u201d and beg people to listen for just a little while as I explain.\u00a0 I\u2019ve published two entire books and many articles about what I mean.\u00a0 Later, here, I will post more about \u201cpostconservative evangelicalism.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently I heard that author Anne Rice is \u201cquitting Christianity.\u201d\u00a0 According to reports I have heard and read, she believes the term \u201cChristian\u201d is too fraught with connotations of extreme right-wing politics.\u00a0 She prefers simply to be called a \u201cJesus-follower.\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t have that problem with the label \u201cChristian.\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t give up on good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n