Evangelicals and the Reformed
Friday, December 19, 2008 at 7:23AM Michael F. Bird on the soft underbelly of those who call ourselves Reformed:
There is a group of the "reformed" out there who have basically decided to go and sit in their room, lock the door, and do nothing but than rant and moan about how everybody in the evangelical hallway is a theologically defficient turnip and only those in the room with them are among the doctrinally righteous elect. This group is typified by several traits: (1) They are more excited about all the things that they are against than anything that they are for; (2) They preach justification by faith, but in actuality practice justification by polemics; (3) They appear to believe in the inerrancy of a confession over the suffiency of the gospel; (4) They believe in the doctrines of grace, but do not treat others with grace; (5) They believe that unity is overrated; (6) They like doctrines about Jesus more than Jesus himself (and always defer to the Epistles over the Gospels); (7) mission means importing their debates and factions to other churches; and (8) The word "adiaphora" is considered an almost expletive...
A little harsh? Perhaps. Certainly not true of many of the Reformed people I know. Every group has its weaknesses, and Bird may be right in some of what he says. Reformed theology teaches us that we shouldn't be surprised by our own shortcomings, and gives us the resources to deal with them through repentance and the gospel. Definitely worth thinking about.
Bird also warns North American evangelicals of their blind spots (although he seems to mean American more than North American):
There are also some things about North American evangelicals that Christians outside of North American cannot comprehend: 1. Only North American evangelicals oppose measures to stem global warming, 2. Only North American evangelicals oppose universal health care, and 3. Only North American evangelicals support the Iraq War. Now, to Christians in the rest of the world this is somewhere between strange, funny, and frightening. Why is it that only North American evangelicals support these things? Are the rest of us stupid? It makes many of us suspicious that our North American evangelical friends have merged their theology with GOP economic policy, raised patriotism to an almost idolatrous level, and have a naive belief in the divinely given right of American hegemony. North Americans would do well to take the North-Americanism out of their evangelicalism and try to see Jesus through the eyes of Christians in other lands.
This is a word that needs to be heard in every culture, which is why we can benefit from those from other cultures and other eras. It helps us see our cultural blind spots.
Reader Comments (6)
That's it, enough out of you Dash!!! I am totally against everything you (and that Bird bloke) said. I am totally justified in my polemic against such a horrid rant. Grace, grace? I'll show you grace! And I'll show you all by myself, I don't need you or anyone else! I'll be I can slam you with ONLY quotes from Paul! Forget the rest of the epistles. Do you wanna debate about this? I'll own you. Take this adiaphora and smoke it. I can't stand this post almost as much as I can't stand stem cell research, health care and pulling out of Iraq.
Ian: LOL
ROFL, Ian! My first reaction to this was, "Thus spake the theologically deficient turnip!" However, as an evangelical in a mainline, i.e., liberal, denomination, I see his point when I find myself talking to other evangelicals or with fundamentalists who've left my denomination.
Take the word "North" out of the second quote and he is closer to the truth. (But then he would have to add other adjectives so as not to insult the sizable number of American evangelicals who don't fit his description. In other words, it is almost impossible to write such broad generalizations and be anywhere near accurate, although it will please those who enjoy vast generalizations.) But I digress. He needs to meet more non-American North Americans. You would be a good start.
I'm witty.
I think there is a large movement in North America that is moving away from the pro-war and anti-environmentalist platform that has dominated the North American church for so long, and I think this is a good thing.