Evangelical Defined

Thanks to CelebrateVida for this post entitled A Washington Monthly Editor on Vocalizing Vida (well, indirectly). Several thoughts resonated with me and I hope to follow up on them personally. Many of the people I appreciate most in life fall into the author's preferred definition of evangelical. I've taken the liberty to reproduce it here in it's entirety. The bold type is my emphasis.

Washington Monthly editor Amy Sullivan, guest blogger at Beliefnet.com during the week of June 20, tells what politically progressive people of faith can do about these insane false political and religious dichotomies:
"What you can do . . . is stand up and witness. Not witness, as in proselytize, but by coming out of the closet as a person of faith."
Amen to that.

Several times in the past week I came across the same trio of names in discussions of politically progressive evangelicals: Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, and Ron Sider. Yes, these men are influential--they certainly have influenced (and affirmed) my thinking--but folks should be able to picture more than the three of them when they think "politically progressive evangelicals."

As long as we evangelicals are afraid to admit who we are spiritually when we're among progressive friends, the politically-progressive-evangelical club will be--not just appear to be--small indeed. We won't even be able to find one another, much less make ourselves visible to politically progressive nonevangelicals.

(Incidentally, the word evangelical is a frustrating one for me. I am not a cultural evangelical. I reject the spiritual as well as the political all-about-me-and-my-crowd emphases of many evangelical churches. I'm pleased as punch to have found my home among Mennonites becaue I'm an anabaptist at heart. But if by evangelical you mean people who follow Christ and believe we should bear witness to him in word and deed, then yes, I am an evangelical. An evangelical who laments the nonevangelicalism of "evangelicals" who fight peace, enrich the wealthy, and devastate the poor in Jesus' name.)

Fools and Buffoons

Good post over at the MoJo Blog by Bradford Plummer on the recent trend amongst the war hawks critical of how the Iraqi war is going. My favorite exerpt is the final sentence:

when thinking about a government policy in the abstract, assume that it will be executed not by enlightened leaders, but by fools and buffoons. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you'll be right.

Personally I would add power hungry, militaristic, imperialist, and a number of other adjectives in front of "fools and buffoons".

God Math

I was channel surfing yesterday (Sunday) before walking to church. I must have caught part of the sermon to which you refer or at least one like it, and I listened for a couple minutes (I know, not the best preparation for a worship experience). The scripture reference was 2 Chronicles 7:14 (If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.) and the pulpit from which he spoke had something like "Take Back America" in big letters written on it. The part I caught was his expounding on what it would look like if God were to "heal their land". In his opinion it would include Terry Shiavo not being murdered, happy heterosexual marriages, etc... THEN he said that there is a "tipping point" at which a percentage of righteous people at which God releases his blessings on the nation. He DID say that only God knows the "tipping point". I thought it was interesting that he believes that all of this applies within a human-made political system with human-drawn borders. If you're Canadian or Nigerian or whatever and your geopolitical (human made) system isn't beyond the tipping point then you'll miss the "blessing". I guess if you immigrate into the US you might get to receive the blessings, assuming you don't throw the tipping point off back the other way. Cosmic math can be exciting. However, if I read the verse in context I see it in a much different light. Get this:

11 When Solomon had finished the temple of the LORD and the royal palace, and had succeeded in carrying out all he had in mind to do in the temple of the LORD and in his own palace, 12 the LORD appeared to him at night and said: "I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices.13 "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. 16 I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

Now, I'm not a Biblical scholar by anyone's estimation, but this really seems to me to be referring to God literally healing the land i.e. drought, natural disaster, and disease that were God sent to start with. Whether or not God really sends plagues is another discussion, but I feel on pretty safe ground that under most situations Land would consider him the literalist much more so than me. In this discussion I'm pretty sure that Land considers himself to be one of the "people" God is talking about in the verse. You, Steak, and I are probably not included, or, if we are, it would be grudgingly at best.

While we're proof texting (using the scripture, often out of context, to satisfy our preconceived ideas), I love the passage in Genesis 18 where Abram bargained God into sparing Sodom if he (Abram) could find ten righteous people. In the end he couldn't find them, of course, but when people like Land start talking God's blessings and wrath on human-made political bodies and their citizens, I take comfort that as along as there's BB's Hot Wife, SOF, and others like them around, we should be safe.

One more proof text:

Ezekiel 16:49 " 'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

Note the sins of Sodom. Ring any bells?
Later
BB