Near Emmaus

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A Dialogue between a Catholic and an Evangelical: Why I am not an Evangelical (Pt. 2b)

[Intro] [Brian: Why E/evangelical (1a) | Not Catholic (2a)] [Me: Why Catholic (1b)]

I also begin by thanking Brian. Let me say from the outset that Brian is my brother in Christ—no doubts about that in my mind. I very much appreciate him and the influence he’s had on my life. Over the years, through his blog posts, our emails, and in the get togethers we have had in Portland, Brian has been instrumental in helping me think through and form my views. It is no less the same in this dialogue.

I appreciate the evangelical movement. Many evangelicals I know have a tremendous love for God and do a wonderful job of living out the gospel. I went to an evangelical seminary and thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. I can agree with the evangelical ethos of which Brian wrote; I would even say that such an ethos describes me. So here is why I am not an evangelical. Let me just say that the points below are not necessarily a critique but that these are why I did not become evangelical.

Again, let me begin with some background. The closest I became to becoming evangelical was when I played music for the International House of Prayer Northwest (IHOP). At that time I was transitioning out of Oneness Pentecostalism; I wanted to branch out into the larger Christian world so I joined a group that was charismatic but was unlike Oneness Pentecostals in that IHOP believed in the Trinity. I did not always agree with they way IHOP expressed some of its beliefs but I enjoyed the opportunity to be a minstrel to God and to others while contemplating on the mysteries of God from 10 pm to midnight every Friday. To me, IHOP was quite evangelical but to others IHOP was considered heretical even though they all believed the same core doctrines. This leads me to my first point:

Ultra-diversity in Evangelicalism

I think diversity is a great thing, but great things can be taken too far. One of the reasons evangelicalism did not appeal to me is because within the evangelical umbrella there appears to be groups with distinctly contrasting views. For instance, some evangelical groups do not believe music in a church setting is biblical but some other groups do. Other groups believe that tithing is necessary—and sometimes even a matter of salvation—but others do not. Some evangelicals teach a health-and-wealth prosperity gospel and and others would say God never promised temporal prosperity in the New Testament. Furthermore, it seems evangelicalism encompasses even those like T. D. Jakes who espouses a modalist view of God, and of course, some evangelicals would consider Jakes a heretic.

The term evangelicalism itself is used in ways that are ultra-diverse. For example, I have heard Oneness Pentecostals lumped into evangelicalism. It seems that it is difficult to define with precision what evangelicalism is as it appears that everyone has her or his own version of who evangelicals are. I am not sure if I would enjoy continually explaining what type of evangelical I am when others ask and then having to answer any charges of heretic that might appear at any point of my explanation. At least as a Catholic, I can be prepared to be called part of the Whore of Babylon.

Lack of Daily Worship

I do not mean to say that evangelicals do not worship God personally every day. What I am referring to is the lack of daily community worship. IHOP is the only group of which I know that has daily prayer and song and perhaps some evangelical groups do have a daily service but weekend services seem to be the norm—and maybe a midweek evening prayer. Since becoming a committed Christian in 2002 worship has been an important part of my life. The Catholic church offers daily Mass and so that appealed to me. I understand that not everyone, even Catholics, has time to convene to sing praise together, hear Scripture together, pray together, and meet Jesus together daily, but the Catholic church offers such an opportunity to do so every day.

Aversiveness toward Intellectual Pursuits

I have noticed this trend more in conservative circles, but even among some moderates. In Oneness Pentecostalism, there were many anti-intellectuals. Many pastors were against having an education from a secular college or university and some pastors were against even their own Bible colleges (stepping into their shoes, I do not blame them as many of their flock who went to Bible college never returned). Even in seminary I had noticed a few who, although not anti-intellectual, were ambivalent about things like exegesis, even though they were thinkers. The intellectual life is important to me, and having been brought into the faith by priests of the Dominican order, the Catholic church is a place where I am able to nurture that life. Just last Sunday, the priest mentioned in his homily that John’s Gospel had two endings. He believed the both endings were written by John, but, of course, having been influenced by Paul Anderson, I mentally disagreed with him. My point is not that I think he was wrong but that I think that in an evangelical setting to have heard about John’s two endings in a sermon or homily would have been unlikely. The priest mentioned that because his homily had to do with love (reading was taken from John’s Gospel) and the second ending of John was reemphasizing what love is like.

