What is Anabaptism?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/beliefs/anabaptism/

by Kurt Willems
July 2011

Below I give the answer to “What is an Anabaptist” by giving information from two sources:

1 - Core Convictions of the Anabaptist Network
2 - Twelve Principles of Anabaptism

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Core Convictions of the Anabaptist Network
http://www.anabaptistnetwork.com/coreconvictions

1. Jesus is our example, teacher, friend, redeemer and Lord. He is the source of our life, the central reference point for our faith and lifestyle, for our understanding of church and our engagement with society. We are committed to following Jesus as well as worshipping him.

2. Jesus is the focal point of God’s revelation. We are committed to a Jesus-centred approach to the Bible, and to the community of faith as the primary context in which we read the Bible and discern and apply its implications for discipleship.

3. Western culture is slowly emerging from the Christendom era when church and state jointly presided over a society in which almost all were assumed to be Christian. Whatever its positive contributions on values and institutions, Christendom seriously distorted the gospel, marginalised Jesus, and has left the churches ill-equipped for mission in a post-Christendom culture. As we reflect on this, we are committed to learning from the experience and perspectives of movements such as Anabaptism that rejected standard Christendom assumptions and pursued alternative ways of thinking and behaving.

4. The frequent association of the church with status, wealth and force is inappropriate for followers of Jesus and damages our witness. We are committed to exploring ways of being good news to the poor, powerless and persecuted, aware that such discipleship may attract opposition, resulting in suffering and sometimes ultimately martyrdom.

5. Churches are called to be committed communities of discipleship and mission, places of friendship, mutual accountability and multi-voiced worship. As we eat together, sharing bread and wine, we sustain hope as we seek God’s kingdom together. We are committed to nurturing and developing such churches, in which young and old are valued, leadership is consultative, roles are related to gifts rather than gender and baptism is for believers.

6. Spirituality and economics are inter-connected. In an individualist and consumerist culture and in a world where economic injustice is rife, we are committed to finding ways of living simply, sharing generously, caring for creation, and working for justice.

7. Peace is at the heart of the gospel. As followers of Jesus in a divided and violent world, we are committed to finding non-violent alternatives and to learning how to make peace between individuals, within and among churches, in society, and between nations.



12 Principals of Anabaptism
http://www.usmb.org/our-story-basic-principles-of-anabaptists-beliefs

1. A high view of the Bible

While not worshipping the Bible itself, for that would be bibliolatry, Anabaptists accept “the Scriptures as the authoritative Word of God, and through the Holy Spirit…the infallible guide to lead men to faith in Christ and to guide them in the life of Christian discipleship.” Anabaptists insist that Christians must always be guided by the Word, which is to be collectively discerned, and by the Spirit.

2. Emphasis on the New Testament

Since Christ is God’s supreme revelation, Anabaptists make a clear functional distinction between the equally inspired Old and New Testaments. We see an old and a new covenant. We read the Old from the perspective of the New and see the New as the fulfillment of the Old. Where the two differ, the New prevails, and thus Anabaptist ethics are derived primarily from the New Testament.

3. Emphasis on Jesus as central to all else

Anabaptists derive their Christology directly from the Word and emphasize a deep commitment to take Jesus seriously in all of life. Such a view runs counter to notions that the commands of Jesus are too difficult for ordinary believers or that Jesus’ significance lies almost entirely in providing heavenly salvation. Rather, salvation of the soul is part of a larger transformation.

4. The necessity of a believers’ church

Anabaptists believe that Christian conversion, while not necessarily sudden and traumatic, always involves a conscious decision. “Unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Believing that an infant can have no conscious, intelligent faith in Christ, Anabaptists baptize only those who have come to a personal, living faith. Voluntary baptism, together with a commitment to walk in the full newness of life and to strive for purity in the church, constitutes the basis of church membership.

