Join the discussion I moderated at InternetMonk.com. Check it out, there are some very interesting comments. While you are at it don’t forget to read this thoughtful different perspective by Chris Robinson entitled Culture and Christianity as a Dual Citizen.
American Patriotic Christianity: A Canadian Perspective
Jul 26, 2010
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Posted by Eclectic Christian
Book Review: Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites… and Other Lies You’ve Been Told
Jul 26, 2010
Check out my review of Sociologist Bradley Wright’s Book, “Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites… and Other Lies You’ve Been Told” at InternetMonk.com.
Leave a Comment » | Evangelical, Gospel, books, church growth, church life | Permalink
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In Support of Open Membership
May 5, 2010
This post was first published at internetmonk.com. Feel free to comment here or join the already extensive discussion at internetmonk.com.
I find it difficult to belong. You would think it wouldn’t be that hard. I am a Christian who sees many positive things in many traditions. If feel quite comfortable in many types of church settings. I am however, in my core beliefs, an Evangelical.
The problem is that where I live, Evangelicals are in the minority. In my community of 27,000 there is one Evangelical church. I helped start it. It was a Pentecostal church, and although I am not Pentecostal I figured that having one Evangelical church in town was better than having no Evangelical church, and so I offered my help.
My wife and I served under two Pastors there. We led worship, served on the leadership team, served on the pastoral search committee, taught Sunday School, and organized outreaches and banquets. All the while I was dreading the time when the church would become large enough to receive its “organized” status. For when the church received this status, membership would have to be formalized. We didn’t qualify. Membership required agreement to the statement of faith, and we didn’t believe the Pentecostal teaching on tongues.
Eventually we felt God calling us away from this church community, and we had a very amicable parting of the ways. We ended up at a church in another community, which unfortunately due to competing visions within it’s elder’s board, ending up closing its doors three years later. As we looked at other churches, most had something in their statement of faith, that excluded us. They were either too Calvinist, or too dispensational, or too anti-Charismatic for us to fit.
After a long search we found a church in a third community. We quite love it, and I have some very good things to say about it. Again, we didn’t qualify for membership, this time because my wife’s mode of baptism differed slightly from theirs. Although we do not believe in rebaptism (especially for those who have already been baptized as believers), our desire to belong eventually became stronger that our distaste for rebaptism and my wife was rebaptized. We became members shortly afterwards.
Are there others like me who have difficulty belonging? Conversations with people at places like Internetmonk.com make me think that my experience is hardly unique. So here are some questions I would like us to consider:
1. Does requiring agreement with a statement of faith lead to increased fragmentation within the body of Christ?
2. Or are there essentials that need to be agreed upon no matter what in order for someone to be accepted as a member?
3. If Christ has accepted me as a member of his body, are there ways to make it easier for me to be accepted into a local church body?
4. Could we lessen the requirement of membership in many evangelical churches, so that prospective members do not have to give complete agreement to a statement of faith, but instead will agree to uphold it and not teach contrary to it?
5. Are there similar situations in other faith traditions? If so, are there resolution that have been seen to work?
6. Finally, what could you do in your church to help people in my situation become part of your congregation and membership?
I don’t have a problem with a church having a statement of faith. I feel it is a good tool to say “this is what we are about as a church.” Is it not possible to say that “We welcome those who have slightly differing viewpoints” as long as they agree to uphold and abide by the statement of faith”?
Your thoughts and comments are welcome.
3 Comments | Evangelical, church life, communion, statement of faith, theology, unity | Permalink
Posted by Eclectic Christian
Mourning the passing of a friend
Apr 6, 2010It was my birthday yesterday, April 5th. Easter Monday. It will be a day that I will now forever remember for two reasons, for my friend Michael Spencer, also passed away today. I mourn for a friend, whose passing will leave a hole in my life, but I grieve much more for those he has left behind, who have lost a husband, father, and pastor/shepherd. He has been a pastor/shepherd to so many of us, leading us through the “Evangelical Wilderness.” His blog, www.internetmonk.com, was a home for so many who struggled in their own church home, or who struggled even to find a church home.
Michael had been blogging for 10 years, long before most of us knew that there was such a thing as blogging. Yet, it seemed that he was just starting to come into his prime, where the rest of the world was just starting to discover the incredible writing gift that God had given him. Reading Michael’s blog has been one of the first things that I would do every morning for the past three years. I rejoiced that I had found another kindred spirit who understood me, placed a priority on many of the same that were important to me, and stuggled with many of the same issues with which I struggled. Not only that, but he gave voice to a community of people, who had concerns with what they saw in the church, but who’s voice was not being heard.