Breaking from Tradition while Having a Tradition

Some evangelicals like to throw away tradition as if all of church history up until the founding of their particular group or denomination was false. Part of the irony to me is that within their respective denominations or groups there is an established or becoming established tradition. For instance, some groups’ tradition is to wear the Sunday’s best to church. I myself enjoy donning a suit (sometimes with a tie), but I also appreciate that I can show up to church with a nice pair of jeans and shirt and not be judged by that or thought of as an outsider. Then there is service order which often becomes predictable, and so forth. I can understand why some would like to consider themselves as having no tradition except that of the Bible but in practice that is hard to avoid. The worst that happens when a group decides that all of Christianity around them is part of the wrong traditions is that group becomes sectarian.

Of course, Catholics are not immune to the above points, with the exception of the second point. Some Catholics believe that the throne of Peter was vacated starting with Pope John Paul II and so there is the real Catholic church and the false Catholic church. I am sure some Catholics are anti-intellectual and some reject some of the Catholic traditions. In my experience, however, these seem to be on a lesser scale than within evangelicalism. Nonetheless, I do love my evangelical brothers and sisters (and schismatic Catholics siblings, too) no matter how and where we may differ.

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Women Priests and Apostate Protestants

signewilkinson0313This morning, as my wife and I were getting ready for church, I noticed that someone had posted this article on Facebook, regarding a 70-year-old Kentucky woman who was recently ordained as a priest by the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. This ordination obviously took place against the authority of the Vatican (as well as their archbishop, who referred to the ceremony as a “‘simulated ordination’ in opposition to Catholic teaching.”)

The following conversation (names have been changed) ensued in the comments section beneath the posted link:

“Tracy”: A woman can no more be a priest than red can be blue.

Me: Tracy, that’s ridiculous.

“Tracy”: Well, Joshua, it’s not. But I think being out of communion with the Church that Christ himself founded is ridiculous. You can’t follow the groom and reject his bride… But in any case, Protestants are free to call animals priests if they want to, but the Catholic priesthood is defined by the High Priest himself through the Church He founded, the Church, which is His mystical body, and his bride. This is a great, concise synopsis of why women cannot be priests. [She provided this link as evidence of why women cannot/should not be priests].

“James”: The reason appears to be simply that Jesus didn’t ordain any women, which to me doesn’t seem to warrant such an extreme response. I would also appreciate it if you didn’t compare women to animals.

“Tracy”: It goes deeper than that, James, but yes if Christ had wanted women as priests he could have ordained them. Didn’t equate women to animals, sorry. What I am saying is you can call anything or anyone you want a priest, but that doesn’t make it so. Some things cannot happen. She can have hands laid on her by a bishop and call herself a priest but she isn’t one. It’s impossible. She can pronounce the words of consecration but she cannot consecrate. I can call that plank of wood over there yarn but I cannot knit with it, because it is not yarn. [In response to an earlier comment about exegesis/hermeneutics vs. eisegesis]: I am familiar with the concepts of exegesis and hermeneutics, yes. The church goes back to Jesus himself, not the Middle Ages. His Truth never changes, and nor does it need to. All the baptized are members of the priesthood of all believers. All the baptized are priests, prophets and kings, but this priesthood is not the ordained priesthood, which is reserved for those men who are called to it by Jesus Christ, and is only conferred upon those men who are ordained by bishops who are direct successors of the apostles. Every Orthodox and Catholic bishop can trace his line of ordination back to one of the original apostles. But a valid bishop cannot ordain a woman, because women cannot be priests. I’ll give birth to a yak sooner than this truth will cease to be, but it is nothing to balk at or feel offended by. Women have their own indispensable and irreplaceable roles in the Church. The actions of those in this article are sad, for they harm their own souls in the process and create scandal and confusion among those less formed in their faith. Having different roles does not make one group better than another, just different. Just because Jesus regards all men ad women with equal dignity doesn’t mean He intends all roles for men and women.

I felt like this was a pretty bizarre exchange, and was left with a few questions/observations:

1) How prominent is Tracy’s view among those who are members of the Roman Church? I had always assumed that the sort of comments she posted were caricatures of outdated RC beliefs, and that few—if any—actually believed that Protestants are outside the Communion of the Saints and have “rejected the bride of the groom.”

2) Is this really the best argument against female priests? “Jesus never ordained women, so obviously they were never meant to be in that role”? That seems to me like an argument from silence.

3) How serious and how prevalent among RCs is the belief that priestly succession actually can be traced back to the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth? Isn’t this about as debatable as those silly Baptist folks who would claim their denominational lineage goes all the way back to John the Baptizer? And isn’t the premise of the argument kind of like painting a historical bulls-eye around a religious practice that was put in place long after the fact?