5. The importance of discipleship

Becoming a Christian involves not only belief in Christ but also discipleship. Faith is expressed in holy living. In Christ, salvation and ethics come together. Not only are we to be saved through Christ, but we are also to follow him daily in obedient living. Thus, for example, Anabaptists from the beginning renounced the oath. They determined to speak truth. “For them there could be no gradations of truth-telling.” Anabaptists continue to teach that salvation makes us followers of Jesus Christ and that he is the model for the way we are to live.

6. Insistence on a church without classes or divisions

The church, the body of Christ, has only one head. While acknowledging functional diversity, Anabaptist believers set aside all racial, ethnic, class and sex distinctions because these are subsumed in the unity and equality of the body.

7. Belief in the church as a covenant community

Corporate worship, mutual aid, fellowship and mutual accountability characterize this community. An individualistic or self centered Anabaptism is a contradiction in terms.

8. Separation from the world

The community of the transformed belongs to the kingdom of God. It functions in the world but is radically separate from the world. The faithful pilgrim church sees the sinful world as an alien environment with thoroughly different ethics and goals. This principle includes separation of church and state. Therefore, Anabaptists reject all forms of civil religion, be it the traditional corpus Christianum or more recently developed forms of Christian nationalism.

9. The church as a visible counterculture

As a united fellowship of believers every Anabaptist congregation models an alternate community. Such a covenant community functions as an authentic counterculture.

10. Belief that the gospel includes a commitment to the way of peace modelled by the Prince of Peace.

Here Anabaptists differ from many other Christians. Anabaptists believe that the peace position is not optional, not marginal, and not related mainly to the military. On the basis of Scripture, Anabaptists renounce violence in human relationships. We see peace and reconciliation – the way of love – as being at the heart of the Christian gospel. God gave his followers this ethic not as a point to ponder, but as a command to obey. It was costly for Jesus and it may also be costly for his followers. The way of peace is a way of life.

11. Commitment to servanthood

Just as Christ came to be a servant to all, so Christians should also serve one another and others in the name of Christ. Thus, separation from a sinful world is balanced by a witness of practical assistance to a needy and hurting society.

12. Insistence on the church as a missionary church

Anabaptists believe that Christ has commissioned the church to go into all the world and all of society and to make disciples of all people, baptizing them and teaching them to observe his commandments. The evangelistic imperative is given to all believers.These principles constitute the essence of Anabaptism. While each emphasis can be found elsewhere, the combination of all twelve constitutes the uniqueness of Anabaptism.

The Protestant Reformation had not gone far enough. The early Anabaptists, while diverse and far from perfect, committed themselves to nothing less than the restoration of the New Testament church. We, their heirs, have the privilege of reemphasizing these twelve principles, in word and deed, here and now.

Evangelicalism in 2003 - A Historical Framework

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/interviews/noll.html

PBS Interview with Mark Noll
December 10, 2003

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

Evangelical Rejects 1/4 - You Might Be An Evangelical Reject If...

You Might Be An Evangelical Reject If…

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2011/06/06/you-might-be-an-evangelical-reject-if/

by Kurt Willems

June 6, 2011

I wish it were otherwise, but, unfortunately it’s true. Everything within me resisted this realization. But, the time has come to admit it: I’m an Evangelical reject.

The more I write the clearer this sad truth becomes. This blog, as much as it’s served as a place to flesh out ideas I believe to be central to expressing the euangelion (gospel [hence, evangelical]) in our day to our culture, also continues to damage my reputation in the evangelical circles that I run in.

I’ve had friends distance themselves from me because they think my views blindly accommodate for twenty-first century secular culture. Colleagues question my commitment to the Scriptures. Past and present church members discuss my heretical views behind my back. To top it all off, one time, in an angry email, a passage was quoted to me from one of the letters to Timothy that talked about false teachers. I’m an evangelical reject. And today, I’ve decided to embrace it.

