Evangelicals
Based on some responses to my last post, and a new poll by Faith in Public Life and Mercer University, it seems there are many evangelicals who believe that there are in fact times when torture is necessary and proper. I am assuming these people also believe it is at [...]
Two of the mantras that my evangelicalism has taught me over the years are these:
1. Be True to Scripture
2. Avoid Politics
The heart for God's Word is not all that surprising, given the "Sola [...]
I saw a column this weekend in Time magazine by Amy Sullivan in which she asks, "Are Evangelicals Really Sold on Palin?" It's well worth reading.
Lost in the stampede of social conservatives to embrace Palin this past week is the fact that she is
Evangelical women and minorities, it seems, exist on the muted margins of political discourse in America. If a justice revival is to sweep over America once more, from the suburban megachurch to the urban storefront church, then Christians must pursue a vision of the common good for all -- and not the common good of a few.
The public narratives of the media often chronicle the broadening social concerns of white [...]
The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA.org) was launched in 1979, in response to growing concern "over an increase of [sic] questionable fund-raising practices in the nonprofit sector." As their Web site explains, Sen. Mark Hatfield challenged "a group of key Christian leaders" to begin policing their own mission agencies as a kind of "Christian Better Business Bureau."
Perhaps 30 years later, evangelicals, because of "an increase in [...]
The Christian Broadcasting Network talks to Jim Wallis in a recent segment on James Dobson's criticism of Barack Obama. Bishop Harry Jackson of the High Impact Leadership Coalition is also interviewed. Watch it.
Whenever I hear those three little words -- "the latest poll" -- I generally tune out. Pollsters and survey-takers seldom ask the right questions, I've found, so the responses they get are less than reliable. One exception is the surveys conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, and the organization's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, released Monday, June 23, proves why.
The Pew survey [...]
Jim Wallis talks about the evangelical agenda in the context of James Dobson's recent criticism of Barack Obama. Watch it:
James Dobson, of Focus on the Family Action, and his senior vice president of government and public policy, Tom Minnery, used their "Focus on the Family" radio show to criticize Barack Obama's understanding of Christian faith. In the show, they describe Obama as "deliberately distorting the Bible," "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter," "willfully trying to confuse people," and having a "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution."
The clear purpose of the show was to [...]
James Dobson, of Focus on the Family Action, and his senior vice president of government and public policy, Tom Minnery, used their "Focus on the Family" radio show to criticize Barack Obama's understanding of Christian faith. In the show, they describe Obama as "deliberately distorting the Bible," "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter," "willfully trying to confuse people," and having a "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution."
The clear purpose of the show was to [...]
It is no secret that young evangelicals are opting out of the 'religious right' in ever-larger numbers, and are becoming more (what for lack of a better term we'll call) progressive. With the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other, many young evangelicals are asking tough questions and beginning to make connections.
Our politics are coming out differently, but it is not that we reject everything our parents believe. Rather, we take seriously something beneath the rhetoric. We [...]
[continued from part one]
What's at issue in the SBC, and in the larger evangelical community (and, we could add, in the mainline and Roman Catholic communities as well), isn't whether faith is political. Nobody (or almost nobody) is arguing for dropping the second half of the great commandment -- so that "loving God" is about faith and is central, but "loving neighbor" is about politics [...]
A recent New York Times story, "Taking Their Faith, but Not Their Politics, to the People," highlights the challenge faced by followers of Christ who seek to integrate their faith with all aspects of life, including political life in a democracy. The article suggests to me a question that we should raise more frequently when people [...]
Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform a Sojourners supported project hosted a dialogue in March with 40 Latino and Anglo evangelical pastors at Iglesia El Calvario, a 5,000-member Latino
I've remarked to a number of friends lately that there seem to be three main kinds of religious people in the world.
First, there are the fearsome -- those who like to make others afraid.
Second, there are the fearless -- those who refuse to be intimidated by the fearsome.
Then in the middle are the fearful -- those who are afraid to associate with the fearless because they might incur the ire of the fearsome.
I've [...]
Last week, I wrote about the new Evangelical Manifesto, of which I was a signatory. It's been interesting to see the news coverage that followed its release.
On the one hand, CNN implied that the statement was pro-Democratic:
For Democrats, the timing is good. The party has been [...]
The church has a serious image problem. A recent book, unChristian, by Barna pollster David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons reveals much about how Millennials, the emerging generation - both those inside and around the church - view Christianity. The results weren't good. An overwhelming majority of young people view Christians as hypocritical, too judgmental, too focused on the afterlife, and too political in the worst sense of the word. And that image is often particularly true of [...]
My dear friend, Ken Wilson, who pastors the Ann Arbor Vineyard, showed me a chart that I found very helpful:
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Evangelical |
Charismatic |
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Social Justice |
Liturgical |
What has happened in the last generation is that there has been border-blending among the four great movements in [...]