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 from 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

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Evangelicalism in 2003 - A Historical Framework


Evangelical leaders that have come to the fore in the '90s ä have a greater political expertise. They have more friends in power. They're more experienced äthey have become political as well as religious in their public activity.Dr. Noll is a historian and professor of Christian thought at Wheaton College in Illinois, a leading evangelical liberal arts institution. He also is the author of America's God, a history of American Protestant Christianity. In this interview, he offers a summary of American evangelical history beginning with a definition of the word "evangelical." He talks about why evangelicals became more politically engaged in the 1960s and 1970s and how its leadership changed over the following decades: "They have more friends in power [now]. They're more experienced and working for different issues. They have become political, as well as religious, in their public activity." Noll also talks about the many layers of differences between the African-American evangelical community and the white evangelical community and he defines the type of evangelical George W. Bush represents. This interview was conducted on Dec. 10, 2003.

How would you define the word "evangelical?"

"Evangelical" designates both a trait of churches, religious practices, networks. It designates a certain series of convictions or actions, practices. The beginning of the modern movement and its American phase is in the mid-18th century, with revivals in the British Isles, North America, the West Indies. Jonathan Edwards, John and Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield are key beginning figures. From those movements have descended a wide array of religious organizations, churches and voluntary groups, and they are the evangelical movement.

But there are also a series of characteristics and designations, beliefs and practices -- of which four have been designated by the British historian, David Bebbington, and provide a very good summary designation of what evangelicals do and believe.

His four characteristics are: (1) a very strong belief in the Bible as the primary religious authority; (2) a commitment to the practice of conversion, so that people need to be changed in a Christian direction as a basis for participation in the life of God; (3) activism, especially a willingness to tell other people about the message of salvation in Jesus Christ; (4) a special assessment of the work of Christ on the cross - [that the] death and resurrection of Christ is the heart of the Christian faith.

These four characteristics do work quite well to designate a broad family of religious interest.


Are there certain denominations that fit underneath this, and others that don't?

Evangelical is a slippery word, because it can be used to designate certain religious groups or denominations. But then it also can be used to transcend denomination. So there would be in the United States evangelical Presbyterians, evangelical Episcopalians, evangelical Lutherans.

But there would also be lots of individual congregations that would be evangelical in some general sense. The Southern Baptist Convention, which is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, would certainly be evangelical. Although because it is its own thing, and it's so big in the southeastern part of the country and large in other parts of the country, many Southern Baptists do not use the word "evangelical" for themselves, though everyone outside knows that they are.

So the word is plastic. The concept is not precise. Evangelical movements have been identified and identifiable. Evangelicals recognize each other, often by how they sing hymns, and what hymns. But it's not a hard and fast designation.

The word "evangelical" does designate a limited range of beliefs and practices. But it's not a word like Baptist or Presbyterian or Roman Catholic, because its designation is for a certain characteristic way of being religious.

Evangelicals tend to operate against tradition, but there are some traditional evangelicals. Evangelicals historically have been opposed to the Roman Catholic Church. Today, there are Roman Catholics who call themselves evangelicals. So the word is flexible, but it does have a core of meanings that have been associated with it.


The evangelicals that we talked to, they're mostly Republican. But this hasn't always been the case, right?

Historically, from shortly after the Civil War into the 1950s and 1960s, most people who were evangelicals shared the political viewpoints of their region. So it's probably the case that the individuals that sociologists, historians, would now call evangelicals were predominantly Democratic into the 1960s, because so many of them were in the South, and so much of the South was Democratic.

In the last 40 years, that situation has changed, because of political alterations that have taken place in the South. The movement of whites in general to the Republican Party in the South has included the movement also of white evangelicals to the Republican Party.

Northern evangelicals always tended to be more Republican than Democratic, but that is because they were part of the Northern white Protestant establishment. That was just as true for mainline Presbyterians and Lutherans as it was for Baptists and members of independent congregations.


Then there are also the changes in terms of evangelicals becoming more engaged politically. For example, I am thinking of the 1970s, when Roe v. Wade was passed....

Important things happened from the 1960s and 1970s. One was a process by which evangelicals became more actively involved in political life in general. For that to happen, it took national Supreme Court decisions having to do, I think, primarily with school prayer and abortion, that represented an affront to many evangelicals, North and South, represented what was seen by many as an illegitimate extension of government power.

