There’s been some interesting hubbub in the Christian blog world this week over an interview Rob Bell was a part of, where he was asked to define evangelical. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Q. What does it mean to you to be an evangelical?
A. I take issue with the word to a certain degree, so I make a distinction between a capital E and a small e. I was in the Caribbean in 2004, watching the election returns with a group of friends, and when Fox News, in a state of delirious joy, announced that evangelicals had helped sway the election, I realized this word has really been hijacked. I find the word troubling, because it has come in America to mean politically to the right, almost, at times, anti-intellectual. For many, the word has nothing to do with a spiritual context.
Q. OK, how would you describe what it is that you believe?
A. I embrace the term evangelical, if by that we mean a belief that we together can actually work for change in the world, caring for the environment, extending to the poor generosity and kindness, a hopeful outlook. That’s a beautiful sort of thing.
The flaming that started in the blog world was over how Rob doesn’t mention Jesus in his definition of evangelical. While it’s a little interesting, I’ve read him and listened to him enough to know that he was probably cryptic on purpose. Namely in this description, he’s trying to cast the term as something different from conservative politics. This is a good thing, and an important thing for what evangelicals are all about. It was after all evangelicals that were a driving part of abolishing slavery and who were at the forefront of much of the social Justice issues addressed in the US. It wasn’t until the early 1900’s that it started changing.
What is particularly frustrating about this situation though, is that if you read the article, he goes on to explain that Jesus is a part of this way of living. When asked whether religion is a part of his definition of evangelical:
At the heart of the Christian story is resurrection, the belief that this word is good, and that, as a follower of Jesus, a belief that God hasn’t abandoned the world, but is actively at work in the world. Even in the midst of what can look like despair and destruction there is a new creation present.
When the interviewer remarks about not hearing Rob use a lot of religious language, he responds:
I think we have enough religious people who are going around trying to convert people. My guard is up when somebody is trying to convert me to their thing. Are you talking to me because you actually are interested in this subject, because you care about me as a human, or am I one more possible conversion that will make you feel good about your religiosity? I don’t have any embarrassment about my religion, and it’s not that I’m too cool, but I would hope that the Jesus message would come through, hopefully through a full humanity.
It would seem pretty obvious that Rob views the gospel as at the heart of what he’s saying about evangelical, but of course there are always theological police to jump on anything that they perceive as missing. There’s been a lot of dogpiling in that regard from the reformed camp because he doesn’t articulate perfectly their specific version of what the gospel is. I’ve heard complaints that he emphasizes resurrection instead of the cross, which leads to me wanting to bang my head against a wall because making the cross the emphasis of what the gospel is to the detriment of resurrection is just as bad.
And that’s the thing that’s frustrating about the state of current evangelicalism in terms of theology, there’s a lot of fighting over who’s in and who’s out and who we should listen to. And a lot of times it’s just over people grabbing different facets of the gospel story. In missioforum, a group discussion we are running, to discuss how we engage in missional, incarnational ministry, we were talking about the gospel this week. Namely that a gospel without the kingdom, where it’s just about our individual morals is missing something huge. We spent an hour talking about how the gospel is bigger, the different facets of the gospel and how there can be so many different emphases. I came to a realization at the end that it’s really important that we be in community and in discussion with people from other Christian traditions, because without that sort of a community, it’s easy to miss ways that the gospel bears out on our lives and on what we do.
This all leads me to thinking that I am thankful for Rob, because there are things that I’ve caught from his writing and teaching that I don’t think I would have otherwise. In the same way I’m thankful for the reformed folks, and especially someone like Tim Keller, who has also impacted me and helped me to see things I wouldn’t otherwise. I just hope that I can figure out a way that I can grow, that we can grow, to being able to appreciate what different Christians are bringing to the table before scrutinizing them for not fitting our specific theological grid (this isn’t to say that theology isn’t important, just that it’s easy for us to make a minor issue into one we think is huge, a mountain out of a theological mole hill, so to speak).
All that to say, I could probably make complaints about Rob’s definition of evangelical. But I don’t think it’s a great use of time. I don’t think that I would expect a super concise, totally accurate description of it from anyone when put on the spot, so I’ll take it as what it is: a great contribution to us reclaiming “evangelical” as something bigger than Christians who vote Republican.
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Bryan,
Thanks for your comments on this. I’ve been too busy this week to keep up on all the “hubbub,” but I did read bits of commentary and mostly Bell’s words. Can’t comment on the Reformed banter (I like the theology, not so much the cannibalistic sub-culture), but Bell indeed is cryptic often.
My comment here is mostly about your comments: well stated, irenic, and not polarizing. Good stuff.
