Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Thinking About Being "Evangelical"
Is it possible that things happening here in the Christian blogosphere are really starting to stretch into greater discussion of all things Christian? Unlike in politics, the Christian media and thinkers have been slow to relaize the power this medium has, but I wonder if we are not seeing the first inklings of blogs impacting the larger discussion.
I think this based on this article in Christianity Today (HT: The Point), discussing the word "evangelical" it's usefulness and implications. I have blogged about this, generally in response to other's thought provoking posts, several times. See examples here and here and here. Christianity Today defines the mainstream of Christian conversation and we finally see this conversation break the surface. Way to go Godblogging!
What is interesting to me is how many ways people come at this disucssion. Many are concerned about theological purity or the level of actual zeal for evangelism that those who self-identify actually have. I worry because I think the label has been co-opted by politics and threatens to define us not by out faith, but by our politics.
Joe Carter opined sometime back that we do have to call ourselves something. Do we?
Here's the thing, when we try to concoct labels we spend enormous amounts of time, energy, and resources first defining, then defending the definition - often at the expense of that time, energy and resources being devoted to the mission itself. This is particularly wasteful when the mission is inherently intended to reach across already existing definitional boundaries.
As a scientist/engineer, I am very focused on making things happen, it is the nature of people like myself. I am far more interested, for example, in the stress-strain equations that hold up the Brooklyn Bridge, than I am the politics and business that funded it, and the personal foibles of Roebling, the guy that built it. From my persepctive the engineering makes it work, the rest is just window dressing. The other stuff was part of the effort, but in the end the politics could have gone many ways, but there is only one way to engineer the bridge.
We often see the politics of a situation consume the reality of the situation. A classic example would be the freeway system here in Southern California. There are freeways that die because politics prevented them from being completed, as just one example. Politics make other freeways a dream to traverse right up to the county line and then the politics of the next county won't spend the money and freeway turns nightmarish. The thing itself gets lost in what people think about the thing and fights over defintions and purposes and policies.
I would hate to have that happen with the fervor for Jesus Christ that originally founded the Evangelical movement. If abandoning the label in favor of the mission is not the way to maintain that fervor, what exactly is?
Related Tags: label, mission, fervor, Evangelical
I think this based on this article in Christianity Today (HT: The Point), discussing the word "evangelical" it's usefulness and implications. I have blogged about this, generally in response to other's thought provoking posts, several times. See examples here and here and here. Christianity Today defines the mainstream of Christian conversation and we finally see this conversation break the surface. Way to go Godblogging!
What is interesting to me is how many ways people come at this disucssion. Many are concerned about theological purity or the level of actual zeal for evangelism that those who self-identify actually have. I worry because I think the label has been co-opted by politics and threatens to define us not by out faith, but by our politics.
Joe Carter opined sometime back that we do have to call ourselves something. Do we?
Here's the thing, when we try to concoct labels we spend enormous amounts of time, energy, and resources first defining, then defending the definition - often at the expense of that time, energy and resources being devoted to the mission itself. This is particularly wasteful when the mission is inherently intended to reach across already existing definitional boundaries.
As a scientist/engineer, I am very focused on making things happen, it is the nature of people like myself. I am far more interested, for example, in the stress-strain equations that hold up the Brooklyn Bridge, than I am the politics and business that funded it, and the personal foibles of Roebling, the guy that built it. From my persepctive the engineering makes it work, the rest is just window dressing. The other stuff was part of the effort, but in the end the politics could have gone many ways, but there is only one way to engineer the bridge.
We often see the politics of a situation consume the reality of the situation. A classic example would be the freeway system here in Southern California. There are freeways that die because politics prevented them from being completed, as just one example. Politics make other freeways a dream to traverse right up to the county line and then the politics of the next county won't spend the money and freeway turns nightmarish. The thing itself gets lost in what people think about the thing and fights over defintions and purposes and policies.
I would hate to have that happen with the fervor for Jesus Christ that originally founded the Evangelical movement. If abandoning the label in favor of the mission is not the way to maintain that fervor, what exactly is?
Related Tags: label, mission, fervor, Evangelical