As I read Michael each morning, my jaw would often drop with the profoundness of what was written, and I would marvel at the gift that God had given this remarkable individual. I would often exclaim to my wife, “How does he come up with such incredible material day after day after day!” Michael loved baseball, and to use a baseball analogy, it was like he had an on base average of .900, swatting 100+ home runs a season.
But first and foremost, Michael was about the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ. This was what was closest to his heart, and what drew me to him. His concern was that in all the many things that the church was doing, the gospel was being obscured. This was his greatest concern, and to what he paid the most attention in his writing. He regretted that so many people got the wrong idea from the “Coming Evangelical Collapse”, that more than anything it was a call to action, a call to return to the first love of the good news that God has given us.
So, while horribly sad, it seems somewhat appropriate that Easter would be the time when God would call him home. For Easter is a time of good news, and Michael’s life was all about proclaiming this good news of Jesus Christ. This was his unceasing focus, and one that he maintained until the very end.
I echo the words of the Apostle Paul:
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. – Philippians 1: 3-6
In the words of Jesus Christ: “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
2 Comments | Evangelical, Pain | Permalink
Posted by Eclectic Christian
The Coming Evangelical Collapse – A Statistical Support – Part 2.
Mar 17, 2009
By Michael Bell
As I was time limited when taking my first statistical look at “The Coming Evangelical Collapse“, I wanted to follow up with a few more observations about some of Michael Spencer’s statements:
1. Denominations will shrink, even vanish.
Much to my surprise, the decline in evangelicals in the U.S. has already begun. The Association of Religious Data Archives (ARDA) lets you generate maps to visibly see the changes. The maps shown here show the difference in Evangelicals between 1990 and 2000. Note how the colors have lightened over 10 years, particularly in the south-east.
You can visit the ARDA site to create your own maps on a national, regional, and/or denominational level.
When we look at the age composition of churches in the data from the American Religious Identity Survey (ARIS), it is clear that those who will be impacted the most will be those denominations who call themselves Baptist. The most significant growth is coming from those Christians who say they have no denominational affiliation. Two thirds of these are under the age of fifty. It is clear from the data that there is and will be a move away from denominational identification.
2. Fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.
Read the rest of this entry »
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An Ideal Evangelicalism?
Dec 15, 2008By Michael Spencer (iMonk)
Moderators note: Michael has graciously allowed us to repost this article at Eclectic Christian.
Somewhere in the previous orgy of comments I’ve had this week, someone asked me to write about “What do you see as the ideal evangelicalism?”
There is no ideal evangelicalism and there’s not going to be. It’s certainly not going to be ideal if I am the architect. So let’s not get out of hand here. I’m a blogger, which tells you about all you need to know on the subject of my credibility.
But that won’t stop me from answering the question in a slightly different form: “What would make for a much better evangelicalism?”
I promise the answers are going to be short.
10 Comments | Eclectic Christian, Evangelical, catholic | Permalink
Posted by eclecticguest
Distractions from the Gospel – Part 2: Politics and The Culture War
Nov 24, 2008By Michael Bell
Part 1: Busyness
Part 2: Politics and the Culture War
Over the last several weeks I have been thinking about things that distract us from the Gospel. The issue of Politics and the Culture War has to be one of the most significant. To state the issue briefly, Evangelical Christians in the United States have been very concerned with trying to determine who is going to be the political party in power. This is as result of two things, the Republican Party co-opting the religious right by preying on their fears of a homosexual focused, or pro-choice agenda coming from the Democratic Party, along with Evangelical Christians having general concerns about these things and so looking to support a party that shares their concerns.
As a result, Christians have put a lot of effort into pro-life agendas. What Christians may fail to realize is that other than education, there are at least three things that will lower the abortion rate:
- Legislation – When abortions became legal the rate went way up. Reintroducing legislation is part of the Republican/Evangelical agenda.
- Improving economic conditions – A one percent drop in the unemployment rate roughly translates into an six percent drop in the number of abortions. (I determined this by charting US Abortion ratios against Unemployment statistics from the period of 1982 to 2004 and then displaying as a scatter graph with a best fit line.) This is the Democratic way forward as proposed by Obama and Tony Campolo.
- Transforming lives through the power of the Gospel. What I find interesting is that I don’t find Christians talking a lot about this item. If we believe in the power of God to transform lives then wouldn’t we expect the abortion rate to go down as people made genuine commitments to follow Christ?
Now I realize that we could have a discussion about abortion rates between Christians and non-Christians and reasons for the similarities or differences, but I don’t want to go here with this post. All I want to point out is that we have been so concerned with Politics and the Culture War that we have lost our focus on Christ. Jesus did not come to elect political parties, Jesus came to transform lives.
