Any Given Sunday (part one)
Mark Noll writes in Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, “on any given Sunday in the United States and Canada, a majority of those who attend church hold evangelical beliefs and follow norms of evangelical practice,” (10). At an earlier point Noll refers to what one historian has noted as the beliefs essential to evangelicalism:
1. conversionism
2. Biblicism
3. crucicentrism
Noll does not identify what the “norms of evangelical practice” look like, perhaps this is because he also writes, “these evangelical impulses [the three points listed above] have never by themselves yielded cohesive, institutionally compact, easily definable, well-coordinated, or clearly demarcated groups of Christians” (8).
The writers of the proposed revision of the EFCA Statement of Faith seek to defy Noll and history by becoming the cohesive, institutionally compact, easily definable, well-coordinated, and clearly demarcated group of Christians for the 21st Century. Two questions emerge: is it possible and is it necessary?
posted by Sean Dennis at 11:02 AM
3 Comments:
Noll was speaking of Evangelicalism as a whole. Though the EFCA seeks to embrace a lot of Evangelicalism, there are portions that won't be embraced. Portions that deny they are evangelcial and instead cling to their own terms.
So if Noll was refering to them (and I suspect he was) we don't defy his catagories because we're gathering those who would be gathered. Those who don't fit won't fit and so yea, we can do it.
I think we can honestly say that There is a portion of the "evangelical left" who would not find the three points listed by Noll as significant at all, but would make a new list that would look something like this:
1. acceptance of others
2. social needs
3. relevancy
Though these types of evangelicals are certainly interesting they are not the intended subjects of this conversation.
The point is that evangelicals have never been able to all join hands in one denomination like they can in the NAE. The questions are: can they and should they?
I believe the answer from Tim is yes, or perhaps the more parliamentarian "yea."
The moment we try to become everything for everyone, we lose who we are. How far do we lower the bar to reach as many as possible? From that analogy I'm sure you'll realize this rewrite does not sit well with me. Great point earlier - it is NOT a REVISION, but is a REWRITE (very different). Many aspects of it I do not like. I do not like having the Gospel as the focus of each statement (trying to lower the bar to the least common denominator). If each statement is going to have the same wording to start off with, the "Glory of God" would be a much better start. It is to be a statement of faith, not a statement of evangelism. We are about more than evangelism. The purposes seem insincere, and certainly not big enough to warrant a rewriting. I don't know how this really started, but I can't help reading the background to the rewriting and hear them screaming - we want to get bigger with more churches - let's open the gates. This is not a reason to change our doctrinal statement. At points we can see them addressing current hot topics in their rewriting, but one of the arguments for the rewrite was because come hot topics are no longer hot. By including hot topics, you force yourself to rewrite later. As far as the amil position goes - aside from all the theology of it - note that so many amil denominations are struggling with many liberal issues, but a question I have - what premil denominations are struggling with questions of liberal theology (my Pastor made that point - I am just the lowly youth pastor)? - and I'd love an answer. What is the answer to those who are diminishing our statement of faith by not holding to all of it. Simple - politely - join a different church. That seems so simple to me (but wait, the many options for them mostly include amil churches struggling with liberal theology - hmmmmm). I have so much more to say - sorry this wasn't all on topic - most of it wasn't on topic. I hope people talk about this online. Our District Conference is coming up. I'm going to post some more of this on my blog. Keep talking on here. I'll share this link with my E. Free friends.
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