Some questions to think about
Here are some questions to think about:
- What is distinct about Christianity as compared to other religions and/or life systems?
- Who speaks for the church today? Who are the most prominent and influetial Christians? Who is doing the things that other Christians/churches are trying to copy?
- What is the message being spread by these people?
- Does the #3 align with #1?
A few articles that provide some answers to these questions. Think about how you would answer these questions yourself first.
One more question: what do you do when someone hijacks your label? Specifically, how can the word ‘evangelical’ be taken away from those who are using it of themselves, but whose ministries are not truly evangelical? It’s tempting to just abandon the word altogether. But ‘evangel’ just means gospel; how can we stop describing ourselves by the central tenent of Christianity, and leave it to those who are not gospel-centred? There’s obviously no easy fix for situation, but let me know if you have any thoughts…
March 14th, 2005 at 10:43 am
Here are my answers, though not thorough:
1. Christianity presents a Saviour who is both fully God and fully man who redeemed fallen, sinful people through his atoning death on the cross and a God who lavishes grace on sinful people. Christianity presents salvation as entirely an act of God in redeeming and bringing a people to himself for his own purposes; all other religions do not have a God who suffers as a substitute and who is gracious.
2. This is an interesting question. It would seem that we can only know the ‘big names’ as those who speak for the church rather than the countless Christians who live lives infused with grace. I would hope that the Church suffering (and being purified) throughout the world (in places like China, India and Africa) would be the true voice of Christianity. Unfortunately in the ‘Christian’ (note the quote marks) USA the big names are the celebrity Christians – people who have megachurches or write best-selling books: Rick Warren, James Dobson, Joel Osteen, Bruce Wilkinson on a popular level; what about the whole ‘emergent’ movement and scholarly top-dogs like N. T. Wright, too?
3. At least at the popular level, there is usually some health-and-wealth message – probably not to the extent of some tele-evangelists, but just pervasive enough to seem acceptable. There is, I think, an intent to make Christianity viable for people who aren’t believers – to speak their language – but it appears that these books/sermons/people aren’t as infused with the sense that God mercifully became flesh and redeemed a people who did nothing (and can do nothing) to deserve it. In short, it lacks the reliance on Christ alone and the transforming power of grace; there isn’t much ‘take up your cross’ either.
4. Not usually – or not entirely. But hasn’t this mostly been the case with megapersonalities?
5. The whole labelling problem of ‘evangelical’ seems to be more of a problem in the States than in Scotland. I think we need to be clear what the gospel is and try to keep promoting the true gospel rather than a perversion of it – and making sure those with whom we use the phrase really know what it means; but we shouldn’t chuck out the phrase just because it’s been used inappropriately.