Why Stay? Musings About Evangelicalism

 "The church is a whore, but she is my mother."
--(Probably) Not Saint Augustine.

Its an odd thing to consider, being a product of your culture. For me, to notice many a thing that I've been guilty of doing or assuming makes for interesting recollections. In noticing the sins of my past (and considering the sins of my future), I do wonder why I stay in evangelicalism. To many, this is akin to sitting on a sinking ship listening to "World Wide Suicide."

I don't really love the church. Its not an uncontroversial thing to say for anyone ten years before or after my generation. In fact, many of my generation affirm this. Its easy to list off the sins of the church as a corporate entity, so I will let you fill in the blanks yourselves.

What I think I want to distill is about a years worth of thought in the next two hundred words. Away we go.

Why stay in the church? Why not just leave, cut my losses and … do something else? I think, for one, there is history here. About 2,000 years of it. Much of it beautiful, much of it horrific. I don't affirm the idea of contrasts existing to make things beautiful, but I do tend to see value in hindsight. For example, I suffered a lot through my teen years with pornography and a budding sense of misogyny. Sitting here now, reflecting, makes it easier to see where I went wrong, but also where others could be going wrong. The experience helps, in some sense.

A second peg that keeps me here is I do want to help others, and to reform evangelicalism. I think it would be a great help to others if evangelicalism made a significant shift towards empathy and integrity. Personally, many of my friends are in evangelicalism and aren't aware of the issues of the system. Maybe a part of me wants to help reform such things.

A third peg, I suppose, is the idea of reconciliation. I don't like having enemies or people I don't like. I don't like holding grudges and I'm predisposed to hold such things close to my skin. If I could maybe remove these things, others could do it. Or, if others have done it, I could learn from them. I suppose the nature of reconciliational reciprocity is what I think I seek from the community.

A four, and by no means final, reason is that I have seen evangelicalism change. In some instances, it has been simply through conversations with friends and folks I've never met once. Having a debate with my friend Marius about women in ministry gave me hope when he challenged me, took my challenge, and changed his mind. That sort of thing gives me hope, that evangelicals can indeed change, or be flexible. I've changed my mind on many things since I started studying again.

Hopefully, this isn't an isolated incident involving just one evangelical.

Why do you stay? Or, why have you left?

--Nick

Evangelicalism, The Center and Boundaries

http://lostinthecloud.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/in-loving-memory-evangelicalism.jpg

Is the Evangelical Quadrilateral good enough?

Do Brian McLaren and Mark Driscoll both have a legitimate claim to be an "evangelical?" Of course, I would make the distinction that an evangelical can be either liberal, moderate or conservative but that is neither here nor there.

I think Roger Olson's post moves us towards a possible consensus. Roger Olson stated, "It has always seemed self-evident to me that movements cannot have boundaries. In fact, secretly, only to myself, I have long considered people who think movements can have boundaries either disingenuous or sociologically ignorant. Organizations have boundaries; movements do not. It’s self-evident. Movements have centers, not boundaries" (1).

If one looks at fundamentalism within the 1920s to the 50s, you get a clear look into the heart of remnant theology rooted in dispensationalism, coupled with the fear of the Soviet empire in the 60s and so on. Today, you have many folks within Protestantism who would prefer a smaller venue with less distinctions in term of doctrinal strife.

Or, in other words, doctrine trumps fellowship.

So, it makes sense that many conservative Christians put inerrancy up as the deciding vote on whether or not one is an evangelical. Besides the difficulty in defining inerrancy to most people's satisfaction, one is really out in a leaky lifeboat if they think the resurrection is as important as the complete historical and scientific accuracy of Scripture.

Biblicism. Conversionism. Crucicentrism. Activism. Bebbington put these out there to attempt a calm in a sea of bewildering chaos. Beyond being disputed by DA Carson among others, people make a point that doctrine is the method by which we measure one's orthodoxy, not character or sociology.

I think we've got multiple deep-rooted problems here, not the least of which is that the people who want to define the legitimacy of certain trump card doctrines all more or less believe the same thing. Therefore, evangelicalism is an exclusive or even ecclesiocentric patchwork quilt, not a big billowing tent.

 Another issue comes about when you have people who seem to fall outside the realm of "evangelical" but still desire the label. Do we honor the request for the title, redefine the title or entirely exclude the inquirer? I confess, I don't know.

Olson, "Thus, I argue that evangelicalism, like Pietism, charismatic movement, “New Age,” etc., etc. refers to a category that can only be defined in terms of prototypes that constitute a center. I would put Noll’s and Bebbington’s four hallmarks at that center and with them Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley. What did those men have in common that was not as noticeable among most of their peers in Protestant Christianity? I would say those would be biblicism, conversionism, crucicentrism and activism. And I would add to that a tendency strongly to defend the Great Tradition of Christian orthodoxy (broadly defined). Yes, to be sure, there were others who displayed the same characteristics, but they especially stand out as the prototypes of the Great Awakenings of the eighteenth century that gave birth to the modern evangelical movement" (1).

I will confess that I think evangelicalism is a big tent constituency, and I think one can very easily be an evangelical if they hold to the general terms outlined above.  The issues these days is more or less a redefinition of the terms.

The question is, do we allow it or fight it? I have no idea.

--Nick

Jars of Clay and Outgrowing Evangelicalism

Enns:

In July, Dan Haseltine of Jars of Clay, posted on his website his experience of being a Christian, a  musician, and why he finds it hard–maybe more than just “hard”–to do that within the world of evangelicalism.

The band’s in a studio trying to finish their latest record–music is down, lyrics are getting polished–and Haseltine has this nagging thought, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before:

What he really wants to say probably won’t be accepted by the evangelical community because his faith experience is moving him beyond mainstream evangelical views. Yet, those outside of the evangelical mainstream, who might actually like what his band is doing, don’t know who they are because of their long connection with the evangelical subculture. This leaves him in a “middle space,” as he calls it, a socio-religious no-man’s land.

Haseltine isn’t worried about what his evangelical audience might think. In fact, he’s relieved not to feel he has to bend his spirit to conform to an ideal he does not embrace. But he’s not angry. He’s just plain tired.

I am pretty weary from years of pretending to be more of something than I am.  I am tired of carrying evangelical expectations on my shoulders.  I have never been so sure of my faith that I was able to find a true home in the church communities where we played most of our shows.  Our particular style of writing and the perspective that we have written from has not been an easy fit into an artistic community that has such a massive agenda and only a single idea of how that agenda gets accomplished.  I don’t fit there.  I may have at one point.  I did grow up as a youth group kid wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Jesus on it.  I did drive a car with a “Christian” bumper sticker on it.  And at one point, I was sure of who God was, and how God operated.  But I am not that way now.  And so it is impossible to write from that old version of myself. I am in the middle space.

Honestly, this makes me wonder what is going on behind the scenes within evangelicalism. I've heard these types of stories before, with Derek Webb being a prime example.

For the rest, enjoy it here.

--Nick