For many evangelicals, Jerusalem is about prophecy, not politics

From CNN-

As I watched Donald Trump announce that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move our embassy to that city, I could only think of one thing: my high school youth group Bible study.

I know that sounds odd. Especially coming from a liberal Episcopalian like me. But there you have it. The President makes a world-important declaration about global politics, and an absurdly apocalyptic thought arises, "Jerusalem? The Last Days must be at hand!" 

 

When I was a teenager in the 1970s, I attended a "Bible church," a nondenominational congregation that prided itself on a singular devotion to scripture. We read the Bible all the time: in personal Bible study and evening Bible classes. We listened to hourlong Sunday morning sermons. For us, the Bible was not just a guide to piety. It also revealed God's plan for history. Through it, we learned how God had worked in the past and what God would do in the future. 

 

More here-

 

https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/08/opinions/jerusalem-israel-evangelicals-end-times-butler-bass-opinion/index.html

Evangelicals are having their own #MeToo moment

From The Washington Post-

Evangelical Protestantism, thank God, is experiencing its own version of a #MeToo moment. 

Paige Patterson — head of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and icon of conservative Baptist belief — is being called out for a story he told in 2000. An abused woman had come to him for counseling. Patterson recommended prayer. Later, the woman returned with two black eyes. In Patterson’s telling: “She said, ‘I hope you’re happy.’ And I said, ‘Yes . . . I’m very happy,’ ” because the woman’s husband had heard her prayers and come to church the next day.

This, presumably, is Patterson’s version of a happy ending: A wife gets battered, but the church gets a new member. God works in misogynist ways. 

A number of prominent Baptists have risen in criticism. Thom Rainer, president of the Christian publishing house LifeWay, tweeted, “There is no type or level of abuse of women that is acceptable.” Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, added: “Any physical abuse on any level is completely unacceptable in marriage. The church should immediately step in & provide a safe place for the abused.”  

More here-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/evangelicals-are-having-their-own-metoo-moment/2018/05/07/e97be51e-5219-11e8-a551-5b648abe29ef_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9ee005701681

Keep up the good work, evangelical prophets!

From RNS-

Silly me.

On Wednesday, when President Trump embraced an immigration bill that would give priority to English speakers with job skills over family members, I figured the prophets of the evangelical world would be all over him. After all, wasn’t it Jerry Falwall, Sr. who wrote in his 1980 manifesto Listen America, “The family is the fundamental building block and the basic unit of our society, and its continued health is a prerequisite for a strong and prosperous nation”?

So something was needed from the family values crowd along the lines of the statement issued by Austin Bishop Joe S. Vásquez, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration:

"The United States supports families and should not throw up obstacles to their unity. Unfortunately, the RAISE Act would have our nation turn its back on this long and storied tradition of welcoming families setting out to build a better life."

But no, as with every other Trumpian affront to their professed principles, the President’s house prophets either tell him what he wants to hear or forever hold their peace.

More here-

http://religionnews.com/2017/08/04/keep-up-the-good-work-evangelical-prophets/

Pope Francis allies accuse Trump White House of 'apocalyptic geopolitics'

From The Guardian-

An explosive article written by two close associates of Pope Francis has accused Steve Bannon, the chief White House strategist, of espousing an “apocalyptic geopolitics” whose roots are “not too far apart” from that of Islamist extremism.

The article in La Civiltà Cattolica, which is vetted by the Vatican before publication, lays out a scathing critique of “evangelical fundamentalism” in the US, arguing that, on issues ranging from climate change to “migrants and Muslims”, proponents of the ideology have adopted a twisted reading of scripture and the Old Testament that promotes conflict and war above all else.

The piece was published just days after evangelical leaders met US president Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House and “laid hands” on him in prayer following discussions about religious freedom, support for Israel and healthcare reform.

More here-

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/13/pope-associates-criticize-american-evangelicals-extremism?CMP=twt_gu

Rachel Held Evans Returns to Church

From Christianity Today-

Four years ago, Rachel Held Evans spent Easter in the apartment of a funeral home. But there would be no candles lit, no feast after the service. Instead, the group of about 10 had gathered to mourn the death of their church.

The Mission had launched in 2010 at the urging of Brian Ward, Evans’s former youth pastor in Dayton, Tennessee, 45 minutes north of Chattanooga. Like other emergent/missional/ancient-future “experiments,” the house church had a piecemeal, earnest feel to it. Evans was quickly named worship pastor and wrote liturgy for group drawn from the Anglican prayer book. Ward baptized a local guitar player in the Tennessee River. Members volunteered at Dayton’s free health clinic. Evans and her husband, Dan, helped to pay the lawyer’s fee to register the Mission as a nonprofit, a decision that “felt as momentous as a down payment on a house,” Evans writes in a new book, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church (Thomas Nelson).


