Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Monday, April 25, 2011

David Fitch: The End of Evangelicalism? 1

April 25, 2011

Many today are predicting the (even imminent) collapse of evangelicalism. Others, like Brad Wright, show that evangelicalism is flourshing, while others, like Chris Smith, show that while it may be flourishing it is not what it used to be. At work here are two questions that I want to deal with before we go another step:

What is evangelicalism? I have been, am and will stand by David Bebbington and Mark Noll. Evangelicalism is a movement in the Protestant church shaped by differing but clear emphasis on four beliefs: the centrality of the Bible, the centrality of the atoning death of Christ, the centrality of the need for personal conversion, and the centrality of an active mission to convert others and to do good works in society.

Who decides who is evangelical? No one, really. Others, mostly. There is no one who decides who gets to carry the evangelical card but there is a a general conviction on the part of others who is “in” and who is “out.” I have an opinion, and you may have an opinion, and the one with the louder voice or the bigger voice might be the most compelling but … let this be said: God does not equate “Church” with “evangelical.” But because it is a movement, and for some the movement is so important that it is nearly the same as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, it matters deeply to some.

So to you: What is an evangelical?

But what does matter is that evangelicalism is a longstanding movement, it seems to unite millions of Christians in the world, and it is contested.

David Fitch, in his new book, The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission: Towards an Evangelical Political Theology (Theopolitical Visions), thinks evangelicalism’s influence is more or less over, that it needs to reexamine itself, and that it needs to rediscover what it could be in our world. This book by David Fitch could be one of the most significant studies of evangelicalism in the current academic climate. In some ways, he is doing deconstruction from the inside out.

To begin with, David Fitch believes evangelicalism’s social, cultural and political influence have waned to the point of being a minimal cultural presence.

The theory he will explore in this book is that belief plus practice (of that belief) shapes a community’s disposition in the world, and that means he can infer back from the lack of influence and viability of evangelicalism that it’s beliefs (or its practices of those beliefs) are no longer viable.

So David Fitch is seriously questing for what can be called an evangelical political theology, but he isn’t talking about political parties — instead, he’s talking about how to be a body, a present body, a body of influence for the gospel, in our world.

He believes evangelicalism has become an empty politic, and here’s why: the four (he blends two and three above) beliefs of evangelicalism were fashioned to be a “politic” in modernity and modernity is corroding and eroding and fading. He thinks those four beliefs, framed as they are, are to our culture what “Caffeine-Free Diet Coke” is to a drink: “a drink that does not fulfill any of the concrete needs of a drink” (xxi). So, let me state how David frames the three (blended four) beliefs:

1. Inerrant Bible.
2. Decision for Christ.
3. Christian Nation.


These are “ideological banners” but really are a “semblance of something which once meant something real” (xxii).

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Recent Comments
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1.       When evangelicalism began calling for defining and affirming propositional statements about “truth” and ceased being a vibrant contrast culture in terms of *way of life,* it became another entity tolerated by a pluralistic culture. The powers that be don’t mind what propositions evangelicals fuss about among themselves, but when evangelicals live in a way that threatens (not violently) the way life is supposed to be in “the American dream” society, let’s say, then evangelicalism has once again become salt and light. Evangelicalism is now degenerating into the 21st century Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Zealots and lots and lots of Essenes hunkering down in their cultural Qumrans ’til Jesus comes back.

2.      Best line – God does not equate “church” with “evangelical”.  Nor does God equate “Christian” with “evangelical.”

3.      It seems to me that there is one more characteristic of the old evangelicalism and that is “generous orthodoxy”. Thus evangelicalism was not limited to Arminian or Calvinistic or other particular disputable understandings of scripture. Evangelicalism was not separatistic as I see many are who now call themselves evangelicals. Fundamentalism was a descriptive term rather than a movement unlike the old evangelicalism which was a movement. It is time for evangelicals in the old sense to move on and find a new descriptive term for themselves and leave the term evangelicalism to the fundamentalists.