Likewise, I wanted to bang (or, as you write “band”
my head on the seminary classroom table earlier this week as some fellow students wanted to straw man any missional/social aspect of Gospel ministry. Loving people authentically means being in their lives, right where they are, and seeking for the whole Gospel to change their whole person. [Plus, the Gospel is for us Christians too. We must never leave it or proclaim one message to unbelievers and a different one to ourselves (Romans 1:15).] That way we don’t convert people to something other than what they were offered in the first place: the Triune God doing all He must to remove every obstacle to our everlasting enjoyment of God and one another.
Also, should not our good works should be “signs” of God’s Kingdom, that we live under His reign, and that Jesus is the good life, now and eternally? Come join the Trinity as They renew all things and we participate in this glorious transformation! (It is Already/Not Yet.)
Like Keller, I think penal substitutionary atonement is the center of the Gospel (Romans 3:21-26), but that is not the fullness of the Good News. God did treat His Son like He was me (a complete sinner), so He can treat us like we are His beloved. Our new identity takes on the original design: sons and daughters to live in the glory of the Father. From the center we move outward to the other aspects and implications of the Good News: that the image of God in us can be recaptured, that the injustices of this world will be reversed, and we can work to those ends now in tangible ways. (Making sense here?)
Jesus came to live the life we should have lived and die the death we should have died — and oh so much more. (I think Triperspectivalism gets at this well for application of various aspects with prophet-priest-king.)
He has sent us out to proclaim and live and love and sacrifice and give our lives away. Plus, it is not simply a salvation plan for individual persons. (Or, as you tweeted, “nothing frustrates me more than people who believe the gospel is license to not have to be at work in the world for good.”) Christ came for his community. Men like you are helping me see that more and more.
So, simply, thanks. (Sorry if my comment here is longer than your post. Too much banging my head.)
Ha! I can’t believe I missed that. Gonna have to fix my error after “banding” my head.
Thanks for the comment Jeff, there’s much I appreciate about it. The irenic thing is tough for me at points, I had a friend the other day point out that how I speak about some specific church leaders violates my stance on finding the good in other traditions and how we collaborate.
And you know I would have been there banging my head with you, as missional is definitely my tribe.
Gonna throw out just a couple ideas in response to something you said. First, I think you comments about our good works being signs of the kingdom. In our missioforum discussion this week, one of the things I came to was that we have disconnected action and kingdom from “gospel” when we move towards making it just information.
There’s a movement among some in my tribe to go to the opposite side that we really “gospel” (I use gospel as a verb here in place of evangelize) just by how we act. One of our points is that both are facets that can’t be separated – that we gospel just as much in our information as in our action as in our story telling.
There’s much from what you said from Keller, which I really dig and has been great for me. It seems a really strange situation sometimes to be a guy that can’t separate from wesleyan/charismatic theology yet having great appreciation for the barthian trinitarian strand and the Keller strand of reformed theology.
Peace bro, grateful for the comment.
Just as it seems some people either want to use the Gospel as an excuse to not engage in this world (not recognizing it is God’s best plan to engage people and culture where they are), it also seems like others want to use outreach and service as a self-justification project. Just live a humble, good life and others will be attracted to Jesus by our works, asking why. Really? Will they? Seems that proclamation must be linked with mission and renewal, and vice versa.
Maybe the first group pits WHO vs. DO, and the second group puts DO in front of WHO. As an (over)analyzer, I’m thinking WHO must be before DO (indicative before imperative, as the NT pattern; e.g., Paul made his first exhortation in ch. 12, but that was greatly linked “in view of” to 11 chapters of pure Gospel exploration and explanation).
It also seems — to borrow some thoughts from Newbigin — that Paul saw the whole telos of the Kingdom of God coming together in Jesus (and rightly so). The Kingdom of God is at hand? Where? In HIM! So, He’s the WHO that the WHAT (K of God) should speak of, and we should point towards through our “signs” of submission, patience, endurance, forgiveness, forbearance, etc.
As for orthodoxy & orthopraxy … What I appreciate about leaders like Tim Keller as well as Darrin Patrick, Jonathan McIntosh, Ray Ortlund and Jonathan Dodson (et al) is that they are not simply striving to defend their tribe (or brand of theology).
They see an extractional church (great term you have there by the way) as both separating from culture and from other Christians. And thus as destructive. That whole list is of committed “reformed” pastors who have an irenic bent for appreciating the good in other traditions of historic Christian orthodoxy. I’ve learned much from them and others, from afar.
Thanks for the discussion. Back to work here.
I’m a little wary of talking about the whole Kingdom coming together in Jesus, but I appreciate the take on it. I think that we would certainly agree that Christ’s life, death and resurrection brought about the advent of a new Kingdom (in the now and not yet sense). I just want to make sure that we properly emphasize that the Kingdom is about more than just getting people into heaven, and that it also encompasses the restoration of all of creation (not saying you’re saying that, just the thing I am wary of).
Thanks for the comments Jeff!