I understand that these questions reveal my ignorance of the Roman tradition. But the vast majority of RCs I’ve encountered have not been as radically fundamentalist (and, frankly, obnoxious) as Tracy. Feel free to post your thoughts on this RC/Protestant divide, as well as whether or not women should be permitted in the priesthood. Please keep it respectful.


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A Dialogue between a Catholic and an Evangelical: Why I am not a Catholic (Pt. 2a)

I’d like to begin by thanking JohnDave Medina for his courteous response in “Why I am a Catholic” as well as those who commented for participating in a cordial discussion. As I noted in the introductory post we agreed to begin our dialogue by explaining why we have chosen to affiliate with the particular expressions of Christianity that we do. Now we will state our negative reasons for not identifying with the other’s tradition. While we may shift our focus I hope that our posture remains the same. In other words, readers, remember that we are friends and that this chat is to be understood as one based on mutual respect in spite of our differences.

I noticed something in our first posts. I did not present my Evangelicalism by defending what may be considered key markers of Evangelical identity and JohnDave did not present his Catholicism as a defense of the key markers of Catholic identity. In other words, it is not the core aspects of these traditions that attracted us, but something else. It will be interesting to observe how that impacts our discussion. Now I must move to the main point of this post: Why I am not a Catholic.

The Papacy:

Pope Francis

Pope Francis

Honestly, I like the idea of a Pope, sometimes. As an Evangelical I see thousands of Popes proclaiming ex catherdra all the time. There is something assuring about the Pope’s role as a unifying figure. It removes the overwhelming anxiety that sometimes engulfs us Protestants who do not know how to say “this is what the Church teaches” because our tradition demands we begin with “this is what I believe.” Likewise, I like the current Pope. I think Pope Francis is an amazing person. In fact, I had great respect for Pope Benedict XVI and John Paul II as well.

My contention does not have anything to do with Bishops. I have pondered the ecclesiology of the Orthodox and Anglicans. I think there is a lot to be said in favor of the episcopate. What I cannot accept as the Pope as the singular head of the Church. In theory the “first among equals” is an idea that doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is the assertion that the Bishop of Rome may declare something and it must be settled as authoritative doctrine.

If the Pope’s office is to be traced back to the Apostle Peter (and I am skeptical of this direct connection) how does that result in papal infallibility? Peter was not infallible. Peter was part of a council in Jerusalem where it appears that James, the brother of Jesus, had the most authority (Acts 15). Paul told the Galatians that Peter was wrong and he withstood him. Could any modern Bishops–whether from Istanbul or Canterbury, Moscow or Los Angeles–do this? I don’t quite understand how the role of ecumenical councils can be subsumed by the role of the Bishop of Rome.

When I considered whether I could be a Roman Catholic I asked myself whether or not I could affirm that the Pope’s excommunication of Martin Luther which damned Luther (correct me if this is not something taught) and I could not affirm this. Luther wasn’t perfect, but he was right about a lot of things, and I expect to see him in the age to come, no matter what a Pope may suggest.

Various Doctrines:

Mary, Queen of Heaven?

Mary, Queen of Heaven?

Similarly, while I am attracted to the Papacy as the defender of Apostolic Doctrine, it doesn’t appear to me that this has been the case. The Papacy has advocated a Mariology which to me seems incompatible with the early Christian confession that Jesus is the Savior of the world, the only one. Doctrines such as purgatory, various forms of penance, and even smaller matters such as the use of contraceptives concerns me. I am interested in hearing people discuss the metaphysical relaties regarding Christ’s presence at the Eucharist, but the very black-and-white Catholic teaching on this matter doesn’t make sense to me. Now, there are aspects of Catholic doctrine that I don’t affirm, but they don’t bother me either, such as paedobaptism and praying to the saints–these traditions can be found amongst Protestants in different forms. What does bother me is that it is asserted that shared understanding on these matters is a necessity for fellowship.

That leads me to one of my greatest discomforts with the Catholic Church: Eucharist is meant to bring us together around our shared need for the broken and bloody Christ. Why is it that it has become a symbol of disunity? What does Eucharist have to do with the Bishop of Rome? It seems to me that the very act that ought to depict catholicity for all does the exact opposite.

Participation/Ordination:

An all-male, celibate priesthood denies the calling of many people whose calling I cannot deny.

An all-male, celibate priesthood denies the calling of many people whose calling I cannot deny.

