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Evangelicalism: Reframing a Fragmented Movement

???????????????????lI hear and read of the increasing fragmentation of the Evangelical movement. Perhaps it has something to do with the passing of the cultural influence of Dr. James Dobson as an overarching force who speaks for the movement. Perhaps it has something to do with the increase in diversity politically and culturally within Evangelicalism. There may be many reasons for such fragmentation.

Fragmentation is bound to happen from time to time given that we don’t have a papal figure or common liturgy or universally binding doctrinal statement that unites Evangelicals. All too often, we tend to depend on charismatic leaders as uniting forces. Such figures and their charisma come and go, and so the movement is bound to go through ups and downs and experience fragmentation. Even those traditions that have strong and longstanding institutional and organizational structures in place experience significant challenges from time to time. So, for all the differences from them, we Evangelicals are not alone.

Personally, I find David Bebbington’s quadrilateral a significant framework for reframing the Evangelical movement during times of upheaval. I believe the historic values and intuitions that Bebbington articulates and that have been embraced by Evangelicals in various contexts will bring the movement back in service to the entire church. The National Association of Evangelicals sets forth Bebbington’s key distinctives for the movement:

  • Conversionism: the belief that lives need to be transformed through a “born-again” experience and a lifelong process of following Jesus.
  • Activism: the expression and demonstration of the gospel in missionary and social reform efforts
  • Biblicism: a high regard for and obedience to the Bible as the ultimate authority
  • Crucicentrism: a stress on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross as making possible the redemption of humanity.

While these distinctives or characteristics are not exhaustive, they are suggestive and constructive, serving as a sound basis for ongoing development and engagement.

Where might we go from here in relation to Bebbington’s quadrilateral? No doubt in many directions. Two directions stand out to me. As we live increasingly in a multi-faith world, it is important for Evangelicals to cultivate a form of centrism that helps us engage intra-faith (within the Christian commonwealth) concerns in a manner where our movement’s emphases noted by Bebbington serve the entire church in its mission. I for one see the Reformation tradition not as the last word, but as a reforming movement for renewal of the entire church as we are reformed in obedience to the Word (Biblicism). Moreover, as we serve to reenergize and help refocus the mission of the entire church in view of our Evangelical distinctives, we can also collaborate with the church at large to engage the interfaith community in centered terms. Of course, Conversionism is a value that Evangelicals should bring to bear on all of our public concerns, but to do so in a way that allows us to enter into conversations with those of other religions and spiritual paths that are not controlling but engage them in ways that affirm the common good. Being centered in Christ in one’s engagement of the religious other should not lead to coercive evangelism, but constructive interaction that cultivates understanding and respect, while accounting for various distinctives, including the Christian call to take with the utmost seriousness the life-altering claims of Christ that leads to compassion and self-sacrifical neighborliness in view of our firm hope in Christ and his redmpetion of humanity (Crucicentrism). Moreover, and in keeping with what has been stated to this point, I believe Bebbington’s emphasis on Activism should lead Evangelicals today to engage not by way of moral uplift or from positions of power, as Evangelicals relate to the poor, but to proceed from a vantage point of poverty of spirit and from the margins as centered in Christ. It also requires that we move beyond the cultural captivity of Western structures of cultural dominance to enter fully into a holistic Christianity made up of diverse ethnic leaders, male and female, in service to Christ.

This piece is cross-posted at Patheos and The Christian Post. Comments made here are not monitored. To join the conversation, please comment on this post at Patheos.

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Multi-Faith Discourse: Beyond Lampoon Tract Propaganda

130622 P Multi-Faith Discourse 1It is important for Christians to know who they are in their faith to enter meaningfully into conversations with those of other religions. It wasn’t an Evangelical Christian from whom I first heard these words, but a professor at a Mainline Protestant liberal seminary, who said his students were not sure how to proceed in conversations with those of other faiths because they were not sure of their own tradition, including such doctrines as Christology. As a result, he said they were at a loss in pursuing such conversations in ways that would prove significant as encounters with those in other religions.

Of course, it is also important to learn well the traditions of those with whom one enters into conversation. The Apostle Paul appears to have been well-versed in Pagan thought, as reflected on Mars Hill (See my article on this subject titled Idol Makers). It wasn’t simply Evangelicals from whom I heard these words, but also from a leading Pagan figure, Jason Pitzl-Waters, who spoke in my world religions class this past Thursday. Jason is the moderator of the blog, The Wild Hunt: A Modern Pagan Perspective (For a discussion of Paganism, see my treatment of the subject and the ensuing comments on the topic at Idol Makers). Jason has spoken two years running in my world religions class (Here is what he wrote last year concerning his rationale for speaking in the class). Jason knows who he is and does not take jabs at us or frame us in view of anti-Christian propaganda. Moreover, Jason does not have hang-ups concerning Christianity; he did not grow up with them either. All this makes it possible for him to engage us well and for us to enter into meaningful conversations with him.