4.      Gingoro #3 brings up some good points. I think it is interesting that the picture used is Falwell (who I don’t necessarily think of when I think of an evangelical), instead of someone like Billy Graham (“old evangelicalism”).

5.      Evangelicals make up roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of Americans, helped elect G. Bush, overwhelmingly supported McCain, and identify as Republican at around 70%. That’s probably why the media is focused on evangelicals. Evangelical’s influence on electoral politics still appears strong. Keep in mind that it’s older adults who vote and Americans are living longer than they used to.

6.      I know in this age of the internet it is tempting to think that the American church boils down to the voices we hear the most on the internet, but that is not the case. By far the largest group within evangelicalism is traditional arminians. The only large evangelical group that people can even pretend is reformed is the Southern Baptist Church and survey after survey shows that less than 1/3 of the SBC, the largest evangelical denomination, is reformed. They might not make a lot of noise in online discussions, but all those “evangelical voters” that put George W. Bush into office, they are almost all traditional, southern, arminian evangelicals. So we need to do away with the notion that the “future of evangelicalism” is going to be defined solely by what some minor groups (neo-reformed and emergent) choose to do in the next decade.

7.      You nailed it. I’m persuaded that many people equate “what I am hearing” with “what is.” Seven yrs ago the NeoReformed voice was quiet in the internet/blog world, and some of its leaders were against the focus on blogs. Then about 3-4 yrs ago they began to be a presence and now they may well be the majority of voices in the blog/internet world. But blog/internet world is a slice of the pie, and not all that big or representative. And I wish some sociologist would compare blog reality with “real” reality and tell us about it.

I would agree that the biggest chunk of evangelicalism is probably southern, though there are many in the north tool; they are softly “Cal-minian”  (a mix of Calvinistic + Armenian doctrine) in thinking that salvation is assured but strong on free will and very avoidant of classic themes like election and divine sovereignty (except in praying to God to make a different); and they are both politically and theologically conservative.

8.     I’m a bit split in what I think of this. To begin with, I don’t really believe in predictions of catastrophic failures of social entities. So, decline of Evangelicalism? Probably. End of Evangelicalism? Probably not for a very long time. But also, I grew up SBC and my family is staunchly rooted in the SBC but I know longer identify with that group. I see in my own family evidence that the SBC is becoming more and more disconnected with the world around it. And this, to me, marks the decline. People like me are leaving the Evangelical banner and fewer and fewer are going back to it because it doesn’t seem to match reality.

9.      re: What is an Evangelical, I still like John Stackhouse’s definition on the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s website – his definition is a superset of Bebbington’s (and Marsden’s). question: Does Fitch look at evangelicalism globally? My impression is that it is exploding outside of North America (growth & influence) eg. China house church movement, Evangelical Anglican’s in Africa, Pentecostalism in Latin America. Comments so far seem to be focused on the US Evangelical church. Anyways, looking forward to this series.

10.  Does anyone have any number on the number of emergent churches or persons who identify as emergent in the U.S.?

11.  I don’t have numbers. Two observations: Gibbs and Bolger did a study of major churches, and Tony Jones’s dissertation did some sociological analysis. Tony might have numbers. But my second observation is this: it’s a movement and a trend, and some good ideas about how big it is can be gleaned from readership of books (which always represents a percentage of the movement) and sales of books. But I won’t guess on numbers.

12.   Evangelism needs to change if it’s to flourish. The old hokey, twangy ways no longer go in this society. We need to be more dignified and dare I say, more educated in our approach. Also, we need to separate politics from evangelism. American Christianity took a huge hit in credibility when people like Falwell, Robertson, etc. allied themselved with politicians. We also need to embrace the changing (improving)role of women in society. We won’t get very far if we say, “Follow Jesus, but you women are easily deceived and can’t do this and can’t do that,” and so on.



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