Another question I have had to ask myself: if I became Catholic could I look a brother or sister in Christ in the eye then tell them that their lack of affiliation with Rome prevents me from sharing the Lord’s table with them? The answer is “no.” I cannot do that. Likewise, I have pondered the priesthood and the role of women. Currently, I am pastored by a woman. I have been pastored by a couple of amazing married men. Can I say in honestly that Jeff Garner or Rachel Epp-Miller are not called and qualified by the Spirit to lead my community because of marital status or gender? Again, the answer is “no.”

Now, this is not a polemical attack on Catholicism. It is an explanation of why I am not Catholic. I think there is a difference. I embrace JohnDave as a brother in Christ and his choice to be a Catholic doesn’t bother me. A more pressing question is whether being a Catholic allows him to embrace me as a brother in Christ or does my lack of loyalty to Rome prevent it? I think there is one who is the head of the Church, Jesus Christ, the resurrected and ascended Lord. I think he governs through his Spirit. Does that deny that Bishops have had a role or should continue to have a role? No, I don’t think so, though I don’t have a settled position on Bishops. I do not think that allegiance to the Bishop of Rome is a bad thing. I do think that the universal claim of the Papacy and the side effects of that claim are damaging to Christ’s Church.

This may seem like a brief list. It is, but that is because I want to avoid mischaracterization (I hope I did so in this post). I fear that I may create a list of objections that include things I retract later. I welcome clarification from JohnDave and others if it is felt that I have misrepresented the Catholic position. As our conversation moves forward I am sure other differences will arise.

Now, let me reiterate: there have been many times when I have found myself attracted to Catholicism. Therefore, it would be hypocritical for me to act as if I cannot find good in the tradition. There is much good. I want the Church to be one, visibly, not merely invisibly. I hope that as our discussion progresses we will be able to discuss further those things about the other’s tradition that we find to be beautiful and worthwhile.

In the next post JohnDave will explain why he is not an Evangelical. I’m sympathetic to his critique and he hasn’t written it yet! 

__________

Previous posts:

Introduction

Why I am an Evangelical

Why I am a Catholic


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A Dialogue between a Catholic and an Evangelical: Why I am a Catholic (Pt.1b)

[For "A Few Reasons Why I am a Catholic," see here.]
[For "A Few Reasons I am No Longer a Oneness Pentecostal," see here.]
[For why Brian is an E/evangelical, see here.] | [For the Introduction to this series, see here.]

Like Brian, I begin my portion of the series with Why I am a Catholic. A couple of years back, I laid out a few reasons why I am Catholic, which was a follow up to why I am no longer a Oneness Pentecostal (see links above) . This post seeks to expound on and augment that post. I do not intend in this post to respond necessarily to anything in Brian’s first post (see link above).

I should probably begin with some background. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I began my life in Christ as a charismatic Catholic; partly because of influences from friends, I became Oneness Pentecostal for a number of years and studied at a Oneness Bible college where Brian and I first became acquainted. I am thankful for my time as a Oneness Pentecostal. Through conversations and experiences with other Christians I had throughout those years, I began to question some of the tenets of Oneness theology and see their shortcomings. I began to move toward non-denominational groups and finally swung back full circle to Catholicism. I will now turn to why I moved that direction. As a disclaimer, the following is my perception of my Catholic faith—influenced by my studies, limited reading, and personal experiences—and might at times be expressed differently than usual; I think, however, that I arrive at the same place. I consider myself a charismatic Catholic with an evangelical slant, which I think is the direction Vatican II takes.

Ignatius of Antioch was martyred in the Colosseum

Ignatius of Antioch, who was martyred in the Colosseum.

My  journey back to Catholicism began as I studied early church history. As I began to read Ignatius of Antioch, a church father valued by some Oneness which got me interested in reading him, I read of concepts like the Eucharist being the medicine of immortality. In the line of the pastoral epistles, I found a continuing dialogue concerning the role of bishops and deacons in the early church fathers. In my own studies apart from class, I learned that worship in the early church consisted of hearing the Scripture, an expounding of or exhortation on it, and a celebration of the Eucharist. There was emphasis on the importance of baptism as Christian initiation. All of these sounded to me like what goes on in the Catholic church.

Next I encountered theosis: “God became human so that humanity might become as God” (St. Athanasius). Our church history class took a field trip to the local Byzantine Orthodox church. What I appreciated most about Orthodoxy was that theology was built into the liturgy. At that point, I had very little understanding of the Latin Catholic liturgy, but even now I think that the Byzantine churches meld theology and worship together in a unique way. What struck me was the theology of the icon where the icon was a window into the divine reality signified by what was portrayed. I began to attend Thursday evening vespers at the church and found Byzantine liturgy to have the quality of reverence that I had not before encountered.

