The Coming Evangelical Future

Leith Anderson has accurately predicted the future state of evangelicalism. It will not exist in its present form but will be stronger and more vital in the future. New voices from ethnic groups will bring freshness. New churches will minister with compassion as well as conviction. New believers will bring a deeper faithfulness to Jesus and not human ideologies. I am encouraged as I meet young pastors and church members. Evangelicalism has a bright future.

All religion is baloney. You holier than thou nut cases are the scourge of the human race.

My short definition of an evangelical is a right-wing political zealot who has highjacked Christ's name to be focused on what they've always been focused on--harping about abortion and gays and supporting Republicans who believe in torture, pre-emptive war and capital punishment and who demonize health care and education as socialist.

There is actually literature some of which of course is coming out of the UK about post-Evangelicalism, and it centers on defining a personal and communal Christianity that comes out of disaffected Evangelicals and other members of the overall post-Christian culture. They keep in mind that major shifts in communal life, practices, and beliefs is likely to meet with resistance as all change tends to do, but that it is a valuable change consistent with the gospel message. There are a lot of Churches in Europe, Canada, and Australia that have been facing this question more than a decade in advance of our own nation. They are asking is there a third way between being callous pharisaic wicked-hearted conservatives, and the sort of permissive liberalism that wholly rejects the Scriptures as playing an important role in Christian life. These are the kind of Churches where, for instance, there are gay and lesbians within the congregation on a regular basis because they are a welcomed part of the community, but where the Church maintains a Scriptural position that sex outside of marriage is not the Christian ideal, including homosexual activity. They are asking the hard question: how can we represent the love and the grace of Christ peacefully,without force, to the world around us, in such a way that humanizes and heals the least and few, those who are in need.
I think there may be much to be learned from those pioneering this ground, in these countries because our own nation is following them, and I am happy to follow some of these Churches in blazing a third path.

It appears evangelicals have been pasteurized according to this account. No mention of support for the GOP, war, antipoverty policies, antihomosexual laws, the man as the head of the family, creationism and prayer in schools, etc. Every committed mainline Christian I know takes the Bible seriously and believes in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Mormons do too, so are they now in the big tent of evangelicals?

Of course evangelicals will last. Some will moderate their most unpopular positions as they continue to interpret God's will. The most fundamentalist will become more and more isolated in their ability to affect US culture.

"'m not sure I get Mr. Anderson's point here."

Can't say I do, either. It's not like there aren't a lot of Pagans who might cuss by the name 'Jesus!' as some embodiment of random destruction or whatever. Sure doesn't make *them* Evangelicals. :)

I'm not sure I get Mr. Anderson's point here. He defines an evangelical as "someone who takes the Bible seriously and believes in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord", but then appears to exclude all Catholics from the above group when he says "Traditionally Catholic South America is fast turning into an evangelical Pentecostal continent."

But I take the bible seriously, and believe that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord, and am a Catholic. In fact, every Catholic I know would be comfortable with Mr. Anderson's requirements. Maybe he himself is a Catholic and just hasn't realized it yet.

The next time there is a tragedy--tornado in a small town, shooting at a school, apartment fire in a major city--you will be impressed by frequently declared depth of Christian faith in Jesus when facing the harshest traumas of their lives.

With a god like that, who needs the devil?

One would think that being merciful and all-powerful, such a god might prevent some of these tragedies.

Well, I've read the article referred to, and it's clear to me that the article's about the 'evangelical movement' as a bid for political and social control: that some evangelical churches are trying to distance themselves from a lot of ugly failures and political entanglements they thought would result in a more-theocratic rule seems pretty obvious right now.

I don't think the article was really making the claims you're setting up to dispute, Mr. Anderson. He's really talking about the Religious Right connections.

It's also interesting you bring this up as proof of some point:

"There is a very practical way to observe the depth of evangelical Christian faith across America. The next time there is a tragedy--tornado in a small town, shooting at a school, apartment fire in a major city--listen to what the survivors say on television."

Why assume that this sort of tragic state of affairs means someone is an 'Evangelical?'

Frankly, the 'witnessing' has become something of a convention for covering these stories, to the point I've seen reporters actually have to prompt a few times to get someone to credit Jesus for their survival of some close shave or other. Somehow I doubt that it'd get the same play if someone credited millions of years of evolved instinct.

Let's hope we don't find out, but sometimes I wonder what'd happen if I let slip a "Thank the Gods," under such circumstances.

Anyway, I don't think the local news is much of a gauge: too often the news itself has a real bias toward giving the impression, if the same thing happens to a vocal Christian as someone else, there's an implication that the misfortune is a sign of God punishing them, whereas in the the Christian's circumstances, it's clearly a sign God protected them from something much worse.

It appears on TV this way cause it *plays:* in fact, I think it's part of the very reason so many 'Evangelicals' have a worldview where they presume it's just them against some wicked world.

People turn to other faiths and other views of Christian religion and other things entirely in times of trouble... frankly, I find it a bit tacky when even these misfortunes are used to divide and/or advertise.

I think what we see is that the 'evangelical movement' has been a big factor in *polarizing* people, and people perhaps tend to become either disenchanted or radicalized at the right-wing agenda associated with it: too identified with negativity and failed policies: at the moment, a lot of them are simply trying to turn the anger and shame outward onto others, for the effects of what they demanded and pursued so ruthlessly, even glorying in their self-perceived 'unstoppability,' now trying to rewrite history by blaming 'those durn libruls' for what *they* so proudly did. Raises quite a storm in the short term, among those with short attention spans, or who just take pleasure in attacking others, ...but such tactics are ultimately hollow.

"I have talked to thousands of evangelical pastors in almost every state and rarely have I heard any of them talk about politics."

Are you sure you're talking about America? This America, the one Americans live in?

It appears your only real source of new evangelicals comes from peeling the Hispanics off of the Catholics, and the higher birth rates taking place in trailer parks. Good luck with that.