So there was a process by which formerly quiet evangelicals became more active politically. The Republican campaign of Pat Robertson in 1988 was not particularly successful politically. But it did succeed in energizing particularly the Pentecostal and Charismatic parts of the evangelical world that were characterized by a kind of pietistic indifference to political life.

But along also with increased involvement was a change in partisanship. The political scientist whom you've talked to can explain that in great detail.

But what seems to have taken place is that, as the Republican Party came to be seen as the party with a moral agenda, it attracted middle class, lower-middle class white Southerners, and added those evangelicals to the Northern evangelicals who had been primarily Republican all along.


So what you are saying is that, along the way, there were a couple of decisions by the Supreme Court that ignited evangelicals to become politically active, and in doing so, they started to relate more to the Republican Party -- a party which also was taking on a more moral platform?

Yes. Two things happened from the 1960s. One was a fairly widespread evangelical resentment at the extension of federal power via the courts, particularly with the school prayer decision and the Roe v. Wade abortion decision.

Resentment or nervousness about extending government power goes back to the 1930s and 1940s. But these particular cases in the 1960s and 1970s sparked political mobilization of a sort that had not been present before.

Along with a more general interest and involvement in political life came then this shift of partisanship. Middle-class and lower-middle class, largely white evangelicals, often Southern, who had been instinctively Democratic, began to be instinctively Republican, as the Republican Party … came to be seen as the party of family values or traditional values.


Tell me what "traditional family values" means to an evangelical.

Most white evangelicals, North and South, would probably see family values as related to influence in the local schools, as preference given to traditional families, one man, one wife married. Traditional values would include protection for children. Traditional values would include protection for life.

I think there probably are strong family elements in most evangelicals' opposition, for example, to abortion on demand.


Over the past 30-40 years, in what ways has this leadership changed or evolved?

Evangelicals have no given leadership. There is no pope in the evangelical world. But over time, different individuals do come to the fore as recognized leaders -- sometimes recognized within evangelical groups, sometimes recognized by the outside.

One of the really important developments after World War II was that Billy Graham and his associates came to be recognized leaders inside the evangelical world, and as spokespeople for evangelicals on the outside.

Billy Graham and his circle were always interested in politics, but in a low-key way that was pretty quiet, pretty much oriented toward behind-the-scenes influence. That generation of evangelical leaders eventually gave way in the 1970s and 1980s to a more assertive, a more aggressive, a more abrasive leadership. That was energized by the moral struggles precipitated by the Supreme Court decisions, but by other matters as well.

So Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and eventually Dr. James Dobson were not so much concerned about keeping together the coalitions that the Graham people had worked on, but were concerned about standing up for what they thought was important in American life and what was threatened.

A good question could now be raised whether there might be a shift of generations taking place again, with leaders like Bill Hybels and other significant local ministers of the mega-churches often, but of other significant churches who do have a more peaceful demeanor, but who may be just as adept politically as some of those from earlier generations.


Would you then separate the fundamentalists from the evangelicals in the leadership of the movement over recent decades?

Well, sometimes people … want to make a strong distinction between the word "evangelical" and the word "fundamentalist." I myself do not do that, because I think usually the word "fundamentalist" is used of people you don't particularly like. There aren't too many people who call themselves fundamentalists, and so the word can be abused.

I, for one, do not actually think it's helpful to call the major evangelical political leaders of the 1970s, 1980s, fundamentalists, as opposed to evangelicals. I do think, however, they were in earlier stages of political mobilization. Leaders that have come to the fore in the 1990s and on into the 21st century -- and Richard Land of the Southern Baptists would be a good example of these -- have many of the same beliefs and practice, many of the same things as the generation in the 1980s and 1990s, but have a greater political expertise.

They have more friends in power. They're more experienced, and working for different issues. They have become political as well as religious in their public activity.


When we look at polling numbers, evangelicals are mostly white. Why is that the case?

One of the most important features of American religious life is the political difference between blacks and whites who otherwise share a tremendous amount in their religious beliefs and religious practices.
When pollsters talk about evangelicals, they usually mean white evangelicals, and white evangelicals vote now overwhelmingly for the Republican Party. It would be legitimate, from a religious point of view, to regard huge sections of the African-American churches in the United States as evangelicals. They believe in the Bible. They believe in conversion. They are supernaturalists. On moral issues, they oppose abortion. They believe that marriage should be restricted to one man and one wife.

