Evangelicalism Then and Now: Conversionism
Someone clearly in touch with their roots.
The third point of the quadrilateral is “conversionism, the belief that human beings need to be converted,” and if there is one major emphasis in North-American Evanglelical Christianity, it’s evangelism. And evangelism is great, and needed, in our world. How can we reconcile our love for our neighbours (both commanded to us and dwelling within us through the fruits of the spirit) by not telling them about the Kingdom of God and all that entails?
But of course, that’s the problem: instead of an emphasis on conversion to the Christian faith, it’s the conversion to a particular denomination with the wonderful, ecumenical umbrella. Like our tradition-embracing friends pictured above, it seems Evangelicals will do as much as they can to make sure a) you know they are the ‘true vine’ and b)everyone else is at best, wrong, and at worst, apostate heretics. While this may sound like hyperbole, even a cursory view of the internet will present you with people in every denomination who thinks that everyone else are complete and utter idiots, not worth the time to blog about them (apparently they are).
Now, you may come out and say that this is no longer the case, but if you look at the comments on these blogs and websites, you’ll see overwhelming agreement, generally. With all this in-fighting, it’s a wonder anyone ever wants to be a part of Jesus’ KOG, unless you’re the kind of person who just loves finding who’s right and sticking to that. This is what the Pharisees were really about.
Ditch all the legalism stuff that people bring to the table, because that’s not the point behind the sin of the pharisees: it was their need to be right and their separation of the ‘in’s and ‘out’s in society. Evangelicals do this abundantly these days, in the form of proclaiming heresy or apostacy against Roman Catholics, Reformers, Baptists, the English, Charismatics, Wesleyans, etc. Did I miss someone? I’m sure a Christian somewhere thinks you are a heretic/apostate/fool too.
Solution: I know this one sounds strange, but don’t get rid of denominations. Denominations give structure and accountability against true heresy and apostacy, and their networks greatly help push the cause of Christ into the world. The solution is to open our minds and our hearts to all of our Christian family, and learn to accept our different faith traditions as outpourings of the same spirit. Evangelicals simply need to cease having to be right about everything. For more about being right, see what my friend Tim has to say.
WK
This entry was written by , posted on November 17, 2008 at 12:47 am, filed under Christianity, Church and tagged Bebbington, denominations, Evangelicalism, Pharisees. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Evangelicalism Then and Now: Crucicentrism
Looking out the main window of the Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona, AZ
Out of all 4 of the skewed definitions, this is the one that is most firmly entrenched in Evangelicalism, I think. The idea that the atoning work of Christ is simple fire insurance is the greatest disservice to Christianity that we (in North America especially) have come up with. But what about it?
The atoning work of Christ has been thoroughly dialogued about throughout the centuries, by the greatest Christian thinkers in our history. By reading Genesis 3, we see that the fall affected our relationship with God, each other, and all of creation, which brought death into the game. Christ’s atonement is the focal point of Christian history, because it brought us reconciliation with God, each other, and all of creation. Death was beaten and the Kingdom of God was victorious in the Cross. The amazing story that envelops Christians into the story that leads their lives.
And then a bunch of over-zealous preachers came along, threw out 1900 years of thought about the atonement and decided that Christianity’s number one goal was to get people out of Hell. Out goes creation stewardship. Out goes loving your neighbour. Out goes an ever-deepening discipling by God. That’s right, Christianity is now going through the Roman’s Road and saying the Sinner’s Prayer. That’ll be just swell.
Does anyone else think this is absolutely freaking ridiculous?
Without even coming to a consensus with what Hell even is, to cheapen the atonement is to cheapen the whole of Christ’s incarnation. It angers me that thousands of people see only the shallowest puddle of what the Trinity is doing in each of our lives.
So what is the solution? We have to start to looking at new ways to see evangelism. Maybe goes as far as putting a moratorium on Hell for awhile. I don’t know. Maybe it’s as simple as gagging certain preachers long enough to reboot the congregations into thinking for themselves.
Thinking for themselves? That’s the next Then and Now.
WK
This entry was written by , posted on November 7, 2008 at 1:04 am, filed under Christianity, Church and tagged Atonement, Bebbington, Christ, Evangelicalism, Hell. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Evangelicalism Then and Now: Biblicism
Quire 63, folio 1 recto of the Codex Sinaiticus, http://www.codex-sinaiticus.net
If you recall, the first point of Bebbington’s quadrilateral is biblicism: a particular regard for the Bible (e.g. all spiritual truth is to be found in its pages). But that was then, and this is now. My interpretation of the first point of the quadrilateral is biblicism, a particular regard for an ahistorical, context-free reading of the Bible. Here’s why I think so.
I see over and over (especially within the more ‘spirit-filled’ churches) a push for young evangelicals and new Christians to not exercise the brain in interpreting scripture, but to rely on ‘what the Spirit is telling you through the text.’ To answer the critics who will attack me (though not in the comments – that would be ok), I’m not trying to bash the Spirit – what I am bashing is the idea that individualism rules over biblical interpretation. Ours is a communal faith that requires us to learn from our elders and teachers; reader-centric, ‘Spirit-filled’ readings of the Bible strip us of the accountability we need as responsible Christians.
