Michael Bird at Euangelion (fast becoming one of my favorite lunchtime blog breaks!) offers a long post on Evangelicals, the Reformed, and evangelicalism inside and outside of North America.
On some folks in the Reformed wing of North American evangelicalism today, Bird says [correction: I realized after I posted this that it is offensive out of context. I myself am “Reformed” in theology, generally speaking. Bird is referring, I think, to a very narrow sub-set of folks who are probably better regarded as hyper-Calvinist rather than “Reformed”. Apologies for any offense]:
(1) They are more excited about all the things that they are against than anything that they are for; (2) They preach justification by faith, but in actuality practice justification by polemics; (3) They appear to believe in the inerrancy of a confession over the suffiency of the gospel; (4) They believe in the doctrines of grace, but do not treat others with grace; (5) They believe that unity is overrated; (6) They like doctrines about Jesus more than Jesus himself (and always defer to the Epistles over the Gospels); (7) mission means importing their debates and factions to other churches; and (8) The word “adiaphora” is considered an almost expletive.
Preach it Mike! Concerning North American evangelicals in general, he says:
my dear friends in North America have to learn that outside of North America the things that they regard as badges of evangelicalism may not necessarily be badges elsewhere. For example, nowhere outside of the USA is “inerrancy” the single defining issue for evangelicals. The UCCF statement of faith in the UK refers to the Scriptures as “infallible” not inerrant. At the GAFCON meeting in Jerusalem where an international group of Evangelical Anglicans met together, their statement of faith referred to the “sufficiency” of the Scriptures, but there was no reference to inerrancy or infallibility. Ironically, these are people who are besieged by real liberals (not N.T. Wright, Peter Enns, Norman Shepherd, or those Federal Vision chaps, I mean real liberals!) and they do not associate an orthodox view of Scripture with pledging one’s allegiance to the Chicago Statement or to B.B. Warfield.
And further he notes:
there are also some things about North American evangelicals that Christians outside of North American cannot comprehend: 1. Only north american evangelicals oppose measures to stem global warming, 2. Only north american evangelicals oppose universal health care, and 3. Only north american evangelicals support the Iraq War. Now, to Christians in the rest of the world this is somewhere between strange, funny, and frightening. Why is it that only north american evangelicals support these things? Are the rest of us stupid? It makes many of us suspicious that our North American evangelical friends have merged their theology with GOP economic policy, raised patriotism to an almost idolatrous level, and have a naive belief in the divinely given right of American hegemony. North Americans would do well to take the North-Americanism out of their evangelicalism and try to see Jesus through the eyes of Christians in other lands.
Amen brother!
4 replies on “Evangelicals, the Reformed, and the North American Context”
And it is exactly that North American evangelicalism which is picked up on by our British liberal media (particularly your third batch, on politics), and used to tar us all – which for me is one of the key reasons to drop the label “evangelical”: it no longer means (to my friends) what it used to, and now gets in the way.
Bird has a real pot/kettle thing happening with polemics.
So polemics are evil only when they oppose your world view?
Nearly all evangelicals I know believe in conservation, recycling, and the protection of nature. To say we don’t is INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST. What few of them agree with is the idea among SOME scientists that it is their fault that the globe is “warming,” especially since it has been cooling since 1998.
No evangelical I know, opposes universal health care. Certainly it is a Godly thing for every father to work hard, and in the reward of his work he provide benefits of health coverage, or the cash to visit the doctor, or a medical savings account, or any other way you wish to put it into practice. What I am far less certain of is how it makes it any more an “evangelical” thing to mandate it through government. So again for clarity, UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE GOOD. The question is stewardship. TO me and most evil conservative text-believing types… I would prefer to pay for it, be the steward of it myself than to leave it for the responsibility of the governing authorities. (Hmmm pretty sure individual responsibility IS a Godly, even Christ-like attribute… but I’m probably basing that on something fallible like scripture.)
And actually the Christian church in Iraq (Assyrian), but textually based, believing Christians none-the-less, were some of the biggest supporters of the United States’ Action in the Global War against Islamic Radicalism (which happened to include Iraq). I know – I was at a gathering of some 7000 and spoke with them personally. Not even exactly sure why evangelicals in Denmark would care, but I’m pretty sure believers in Iraq would be vested in that discussion.
One last parting series of questions for the polemic Mr. Bird.
“Can you identify one nation, whose military has done more good than that of the United States?” (Shed more blood and freed more people, turned over more captured lands, improved the overall standard of living…)
“Can you point to one nation that has done more send the message of the good news to every corner of the globe more than the North American church?”
Hate the church, suspect the text, and despise America… Mr. Bird is a true find indeed.
I don’t write on blogs, and this post was from over two years ago, but I hope youll still read this comment. I just wanted to say that posts like these (that critique “evangelicals” as the whipping boy really surprise and depress me. I’m not judgingthe author as a bad person or anything, but I just hope you can pause and reflect more about what you’re writing.
So often I see these theology + culture blogs written by grad students with this constant beratement and beratement of “evangelicals.” Its depressing. It’s even predictable.
The “Reformed” attack is admittedly more on target but is extremely uncharitable. Extremely.
There is no need to go into the political question here and the question of whether conservatism or liberalism is the best political theory; but in short, that paragraph, as well as so many theology blogs out there (sorry Im ranting about other ones as well) are so completely uncharitable to “evangelicals”(however you define them) that I really get upset.
I hear you Brett. I think many of the criticisms are valid, but also I hope that they are constructive.