A few correspondents have asked me what I think of the new “Evangelical Manifesto,” recently released by a group of evangelical leaders (including—full disclosure—some friends of mine).
Another friend, Prof. Alan Jacobs of Wheaton College, grumps in the Wall Street Journal about how boringly moderate it is, among other sins. But let’s just see if that’s such a bad thing.
The nice people at Merriam-Webster tell us that “manifesto” means “a public declaration of intentions, motives, or views: a public statement of policy or opinion.” Jacobs wants the writing to be “punchy” and the document to be “short,” although he recalls that the most famous manifesto ever, the communist one, amounts to a small book.
Still, this one is twenty pages, and when I read it, I wondered why anyone would care what I thought about it. It strikes me as completely sensible, moderate, intelligent, a bit wordy here and there, and kinda dull.
And isn’t that a pleasant change!
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C. S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer . . . and Larry Norman
February 26, 2008
Larry Norman, “father of Christian rock,” has gone home. After suffering a severe heart attack and other ailments, he slipped away at 61.
Larry Norman was the writer of a number of popular Christian songs, including “I Wish We’d All Been Ready,” many people’s first encounter with the chilling eschatology of the Rapture. He popularized, and perhaps even invented, the “One Way” gesture of the index finger pointing straight up. He helped launch the careers of many talented artists, including Randy Stonehill (my personal favourite, from whom Norman later became estranged), the Daniel Amos band, and many others on his “Street Level” and then “Solid Rock” labels.
For me, however, Larry Norman in particular was a larger-than-life figure who, with authors C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer, helped this Plymouth Brethren teenager, in the backwoods (literally) of northern Ontario, look out onto a larger world of Christian possibilities. Indeed, he helped me to look out onto the larger world itself and feel that perhaps I could actually live there, rather than just briefly venture out into it to evangelize a soul or two and then hurriedly withdraw to the sanctuary of my sect.
Evangelical Elites Avoiding Church?
February 24, 2008
Much has been written about Michael Lindsay’s recently published study on evangelical elites in America, summarized here in a USA Today article. Among his findings: evangelical elites, by which he means those evangelicals who have attained positions of influence in culturally significant institutions, from business to politics to mass media, don’t go to church nearly as often as what he calls “populist” evangelicals.
Instead, he says, they belong to home study groups, to friendship circles, and (here’s where things get a bit sinister) to invitation-only fellowships of similarly powerful Christians.
There’s lots to dislike about this picture. It’s one thing to be elite: some people are much more successful in certain things than the rest of us, such as gaining power in mainstream institutions. It’s another thing to be elitist: to think of oneself more highly than one ought to think, to keep out the rabble and to keep oneself to fellow “right-thinking” people.
Some also think it’s bad to see all this power, talent, drive, and, yes, money being kept out of local congregations and diverted/devoted instead to parachurch organizations.
And some think that these high and mighty folks could do with a good dose of reality, with having to roll up their sleeves in an ordinary church among ordinary people and learn some common sense wisdom from common folk.
That’s one side of it, if a pretty slanted side. But then, as Lindsay himself points out, there’s another dimension to this issue: evangelical elites can’t find churches worth going to.
Why I Signed the Yale Response to “A Common Word”
December 20, 2007
Over the last few weeks, various Christians have contacted me because they are troubled over encountering my name amidst dozens of other signatories listed in a recent New York Times advertisement as supporting a public statement of support for a recent document from moderate Muslims, “A Common Word between Us and You.” (I’m glad to say that others have contacted me to express their appreciation that I did sign it.) The statement of support, entitled “Loving God and Neighbour Together,” was drafted by several professors at Yale Divinity School, including my friend Miroslav Volf, founder and director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture and Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology.
(For all of the relevant documents, see the pertinent press releases and links here.)
It was Miroslav who e-mailed me to ask if I’d like to sign the statement for the NYT publication. I read the original Muslim statement and the Yale response, and didn’t sign right away. I was concerned that differences between the faiths, particularly about the divinity of Christ and God’s triune nature, were not as clearly set out in either statement as I would have preferred. Had I drafted the statement myself, I would have made changes elsewhere as well.
But I wasn’t being asked to help draft it. The thing was done, and the question now was a simple, binary one: Sign or not?
To D. A. Carson on the Emerging Church: Leave Me Out of It
November 1, 2007
A couple of years ago, a few students brought to my attention the fact that D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in suburban Chicago, had quoted me in his book, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications (Zondervan, 2005).
They each came to me, and several people have since approached me during speaking engagements around North America, because Carson uses something I wrote to illustrate something he doesn’t like about the emerging church. This use has puzzled each of my inquirers for the same two reasons: (1) they didn’t know I had anything to do with the emerging church and (2) they didn’t think that Carson construed properly what I wrote.
So I retrieved a copy from our library, looked up my name, and behold, on page 66, there I am.
