What is an Evangelical and Are they Ruining Everything?

Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical's Lament

The King County Journal had some good articles in the Faith & Values section on Saturday. One was a reprint of the article on Gregory Boyd which I commented on in another post. The other one was about the author of the book Thy Kingdom Come whose subtitle is: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America.


What is an Evangelical and Are they Ruining Everything? is the question author and historian Randall Balmer of Barnard College in New York asks. He says the evangelical activists’ agenda “is misguided, even ruinous” to “the nation I love and, ultimately, to the faith I love even more.”

Balmer claims to defend God and country from within evangelicalism, though he acknowledges that many would deny him the label of “evangelical.”

What is an EVANGELICAL?

In North America, “Evangelical” does not have a unique meaning that is acceptable to all. Various groups and individuals define it as a specific conservative Christian system of beliefs, or a type of religious experience, or a commitment to proselytize the unsaved, or as a style of religious service, or as having a personal “walk with God,” or as a group of denominations, or as a personal acceptance of a “biblical worldview,” or as some combination of the above.

By Balmer’s definition, an evangelical “takes the Bible seriously” and often literally, emphasizes personal conversion to Jesus, and sees a necessity to evangelize.

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) theologian Jack Rogers says evangelicals believe that people need a personal relationship with God through Christ, the Bible is the final authority for salvation and life, and everyone should hear about Jesus.

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) publishes a Statement of Faith to which churches must agree if they wish to join the Association. It implies a definition of their concept of “Evangelical.”

Michael Horton the editor-in-chief of the Modern Reformation magazine says, “Since ‘The Year of the Evangelical,’ corresponding to our nation’s Bicentennial in 1976, the term (in North America, at least) has come to identify those who highlight a particular brand of politics, a moralistic and often legalistic approach to life, and a sort of ersatz, “corny” style of evangelism. For some, the term encompasses the emotionalism they see on religious TV. For others, hypocrisy and self-righteousness.”

For more definitions of Evangelicals try this site.

What stood out to me about this man, Randall Balmer, is that he appears to believe the less activism the better and that faith is purer and more effective when it’s unsoiled by politics. I agree. If Christians want to live in their own biblical worldview of life, that is fine. They can go to their own churches and teach their own children about their ways in private schools. But please, do not impose your beliefs on society at large.

From the article:

“Balmer complains that evangelicals refuse to read Paul’s “apparent condemnations of homosexuality” as rooted in, and “arguably” limited to, “the historical and social circumstances of the first century.”

Balmer is equally agitated about abortion, which set the pattern for later evangelical activism on gay issues. A libertarian, he believes abortion is “properly left to a woman and her conscience.”

He charges that conservatives grabbed abortion “as the issue that would propel them to prominence,” indicating that moral principle wasn’t involved, only “shameless pursuit of affluence and power” through politics. He likewise says conservatives within mainline denominations exploit the gay issue to build their power base.

Defending that harsh judgment, he says evangelicals “take pride in a kind of slavish literalism” on the Bible, which never forbids abortion as such. Conservatives say biblical teaching requires opposition.

Balmer believes the activists “would love nothing more than to dismantle the First Amendment and enshrine evangelical values and mores as the law of the land,” impose “intelligent design” upon biology classes, and end separation of church and state. Of course, liberal agitators continually enshrine the opposite values.”

I hope my Evangelical Christian friends read this book. I would love to hear their opinion.


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