Bing, It was fun reading, thank you. Would parallel distinctions be like the difference between Pharisees and Sadducees? Would not the saving grace of Jesus be enough? Sin nature is apparent in that we humans love to muddy the waters. Liked your #5 showing what politics really mean to each one of us. Gary
Pharisees and Sadducees are always easy targets, but I think the one that people miss is the divide in the early church between the Judaizers (who believed you had to follow Jewish laws/customs to be Christian) and Paul's (and eventually Peter's) faction who were more Gentile-oriented and rejected adding anything to the gospel. The first book of the NT (chronologically) is Galatians, written to address this issue. I think it's incredibly relevant to what is happening today, and I will write more about this in the future.
Thanks for writing this out! I think I can see where our perceptions of the word evangelical differ. Looking at the history, it seems that a big part of what you’re missing is the rift between evangelicals and fundamentalists that, for instance, led the fundamentalist Bob Jones University to forbid their students from attending Billy Graham’s evangelistic rallies.
My reading of the history is that evangelicals have always represented a third way between fundamentalists and mainline denominations, and many evangelical leaders have drawn similar distinctions with fundamentalism. If you perceived this to be a rebranding rather than schism, I could see why you would have so much ire for evangelicalism!
That's certainly how it started, with Billy Graham trying to create a more appealing middle path, casting off the worst of the excesses of fundamentalism. Between the 50s and 80s, the two streams began to slowly merge together again. At this point, aside from a few extremist elements, "fundamentalists" no longer exist. Modern evangelicalism has inherited much of the doctrine, culture, and infrastructure (including many seminaries like Dallas that were once considered fundamentalist). This is not to say that evangelicalism is the exact same as fundamentalism (just as mainline does not equal modernist), but the genealogy and heritage is there. The point is not to label or demean evangelicalism, but to understand its roots.
I don't have ire for evangelicalism, as it forms the entirety of my background, along with 90%+ of my Christian friends. Let's call it concern :D
Bing, It was fun reading, thank you. Would parallel distinctions be like the difference between Pharisees and Sadducees? Would not the saving grace of Jesus be enough? Sin nature is apparent in that we humans love to muddy the waters. Liked your #5 showing what politics really mean to each one of us. Gary
Pharisees and Sadducees are always easy targets, but I think the one that people miss is the divide in the early church between the Judaizers (who believed you had to follow Jewish laws/customs to be Christian) and Paul's (and eventually Peter's) faction who were more Gentile-oriented and rejected adding anything to the gospel. The first book of the NT (chronologically) is Galatians, written to address this issue. I think it's incredibly relevant to what is happening today, and I will write more about this in the future.
I'm impressed.
Thanks for writing this out! I think I can see where our perceptions of the word evangelical differ. Looking at the history, it seems that a big part of what you’re missing is the rift between evangelicals and fundamentalists that, for instance, led the fundamentalist Bob Jones University to forbid their students from attending Billy Graham’s evangelistic rallies.
My reading of the history is that evangelicals have always represented a third way between fundamentalists and mainline denominations, and many evangelical leaders have drawn similar distinctions with fundamentalism. If you perceived this to be a rebranding rather than schism, I could see why you would have so much ire for evangelicalism!
That's certainly how it started, with Billy Graham trying to create a more appealing middle path, casting off the worst of the excesses of fundamentalism. Between the 50s and 80s, the two streams began to slowly merge together again. At this point, aside from a few extremist elements, "fundamentalists" no longer exist. Modern evangelicalism has inherited much of the doctrine, culture, and infrastructure (including many seminaries like Dallas that were once considered fundamentalist). This is not to say that evangelicalism is the exact same as fundamentalism (just as mainline does not equal modernist), but the genealogy and heritage is there. The point is not to label or demean evangelicalism, but to understand its roots.
I don't have ire for evangelicalism, as it forms the entirety of my background, along with 90%+ of my Christian friends. Let's call it concern :D