Defining Evangelicalism Down

Townhall.com ^ | 2/12/08 | Paul Edwards

[Terriergal]

The Religious Left is successfully redefining what it means to be a conservative evangelical by misrepresenting what it means to be a conservative evangelical. In a recent conference call hosted by Faith in Public Life, one of the emerging voices of the Religious Left, Dr. Joel Hunter, said:

There’s also a change in the voices that are defining what is conservative now, and what is evangelical. In the past couple of decades you’ve had some very loud voices on both sides – hard right, hard left – and when those were the only choices, then of course many evangelicals are going to go with the hard right because, well, that’s kind of where we mostly are. Now there are many more voices that are expanding the agenda, and so those people that have always had kind of a holistic approach, rather than just a one or two issue approach, are now feeling permission and given permission to be more nuanced and more sophisticated in their approach, rather than just going in a very bifurcated system. And so, what you’re hearing now is that the old voices that appointed themselves as the definers of what was evangelical or what was conservative are not holding sway with the majority of evangelicals anymore.

By convincing America that conservative evangelicals are concerned only with two issues, stopping abortion and preserving traditional marriage, these new voices of evangelicalism are effectively making the case that conservative evangelicals ignore poverty, HIV/AIDS, and the environment. The history of evangelicalism tells a different story.

Evangelicals have set the standard throughout history for social action which continues into the present through numerous humanitarian relief organizations. The Association of Evangelical Relief and Development Organizations claim 64 such organizations as members, including World Vision, Compassion International, Samaritan’s Purse, and Mercy Ships.

One of the largest humanitarian relief organizations in the world is the Salvation Army. It defines its commitment to social services as “…an outward visible expression of the Army's strong religious principles.” Those social services include disaster relief, services for the aging, AIDS education, medical facilities, and shelters for battered women. The Salvation Army impacts 30 million people a year in the United States alone. The founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, was a Methodist minister. On its website the Salvation Army defines itself as an “evangelical group.”

To these readily recognizable evangelical organizations add the innumerable evangelical churches across America that in very quiet and unrecognized ways minister to the needs of the poor and suffering every day. In my own community a local evangelical church runs the oldest and largest homeless shelter in our county. Grace Gospel Fellowship in Pontiac, Michigan serves 127,000 meals a year, provides rehabilitation services and housing for drug addicts and single mothers, and creates jobs. It accomplishes its mission without one dime of government funding, and is “dedicated to recovery through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

The Religious Left’s appeal for the Religious Right to “broaden its agenda” to include poverty, HIV/AIDS, and the environment ignores the fact that conservative evangelicals have always had a strong commitment to these issues. So if conservative evangelicals are already leading the efforts to relieve poverty and disease, what’s behind the call to “broaden the agenda”? Another agenda altogether.

What’s really happening here is an attempt by the Left to define evangelicalism down by moving it away from its emphasis on the power of the gospel to change lives. The church’s ability to affect social and cultural change, bringing relief to the poor and suffering, is rooted first and foremost in its commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and what the gospel says about the condition of man in sin which results in the symptoms of poverty and disease.

The Religious Left invalidates the conservative evangelical commitment to humanitarian relief because we are achieving our ends in the name of Jesus Christ through the gospel, without the assistance of government funding. The fundamental tenant of modern liberalism is that a government program funded by redistributed wealth is the preferred method of humanitarian relief rather than what the church is accomplishing by faith through compassionate hearts.

The new voices of the Religious Left – Rick Warren,  Joel Hunter, Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis, et al – are defining down what it means to be an evangelical by making the symptoms of man’s sin (poverty, disease, etc.) a priority rather than addressing the cause of those symptoms (sin) and the cure found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The argument for this reprioritizing is a convincing one, suggesting the new priorities for evangelicals ought to be determined by asking, “How would Jesus respond to (fill in your favorite social cause here)?” The implied answer is that Jesus would be more concerned about the treatment of the poor (especially illegal immigrants) and, at best, neutral on the questions of abortion and homosexual marriage because Jesus never spoke against abortion or homosexual marriage.