The question is, what makes this so? Why do I get accused of heresy on the regular? Before I get to that, maybe there’s a bit of explaining on my end that’s necessary. Do I consider myself an Evangelical? Yes. But in these interesting times, different people want that word to mean different things. I am with Roger Olson (although, more tempted to throw out this term than he is) who has struggled with the label recently. He states:

All labels have their problems and, to be sure “evangelical” is fraught with them. But I am not giving it up. Instead, I will fight for it. To me, it is virtually synonymous with “God-fearing, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving” Christianity. Of course, that needs unpacking also.

One thing I find helpful when talking to someone or a group with time to listen is to distinguish between the evangelical ethos and the evangelical movement. I see myself as participating in both, but I am more comfortable claiming the evangelical ethos than I am identifying with the evangelical movement– at least as it is viewed by most people.

So, most of the time, when I say I am evangelical I mean I am a Protestant Christian who believes authentic Christianity requires a conversion experience of regeneration and that faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and repentance for sin are necessarily included in that.

In so far that evangelical means the belief in repentance and conversion into a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, the term describes me. What I continue to find, is that such a central conviction is NOT enough to appease those who want the term to mean other things. So, based on my experiences, I want to let you know that: You Might Be an Evangelical Reject If…

• You’re uncomfortable calling other branches of Christianity “apostate.”
• You worry that those who cling to terms like “orthodox” often do so because they believe it to be synonymous with “Neo-Calvinism.”
• You have significant questions about controversial theological “hot button” issues of the days and are some-what comfortable with the subsequent cognitive dissonance.
• You’ve been asked to leave a church leadership position for philosophical / theological reasons.
• You had a “love wins” sticker on the back of your car before the book controversy was even thought of.
• You read theologians from all across the spectrum.
• You think that science and scripture both reveal God’s truth in complementary ways.
• You think that what we believe about the so called “end times” actually matters for how we do mission today.
• You know that living the truth is more important than defending it logically.
• You recognize culture wars as pathetic attempts for Christians to grab for power.
• You don’t use the word inerrancy to describe biblical authority because its too rigid a definition and a modernist categorical imposition on the Holy Spirit inspired Scriptures.
• You think women should do anything BUT be silent in the church. (Can I get an AMEN from my sistas?)
• You think that postmodern philosophy helps theology more than it hurts it.
• You drink alcohol sometimes (in public).
• You endorse someone that has been deemed a heretic by apprising.org
• You believe that there are significant parallels between the Roman Empire of the 1^st Century and the United States of modern day.
• You believe social justice is central to the gospel of the Kingdom.
• You throw up a little in your mouth every time someone says that “the rapture is coming soon, so what’s the fuss with taking care of the planet? Lets save souls!”
• You’ve said “I’m not that kind of Christian…”
• You considered or actually voted democratic in the last two elections.
• You think that African American Activists have valid points when it comes to justice issues.
• You have gay friends.
• You’ve been in a conversation where the other was appealing more to the constitution of the USA than actually biblical theology.
• You’re also an Anabaptist…

Question: How would you end the following sentence: You might be an Evangelical Reject If…

Evangelical Rejects 2/4 - Refusing to Reject Evangelicals

An Evangelical Reject Who Refuses to Reject Evangelicals 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2011/06/14/an-evangelical-reject-who-refuses-to-reject-evangelicals/

by Kurt Willems

June 14, 2011

Last week I posted an article called “You Might Be an Evangelical Reject If…” Many of you read with laughs, perhaps at the picture I created in PowerPoint (as I know zilch about graphic design) or at the clearly tongue-in-cheek nature of the article as a whole. Yet some folks resonated on a deeper level. For you, it spoke into a deep part of your encounters with many evangelicals in local churches.

You know rejection and as fun as it is to poke fun at this, much hurt remains. Sometimes church-ianity within evangelicalism can be brutal.