New Research Initiative on Canadian Evangelicals
October 27, 2007
Here’s an excerpt from a press release issued by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada earlier this week:
The Centre for Research on Canadian Evangelicalism (CRCE) released the first issue of Church & Faith Trends, its online journal, on October 18, 2007. Church & Faith Trends will help the CRCE improve the accuracy of both scholarly and public representations of Canadian Evangelicals and assist ministry leaders in their work.
Church & Faith Trends is a publication of the Centre for Research on Canadian Evangelicalism, which is an initiative of The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC).
This important new journal is a must read for pastors, ministry leaders and culture watchers,” said Bruce J. Clemenger, president of the EFC. “Anyone who wants to understand the character and dynamism of evangelicalism and church trends in Canada will benefit from its content.”
“Red-Letter Christians”: A Bad Idea with a Bad Name, Alas
October 22, 2007
Being a “red-letter Christian” sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? Tony Campolo, professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University, activist, pundit, and provocateur, tells us that he wants to obey the very words of Jesus, those words that in previous generations of Bible publishing were printed in red.
His comrade Jim Wallis of the Sojourners Fellowship, also known as an activist, pundit, and provocateur, shares this self-designation and thinks that such an approach to Christian discipleship will transcend the division of American political culture between the left and right, Democrat and Republican.
So isn’t being a red-letter Christian (RLC) a good thing?
Well, first, let’s agree that Christians should try to follow Jesus. No problem there. But the trouble with the RLC concept begins immediately afterward.
A number of American evangelical leaders, among whom I count several friends, recently wrote an open letter to President Bush urging a Middle East policy that includes “a viable, independent, secure state.” Indeed, they say that their support for such a state is a matter of mere “historical honesty” and is “the only way” to end violence in that region.
I have to raise two cheers for this declaration, but not three.
I recently heard yet another sermon (no, it wasn’t in my home church) telling the congregation that “statistics show” that North American evangelicals are just as worldly as everyone else: just as quick to fornicate and divorce, just as tight with their charitable dollars, just as reluctant to volunteer in their communities, etc., etc. In short, evangelicals are hypocrites and worthy of a sound scolding, which the preacher was only too happy to provide.
I’ve heard this “fact” a dozen different times over the last few years, and it has become what I call a “church myth,” resembling an urban myth in ubiquity and plausibility.
And, like urban myths, it isn’t true.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m an evangelical, and I’m not especially holy. I know lots of evangelicals, and we all struggle with sin.
But if, cumulatively, our evangelical convictions do not cash out into a measurable difference of lifestyle, then they can’t be worth much. If evangelicals do not, in fact, tend to have less promiscuous single people, more faithful marriages, higher rates of charitable giving, higher volunteerism, and so on, then what are we preaching? Literally, what in the world are we doing?
Books & Culture recently published my investigation into the statistics that purportedly show that evangelical convictions mean so little–statistics proffered by the likes of George Barna, George Gallup, and others. Perhaps you’d like to take a look here.
Recently, a friend wrote about a problem at the high school he serves as a teacher. Apparently, a staff worker with a well-known Christian organization (let’s call it “Jesus Youth,” since I’m pretty sure there is no such group) has been volunteering at the school. Trouble arose, however, when this staffer volunteered to drive some kids to a drama festival some distance away for the weekend, and sent home permission slips to parents emblazoned with the logo of “Jesus Youth,” and not the school. A parent (whom I’m calling “Mr. Fraun”) complained that he didn’t want some missionary taking his daughter on a school outing.
I was asked to comment, and I would be interested to know what you think of the issues involved. Here it is, with all of the particulars changed to protect identities.
Some Musings on Missions…
May 28, 2007
One of my favourite magazines is Books & Culture, a sort of Christian New York Review of Books. Its editor, John Wilson, is perfectly suited to his job: generous, clear, and demanding toward his authors, and in his editorials astonishingly erudite, invariably wise, and never, ever dull. If you’re tired of “dumb” religious media, here’s one to restore your faith in, well, faith.
Your servant happens to have a piece published in the most recent number, offering some provocations regarding evangelical views of missions. And there’s lots more in the archives, including a terrific evisceration of Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion by mega-philosopher Alvin Plantinga.
I’m betting that anyone who likes this blog will really like this magazine. Check it out!
Christianity and the Politics of Weakness
May 24, 2007
Over the last few years, American evangelicals have been making news by saying that they’re not all on the political right. Some are on the left–at least, as “left” as mainstream American politics ever gets, which isn’t very “left” from a Canadian point of view, let alone a European one, let alone a Latin American one!
But new books keep coming out–I saw an announcement for yet another just today–from evangelical authors telling us that true Christianity eschews both the right and the left, and instead withdraws from power politics entirely. Indeed, this is the “way of weakness, not power,” the “bottom-up” or “up from under” rather than “top-down” approach, and is attributed to Jesus himself “whose kingdom was not of this world,” and so on.
I’m finishing a large-ish book manuscript that takes on this viewpoint at length–as well as some others, such as the “let’s take it over for Jesus” model of cultural transformation (whether on the religious right or left). I won’t try to summarize that argument here.
What I’ll do instead is tell a story about a story.