These new voices of evangelicalism wear the label “red letter Christians,” but they are in reality “white space Christians,” determining Jesus’ view of abortion and homosexual marriage by focusing on what he didn’t say rather than on what he did say. In Matthew 5 Jesus upholds the standard of the Mosaic Law, which is clear in its call for punishing anyone responsible for killing a child in the womb (Exodus 21:22-25). When Jesus wanted to illustrate true greatness, he set a child in the midst of the disciples and said, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14). In Matthew 19 Jesus clearly affirmed that marriage is between one man and one woman by validating the story of Adam and Eve, holding it up as the standard for marriage. As for the question of how Jesus would respond to illegal immigrants, I’m pretty sure he would tell them to obey the law (cf. Matthew 22:21).

The new voices of evangelicalism sound eerily similar to the old voices of the social gospel movement who moved their churches away from the priority of the gospel in the early 20th Century, focusing instead on positive thinking and welfare as a solution to social ills. The result was empty pews and even emptier hearts. I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution, then I’ll get down on my knees and pray we don’t get fooled again (with apologies to Pete Townshend).

[KantianBurke]

“The Religious Left invalidates the conservative evangelical commitment to humanitarian relief because we are achieving our ends in the name of Jesus Christ through the gospel, without the assistance of government funding.”

What an outraegous lie! If the past 7 years have demonstrated anything, its that evangelicals love spending govt dollars and dispensing them in Jesus’ name just as much as liberals. Sickening.

[Alex Murphy]

Jan and Paul Crouch are dominionists/believe we can change culture for Christ too.

Read all about those eeeeeevil "premillenial dispensational reconstructionist dominionist evangelical fundamentalist Christians"...

"About 12.6 percent of the American public are Dominionist Christians. It’s still a chunk—38 million. And they are represented very well now on all 737 U.S. military instillations that the Pentagon acknowledges that we have. It’s really closer to 1000. In 132 countries around the world, as we garrison the globe....

....There are four specific stenches that are attended to Dominionist Christians, particularly in the military. It’s much like walking into a ditch, or in my native New Mexico we would call it an arroyo, on a hot summer day, and walking upon the diseased corpses of 10,000 swine, and having that malodorous stench invade your nose. The first of the four stenches is virulent anti-Semitism. Virulent. Second, virulent homophobia. The third is virulent misogyny, basically the idea that women should be consigned to collecting food, preparing food, serving food, cleaning up after meals, spreading their legs, getting pregnant, and raising children. The last is the massive subordination of flawed man—you know, when humans pop out of their mothers’ wombs they are of course bearing Original Sin—so therefore, the massive subordination of man’s law, by which they mean the Constitution, to this weaponized Gospel of Jesus Christ."

And remember - 12.6 percent of the American public are "Dominionist Christians"...

BWA HAHAHAHAHAHA

[HarleyD]

Paul not only tells us to obey rulers; he tells us what a ruler is. In 13:4, he says the deakonis (minister of god, ruler generally) is a doer of good to those who do good and a revenger upon those who do evil.

Well, this is a new interpretation not found in the commentaries. I assume that verse 13:6:

Rom 13:6 For because of this you also pay taxes. For they are God's servants, always giving attention to this very thing.

Means we are to pay taxes to church leaders? I would suggest further study.

How could someone who tells you to help him kill innocents, or who is a terror unto those who do good (some of the Catholic Poles who hid the innocent and defied authority) be a “ruler” by God’s standard?

I would suggest you review the Old Testament for your answer. King David, who was a man after "God's own heart", had people sawed in two. In one case he lined up an entire town and every third person (man, woman or child) he executed. David even laments that God would not allow him to build His temple because he was a man of blood. The whole book of Habakkuk (three chapters) deals with why God would purposely bring the murdering Chaldeans down upon the Israelites who were not nearly as bad.

