Tag: Evangelicals

Categories
Church Gospel Society Theology

Evangelical: What’s in a name?


There is a growing disdain for the term ‘evangelical’. This is not merely because evangelical is a pejorative term used by non-Christians. Nor is it merely because there are people who used to identify as evangelicals, but now call themselves exangelicals. But the term ‘evangelical’ has become associated with a political lobby group that is viewed as supporting the Trump presidency, which support is seen as unethical. 

The problem with the label ‘evangelical’ is that it’s pretty elastic depending on who is doing the stretching. On the one hand, there is the scholarly study of evangelicals which trace them back to the Enlightenment (Bebbington), or beyond (Haykin and Stewart). On the other hand, ‘evangelical’ has come to be defined in modern journalism as anyone who is non- Catholic and non-mainline Protestant. Even this latter elasticity can be stretched further to include evangelical Catholics and evangelical renewal movements in liberal mainline denominations. 

So what do we do with this elastic label? Some are ceasing to call themselves evangelical. Others are at least questioning what it means to be self-identified by the label. What is an evangelical to do? Let me offer three ways that over-stretched evangelicals can recover their integrity. 

Pick Theology over Sociology

Nobody would care if evangelicals had no social influence. But in the US evangelicals still have a large, if waning voice in society. So it is tempting to adopt a sociological approach to being an evangelical. This may mean that following social practices but doesn’t require you to confess anything definitive regarding theology. 

Picking theology over sociology is the better move. ‘Prosperity Gospel’preachers have false understandings of the doctrine of salvation, so their ‘gospel’ is not the same as the historic Christian gospel. Therefore, on a theological basis, prosperity gospel preachers are not “evangelicals”, even if the media mislabels them as such. 

Picking theology over sociology works in a different way as well. For those with a distaste for the American (and therefore McDonaldized) evangelical sub-culture, they may be tempted to jettison the evangelical label. Their distaste for middle-America Jesus culture may make them want to be affiliated somewhere else. 

But this is where high church Presbyterians, Anglicans, or others are in danger of denying their brothers and sisters who believe the essential bulk of what they confess. As well, they can deny their own history, or at least be selective about it. For example, the catholicity of Scottish Presbyterians like Chalmers, M’Cheyne and the Bonar brothers was matched with the mission-sending efforts of Calvinistic Baptists, William Carey and Andrew Fuller. The history of revived Calvinism saw the advance of evangelicals from Anglican, Presbyterian and Baptist denominations

Pick the Rabble Outside the Camp

The tough part about belonging to a local church or to a denomination or movement is feeling the crushing reality that your crowd is populated with fools, idiots and goofballs. Such associations are not great for winning friends and influencing people. In fact, the wisdom of today says that you should drop anyone who isn’t advancing you and your interests. 

But when you start pointing fingers at the folly of others it’s easy to have the fingers pointing back at you. Being associated with true-believing evangelicals means that you are in the company of the foolish, among whom you likely are chief. In fact, God “chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise” (1 Cor 1:27). 

So we have to be careful lest we disdain the not-yet sanctified fools who we will spend eternity with. Even in this life, we choose to metaphorically leave the inner ring (CS Lewis) and suffer outside the camp (Heb 13:13). It is in this refuse heap (Ex 29:14) that all of the fools for Christ’s sake congregate. Believers are saved by faith alone, yet such a faith that never remains alone. Therefore we can confidently speak of right doctrine and right practice as indicators for who is suffering outside the camp with Jesus. 

Choosing to Give Grace to Evangelical Folly

When Christians can cherish biblical truths that have been confessed through the ages, they can have the confidence to discuss and debate with each other about the issues that Christians have always been less clear about. This means we have to do something like a theological triage (Mohler), but it means more. It also means that as evangelicals get caught up in temporary manias (from Napoleon as Antichrist, to pro-Trump/never-Trump), we need to extend each other the grace— the undeserved favour, that will esteem the important confessions of faith which we know others possess, while lovingly critiquing their errors as we see them, and welcoming their watchfulness over our own. 

So should we abandon the label ‘evangelical’? I don’t think so. It’s a good term when it is well defined. As we strive for that definition in each generation, we have the opportunity to remember that there are many people going to heaven with whom we disagree. We also know that there are many people who think they are going to heaven, whose gospel is not sufficient to save them. It is for these confused people we must strive to bring true gospel clarity. 

photocredit

unsplash-logoTyler Callahan

 

Categories
Clint Society Spiritual Growth

Are Distracted Evangelicals In Danger of Losing Heaven?

Losing Heaven
Photo by Edwin Andrade on Unsplash


Evangelicals are getting so distracted with political and cultural positioning that they are in danger of losing some important things. Nowadays, I fear that distracted evangelicals are in danger of losing heaven. 