One of the icons I own: Christ, the Light Giver

One of the icons I own: Christ, the Light Giver.

I noticed that the walls of the Byzantine Orthodox church had many icons. At the local Byzantine Catholic church that I attend every so often, the walls themselves are as icons. I learned that this pointed back to the concept of the cloud of witnesses found in Hebrews 12:1. While from the standpoint of exegesis, I would agree that the cloud of witnesses refers to those mentioned in Hebrews 11, the imagery still represents a living assembly such as that found in crowds at a stadium. In other words, the Catholic and Orthodox church’s adoption of the imagery of heavenly living assemblies in Hebrews and Revelation was not bad hermeneutics.

I turned to this cloud of witnesses for understanding theosis, and in the Spirituality and the Mystics class that I took the year following the church history classes, I found those like St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Faustina Kowalska, Brother Lawrence, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and others. The underlying of the emphasis of the saints have always been holiness as progress in love: love of God and love of neighbor for God’s sake. The saints spoke of the divine union with God and of partaking of the life of the Trinity. Believers can by grace fight sin and live out the life of the Trinity. This was the treasure of the Catholic church for me.

I kept searching and reading and found that the union with God and living in and living out the life of the Trinity was not something that saints of old wrote. I found that people in this day were experiencing it. An excerpt from someone’s account of her understanding of what she understood is divine union is as so:

There were a lot of experiences that I think led up to the infused contemplation, but the time where I really mark it where I start calling it that in my mind is an experience where I felt a definite “this is the presence of God,” and what happened was I started experiencing intense bliss, and it happened in different ways, but the first time I felt this all-consuming bliss was in the spring of 1990 or 1991. I was working at the time, and the bliss grew over a period of about 4 or 5 days, and it became so intense that I really became a little bit overwhelmed by it, and I prayed to have it reduced a little bit. I really liked it, but it was overwhelming and a little frightening, I think. Not that there was anything in it that felt bad, but it was such an intense experience that it was a little frightening. But after I prayed, it went away entirely, and that made me very sad.

. . . .

Then it was early in October that the bliss came back. I felt it day and night, and was going on while I was going to work and relating to people, and going to lunch, doing the normal things that I did, but it kept getting stronger and stronger. I was a little disconcerted again, but remembering what had happened the last time, I made a conscious choice that I wasn’t going to allow myself to close the door to it because of how much I had regretted when it went away the time before. I let it happen, and there came a point where in the course of my job I became aware that the Lord was inside me, looking out of my eyes. It wasn’t like I became the Lord. It wasn’t like that at all. It was like the Lord was at the center of this blissful experience, and was at that moment inside me looking out to the world through my eyes, and the way that I became aware of that was that I was reading a letter (I answered correspondence from consumers in those days), and the name of the person who had written was “Finchpaw” or something like that. Of course, this bliss had been building for days, and I read that name, and for some reason was delighted by that name, but at the same moment became just emphatically aware of how the Lord was utterly delighted with that name. But it was more than just a name. It was like the Lord was delighted in our ability to name, and that we had made up this wonderful name that was so delightful.

. . . .

It was very shortly after that that it was my lunch time. I went out into the city and still had this sense of union with God looking out at the world through my eyes, and everything that I saw was different than I had ever seen it. The physical reality looked exactly the same, but things that to me had been ugly before, or incongruent together, were absolutely gorgeous, and the reason that they were gorgeous was because the Lord was absolutely in love with us for being able to make things, and to have ideas, and to put things in places, so whereas before I might have looked at “oh, here’s a Spanish-style building, why did they put that modern atrocity next to it? ” but the way the Lord looked at everything was: This is what they have made, and I love them, and I love this because they made it. It was such a sense of the Lord being just absolutely, utterly, emphatically in love with us, and in love with what we make and do. It completely changed the way that I looked at things.

(entire account here)

I learned that the people with these types of experiences are Catholics and so I concluded that if saints throughout the ages had been experiencing and moderns today were still experiencing this today then the Catholic church was a safe place to enter into this journey.

A traditional Latin Mass. Also known as the Extraordinary Form or the Mass of the Ages.

Consecration of the bread at a traditional Latin Mass.