God brings judgment down on the heads of nations by using other nations. He raises up the leaders who He so pleases to make known His power. Keep in mind that the end of Hitler meant the formation of Israel.

There were a number of Catholics and Protestants who hid the Jews. There were even some non-believers like Schindler who harbored the Jews from Hitler. What Hitler did was barbaric but that doesn't necessarily make it right. I'll give you a very good biblical example of this principle. Consider the following text:

Exo 1:15 And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah.
Exo 1:16 And he said, When you midwife the Hebrew women, and look on the birth stools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him. But if it is a daughter, then she shall live.
Exo 1:17 But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved alive the male children.
Exo 1:18 And the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, Why have you done this thing, and have saved the male children alive?
Exo 1:19 And the midwives said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. For they are lively, and are delivered before the midwives come in to them.
Exo 1:20 And God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and became very mighty.

The midwives clearly lied to Pharaoh because they did not want to kill the babies. What the midwives did was wrong and a violation of one of the commandments. However, they did it so they wouldn't violate what they (and God) considered a higher commandment, one of murder. As a result of their effort, God "dealt well" with them. It doesn't mean that what they did was right, only that there are degrees of sin that we all must weigh.

[farmer18th]

As a result of their effort, God "dealt well" with them. It doesn't mean that what they did was right, only that there are degrees of sin that we all must weigh.

You may be shocked but I suspect we are not that far apart; I would characterize this a little differently. Obeying a higher law IS doing the "right thing," and makes what would otherwise APPEAR to be the breaking of a lower standard an act of righteousness. Nathan called David to abject repentence for his wrong doing; Romans 13 is almost always interpreted from the perspective of the citizen or the subjects. It is also a clear direction to leaders as well; John McCarthur makes the dangerous mistake of emphasizing only one-half of the message. It is VERY unlikely this forum itself would exist if the founders of the republic weren't doing the right thing and obeying God's laws over man's.

Are missionaries, for example, doing the wrong thing when they refuse to be silent about the preaching of the gospel--in countries where they are commanded to hold their tongues?

[farmer18th]

One more point. Where I respect your reasoning, at least, is that your understanding of Scripture is complete enough to know that the law was made for man, not man for the law. You have a rationale for concluding that, yes, at some point it is appropriate to disobey a leader when that leader calls you to be complicit in an act of objective evil. My reading of McArthur is that he stresses obedience to a degree that is very dangerous. What else can you conclude when he includes depraved pronouncements like "obey Hitler, obey Stalin."

If the early Christians had obeyed Nero, the Gospel itself would not have been preached.

[HarleyD]

You have a rationale for concluding that, yes, at some point it is appropriate to disobey a leader when that leader calls you to be complicit in an act of objective evil.

I don't think we're that far apart either. I would add that it's far too easy for people today simply to say they're not going to obey; whether it's the government, wives or children. God appointed a set order of obedience and man constantly want to rebel against it.

I do think you're being a bit harsh on MacArthur. In the case of the midwives, had they been obedient to Pharaoh, technically they would have been absolved of any guilt of sin (in that instance). The sin of murder would have been on Pharaoh's head. They would have been obeying the lawful order of the government and they would not have committed the sin of lying.

Christians are fond of saying God is in control but they really don't believe it. MacArthur is making his point from a position that he truly believes God is in control. Thus rulers like Hitler or Stalin are raised up and we are sometimes forced to live under these regimes. As Christians we are to show God's love through us and we have an obligation to live under these regimes as civilly as possible without compromising this light. God will handle everything else very nicely.

Elijah thought he was alone in the work of the Lord, but God told him that He had 7,000 men who had not bow the knee to Baal even though he couldn't see them. Those blessed saints in China, Egypt or the Middle East are not cowards for not standing up to the Muslim regimes. They are living under oppressive regimes. MacArthur is saying that if you are living under one of these regime's be obedient as much as possible. God will work it all out and He will bless them for tolerating the situation.