One theme that comes through the comments is that “its not that we sought to be alienated from the evangelicals in our faith community, but that they rejected us.” This certainly demonstrates where I come from on this issue. Some of you have lost jobs within the church or leadership positions because of some of the “ifs” that I listed or some that fit on your own unique list. Fear gives birth to this rejection.

Many in our evangelical churches are afraid. Afraid to explore. Afraid to disrupt the status quo. Afraid to have congregations turn on them because what is accepted as the Truth in the pew. This reflects the sad state of evangelical discipleship. For us rejects, “easy answers” fluster our souls and present an intellectual gap for missional dialogues. Postmodern culture won’t settle for the so-called right answers and neither should the people of God!

A second theme in the comments of the first post was “what kind of evangelicalism are you hanging around because this doesn’t reflect my experiences?” To answer this, I have a bit of a theory. In the evangelical academy, there’s more freedom to explore than in the average church. Radio preachers and pop-theology influenced the average congregation. Anything that poses a threat to the hyper-literal box conservative modernism put God into relinquishes trepidation for many church attendees. Evangelicalism of this form looks oddly similar to its fundamentalist roots.

A final theme that came through was “yes! Let’s reject evangelicalism!” May I kindly say: no, no, no, NO! I understand this impulse, but in my own journey of becoming a reject, I’m now convinced that an essential truth of Scripture is that God is reconciling all things. Consider the passage in 2 Corinthians 5:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

I want to draw out three levels of this passage as it pertains to reconciliation.

1. Cosmic Reconciliation. The new creation has been kick started in Christ’s accomplishment of resurrection. This began the process of God reconciling all of created reality. God is redeeming the cosmos and will return one day to make this process complete. Heaven’s justice will purge earth’s corruption!
2. Personal Reconciliation. From out of the cosmic healing we’re invited into personal reconciliation as well. Any person who chooses to walk into the relationship that God offers all people, leaves behind alienation and discovers a life made whole as image bearer of the Divine.
3. Social Reconciliation. Finally, reconciliation is a reality between humans. If God is reclaiming ever square inch of the cosmos and if this includes every individual open to the opportunity, then it follows that we be reconciled to each other. And this includes those who would reject us! This is our message!

Therefore, may those of us who know rejection refuse to reject those in the evangelical church who alienate themselves from us. May we open up our arms to those who would reject us, in order to seek reconciliation to them as much as it depends on us. And may we "rejects" reject anything that appears to reject the reconciling nature of the Gospel of Jesus, including rejecting those who reject us.

I end with a final “if” to consider: You might be an evangelical reject if… you refuse to reject evangelicals.

Evangelical Rejects 3/4 - C.S. Lewis Should Be A Reject Too!

C.S. Lewis Should Be An Evangelical Reject Too! (John Janzen)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2011/07/18/c-s-lewis-should-be-an-evangelical-reject-too-john-janzen/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thepangeablog+%28Blog+-+Pangea+Blog%29&utm_content=FaceBook

by John Janzen

July 18, 2011

I am one of the ones who, after reading Kurt’s post on evangelical rejects, felt even more at home [link: article and follow-up]. Coincidentally, I read the post the day after listening to an interview with Richard Rohr, where he mentioned that it was vital for people who desire to be change agents to stay on the “inside edge” of their faith communities. His point was that once you position yourself on the outside, it is much easier for the resisters of change to write you off as irrelevant. You are then a heretic, and heretics are best ignored – not engaged.

I am not good at staying on the inside edge. I find it easier to take an all-or-nothing sort of stance. I remember years ago having a discussion with an evangelical friend. We were discussing salvation – who will make the cut, and how exactly Jesus is going to sort us all out. I was telling him how my views were being altered by, among other things, a passage from C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle that seemed to suggest that salvation might be possible for those outside the explicitly Christian fold. The discussion ended with him telling me that if that is what I believed, then I couldn’t really call myself an evangelical anymore.