From all this, the Mass and sacraments became important to me. For one, the Mass and sacraments are what unites the diverse expressions of the Catholic church; one can find the Roman rite, the Dominican rite, the Byzantine rite, the Maronite rite, the Melkite rite, etc.—in fact, at one point the Catholic church had as many as twenty-two distinct expressions. I also highly value the Catholic church’s teaching that God communicates His grace through the material realm. So grace is conferred in baptism through the water, in confirmation through the chrismation, in confession through the priesthood, in marriage through the joining of two separate lives into one, in the hierarchical priesthood through the priests, and in the Eucharist the very presence of Jesus through the bread and wine. The Mass involves all the senses: sight, sound, touch and bodily movements like kneeling and standing, scent (incense), and taste. I tend toward the traditional (i.e., Latin) forms of the Mass and sacraments because I value the tradition throughout the centuries of that particular Mass. Of course, as a charismatic, I also believe that God confers grace through the supranatural; the Catholic church’s acceptance of the charismatic is another bonus for me.

If I could summarize why I am a Catholic, I would say that I find the Catholic church to be a place that fosters progress and growth in love of God and love of neighbor. Such love has always been the tradition of the church and it is therefore my tradition as well. Some might point to all the atrocities committed by the Catholic church and I say yes there have been and it is unfortunate that the Catholic church has at times strayed from its ultimate tradition. However, I have found that in delving deeper into the Catholic church, the very center is the God who is the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who loves humanity and creation with a love so deep that He gave His life so that whoever believes in Him can avail of His very own life, be loved by Him, and empowered by His love and grace, live His life out as a witness to the world of this God.


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A Dialogue between a Catholic and an Evangelical: Why I am an E/evangelical (Pt.1a)

Several years ago Carl Trueman wrote these words:

“Every year I tell my Reformation history class that Roman Catholicism is, at least in the West, the default position. Rome has a better claim to historical continuity and institutional unity than any Protestant denomination, let alone the strange hybrid that is evangelicalism; in the light of these facts, therefore, we need good, solid reasons for not being Catholic; not being a Catholic should, in others words, be a positive act of will and commitment, something we need to get out of bed determined to do each and every day.”

“Is the Reformation Over?” (HT: Esteban Vázquez)

In this first post I will not answer the question, “Why am I not Catholic?” I will explain my reasons for not crossing the Tiber soon enough. Instead, today, I will begin from the “positive” side of the matter: Why am I an E/evangelical?

Evangelicalism may be a "culture" more than anything.

Evangelicalism may be a “culture” more than anything.

I am hesitant to use the word “Evangelical” with a capital “E” because right now Evangelicalism is a word with no static meaning. It is in flux. For some, Evangelicals are one and the same with the Religious Right or the Moral Majority. Al Mohler, the late Jerry Falwell, or James Dobson may represent this thread of the movement. Nor do I find comfort in the Evangelicalism represented by Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Joel Osteen, and others who are icons of what has become “mainstream” Evangelicalism. I resonate with the efforts of people like Billy Graham and John Stott to create a broad coalition, though this is easier said than done, which may be why some are predicting the collapse of Evangelicalism.

The “mission” of Evangelicalism is hard to define as well: are we to Christianize culture? Are we to “save” as many “souls from hell” as possible, even if the Gospel of the apostolic church had more to do with discipleship than we’d like to admit? Evangelicals don’t know the answer to this question as a whole.

Similarly, doctrinally, Evangelicalism lacks a central creed to define who is “in” and who is “out.” David Bebbington (in Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s) argued for these four identity markers: conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism. Evangelicals aim to convert people to Christ. Converts need to have some sort of “born again” experience. This is individualistic in nature. In other words, one is not born a Christian. Paedobaptism has not been accepted by many Evangelicals, traditionally (though this has changed recently as we find coalitions including the Reformed and Baptists now), because every adult or young adult must have that moment when they “personally” confess Jesus as Lord and Savior (oddly, there has been a debate in the past about whether one can call Jesus “Savior” and not “Lord”). Yet this approach to conversionism has its challenges. We have come to see that “revival” and being “seeker sensitive” has done something nasty to our religion. We don’t know what it is exactly, but as one person has said it, “Christianity in American is three thousand miles wide and one inch deep.”

Activism may be the most controversial of the four points. Evangelicals in Great Britain were involved in the demise of the slave trade. Evangelicals have challenged social evils at various points, failed at others, but the ethos allows for civic engagement. In other words, Evangelicals do not retreat from the public square. In the United States Evangelicals are polarizing and contradictory. We fight for the right of the unborn, but we did little to protest our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. We may open soup kitchens and orphanages, but we have found ourselves supporting larger systemic realities that prevent people from escaping poverty. We have a s0-so record on racial equality and we do not know what to do with the LGBTQ community. Evangelicals have split over these matters: Some fighting abortion tooth and nail; others willing to compromise. Some fighting for “traditional marriage” while others fight for “marriage equality.” Some “support the troops” while others support the troops by demanding our government keep them at home. If activism is a unifying factor we can’t agree on how to go about it.