Up in Canada, the political scene is quite different. Politicians are extremely private about their faith. Up until 2004 Evangelical Christians were pretty much split between two Political parties, the Conservations (48%) and the Liberals (42%). In the 2006 election, their was a swing by Canadians in general towards the Conservative party, reinforced by a strong move in the Evangelical community. However, as our Evangelical community is much smaller percentage wise than in the United States, and because Canadian Evangelicals tend to be on the left of American Evangelicals, we have not seen the culture war up here near to the extent that you have in the United States. Instead Canadian Churches have been able to focus on other things, among them church planting and evangelism.
What has been the result? As I have pointed out in previous posts, while the American Evangelical church has been declining, the Canadian Evangelical Church has shown significant growth over the past twenty years. There are certainly other factors, but I would propose that not being distracted as much by Politics and the Culture War has been a major reason leading to the relative growth of Evangelicals in Canada.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Eclectic Christian
The Decline of American Evangelicals
Nov 20, 2008By Michael Bell
I must admit I am quite embarrassed. I had done a couple of studies looking at the growth or decline in Evangelicals in North America. In one, I had great numbers showing the growth of Evangelicals in Canada from 1980-2000. In another I showed the growth of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in the U.S and talked about a great tool for measuring numerical denominational growth.
I think it was the strong performance of the Evangelicals in Canada that made me discount many of the recent anecdotal stories of people leaving the church. So I blogged on that assumption, trying to put a positive spin on situation saying that people were replacing the leavers just as fast as they were leaving, and that the situation was not as bad as people were making out. To reinforce my thinking in the subject, no one was challenging me with any real statistical data. So I continued on repeating my views all over the blogosphere.
U.S. Evangelicals Legend
Today I thought I should take another look at the tool that I had mentioned previously. This time instead of looking at individual denominations, I looked at Evangelical Protestants as whole. I was quite shocked by what I saw. When I compared Evangelical Protestants in 1990 with Evangelical Protestants in 2000, I saw quite a significant decline. The differences, especially in the South East are quite stunning. The legend at the right shows that as a color lightens, the number of evangelicals in a region goes down. As you can see there is a significant lightening across a broad section of the country.
U.S. Evangelicals 1990
U.S. Evangelicals 2000
In my next blog post I will try to look a little bit more at what this means, and how this trend might be able to be reversed. A question for our readers: What do you think has been causing this decline? I will respond to your comments on the weekend.
3 Comments | Evangelical, church growth | Permalink
Posted by Eclectic Christian
Election Issues from an Evangelical perspective.
Sep 19, 2008Without taking sides, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada recently posted a list of 10 key issues that Christians should consider when voting in the upcoming election. Each topic has a background paper along with relevant questions to ask. While this list of issues is aimed at Canadian voters, Americans would find them relevant to their election as well.
I have provided a sample below of what the EFC has provided us. The rest of the articles can be accessed by clicking on one of the links provided below
EFC Election Kit 2008: Fact Sheet on The Environment
Protecting the Planet
God’s love and care for creation is evident throughout the Scriptures. It is also clear that God delights in His entire creation, not just the parts relevant or useful to people. All things in heaven and on earth, spiritual and physical, are His handiwork. Humans were not created separate from the physical creation. Rather, we are part of it. We were created by God along with all the other things and living creatures, and God created humankind to be stewards of His creation. Individually and collectively, we are accountable to God for what we do with and on this earth.
Questions to ask on this issue:
- What measures do you propose to protect the environment in Canada and to ensure Canada does its part to protect the environment globally?
Here are the issues in alphabetical order.
National Unity and Reconciliation
Prostitution and Human Trafficking
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Posted by Eclectic Christian
An Evangelical Revolution?
Sep 2, 2008E. J. Dionne Jr. has an excellent article on The New Evangelical Politics. He writes:
Anyone who still doubts that the evangelical Christian world is going through a political revolution was not watching Pastor Rick Warren’s presidential forum this weekend. The era of reducing Christianity to a narrow set of ideological commitments is over.
Just a few years ago, who would have imagined that Barack Obama and John McCain would hold a discussion of this sort in a church? Who would have thought that the session would be moderated by an evangelical pastor who was emphatic in counting both the Democrat and the Republican as his “friends”? Who would have predicted that in such a setting, the issues of abortion and gay marriage would not dominate the pastor’s queries? …
In 2004, Warren took the view that Christians should vote on a short list of “nonnegotiable” issues, including abortion. But in 2006, on Fox News, of all places, Warren declared: “Jesus’s agenda is far bigger than just one or two issues. . . . We have to care about poverty, we have to care about disease, we have to care about illiteracy, we have to care about corruption in government, sex trafficking.” That is the new politics of evangelical Christianity.
Read the article then come back and let Eclectic Christian know what you think.
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Posted by eclecticguest
Michael Bell
Joshua Hearne
Tim Melton
Joel Black