[farmer18th]

Christians are fond of saying God is in control but they really don't believe it. MacArthur is making his point from a position that he truly believes God is in control. Thus rulers like Hitler or Stalin are raised up and we are sometimes forced to live under these regimes.

Ah..but rulers aren't the only players on God's stage. He works out his will by both the actions of the rulers and the ruled. The danger of MacArthur's teaching is that he turns the governed into the audience, and not players in the drama. I believe God want us to be on stage, obedient to rulers most of the time, but righteously defiant when we are called to be.

[HarleyD]

Ah..but rulers aren't the only players on God's stage. He works out his will by both the actions of the rulers and the ruled. ...I believe God want us to be on stage, obedient to rulers most of the time, but righteously defiant when we are called to be.

And exactly when are we "called" to be "righteously defiant"? What you are proposing is similar to the Korah rebellion. If you'll recall, Korah (in Numbers 16) thought he had the right to enter the Holy of Holies. After all he was a Levite and just as good as Moses and Aaron. He felt that his tribe should be allowed to do what Aaron's tribe was doing. He found out, to his regret, this was not the case. God had NOT appointed him to enter the Holy of Holies and Korah's rebellion was not seen as righteous defiant but blasphemy against God's appointment.

The problem in your reasoning is you're the one who's going to determine what is right and wrong. You get to choose when and over what to be "righteously defiant". This is not the attitude God wants us to have. He requires three things from His believers; love justice, do kindness, and walk humbly with Him. If He wants us to be the "ruled" then that is His will and sovereign right.

[farmer18th]

You're making some assumptions there, rather wildly. Of course there were unrighteous rebellions in both the old and the New Testaments. There were also acts of righteous defiance of false authority. Ehud called a knife in the belly of the king a "message from God," and that occured in answer to the people of the Lord's prayer.

My problem with MacArthur is that slavish obedience to unrighteous authority is no more scriptural than unruly and unrighteous defiance. The scriptures are a story of balance. If a preacher only preaches the half of the Word he's comfortable with, he's no preacher.

[HarleyD]

There aren't any assumptions. These are points of history. Ehud murdering of the king was a message from God. It rallied the Israelites and restored the government, for a time.

My problem with MacArthur is that slavish obedience to unrighteous authority

And how would you define "slavish obedience" and "unrighteous authority". Is following the abortion laws of this country not "slavish obedience"? Wouldn't you say you are following unrighteous authority, unless you happen to believe in abortion.

And what is "unrighteous" authority? All authority is appointed by God. Our Lord Jesus told Pilate that he had no authority except that which is given to him by God. (John 19:10-11) What you are in fact saying is that you do NOT believe authority comes from God, that God appoints unrighteous governments, and reinterpret Romans 13 to suit your soteriology. (You've never explained about the taxing authority.) Fact is God raises up a number of "unrighteous" authorities to prove His people. (And yes, Ehud murder of the unrighteous king brought peace to Israel for eigthy years. Did murder make what he did right in the sight of God?)

I would say that MacArthur isn't the one who is preaching only half the Word.

[farmer18th]

"Slavish obedience" is seen in blanket pronouncements like "obey Hitler."

Obey Hitler if he hands a pistol to you and tells you to murder. If he tells you to lie, to commit adultery, to steal your neighbors property?
Obey Hitler if he tells you to stop preaching the gospel?
Obey Hitler if he tells you to bow down to a false God?

Failing to recognize those occasions where rulers become imposter to their offices by objectively standing outside the definition of a righteous Romans 13 ruler is, indeed, preaching half the gospel.

You make assumptions, HarleyD, when you write things like "What you are proposing is similar to the Korah rebellion," or "..you're the one who's going to determine what is right and wrong." Moses never asked the people to do something objectively evil, something that was beyond question, outside the revealed will of the Lord, and you have no basis for saying I would propose any such thing at all, or that I would be the one to determine what is right or wrong. We have an objective discourse on what is right and wrong and that is scripture itself.