Our perfect book that we struggle to read and understand.

Our perfect book that we struggle to read and understand.

Biblicism is a debated definition as well. For a while if one was an Evangelical one used the word “inerrancy” to define Scripture. The Bible isn’t wrong about anything, at all, ever. It is perfect in matters of sociology, science, and the sacred. Evangelicals aligned with the fundamentalist side of Christianity on this matter, but over time as Evangelicals have engaged higher criticism we have had to rethink our Bible. Even those who maintain a perfect Bible put a lot of work into explaining how this works. Others have abandoned the defense of an inerrant Bible using words like “infallible,” i.e. the gist of the Bible is perfectly true and sufficient at a metanarrative level. Some prefer “authoritative,” which may mean something or nothing depending on who you ask. For the most part most Evangelicals approach the Bible with a “hermeneutic of trust.” We want to believe what it says, so we begin there and if we abandon our ideals it is with great remorse. This may be the biggest difference between so-called “Progressive Christians” and less traditional Evangelicals, but the line between many Evangelicals and Progressive Christianity or even Protestant Liberalism is a thinning one. You can find many Evangelicals embracing higher criticism, denouncing the historicity of Adam or Noah’s flood, admitting that the genocidal narrative of the Book of Joshua are immoral or close to it, and so forth and so on. Previous generations of Evangelicals wouldn’t know what to do with this “conceding of ground” and many contemporary ones do not know what to do either.

Crucicentrism is the proposition that the Christian Gospel is centered on the death of Jesus. We do not deny that Jesus died for our sins on the cross, but many Evangelicals cannot agree on what happened on Good Friday. Should we use language like “substitutionary atonement?” Did Jesus satisfy a wrathful God by dying or do we need to rethink the meaning of Jesus’ death? Also, what about the resurrection? Does the crucifixion mean anything if Jesus did not overcome death?

I don’t know if I am a big “E” Evangelical. I will let others decide. Personally, I affirm that God’s saving work, God’s renewal of the cosmos, began in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It continues through his mediatory work for us before the Father. It will be consummated at Jesus’ Second Coming to establish his Kingdom fully on earth as New Creation replaces Old. I want everyone to be a Christian because I think Jesus is that important, but unlike many Evangelicals I do not feel comfortable with speaking for God as regards who can and cannot be reconciled to him.

Activism matters to me, but I have been tempted by the anabaptist approach of being an “alternative community” rather than trying to grasp power to force culture to Christianize. I know, there is a difference between using power and being “salt and light,” but I don’t know how to go about this usually. Some causes are easier for me to embrace; others I want to avoid altogether. Sometimes I am apathetic. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the state of the world so I use my money to go buy something comforting, like ice cream.

I approach the Bible as a nexus where I can be lead by the Spirit of God, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have problems with it. I don’t know what do with many portions of Scripture. I use higher criticism in my own studies and I don’t need a perfect, inerrant Bible to be a Christian. Oddly, some Patristic exegesis has made me rethink how I read the Bible. When Origen wrote that problematic parts of Scripture were inserted by God to make us stop and ask about the “deeper meaning” he said something that appeals to me, kind of. I don’t know that I can allegorize everything that bothers me, but I am OK with stopping, praying, questioning, and allowing Scripture to discomfort and interrupt me without explaining away everything apologetically.

If the Gospel is a fourfold narrative then we should be comfortable with diverse depictions of the Gospel, but that doesn't mean we don't seek to better understand the Gospel.

If the Gospel is a fourfold narrative then we should be comfortable with diverse depictions of the Gospel, but that doesn’t mean we don’t seek to better understand the Gospel.

I affirm the Gospel as a God’s chosen King establishing God’s Kingdom on earth. That King is Jesus. While the “Gospel” is being discussed and debated by many at this time I am willing and excited to engage my siblings in Christ and the world on this topic. If we do not understand the Gospel, then what are we doing? If Evangelicalism means that we begin our fellowship, discussion, and debate around the Gospel and its implications then call me an Evangelical. This is how I understand my Evangelicalism. It may be “mere Christianity,” but that is where I am confident: the basics (not saying we agree on the basics, but there is a basic ethos shared by most Christians that has more in common than not).