When you are distracted and rushing around you can easily forget things. How many times have you rushed to get out the door to go somewhere and you get into the car only to find that you forgot your keys? Maybe that’s just what happens to me, but you get my point. When you’re distracted you forget things.

Distracted From Distraction By Distraction

When we’re busy in this way we are, as TS Eliot put it,  “distracted from distraction by distraction”. Evangelicals today are in a mad rush, fueled by the high-combustibility of Twitter, yet they don’t really know where they’re going or what they’re doing. Some evangelicals are desperate to position themselves in a friendly posture to the sexual revolution. Other evangelicals want to distance themselves from any taint of the culture, and especially from the compromising evangelicals on the other side of the issues. 

How Can We Be So Distracted?

Pause for a moment and wonder how a people who confess Jesus rose from the dead can fuss about politics so much? How can those who confess that their eternal destiny is secured, resident in union with the ascended Christ in heaven, worry so much about cultural acceptance in a world that is not their home?

For all of the crusades and campaigns, whether for social justice, or against cultural Marxism, or for gay Christian inclusivity, or against the sexual revolution— whatever the campaign may be, you will find almost no talk of heaven. 

The Quantitative Case for the Loss of Heaven

Now all sides might cry out that they believe in heaven. But the point I’m making is a quantitative one. Take all of the articles, sermons, blog posts, tweets and books written about the current controversies that are dividing evangelicalism. Compile all of them and assign them a percentage in comparison to all of the total evangelical writings offered. Then calculate the percentage of evangelical discussions about heaven.  I’m sure that the percentage of words about heaven would be dreadfully low. 

A further objection might be that there is a whole swath of ‘heaven tourism’ out there. Many books and films in this genre occupy the evangelical imagination. This sadly is true. But if you were to take the fraudulent claims of those ‘there and back’ books, there would be little talk of heaven left. 

The Drift Toward Pharisees and Sadduccees

Without a keen focus on heaven, we will tend to drift into the two major camps of Judaism at the time of Jesus. We will be the political action committee populated by resurrection-denying Sadducees. Or we will be tribalistic Pharisees advertising their identity by who they shun.  So just as the Pharisees and Sadducees fought one another they both missed the Messiah and the inbreaking of the kingdom of God, as the guarantor of heaven.

As a friend pointed out to me, the manner in which the debates are carried out by evangelicals is very worldly. I think so. It is very ‘this-worldly’. And the drift toward either the Pharisee or Sadducee approach is not oriented to heaven, but to this world. This worldly drift can reveal a similar viewpoint as the Sanhedrin had about Jesus. John records it:

“If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation”

(John 11:48).

What is Lost

When evangelicals don’t have a desire for heaven, their over-realized eschatology turns into a desperate powerplay for social positioning. What is lost is the positive hope of the gospel.

  • Without heaven there is no declaration, “there is no condemnation” (Rom 8:1).
  • Without heaven, there is no “well done good and faithful servant” (Matt 25:23).
  • Without heaven, there is no “behold I am coming soon” (Rev 22:12). 

Gaining Heaven

Heaven puts everything in perspective. It raises the stakes about the gospel and life and death. The beatific vision and all our longings for heaven will relativize our debates. Isn’t it time we got back to considering what the writer to the Hebrews wrote when he said:

“For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.”

Hebrews 9:24

Maybe if we were more heavenly minded we would be far more earthly good? Let’s pray to that end and lift up our eyes to heaven.

Categories
Canada Clint Gospel Ministry

How Do We Define a Canadian Evangelical?

When John Stott and Martyn Lloyd-Jones famously separated over the nature of associations, at issue was the question of ‘Who is a Christian?’ or even ‘What is an Evangelical?’

Now names and debates from the 20th century may be already forgotten in today’s media glut. But the questions remain with us, just as they have always been since the days of Jesus among the Pharisees to the fundamentalist-modernist controversies.

Doctrinal or Sociological?

In Canada, we must ask whether our Evangelicalism is doctrinal or sociological. Put another way, are Evangelicals defined by what they believe or who they associate with?

I was reminded of this belief versus belonging contrast when a new member of my church recently arrived from the Middle East made the comment about how being an Evangelical in Canada is quickly associated with being an American Republican. The term ‘Evangelical’ is now defined as a sociological category, not a doctrinal one.

Well of course we can expect such misundertandings outside the church. We need to remember that from the early days in Antioch, the disciples were called “Christians” (Acts 11:26), and it wasn’t a compliment.

But what about inside the church? How should we be defining ourselves? In Canada, there has often been too little thought about these defining questions. In what follows I will argue that Canadian Evangelicals need to return to a clear doctrinal basis, not mere sociological connections.  

