Linkathon!
The six way fracturing of evangelicalism…where do you fit?
Social media is producing celebrity priests…and it’s a problem…
What Southern Baptists must do to fight clergy sex abuse…
What Russell Moore’s departure tells us about the state of American Christianity…
The five most abused and misused bible verses…
Sometimes you have to shake the dust off your feet…
Jennifer Lyell wanted to stop her abuser by telling her story. Instead, her life fell apart.
What non believers don’t get about conspiracy beliefs…
This is what church abuse survivors are up against…
Seven prominent Christians who wrestled with doubt…
Can I keep a deconstructed faith?
When following the news becomes too distressing…
The problem with “Western” religions on campus…
Spirituality underpins migrant activism…
More later…
https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-fight-for-the-heart-of-the-southern-baptist-convention
Michael,
Good set of links and a good New Yorker article. If you want my 2 cent prediction on the SBC meeting, Litton will not be elected president. The election of Mohler or Stone will be like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and another nail in the coffin of the Evangelical Right.
From the first link, I’d most closely identify as a “neo-evangelical.”
Is thrre such a thing as thr “Evangelical left?”
Em
Absolutely… Jim Wallis and the good people at Sojourners would be an example.
Thank you, Dr. Duane – not familiar, so will look them up
Duane,
Correct. I am sure there are others.
By those definitions, I guess this is a Post-Evangelical blog.
DH,
If you mean the term Evangelical in its current squishy, nailing jello to the wall, amorphous blob, political idolatry and special interest sense, then many of us were never that to begin with. But like the term “conservative”, the term “evangelical” has been hijacked by those who are anything BUT.
If you mean Evangelical in its historical and technical original meaning, then many on this blog still are.
CM,
For clarity what is the “historical and technical original meaning” of Evangelical?
https://www.nae.net/what-is-an-evangelical/
I am certainly post evangelical…but we have all different sorts here.
I write from a post evangelical position,but identify as an Anglican.
The term evangelical is especially squishy these days, iMHO.
If we need to use labels, I’d call myself post-evangelical. But I hope that I’ve retained the good stuff as I move forward.
Kudos to Jennifer Lyell!
So long as sex abuse was confined to those awful Catholics, fundagelicals got smug and complacent.
Now that it’s coming out more and more that there are just as many dirt-bags in the SBC (if not more), they don’t talk so loud.
Muff Potter,
And more news keeps coming out on the corruption SBC….
https://julieroys.com/leaked-audio-sbc-abuse-base/
More and more will come out and it will snowball. I would not be surprised if various state AGs start looking at conspiracy and other charges at the SBC Executive Committee. Of course civil suits are also quite likely. I wonder how many SBC churches will be bankrupted just like Catholic dioceses.
I’m not exactly sure where I would consider myself on the Evangelical scale. I have considered moving towards Baptist, Anglican, Reformed, and even Catholic. I am pretty resistant, in personal theology not interpersonal cordialness, to Pentecostalism. However, I know I am definitely not #1 and #6. I guess I am tottering on being completely dechurched but with a whole lot of Jesus and most if not all Orthodox beliefs intact or at least Biblically nuanced (in my mind I suppose).
I have always been a sort of hybrid believer where I can see the validity in various expressions of the faith. To me a few essentials, especially the person and work of Christ, are enough to leave it to God to sort out the rest. In the meanwhile I can still enjoy a modicum of fellowship.
I hope that i judge ideas, not people. Most folk are very enjoyable. But there is a “type?” that enjoys hostility. I try to avoid them.
That said, i am convinced that there is ONE God and He has honored the human race with the Old and New testaments. No human effort could have compiled such a book – IMV
What is up in the air for me are the folk, living or dead and gone, who were/are never exposed to the Gospel. However I can only rest in the holiness and grace of our Triune God on that one.
” I wonder how many SBC churches will be bankrupted just like Catholic dioceses.”
Zero. Learn how the polity works.
In my world, we receive many converts from Evangelicalism. In my case, as in the case of most of the converts I know, it came from the realization that, in a way, works do save us.
Politics didn’t have much to do with it because many Orthodox (and Roman Catholics) have also been ensnared with the whackadoodle extremism that has infected many Evangelical churches.
Josh. I agree that direct abuse related bankruptcy of any SBC church is difficult to see in any circumstance.
Here are what I think are serious threats to the SBC.
Declining offerings due to an aging demographic.
Attrition of high school /college age attendees.
Baby Bust resulting in decreased young couples returning to church attendance in their 20s-30s.
Racial tension.
Focus on sexuality above all issues.
A purpetual narrative of Crisis Christianity and impending collapse of Western Civilization.
Xenia,
Is that migration still happening?
It seems more of what id see these days are evangelicals leaving church period…
I’ll throw this out…
The ‘crisis” in the SBC is only a crisis for a minority.
Have we not learned that a substantial number of “Christians” prefer autocrats, deny racism, and could care less about sexual abuse?
Have we not yet learned the truth about who we really are?
Reading Xenia @ 10:25…
Works do not save us, but are an outward demonstration of our new birth – IF we grow in Christ as God has instructed us.
A witness to the world of the new birth
Jim West posted recently on the SBC21
https://zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com/2021/06/12/things-to-remember-if-you-are-attending-sbc21/
a possibly cynical appraisal of the scenario but I grew up Assemblies of God, ended up at Mars Hill, and am currently Presbyterian, so I defer to Baptist ministers of all stripes for explaining what Baptist forms of polity do and don’t mean.
Em, that is what I used to believe.
Xenia, dear sister, that is what i still believe… 😘
Not forgetting Mat 7
Mark 10:17-27