My response at the time was to say: fine, who cares, if I’m not an evangelical then so be it. I find much of the culture grating anyway.

I suppose that is a fairly typical way for a young, arrogant know-it-all to react. It’s perhaps also typical that a decade later I find myself missing home. Alright, so maybe it’s not exactly like I’m off eating pig’s feed somewhere and am ready for a humble return, but it has been hard to shake the feeling that there are aspects of the culture and theology I grew up with that are still a perfect fit. Kurt says that “if evangelical means the belief in repentance and conversion into a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit,” then he should still qualify. But experience seems to be telling him otherwise. I know that feeling.

I will say, though, that for all the people who have implied that I’m not a proper evangelical, there are just as many who hold to a much broader definition. Mostly this just highlights the confusing space we are living through at the moment: no one really knows what an evangelical is anymore!

Perhaps we never really did. I mentioned before that it was one of the 20th century’s biggest evangelical heroes, C.S. Lewis himself, who caused the very black and white thinking of my youth to fade into a more honest grey. The scene in The Last Battle, where Emeth, soldier of Aslan’s enemy, Tash, is accepted into paradise on account of his righteous seeking, was just the starting point. As I read further I found that in both Lewis’s fiction and apologetic works there were themes significantly at odds with what I had come to regard as “evangelically orthodox.”

Yet Lewis, during his life and still now, is up there with the likes of Billy Graham as one of the evangelical world’s greatest champions. How is it that Lewis gets a pass on the same subjects that get guys like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren cast into outer darkness?

Questions like this led to me making Lewis’s apparent “heresies” the subject of my M.A. thesis. By the time I had worked my way through a mountain of research, I was convinced that evangelicals should pay closer attention to their hero. Lewis may have been writing more than half a century ago, but it is remarkable just how relevant his thinking is to the arguments that rage even now.

Too bad he wasn’t around for the Rob Bell controversy. Anyone who has read The Great Divorce knows that Lewis’s atypical take on hell, while it might not please the traditionalists, offers a carefully considered alternative view. Residents of hell on a visit to heaven are offered the chance to stay. Apparently, God doesn’t condemn us to hell. We choose to stay there ourselves. Even long into the afterlife.

To most evangelicals, that is an unorthodox thought. Yet somehow Lewis proved adept at avoiding arguments over “sound doctrine.” I think he managed this by presenting his conceptions of hell as imaginative guesses instead of as a rigid theological party line. In fact, there is a passage in The Problem of Pain where Lewis seems to defend a more traditional conception of hell, with a discussion of what it might mean to be in a state of eternal conscious torment. Lewis understood that in some areas it is simply necessary to hold somewhat incompatible views in tension. Perhaps, when it comes to ideas and realms that are far beyond our own reality and ability to grasp completely, this approach is the most honest, and maybe even the most accurate.

I get in to all of this a little more in depth in a short book that I adapted from my thesis work. If you are interested in this particular conversation, the book is on Amazon as Kindle Single-length digital book, but if you’ll send it on to a friend or two, I’ll gladly send you a copy for free.

——————————————————————————

John Janzen is a Canadian living and working in Nagoya, Japan where he and his family have spent the last 9 years trying to figure out what “ foreign mission” might look like in the 21st century. His writing, fiction and non-fiction, has appeared in academic journals, literary magazines, and recently in Quakebook, a compilation of responses to the March 11th Japan earthquake. He recently completed an M.A. thesis on C.S. Lewis, which has been adapted in Heresy in Narnia: Departures From Evangelical Orthodoxy in the Writings of C.S. Lewis, available on Amazon. You can connect with him on his blog .

Evangelical Rejects 4/4 - Is ANYone evangelical enough anymore?

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2011/07/20/is-anyone-evangelical-enough-anymore/

by Deacon Bo

July 20, 2011

I saw two interesting bits of controversy this past week. I wasn’t necessarily surprised by either of them but I was disturbed by the way they overlapped.