Jason doesn’t expect Christians to believe Pagans are on the right path, but to respect Pagans enough to understand them. He encouraged us Evangelical Christians to be like the Apostle Paul, who thought the Pagans of his day were in error and believed they should convert, but still understood them. Jason encouraged us to embrace a Pauline attitude and said that it is okay to want to try and convert Pagans since that is an Evangelical Christian value. Still, he argued that it is not right to approach Pagans in propaganda-like terms (such as cartoon gospel tract characters that distort and sensationalize real Pagans), but rather in thoughtful terms like Paul did in his nuanced interaction with the Pagans on Mars Hill in Acts 17.

Last year there was a breakthrough in my class when my students realized that Mike Warnke’s Satan Seller does not represent Paganism. They were also taken aback when Jason exhorted us: “If you want to lead me to Christ, become my friends.” It is unlikely that Jason will ever convert; regardless, I would hope Evangelical Christians like myself would want to be his friends, real friends and not just pragmatically so that friendship becomes merely the means to the end of evangelism and conversion. Otherwise, our relational talk is only a propaganda ploy and a front for ulterior motives. As Jason said, “All too often, relationships are abandoned in favor of the sell.”

Jason actually wants to encourage Evangelical Christians to develop a “deeper” missional stance. “Why is that?” I asked him. He responded by saying that he wants to help Christians develop a deeper missional attitude, which is centered in honesty and unfiltered knowledge (not perspectives tainted by inaccuracies and distortions) of the religions with which they interact. He wants us to try and convert the real him rather than a paper cut-out version, which is a caricature. He wants us to see him clearly. If we see him/them that way, then we can have honest discussions and live together in a harmonious manner. If we don’t engage openly with understanding, it leads to even greater distortions. We don’t have to agree about ultimate reality to live harmoniously, but we do need to respect one another for who we are, not discount one another for what we are not. This is a valuable sentiment, and one that I not only share with Jason, but also with my colleague John Morehead at the Evangelical Chapter of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy. We at the FRD advocate understanding and a discussion of our differences through religious diplomacy rather than a downplaying of differences found frequently in interfaith work.

As Jason reminded us, everyone of us knows how uncomfortable it is when we are misunderstood. Jason does not want to see Christianity defined by misguided extremists. All he asks in return is that we don’t approach Pagans as diabolical cartoon characters. The more thoughtful we are the less likely will it be possible for others to make us the brunt of their own cartoon jokes and the inspiration for their own horror stories.130622 P Multi-Faith Discourse 2

Going further, the more secure in Christ we Christians are the less we need to devalue others from different paths: rather than devaluing them, we should lift up Christ who does not devalue them either but loves them and knows them for who they are, not what we would reduce them to be. By valuing him, we learn to value them in all their radical difference from us; by devaluing them, we end up devaluing him who is radically different from all of us.

This piece is cross-posted at Patheos and The Christian Post. Comments made here are not monitored. To join the conversation, please comment on this post at Patheos.

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Jesus Is No Midwife

Very newborn baby is still wetI am thankful for the midwives who helped us bring our children into the world. They didn’t create our kids or magically pull them out of thin air. They coached my wife and me as my wife took deep breaths and pushed them into the world while I held my breath, praying to Jesus all the way.

So many people today look at Jesus as a midwife, not God incarnate. Even those who view him as an incarnation don’t view him as the one and only incarnation of God. None of this is new. Søren Kierkegaard observed this trend in his own day. Kierkegaard spoke of this trend as “the Socratic view,” which he witnessed in aspects of Hegelian thought. On this account, Jesus is a midwife, like Socrates, helping humanity bring forth what has always been there within it, albeit implicitly, namely, its own participation in the divine nature. I shared Kierkegaard’s argument on this subject today in my theology class. You should have seen the looks on people’s faces, as they were giving birth to thought.

Kierkegaard says of “the Socratic view” that “Every human being is himself the midpoint, and the whole world focuses only on him because his self-knowledge is God-knowledge.”[1] From this Socratic perspective, as Kierkegaard reflects upon it, knowledge of the eternal is latent within humanity, needing to be awakened from its dormant state. On the Platonic view, reflected in Socrates, eternal truth lies within the human self, whose soul is eternal and which was eternally cognizant of the eternal forms prior to (but not since) birth.