Earlier you seemed to admit that there are occasions when higher laws are obeyed over lower ones. Don't let your defense of a mere man--John MacArthur--cloud your defense of scripture.

[farmer18th]

I wanted to respond to your abortion reference as well.

First of all, when Christians fail to use their sovereign voting rights to help end the abortion scourge, they are committing a huge sin; when they fail to call other members of their congregation to repentence for voting for pro-aborts, they are in sin. If you were a doctor, and a magistrate ordered you to perform an abortion, as they do in China, (sometimes forced abortions), and you obeyed the ruler, you would be in sin.

So, yes, there are many occasions where a Christian might have the opportunity to obey a higher law.

Regarding Ehud:

Did murder make what he did right in the sight of God?

Ehud wasn't committing murder; he was executing God's just wrath on a wicked imposter-king. Big Diff. When our Christian boys gun down Al Queda, are you saying they're committing murder?

[farmer18th]

P.S. If it isn’t clear to you, I believe unrighteous defiance of a just ruler is equally sinful. Your Korah example is perfect proof text of that, but when you call the Ehud example merely “historical” record and not an example of a just defiance of authority, you are making righteous defiance “historical” and Korah’s rebellion “scriptural.” Do you see how that’s taking the half of the gospel you’re comfortable with and setting aside that which you are not?

[Terriergal]

I think the key word there is CONSERVATIVE evangelical

but you’re right — as I noted, “evangelical” has been coopted by big gov’t liberals.

Good sermon GOPPachyderm just posted:
Biblical View of Role of Government
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1972260/posts

Talks about liberalism and how there will be no lasting peace until Jesus returns no matter what your eschatology.

[Terriergal]

Good then you should agree with the sermon GOPPachyderm just posted (see my last post above).

[Terriergal]

And what fruits would those be? Number or type? So the servant who earned 5 more talents was MORE faithful than the one who earned two more? Scripture?

[farmer18th]

So far, he seems to be making the distinction that we don’t obey rulers when they ask us to perform unrighteous acts; I don’t know if I have time for an hour sermon this morning, but was there some other part of the sermon you were referring to?

[farmer18th]

Without going back to the verse, I don’t think the 5 talent servant did any better, with God, than the 1 talent increase servant. They were all told, “thou good and faithful.”

[farmer18th]

I did use the sermon to clean my desk. I like this guy. I think he may put off “the government upon His shoulder” a bit too far for my taste, but otherwise I think he struck a fair balance in the role of the government that we don’t hear much these days; John MacArthur, in particular, tends to be a Romans 13 “Absolutist.” (Obey Caligula, Obey Stalin, Obey Hitler.)

[HarleyD]

First of all, when Christians fail to use their sovereign voting rights to help end the abortion scourge, they are committing a huge sin

You're skirting the issue. Is our country executing "unrighteous authority"? You would have liked the German Lutherans to have rosed up against Hitler; why not the Christians rising up against abortion? And I don't mean in a "voting" sort of way.

Ehud wasn't committing murder; he was executing God's just wrath on a wicked imposter-king. Big Diff.

Ehud assassinated the king. He didn't go out to meet him in a fair fight. He was, in fact, executing God's wrath but that doesn't change the fact that he committed murder.

When our Christian boys gun down Al Queda, are you saying they're committing murder?

Let's keep this in perspective. You're the one who says we should question authority. I'm the one who is saying authority is derived from God and questioning that authority is, in fact, questioning God's purpose. From my perspective, if someone is following a lawful order such as our military men with Al Queda, then it is God who is simply executing His justice through our men. From your perspective they should question those orders.

How about a much more grayer area; the waterboarding of Al Queda prisoners for information? While I would not condone this action, should our soldiers have followed those orders? Do you believe they should be tried? From my perspective I would say that, if a crime was committed, the people who gave the orders should be prosecuted; not the soldiers who carried it out. From your perspective, the soldiers who carried it out should have rebelled against their leaders and they should be held accountable. They committed the large offense while their leaders only gave the orders. You simply have turned the whole authority matter on its head.