The first item was a post as part of a series at Pangea (on Patheos). This one was reeling over the evangelical credibility of C.S. Lewis. Apparently his views on the subject of hell were a little too open-ended and remind some self-proclaimed watchdogs of the views in a recent controversy surrounding you know who and his book.

Over the past decades there has been an increasingly contentious debate about the invisible boundary of evangelicalism. Apparently some have become so concerned that even historical figures who were previously safe (even adored) are in danger if their views are found to be too loose for the contemporary conservative backlash.

I was only mildly concerned by this whole line of reasoning. Then, I found out that this past Sunday, the NY Times called Michelle Bachman the evangelical candidate in the Republican primary pool.

So my question is:

• what are the criteria that we are using for this public label of evangelical whereby the quintessential embodiment from the past century (C.S. Lewis) is out and tea-party candidate Michelle Bachman is in?
• who is in change of making these determinations?
• what are the demarkations that signify whether someone is “in” or “out”?

This is something that I care deeply about as a Methodist minister (UMC) who is the son of a Methodist minister (Free Methodist) we are both proudly Wesleyan in theology. I think that whatever definition we use it should at least be inclusive of our most historical marquee figures and flagship franchises.

I like to use the definition from British Historian David Bebbington as a starting point. We should at least establish a historical framework. [here is an interview with evangelical scholar Mark Noll where he talks about it]

The four keys are:

conversionism: new birth and a new life with God

biblicism: reliance on the Bible as ultimate religious authority

activism: concern for sharing the faith

crucentrism: focus on Christ’s redeeming work on the cross

Admittedly, those four emphasis take on a different tone and tenor in each generation. They take on different manifestations in each generation. The presence of these four however is a stabilizing theme that runs through the many historical maturations through the centuries and around the globe. These four themes also hold together whether ones utilizes a bounded-set mentality for marking boundaries or a center-set framework to encourage a shared focus.

I celebrate these four themes and find them even amongst my more progressive friends. They could say these four things with confidence:

• Relationship with God changes you personally internal and your relationships (external) .
• The Bible is central as the Christian Scripture and sets both the agenda and the example.
• One’s faith should both be shared (relationally) and will consequently impact the world around you.
• God’s work in Christ is what illuminates and inspires the life of the Christian – Christ revealed God is a unique and significant way. Jesus’ way is to be our way.

This kind of faith is something that I am inspired by and find deep fulfillment by participating in. I am nervous that a reactionary period of retrenchment by the religious right , moral majority, or other politicized conservative groups would see evangelicals like myself and C.S. Lewis pushed out and figures like Michelle Bachman made central.

Rob Bell - Conformation (1 John 3.11-18)

1 John 3. 11-18 – OPENING YOUR SPLANCHNON

http://marshill.org/teaching/2011/07/17/1-john-3v11-18-opening-your-splanchnon/

(Click on this link to hear or download the .mp3 file)

1 John 3.11-18 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3&version=ESV)

Love One Another

¹¹For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

¹²We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. ¹³Do not be surprised, brothers,^[c] that the world hates you. ¹⁴We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. ¹⁵ Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

¹⁶By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. ¹⁷But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? ¹⁸Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

SPLANCHNON: Though a strange expression in our modern
cultures here is a recent example of its use -
 

"My Stomach is full of anger and I want to take my revenge"
                                                                                          - Andy Schlech

 

Andy Schleck comments on Alberto Contrador's

tactics of passing him when seeing his bike chain

come off on Stage 15 of the 2010 TDF

SPLANCHNON as a motivator months and months later -

2011 TDF Update: Andy Schleck takes his revenge on Stage 18 one year later:

 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/more-sports/cycling/Schleck-moves-closer-to-Tour-de-France-revenge/articleshow/9322521.cms

 

 

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/22825103/vp/43842371#43842371

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Great Emergence of Christianity

There has been a lot of discussion lately as to whether we are in a time that is a game changer described as the very early stages of postmodernism and its seeming correspondent form of Christianity known as Emergent Christianity. As said earlier, I'm not sure whether Emergent Christianity is real or not, whether it is a movement or not, or whether its is a separate branch of Christianity or not (hopefully not!).