In contrast to this perspective, Kierkegaard claims that we must look beyond ourselves for truth, for within ourselves we will only discover “untruth,” “for the learner is indeed untruth.”[2]  In contrast to the midwife who serves as an occasion for the awakening of truth or really untruth within ourselves, and not truth itself, Kierkegaard writes of the teacher who is not simply a teacher, but who is “the god himself.”[3] This teacher reveals truth and provides the basis for understanding, transforming the student in the process. The teacher—Jesus—is for Kierkegaard “savior,” “deliverer,” “reconciler,” “judge.”[4] This Jesus is the sole wisdom of God, but foolishness to the Greeks and their descendants. As much as I like midwives, Jesus is no midwife. The biblical Jesus is the Savior of the world.

This piece is cross-posted at Patheos and The Christian Post. Comments made here are not monitored. To join the conversation, please comment on this post at Patheos.

[1]Søren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 11.

[2]Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, p. 14.

[3]Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, p. 15.

[4]Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, pp. 17-18.

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A Father’s Day Reflection: The Grand Prize of Simplicity

iStock_000005613171_ExtraSmallI remember Dr. John M. Perkins once saying, “There’s no such thing as a sophisticated Christian.” I have never forgotten those words. Dr. Perkins wasn’t saying that people should be simplistic or unskilled in their work. What I think he was saying is that people should be simple and pure in their devotion to Christ and other people.

My father was a simple man. In contrast, I grew up wanting to be sophisticated, and I wished my dad were that as well. How I longed to be marked by near-omniscience and hailed as a sage by my peers! While I have never received such accolades, one person was convinced early on that my father was one of the brightest men who ever lived: one of my nieces once boasted as a child to those at school that her grandfather (my dad) knew so many languages. She had witnessed as a little girl how he would strike up conversations with people from different countries. This impressed her. But she didn’t seem to know at that time that Dad knew only a few words in each of those languages, and that he was out of his depths once they responded. It gave my dad great joy to speak a few words of Japanese or Polish, for example, and watch Japanese and Polish people’s faces light up when they heard him speak to them. My dad had a way with a few simple words of greeting and with making people’s days brighter wherever he went.

On Father’s Day, I am thankful for Dad’s profound relational simplicity: he loved people, really loved them. As I grow older, I hope to be more and more like my late dad—not fixated with being sophisticated, but relationally pure and simple.

This piece is cross-posted at Patheos and The Christian Post. Comments made here are not monitored. To join the conversation, please comment on this post at Patheos.

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If You Can’t Run with Men, How Will You Run with Horses?

Four sorrel stallion gallopI was going through a very difficult time in ministry and was facing some overt persecution. In sharing some of my angst with one of my closest friends and ministry partners, he referred me to Jeremiah’s lament recorded in Jeremiah 12 and God’s response recorded in verse 5:  “If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses?” Jeremiah had gone through an intense time of suffering and persecution on account of bearing witness to God’s Word in calling the people of Jerusalem and Judah to repentance. God responded by saying that harsher battles awaited Jeremiah. I believe God desired for his servant Jeremiah to view his present persecution as testing ground for greater spiritual warfare which was to come.

I don’t know if Jeremiah got frustrated with God for challenging him in this way. All I can say is that my friend often frustrated me when he lovingly challenged me to have greater confidence in God in the midst of my sufferings in and for the faith. The problem was not with my friend, but with my thick head and cold heart. For whatever reason, though, this time his words broke through and made total sense and led me to trust God in the midst of my very painful circumstances. My friend encouraged me to see my own sufferings as preparation for future challenges in taking on bigger prophetic assignments in response to God’s leading, if I would respond in faith and trust in the midst of my suffering in the present. While I may never experience the kind of persecution that Jeremiah faced for obeying and sharing God’s Word, I can have confidence that God will meet me in my hour of need.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a modern day prophetic voice who suffered greatly for calling a nation and church to repentance for its sins associated with racism. At a time of unreal suffering, King cried out to God. God comforted King and gave him the supernatural courage to go on, assuring him that he would never leave or forsake him, as he did God’s will (Listen here). As a result, King did not simply run with men; he ran with horses.

Most likely you and I will never experience the kind of suffering that Jeremiah and King did, but we can experience the mercies of God who will strengthen us to meet any challenge he places before us. Don’t settle for running simply with men. Run with horses.

This piece is cross-posted at Patheos and The Christian Post. Comments made here are not monitored. To join the conversation, please comment on this post at Patheos.