Peter Wehner sees civil war breaking out among evangelicals in the US.
For anyone with a past or present connection to evangelicalism, Wehner’s essay at The Atlantic is a sobering and challenging, but important, read:
“For many Christians, their politics has become more of an identity marker than their faith. They might insist that they are interpreting their politics through the prism of scripture, with the former subordinate to the latter, but in fact scripture and biblical ethics are often distorted to fit their politics.”
My brief comment on Facebook:
not sure how this relates to our situation here in Canada. But, having started ordained ministry in a “mainline” church during the decline of the 80’s, this comment struck me with force:
“Evangelical ministries and churches fit the ‘spirit of the age,’ growing rapidly in the 1970s, and retaining more of their members even as many mainline denominations declined.”
I can’t count the number of times I was told in the past that the only reason for the decline in “mainline denominations” and the growth of evangelicalism was the fact that the former had sold out to the spirit of the age and forsaken the true faith, while the latter had remained true to the Gospel.
ALAN BEAN follows up on Wehner’s comments with important insights of his own:
if a civil war is tearing American white evangelicalism apart, we must ask why now? Sure, Trump cannot be ignored, but could such a man have so successfully captured a major slice of American Christianity it any other era? I don’t think he could.
Consider the massive changes white evangelicals have faced in the present century:
- The election of America’s first Black president
- The legalization of gay marriage
- The Black Lives Matter movement
- An upsurge in popular attention to America’s racial history (particularly among the young)
- Public attention to non-binary sexual identity
- A steadily widening wealth gap and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression
- Two incredibly expensive wars America could not win
- Growing public perplexity with the climate crisis.
I could go on, but you get the message. America’s white evangelicals (males in particular) see each of these developments as a catastrophe. As a consequence, large portions of the evangelical subculture have quite literally gone mad. They are no longer in touch with reality because, for decades now, reality has been defined by non-evangelical politicians, scientists, academics, and entertainers. A large slice of the white evangelical pie no longer believes these people, but has nowhere else to turn…
Evangelicals… have cobbled together a brand of personal piety entirely lacking in social application. We’re about saving souls, we have said, not changing society. A religion nurtured in slave culture is bound to be like that. Evangelicals, as a consequence, oppose practically every form of social change but have little in the way of a positive program. We tell our people that the only practical application is evangelism. “Go ye into all the world and make disciples” is our favorite passage. We leave off the end of the sentence “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
In A Spacious Place 
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October 26, 2021 at 1:44 am
Bruce Bryant-Scott
This is, of course, indicative of “white” American Evangelicalism. It has never been descriptive of Black American Christianity, which is epitomized by the preaching and efforts of Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, and James Cone. That form of American Evangelicalism is very much about resisting the dominant, oppressive culture, and when possible, changing it. This is also seen in First Nations Evangelicals.
British Evangelicalism, I am learning, is also a different creature. It is rooted in the society-changing changing efforts brought about by campaigners against slavery and poverty, and so does not have quite the disconnect that we see in “white” American Evangelicalism.
October 26, 2021 at 5:20 am
Christopher Page
where would you put Canadian evangelicalism?
October 30, 2021 at 7:25 am
Bruce Bryant-Scott
I do not know Canadian Evangelicalism well enough to offer an intelligent comment. It may not be possible to make generalizations. That said . . .
+ Much of it is, I suspect, is deeply influenced by British evangelicalism, whether CMS in the past, John Stott in the ’60s, and later Michael Green and Holy Trinity Brompton and its Alpha Course.
+ However, I think there is another strain that functions like a branch plant of American white Evangelicalism, and we see it in the non-denominational churches that are overtly political and are full of anti-vaxxers.
+ There is another strain largely absent in the US and Britain, found among the radical Mennonites, like the fok behind magazines like Jeez – people for whom social justice and pacifism are normal for Biblical, gospel living.
+ This results in some places in “progressive” Evangelicals, who affirm the equality of the sexes and the full inclusion of 2SLGBTQA+.
+ And of course, we have our own 21st century of “separationists” – puritans in the mainstream denominations who break away to form their own church organizations.
+ Also, because of our large immigration rate, we are seeing Asian, Caribbean, Hispanic, and African varieties of charismatic and evangelical communities established, mainly in the larger centres. Again, I only know enough to say that these are different from previously existing churches that might describe themselves as Evangelical.
So, hardly monolithic
October 26, 2021 at 2:08 pm
Alexander Gordon
Dear Christopher Glad to see you back .your comments woke me up have not followed U.S. Politics as closely as I might S. > > S >