Now, I am one who has come to agree that Evangelicalism as a “denomination” is problematic. Rather, I see Evangelicalism as an ethos. It is a movement within denominations and churches that reminds Christians to come back to the Gospel. The Gospel is not something we learn at the “start,” but then abandon. The Gospel is Christianity. Currently, I worship with a Mennonite congregation. Can I be “Evangelical” and “Mennonite?” Yes, I think. Mennonites have a tradition that informs their doctrine and practice. Mostly, I can embrace Mennonite Christianity, but Mennonites, like Presbyterians, or Anglicans, or even Catholics may find themselves so engaged in being this or that type of Christian that the core of Christianity–the Gospel–disappears into the background. Evangelicals exist across these traditions to remind Anglicans debating over whether to allow women to be Bishops, or Presbyterians debating whether to ordain people involved in same sex relations, or Pentecostals debating whether “speaking with tongues” is essential to Pentecostalism, that none of this matters if we forget the Gospel: the proclamation that God has invaded the world, established his Kingdom, chosen his King, and sent ambassadors into the world to announce, “Be reconciled to God!”

Oddly, my definition of “Evangelical” doesn’t prevent JohnDave from embracing a label such as “Evangelical Catholic” and I’m fine with that. That is the Evangelicalism I know. It is a movement, an ethos, that embraces Christians across a variety of traditions seeking to renew the C/church by calling her back to her central proclamation then working on peripheral matters from there.

Next up: JohnDave will explain why he is a Catholic.

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See also:

Introduction


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A Dialogue between a Catholic and an Evangelical: introduction

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Pope John Paul II and evangelical Billy Graham: two icons of our distinct traditions

I have known JohnDave Medina for several years. We were introduced to each other when we moved in the same Pentecostal circles. A few years later we reunited in Portland, Oregon, when JohnDave enrolled in his MA program at George Fox Evangelical Seminary (GFES) and I had begun my Master of Theology program at Western Seminary. Now, GFES is an evangelical seminary that is sympathetic to the emerging church movement and similar expressions of evangelicalism. It is somewhat like Fuller Theological Seminary in that it represents “big tent” evangelical ecumenism. To my surprise (kind of) JohnDave’s studies moved him  not toward the Christianity represented by Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball, Leonard Sweet, or even Scot McKnight, but back to the Christianity of his youth: Catholicism.

Of course, we had some great chats because of this. I wanted to know how this happened and why he had returned to Rome. My transition from sectarian Pentecostalism to evangelicalism isn’t much of a story. JohnDave’s move from Pentecostalism to evangelicalism then quickly to Catholicism is more interesting. I came to appreciate his decision and I confess that (1) JohnDave’s (re)conversion made me revisit Catholicism to see if there was something I was missing and (2) he gave me a new appreciation for the tradition. Honestly, there are many, many aspects of evangelical theology that I find unsatisfying. I can live with tension and some degree of cognitive disconnect. If I couldn’t do this I may not be an evangelical at all. The Catholic tradition is deep and wide, old and dynamic, and it reminds me that there is something to a worldview that includes what G.K. Chesterton calls “the democracy of the dead.”

But alas, I did not follow JohnDave’s example. I did not convert to Catholicism. So why? Well, that is part of what motivated me to email JohnDave this week to ask him if he wanted to resume the discussions we were having in person back in Portland, but now we would do it over our shared blog for anyone and everyone to read. This will be a casual discussion. I will write a blog post, JohnDave will respond, and I’ll respond to his response. Readers of this blog will have the opportunity to peak in on our discussion and join us via the comments.

Next week I will write part 1a of the series with JohnDave responding in part 1b the following week. Now, I may not fit some people’s presuppositions when it comes to the label “E/evangelical,” and I am sure that JohnDave’s Catholicism may be foreign to some fellow Catholics, but we ask that those who join us try to share the spirit of our dialogue. JohnDave and I are very good friends. We are brothers in Christ. Our doctrinal differences matter, so we will discuss them, but we do so as two fallible Christians trying to understand each other better. If this is the type of conversations you’d like to join come back next week for my opening post. In the meantime, if you have anything you’d like to say–whether topics you’d like us to cover or something else–please let us know in the comments section.


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Sundays in the Fourth Gospel: The Prophet-Son

This is the context in which we need to read the conclusion of the prologue to John’s Gospel: “No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (Jn 1:18). It is in Jesus that the promise of the new prophet is fulfilled. What was true of Moses only in fragmentary form has now been fully realized in the person of Jesus: He lives before the face of God, not just as a friend, but as a Son; he lives in the most intimate unity with the Father.

(Pope Benedict XVI [Joseph Ratzinger], Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian J. Walker [San Francisco: Ignatius Press],6.)