But if I were to choose I would think of it as an ecumenical postmodernistic Christian movement composed of a wide variety of believers from many different walks of life and doctrine, theology and practice, who are investigating postmodernistic expressions (as well as responses) to their Christian faith, whether orthodox or not. The idea of a Great Emergence is an attempt by its author Phyllis Tickle to explain her understanding of the historical import of this introductory era that we seemed to have entered into - its creative expressions and recapture of the Christian faith, as well as the  frustrations of non-emergent believers resistant to change and movement within their traditional faith expressions, structures, beliefs and practices.

For myself, I come from the conservative side of orthodox Christianity that is looking for faith's life and breath again against all the quantified statements that have formed themselves into rigid theological structures within our modernistic era. Not that they aren't good, solid, acceptable expressions of God, his Word and our faith communities, but that they seemed to have lost the life of God, his Word and the essence of communal living. Some of this I attribute to the constant reparsing and redefining of the Christian tradition until it has become trapped in a dark tunnel unable to see the life and hope and beauty that God has intended for us. At other times because we fear change as unhealthy or unproductive and wish to prove and discern new movements before accepting their questionable foundations and philosophies.

Which is all well and good but my charge to my conservative friends is twofold - don't so over criticize what could be a legitimate God-sent movement so as to kill the thing itself and in the killing kill your own faith's hope for salvation and life. And secondly, if there is some remnant of fact or heartfelt experience that is attractive within this Emergent movement than get on board and allow faith to grow again. Do not try to capture it and re-work it backwards into a dying expression of faith. But through listening and discerning Emergent Christianity's heartbeat let it wash back over all the past into something cleansing, renewing, revitalizing and refreshings.

For without active orthodox acceptance and support this movement can become stillborn and left to less traditional proponents of Christianity which may then take generations to recapture and express again. But don't come to emergent Christianity seeking to only put on its new dress, new clothes and new shoes! For this movement requires a radical change of thinking, of re-orientation. It requires a change of heart and a change of spirit that is found underneath the new clothes and shoes.  And once that is done postmodernistic Christianity will be a thing of beauty unlike its older, modernistic self dressed in its dark grays and death-filled colours.

Overall, I am thankful to my past which contained enough kernels of faith and truth that it could be rebirthed into the freedom of investigating a larger, less restrictive paradigm to the Christian faith. But it took awhile to hear again God's word and Spirit partly because I was to blame and partly because what I was listening to was inconsistent and ill-defined - rough as it were in its early stages of expression. It took a long while to hear this new paradigm's heartbeat and for its message to be sorted out and better understood and streamlined by its proponents. But its message is one that the Belfast Irishman, Peter Rollins, (cf. the last four videos below) has summed up quite neatly and shows in postmodernistic fashion what real faith can mean again by allowing Christianity's traditional creedal and religious statements to live and breath and find expression like they once had had.

And with that said, let me say that this is the very reason why this web blog has been developed - to help elucidate the best of what Emergent Christianity could be, as it interacts with both the older and newer traditional beliefs and practices of Christianity. So then, let me place a charge of responsibility to every believer that each of us be involved with enhancing this conversation of our Lord and Savior to the best version of itself that we can express this side of humanity. This is my prayer, my hope, my desire for today's postmodern church in its communal witness, ministry, worship and spirit-filled life.