But on political issues, blacks, and especially African-Americans who go to church, vote for the Democratic Party. The reason for this feature of American public life -- and it's a very important one -- the reason is rooted in history, culture and the social divisions that have divided whites and blacks in United States history.

From the period before the American Civil War, evangelical religion became very strong in the African-American community. But African-Americans were at first enslaved, and then segregated, discriminated against, by a number of white communities, including the religious, the Protestant community.

So over the last 150 years, there's grown up an almost separate religious culture for African-Americans, divided from the religious culture of white Americans. There are some exceptions. But these two cultures, though they often share similar beliefs and practices religiously, they have been socialized into very different political behavior.


We talked to four students here at Wheaton. There were three white students from the Midwest. There was a fourth black student, also from the Midwest, and she's one of 35 or so black students on campus. I asked them, "What are the issues that you would vote on?" The first three kids said the moral issues. Abortion [and] gay marriage was very important to them, and the war, supporting the troops. They all said that. The black student said education, social welfare and then the war, but didn't list the moral issues. When I asked who would vote for Bush, the first three white kids said George Bush. And she said, "I just don't know yet." Does it surprise you?

Not in the least. Not in the least. Black churchgoers and white churchgoers who would share a common set of evangelical beliefs almost predictably are going to come down on different sides of the modern political debate.

African-American churches, and especially urban churches in the main cities of the United States, are concerned about issues bearing in on those communities. Those issues have to do with support for public education. They have to do with the provision of welfare for stressed families. They have to do with the provision of work and government policies that support the ability to make a living.

White evangelicals are -- not exclusively -- but they are comfortable in the suburbs, and in the small towns and rural areas of the United States. Those two environments historically and contemporaneously have posed different ranges of social issues, and have put different social issues in the forefront of church concern, as well.

So we have in the United States now a situation where religion is the second-strongest indicator of public partisan behavior. But race remains the number one indicator.


That's really interesting, isn't it?

...If you can somehow point out that huge numbers in the black churches are evangelical in a religious definition, that will actually be a step ahead, a step forward.


I keep hearing from black Protestants that, "Hey, we're evangelical, too. But I'm not going to call myself evangelical."

That's exactly right One of the interesting divisions between black America and white America is in the use of the term "evangelical." White churches and white church people who have the traditional evangelical beliefs in practice are much more likely to call themselves evangelicals than African-Americans who might share the same beliefs in doctrine and share the same attitudes toward moral practices.

Black evangelicals, and people whom historians might call black evangelicals, are much more likely themselves to use terms like "Bible believers," "spirit-filled," "true Christians," "folk on fire for the Lord" and not use the word "evangelical," because in American public discourse that is a word usually used by and about white folk. There's actually a complication with Hispanics too, but you don't want to get into that.


Why is it that, right now, mainline Protestant churches are going along at a sort of steady pace and even declining, and evangelical churches are definitely seeing an increase? What's going on right now?

The churches that are known as evangelical today are descended from the mainline Protestant churches of the 19th century. When a distinction is made between evangelical and mainline churches, it's not a hard and fast distinction. There are many, many evangelical mainline Protestants.

But the mainline churches are traditional. They are less entrepreneurial, less flexible in relationship to cultural [issues], and have, for reasons of belief and practice and organization, not fared nearly as well in the postwar world as have more self-consciously, self-identified evangelical churches.


Would you consider President Bush an evangelical?

George Bush is evangelical, but evangelical of a particular type. His church in Midland, Texas, as I understand it, shares some characteristics of the mega-churches. It is, however, a Methodist church, but it's a Southern Methodist church. It's a largely white church. It's a church that does not stress doctrine, but stresses community and fellowship and therapy.

So, yes, George Bush is an evangelical. But he's one kind of evangelical in a mosaic that includes many, many other kinds of evangelical Christians.


When you say "of a particular type," what do you mean?

George Bush is an evangelical of a certain type. There are evangelicals in the mainline churches, of which he would be one. There are churches that have a mega-church style, of which his would be one. There are evangelical groups that emphasize the kind of therapeutic rescue that his group of supporters in Midland provided for him after he turned from alcoholism.

That style would be very different than, say the reform Christians of western Michigan, or the Pentecostal churches of downtown Chicago, or even, in many ways, the inter-denominational evangelicals of Wheaton College.

To read more:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/interviews/noll.html#ixzz1SkXJYNrV

For more Information on Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism see:
Wikipedia - Fundamentalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Christianity
Wikipedia - Evangelicalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism

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