http://www.patrolmag.com/opinion/1867/get-over-it
Chaplain Mike at the Boar's Head Tavern linked to this editorial and quoted a different section then what I am about to quote:
This definitional masturbation is frustrating for those who see many of the values typically associated with evangelicalism as worth preserving. First, it behaves as if evangelicalism were once a unified, coherent tradition to which Protestants can return. On the contrary, with its scatter-shot, authority-averse tendencies, evangelicalism has always been a concept in constant cultural flux, particularly in the democratic United States. Some evangelical denominations have kept a firmer grasp on their senses than others, but the broad sweep of American Christianity is hopelessly fractured, diluted, politicized, ideological, nationalistic, and often plain idiotic. The notion that the term and the culture it represents can be salvaged from this smoldering heap is naïve at best.
Mark Noll's The Civil War as Theological Crisis puts the baby to bed about how much theological unity evangelicals can claim they are getting back to in the United States. Suppose we say that someone is "Reformed"? Well, that does that even mean? Are we talking Reformed Anglican, Reformed Baptist, Reformed as in Presybterian (PCUSA, PCA, OPC, etc ?), Reformed as in a Pentecostal with Calvinistic tendencies? Would we be talking about a Reformed thinker who is dispensational or covenantal in thought, or would we be talking about a Reformed thinker who advocates credobaptism or paedobaptism?
Even simply within the definition "Reformed" we discover how slippery this is. I am attending a PCA church right now and liking it but I am also in a .... oh, I HAVE to use the Christianese jargon at this point ... season of transition. Ever since Driscoll picked up the Christianese of "season" I can't resist saying it just because it sounds so weird to me. While I was attending Mars Hill weekly and people asked me to describe what it was like I said, "Basically we're Baptists." Despite the protestations of not being linked to a particular denomination Reformed Baptist is arguably the best way to describe what Mars Hill is. The fact that it isn't officially a denomination doesn't mean it isn't one and the stance on infant baptism means Mars Hill CERTAINLY isn't Presbyterian or Reformed in the sense that other Reformed traditions would assent to.
In WorldNetDaily's lexicon of evangelical only Calvinists would legitimately qualify on the grounds that perserverance of the saints is considered a vital element of defining whether or not one is evangelical. So ... the entire Wesleyan movement is off the table and not evangelical, even though you could look at the mission statement of, say, a Methodist school, and see that there are Methodist congregations that identify themselves as evangelical. WND has come up with a definition of evangelical that actually excludes any ardent readers who happen to not be Calvinists. That may suggest that the political allegiance trumps any actual shared religious convictions or experience even within that wing of religious belief nominally identified as "Christendom".
As a few members of the Boar's Head Tavern have noted, is Together For the Gospel Together for the Gospel ... or is it Together for Calvinism? We can talk the game of not overplaying differences but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I know of a pastor in the area who didn't feel like picking fights about egalitarian ordination while the church was too small to afford offending candidates for sharing space who now doesn't have to worry about whether or not he offends ordained women. The battles we choose indicate the things we fear and the battles we don't choose are the ones that just aren't on the radar. Even though I like to consider myself evangelical I believe that we can be too cynical in what battles we choose to fight and not fight depending on what suits our agendas.
Now here is another segment from the editorial:
But so many twenty-somethings are not calling themselves “post-evangelical” because they know too little theology or have put too small an effort into synthesizing it with reality. They have come from the most apologetics-obsessed generation of Christians in American history, and have realized that many of their prepared answers are for questions that no one is asking. Adrift in the cultural sea, many turned to traditions and theological systems of the past, only to find those similarly unequipped to address the questions of our time. The only choice has been to begin the messy and at times overwhelming process of drafting something new.
Ah ... but, see, this is where I get skeptical. Most of the time when people draft something new they reinvent the wheel. This is why I don't blame conservative evangelicals for thinking that what isn't broken doesn't need to be fixed. How what isn't broken is APPLIED may be another matter. If these generations we're writing about are the most apologetics-obsessed generation of Christians in American history and their children are abandoning the faith in record numbers could it be that there is more to this than the notion that a new generation of evangelicals is, as Francis Schaeffer used to put it, saying "Jesus is the answer" without bothering to ask, "What is the question?"
What if the people who are leaving the faith are SEEING what Jesus is the answer to, see the question He is supposed to be the answer to, and decide that Jesus isn't really the answer to that question. Instead, the question is what people are asking to steer the conversation toward what they want, and Jesus is the answer that lets them pursue what they want. A young man wants to be in a sexual relationship and sees Christian teaching about sexuality as not only NOT the answer to his question but sees Jesus as the opposite of what he wants. A young woman who wants a sexual relationship will see Jesus not as the answer but as the obstacle to what she wants.
Does this then make these two young people idolators? Well, yeah ... but if they have been sold on a Jesus who is for "courtship", is against "dating" (because dating, etymologically, is a phrase descended from the euphemism for hiring a prostitute), and is for the father having pre-emptive control over a relationship (because that's what dad wants) ... well ... I could see THAT Jesus not being the answer to the question a young person may have about "Will I ever get laid?" People who sacrifice family and friends to that end are making sacrifices to their idol.
Yet Christians want it both ways. We want people to get married in a responsible way but we want them to hurry up and get married younger rather than older and, in some cases, to outbreed those Muslims who are going to over-run Europe in just a few generations. At the same time, if people so dread the responsibilities of marriage they marry later they are being selfish and Christians lament the "epidemic of singleness". Jesus can't be the answer to the question if the question that a generation of evangelical parents is asking is really "How can we take back the culture for Jesus?" when their children have the question, "What can I actually do with my life now that Hal Lindsey's secret rapture hasn't come for the entirety of my life?" Instead of Christ as Creator and King being the answer to your question in a way that subverts what you want for yourself and other people, Jesus is made to be the answer to your question so you get what you want.
Could it be the reason there is, as Michael Spenser has predicted, a coming evangelical collapse is because a generation of evangelical Christians has used Jesus to underwrite a litany of monumental double binds? Perhaps Jesus is being used to implement and underwrite these double binds. We should be engaged in "community" and be a blessing to the community ... but NOT if that means the "social gospel". We should aspire to raise families and impact the city for Jesus but family is an idol so thinking that having a family will make you a more whole person is idolatry even though we just told you that being countercultural is raising families in a region that isn't in favor of children. You should be married because 90 percent of people will marry and yet wanting to be married is a sign of idolatry if it distracts you from serving Jesus even though Paul pragmatically wrote that it is better to marry than to burn and also pragmatically wrote that it is better to not marry since the days are hard. Then again, if you delay marriage for reasons of not feeling ready you're not being faithful to God's design for then God's design for you is marriage.
Helping the poor should be done at an individual level and not necessarily by the church because many of the poor don't really deserve the help and won't repent of their sin even though the church may sink money into buildings without responsibly researching costs and zoning issues. We should care for the widows and orphans provided that they are faithful in their giving and tithe for a period that is not interrupted by a space as long as half a year.
Perhaps you see what I mean, here, about evangelicals using theology to underwrite what are cultural and generational double binds. All these things and concerns are valuable in themselves ... but perhaps evangelicalism has been heading for a collapse because we have used Jesus to justify the double binds we place on others.
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