This individualist interpretation is rooted in the idea that the stories, letters, and songs found in the scriptures were written to us, right now, today, in Canada/U.S./England/Paraguay/Wherever you may be. This is wrong. Two of the best classes I have ever taken in any educational context were Survey of the Hebrew Scriptures with Dr. Stan Walters and Survey of the New Testament with Steve Thomson. I learned two things above all else from these men: that the Bible wasn’t written to us, but merely for us; and that the Scriptures are our holy texts, not the stories held within. Let me hash out these ideas:
The Bible wasn’t written to us, but merely for us. Many people hear that the Bible is ‘God’s love letter to Christians.’ That’s nice, but it’s tripe; the Bible is so much more than that. The Bible is an amalgamation of 2500-odd years of storytelling, meticulously written to be presented to very specific followers of the (now fully-revealed) Trinitarian God, whom we serve. To really understand what God was telling them, and from which we can derive what God is telling us, we need to know their contexts. I once read that text without context is pretext. How very true. This is not an easy thing to do, but I’ll get to solutions further down the page.
The Scriptures are our holy texts, not the stories held within. To go along with the above point, it is imperative that we remember that the texts we take as our Scriptures are more than the sum of the narratives held within: even the grammar of it all should be Holy to us. As I’ve studied 2 years of Greek and now into my 2nd year of Hebrew, I am finding that both languages are ridiculously complex, compared to lazy, boring English. Not only that, but the authors of both the OT and the NT are working in genres that are so much more complex than what we regularly deal with in our contemporary settings. Hebrew Parrallelism is pretty much mind-blowing, and don’t even get me started on the 14-odd translatory values of the Genitive case in Greek.
So why does this sound so new? Context? Grammar? Here’s what I think happened – I think that these were understood en masse by Christians in the early days of Christianity. These things were taught as tools for the interpretative process until the centralization of power by Rome’s new pet religion and the Dark Ages led into a knowledge choke-point for the people. Scholarship has been playing catch-up ever since, and really only gaining ground since archaelogy hit the ground running. Since then, it seems most pastors tend towards using the Bible as proof-text to help their congregations get through life, without really wrestling with the hard questions found within. In turn, they intuitively teach their congregations that reading the text emotionally (what they would call, ‘in the Spirit’) is how one finds the 3-point sermons of living life in Canada in the 21st Century.
Solution? It’ll be hard, but I think that those who are trained in this stuff (pastors, I’m looking at you) need to disseminate it in real, educationally-viable ways. We need to walk away from easy proof-texting to tell people how to live life and step into the dirty ground of teaching how to fully read a bible, with helps like commentaries and dictionaries and study bibles (NOT the Life Application Bible) – which will lead into some really hard questions, but I think will also lead into deeper, richer faiths for Evangelicals everywhere. For all those non-pastors out there, start by picking up a good commentary (e.g. Anchor Bible Series, NIV Commentary) and just using that as a help – a written mentor to help show you how to really read the Bible for all its worth, without having to rely on our fickle emotions of the time to influence how we think the Spirit is talking to us.
Next on the docket for Evangelicalism: the regard for Christ’s atoning work…as fire insurance.
WK
This entry was written by , posted on November 4, 2008 at 12:32 am, filed under Christianity, Church and tagged Bebbington, Bible, Evangelicalism, Interpretation, Teaching. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Evangelicalism: then and now.
For awhile, I have been thinking about what exactly evangecalism is, and the other day I was directed to David Bebbington’s Quadrilateral definition:
- biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible (e.g. all spiritual truth is to be found in its pages)
- crucicentrism, a focus on the atoning work of Christ on the cross
- converionism, the belief that human beings need to be converted
- activism, the belief that the gospel needs to be expressed in effort
Those are great ideals to strive for, and they make sense, at a macro-level, within Protestant Christianity (I say Protestant Christianity, because I just don’t know about Roman Catholicism or Orthodox Streams to speak into them.) Sadly, I think North-American Evangelicalism has narrowed these ideals into the following:
- biblicism, a particular regard for an ahistorical, context-free reading of the Bible (e.g. read what you want to read)
- crucicentrism, a focus on the atoning work of Christ on the cross as fire-insurance.
- converionism, the belief that human beings need to be converted to a very particular ideology
- activism, the belief that the gospel needs to be expressed in effort to make Christianity the predominant Culture, ridding the evils of any one else’s point-of-view.
As our culture changes (and seriously, people, it is changing), Evangelicals need to re-assess the quadrilateral and expand it from being 4 points for person-centered judgement to 4 points for spirit-led love. To help people think about these, I think I’m going to break this up and talk about each one of these points in a pattern of origin, fall, and redemption. This means some research on my part, so they’ll show up eventually. Until then, think about the 4 points and what you think about my subversion of the definition.
WK
This entry was written by , posted on October 26, 2008 at 12:33 pm, filed under Christianity, Church and tagged Bebbington, Christianity, Culture, definition, Evangelical. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.