November 21, 2011, here on slacktivist: The exceptional majority of evangelicals
Timothy Dalrymple argues that it’s simply due to caricatures and media hype that evangelicals have come to be viewed as “hyper-politicized.”
It’s all in my head, I suppose. And if I could just get over my own prejudices, I’d realize that most evangelical churches would welcome me as a full and equal member, without suspicion or hostility or condemnation due to my belief in evolution and my support for legal abortion and equal rights for GLBT people.
“You’re pro-choice? No problem,” they would say. “We’re not the hyper-politicized caricatures the media makes us out to be, you know! Would you like to lead one of our small-group Bible studies?”
I’ve just been incredibly unlucky over the years to encounter an unbroken string of outliers and exceptions. The local churches, schools, colleges, parachurch organizations, publications and other evangelical communities I’ve encountered who required — informally, formally, and sometimes contractually — that anyone associated with them comply with mandatory opposition to abortion, homosexuality and evolution, those groups were in no way typical of the not-at-all hyper-politicized evangelical subculture.
The church I grew up in was an exception. Every other evangelical church I’ve attended or visited? Also an exception. My family is an exception. My friends’ families were similarly atypical. The Christian school I attended was an exception. So were all the Christian schools it associated with in athletic and academic associations. The evangelical college I attended was an exception. So was the evangelical seminary I graduated from. The evangelical parachurch organizations I worked for were exceptions. The Evangelical Press Association is an exception. The National Association of Evangelicals is an exception. Christianity Today is an exception.
The people who write to me regularly, sharing their stories of their own exclusion or expulsion from evangelical communities due to one or more of those three positions — all exceptions.
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