- skinhead

The Great Emergence, October 2008

In 2008, Phyllis Tickle and Peter Rollins discuss

the spirit and theology of the emerging church

movement and what is happening abroad.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

What Evangelicals think of Emergent Christians

I came across these older videos below made by well-respected evangelical leaders arguing against Emergent or Emerging Christianity back in the years 2007, 2008 and 2010. And whether young or old, each respondent made strong, assertive statements as to what they believed Emergent Christianity and Emergent Christians to be. Now, I'm not even sure whether Emergent Christianity is real or not, whether it is a movement or not, or whether its is a branch of Christianity or not (I'm thinking an ecumenical movement, as a descriptor, if I were to choose). But I am sure that its is composed of Christians from many walks of life and doctrine and theology who are investigating postmodernistic expressions (as well as responses) to their orthodox Christian faith.

And I am also confident that when all is said or done, that we will discover that this updated expression of orthodoxy will be both radically new and yet strangely familiar with its old-line predecessor. That Jesus will still be Redeemer, the Bible still God's word, its language still to be trusted, the church still God's faithful remnant witnessing and living for their Lord, and so on and so forth. And for all the criticism leveled at Emergent Christianity from several years ago until now in 2011 (sic, Love Wins), we will discover that our faith investigations, worship practices, and missional outreach will have provided to Christianity a much needed quantum expression to its previous classical forms that has been modified innumerable times over the past 500 years since the Reformation period.

And so, in light of this, rather than be hurt or mad or disappointed over what these videos present by popular evangelical preachers of the pulpit and graduate schools, let us learn to understand their critique of  a movement they believe they understand but yet by their very words show that they don't. For by Emergent Christianity's very nature, it will continue to modify itself from its originating and earlier self into a legitimate and dynamic reformulation of all things God, in a good way, and not in the bad ways that are being expressed in these videos here.

This is my belief. And this is our task. For what has been said in previous years by earlier Emergents will not be the last things said by their revisionists, their critics and friends. For Christianity has ever embraced, adapted and adopted the cultural era that it is in, and so will we in this new postmodernistic era that is still in its infancy and but hardly begun! 

At least that is my belief with the Emergents writers that we have been following here on this blog. I don't find these Emergent friends or institutions any less biblical, any less truthful or insightful; nor any more liberal or deceptive. They are respected men and women of God who have patiently endured evangelical mis-statements all the while praying for those believers in disagreement to not be alarmed or distrustful. To become patient listerners and discerners of Emergent engagements with contemporary global culture.  And so shall we, and so will do . Be at peace.

skinhead

ps - please note that Mark Driscoll become despondent with Emergent Christianity (2005-2006?) and has since become one of its critics.

**********

November 17, 2007

R.C. Sproul, Al Mohler, and Ravi Zacharias discuss

post-modernism, modernism, liberalism, and the emergent church.

August 15, 2008

The Albert Mohler Program, Part 1

with host Dr. Russell Moore and

guests Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck

August 15, 2008

The Albert Mohler Program, Part 2

August 15, 2008

The Albert Mohler Program, Part 3

John Piper, February 28, 2010

Phrases and Adjectives Describing Emergents

Emergents are motivated by "white guilt"

Come from upper-middle class whites

Are burned-out evangelicals

Attract trendy college kids

Portray a hip or cool image

Attract twenty-somethings

Espouse a postmodern ethic

Is a rebirth of liberalism

Known for coffee, candles and couches

Dislike systematic theology

Prefer narratives and stories

Are new-age Christians

Are Catholic mystics

Are wolves in sheep's clothing

Are heretics, false teachers, liberals

Are left-wing voters

Are gen-Y cynics

Are jaded and think the church stinks

Liked reading The Shack

Is a short-term fad

Don't believe in absolutes

Reject theological truths

Break down language

Teach relativism

Are socially conscious

Are not cognitive believers

Are non-critical and anti-doctrinal

Wish for peace-and-love over truth-and-justice

Are allergic to church traditions and creeds

Have abdicated Christian responsibility

Have abdicated Christian conviction

Have abdicated Christian courage

Are allergic to mega-churches

Have left orthodoxy

(Thankfully the list stops here)