What Do Evangelicals Believe?

At bottom, we need to ask what are the cardinal truths that define an Evangelical. One of the basic ones is a belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. If you don’t confess the inerrancy of Scripture, then you’re not an Evangelical. You might call yourself something else, but your not an Evangelical. Inerrancy is a well worn doctrinal position with detailed ecumenical statements clarifying its definition. If a pastor doesn’t confess inerrancy, he isn’t an Evangelical.

To some this seems obvious. But in Canada, not everyone thinks that way. There are many churches with pastors, elder boards, and denominational committees that view themselves as Evangelicals in a sociological way, but they don’t believe key tenets of what Evangelicals believe.

Doctrine Gives Clarity

I have spoken with pastors from various historically Evangelical denominations and they tend to say something similar. They feel their denominations don’t want to talk about doctrine. Or at least they don’t want to debate doctrine by doing hard work in exegesis, determining what is very clear, less clear and unclear in a text. Denominations have embraced the adage that ‘doctrine divides’. And they are committed to maintain the social cohesion of their institutions, even if it means dropping the doctrinal reason for their existence.

So at general assemblies, pursuit of doctrinal clarification is often met with impassioned pleas for unity and accomodation. Those desiring to discuss doctrine are then viewed prejoratively as doctrinaire.

But doctrine gives clarity. By applying time tested principles to the Scriptures, there is a greater ability to do theological triage. That’s how Albert Mohler put it. He said:

A discipline of theological triage would require Christians to determine a scale of theological urgency that would correspond to the medical world’s framework for medical priority.

By identifying doctrinal definitions a lot of confusing things would be made clearer.

The Honesty Problem

A problem comes when those merely sociological Evangelicals aren’t honest. It’s when they don’t come right out and announce to everyone that they do not believe what Evangelicals confess. They might like being an Evangelical and know lots of Evangelicals and read Evangelical books, but they actually don’t believe what Evangelicals believe. It’s double-talk and phony virtue signalling.

I always have to wonder why it is that people who refuse to confess inerrancy or penal substitutionary atonement still want to hang with those who do?  Are Evangelicals that cool? Certainly not me or the ones I know.

Maybe it’s my suspicion of human nature, but I honestly think that many people know that Evangelicalism is where the action is. In the Evangelical movement, you have more money, more book publishing, more media, more youth and more energy. If non-Evangelicals choose to be consistent they have to join the liberal mainline denominations. Once they cross that threshold, they give up the benefits of the Evangelical movement. Rather it can be quite lucrative to stay in the Evangelical camp while denying what it stands for. A person can adopt a sort of ‘lone prophet chic’. There is one blogger with massive evangelical readership who is clearly non-evangelical in every way. But if she went clearly into the liberal mainline, she’d lose the crowd. Yet she can only truly come back to Evangelical faith by being awakened to repentance for her unbelief and false belief.

The Fact of False Teaching

So Canadian Evangelicals, and especially Reformed Evangelicals (like TGCCanada), ought to be happy about clarifying doctrine, with appropriate levels of priority and triage.

Should we despise the non-evangelical for their false beliefs? No. We must continue to be precise and winsome in our loving presentation of the gospel to them.

What about non-evangelical ‘church leaders’? Do they get honored because they are in church leadership?  My view is that they should be recognized as one of the ‘helping professions’ like doctors or nurses, or even a firefighter or policeman. A Roman Catholic priest may be kind and helpful to someone in a physical or mental way. The United Church minister may do good things in the community.

But a Roman Catholic priest or a non-evangelical pastor is also a false teacher, viewed in doctrinal terms. They may be sincere and utterly convinced of their beliefs, but they are sincerely wrong, offending God by their teaching, and deceiving the people in their pews.

It can seem overly dramatic to call someone a false teacher. Evangelicals have been used to thinking that every Protestant who is not in a mainline liberal denomination is an Evangelical. Often it has been only the obscurantist with a poor skill in theological triage who has labelled people as false teachers within this sociological group. Yet times change.

Faithful Triage

It illustrates the state of Canadian Evangelicalism that a very broad confession such as TGC is possibly viewed as doctrinaire and obscurantist. Still we cannot weaken our resolve to do faithful triage, and identify false teaching. We must be more concerned with the eternal suffering of lost, decieved souls, than the temporary sufferings of disdain or dismissal by gatekeepers of the ‘used to be evangelical’ crowd.

Let us ask ourselves afresh, “What is an Evangelical?” That simple question could bring great clarity to the Canadian Christian scene. The answer will separate the doctrinal from the sociological. Such an answer would be no less than a clarifying answer to prayer.