Posted by
CRB on Wednesday, May 07, 2008 5:53:52 PM
It's an interesting and valuable document. But, like the initial dialogue proposed by the Muslim theologians last year, I think it is only a first step. There are some things that it is missing and some things that are, as I see evangelicalism, in error.
The definition of evangelical required several steps for the committee to accomplish. The first is a very generic summary remark:
Evangelicals are Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth.
Nothing too complicated about that. But at the same time it's no unique definition either. So the team went further.
To be Evangelical, and to define our faith and our lives by the Good News of Jesus as taught in Scripture, is to submit our lives entirely to the lordship of Jesus and to the truths and the way of life that he requires of his followers, in order that they might become like him, live the way he taught, and believe as he believed.
Again, it's good but not uniquely evangelical. So the team went further and provided a theological definition in several steps. They covered the important essentials of Christianity.
1. Jesus Christ is the God-Man.
2. Reconciliation to God is through the pental-substutionary work of Christ.
3. The necessity of regeneration.
4. The Scriptures are the final word for faith and practice.
5. The disciple is by nature engaged with the needs of the world.
6. The personal return of Christ and the consumation of history.
7. Disciples will grow in worship and maturity.
Again, this is all well and good. (And repeating that is becoming tiring.) What we have is still a generic statement of Christianity and not a unique definition of Evangelicalism. There is an implicit separation from Catholicism and government entanglements by separating evangelicalism from Constantinople. But, sadly, there is no explicit separation from Catholicism; there is explicit separation from political entanglements.
Fourth, as stressed above, Evangelicalism must be defined theologically and
not politically; confessionally and not culturally.
This was the best part of the document. We must be defined by theology and not by sociology, politics, or even our actions. The document goes further by reaffirming sola scriptura both implicitly and explicitly but does not specify sola fide or sola gracie. In that the document is weak. The outworking of this cleaification leads to some just criticisms of today's evangelicalism:
All too often we have trumpeted the gospel of Jesus, but we have replaced biblical truths with therapeutic techniques, worship with entertainment, discipleship with growth in human potential, church growth with business entrepreneurialism, concern for the church and for the local congregation with expressions of the faith that are churchless and little better than a vapid spirituality, meeting real needs with pandering to felt needs, and mission principles with marketing precepts. In the process we have become known for commercial, diluted, and feel-good gospels of health, wealth, human potential, and religious happy talk, each of which is indistinguishable from the passing fashions of the surrounding world.
We must find a new understanding of our place in public life. We affirm that to be Evangelical and to carry the name of Christ is to seek to be faithful to the freedom, justice, peace, and well-being that are at the heart of the kingdom of God, to bring these gifts into public life as a service to all, and to work with all who share these ideals and care for the common good. Citizens of the City of God, we are resident aliens in the Earthly City. Called by Jesus to be ?in the world but ?not of the world, we are fully engaged in public affairs, but never completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, class, tribe, or national identity.
Responses:
All in all, it's a good document but it falls short because of what it leaves out. It is broad enough to include the Anglican evangelicalism of the Wesleys and C. S. Lewis but seems to broad, lacking adequate exclusivity from the neo-orthodox, existentialist, emergent, and other modern phenomena.
I also believe that too much credence is given to the political criticisms of evangelicalism. While our involvement in politics is (and I agree with them) misguided, the ones who offer this criticism are themselves largely engaged in the political world and their criticism is driven more by a desire to eliminate competition than to place Christiainity in a proper frame. Liberals may not acknowledge its value, but nothing would please them short of Evangelicalism's demise. Bruce Prescott sees it as something outside of reality, as though liberals are faultless, despite the history that they've been married to politics for a far greater duration (several decades) than evangelicals.