Here's an interesting link I came across about the evangelical identity crisis:It's John Buckeridge editorial on The E-word from Christianity Magazine's May 6 issue.
A sampling:
Half a century ago words like ‘gay’, ‘ecstasy’ and ‘wicked’ meant something very different than they do today. In the past ‘evangelical’ stood for four key values:
1. A commitment to the authority and centrality of scripture
2. A call to personal faith and repentance
3. The centrality of Christ’s death as our substitute
4. Putting faith into action through evangelism and social action.
Now to the unchurched and people of other faiths – evangelical is increasingly shorthand for: right-wing US politics, an arrogant loud mouth who refuses to listen to other people’s opinions, men in grey suits who attempt to crowbar authorised version scripture verses into every situation, or ‘happy-clappy’ simpletons who gullibly swallow whatever their tub thumping minister tells them to believe. Large parts of the British media seem happy to paint evangelicals into that stereotype. Today in the UK ‘evangelical’ is often linked with the ultimate 21st century swearword ‘fundamentalist’. The result is the name ‘evangelical’ which years ago, may have smelt of roses – now has the aroma of the manure that fertilises the bush.
This article has produced quite a few reactions - check out these blog comments:
Johnny Baker's blog
Andrew Yell's blog
Subversive Influence blog
Randy McRobert's blog
The Shiverian blog
See also: Roger E Olsen's Post-conservative evangelicalism: An update after a decade
Also, see the Urban Dictionary's multiple definitions of evangelical (don't click unless you're OK with being offended!)
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