More here

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/april-web-only/rachel-held-evans-returns-to-church.html

What's behind the pope's friendship with evangelicals?

From UCA-

Earlier this year, Pope Francis met with an old acquaintance named Tony Palmer. Palmer, who died tragically in a motorcycle accident last week, was a South African who lived in England. Married to a Catholic Italian, Palmer met the pope when he was a missionary in Argentina.   Palmer claimed the title “Anglican Bishop” but he was not a bishop in the established Church of England. 

Instead it is more accurate to say that he was a bishop in the “Anglican tradition.” Part of a new evangelical church movement which treasures tradition as well as charismatic worship and Evangelical zeal, Palmer was a good representative of a Christian movement that is sometimes called “convergence church.”
Read more at:

http://www.ucanews.com/news/whats-behind-the-popes-friendship-with-evangelicals/71555

The Right Side of History Is Full of Rewrites

From Christianity Today-

Chances are you weren't surprised by yesterday's news that the Supreme Court found the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

A Pew Research Center poll last month found that 72 percent of Americans think that legal recognition for same-sex marriage is inevitable. That's the percentage of Americans overall—a slight majority of whom (51 percent) are okay with that. Strikingly, the poll found that there's little difference between evangelicals and Americans overall on believing that same-sex marriage is inevitable (70 percent of evangelicals think so), though only 22 percent of evangelicals support same-sex marriage.

The Supreme Court didn't actually say that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage or bar states from limiting unions to a man and a woman. But there was widespread agreement that the decisions were historic—both an indicator and a catalyst for changing views on sexual ethics, marriage, family, social justice, government powers, and other issues.

In fact, Justice Antonin Scalia said as much in his dissent. "It takes real cheek for today's majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue here—when what has preceded that assurance is a lecture on how superior the majority's moral judgment in favor of same-sex marriage is to the Congress's hateful moral judgment against it," he said. "As far as this court is concerned, no one should be fooled; it is just a matter of listening and waiting for the other shoe."

More here-

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/june-web-only/same-sex-marriage-supreme-court-doma-right-side-of-history-.html

Young not eager to be ‘Evangelical’

From The Church Times-

CHRISTIANS under the age of 25 are less likely to identify themselves as Evangelicals, even if they worship at Evangelical churches, a new report by the Evangelical Alliance (EA) suggests.
The report 21st Century Evangelicals: A snapshot of the beliefs and habits of Evangelical Christians in the UK, published by the EA and Christian Research, is based on the views of more than 17,000 people who completed questionnaires at Evangelical festivals and at churches affiliated to the EA during 2010.

Sixty-seven per cent of those surveyed aged between 16 and 24 considered themselves to be “Evangelical Christians”. This percentage increased with the age range: 87 per cent of those aged over 65 described themselves as Evangelical.

“These results could simply reveal that younger people are rejecting the name ‘Evangelical’, or that Christians start referring to themselves as ‘Evangelical Christians’ later in life,” the report states.

Andy Frost, the director of Share Jesus International, is quoted as saying that younger people “don’t understand party lines and church squabbles”, and that, for them, “the word ‘Evangelical’ has been tarnished by American political agendas.

“This generation simply want to get the job done. Evangelicalism needs to be redefined for them as Grace and Truth,” he said.

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=106603

Bad news evangelicals

From The Christian Century

Modern North American evangelicalism began in reaction. Those who embraced the term fundamentalist reacted against late-19th-century biblical criticism and biology, removing themselves from denominations and other Christian bodies that were less alarmed by such developments. Reacting against perceived liberalism in the realm of political involvement, fundamentalists separated themselves from the social gospel so decisively that they removed almost any hint of social dynamism from the biblical gospel.

In the middle of the last century, neoevangelicals such as Harold Ockenga and Carl Henry sought to nudge fundamentalists (and what we now know as conservative evangelicals) in a more socially aware direction. Yet the movement retained an ongoing vulnerability to its reactionary impulse. Evangelicalism (then and now predominantly white) was slow to support civil rights for blacks. Anticommunism was long a hot node of evangelical galvanization.

A newfangled dispensationalist eschatology (promulgated first in the 19th century) has regularly cycled into prominence through the aegis of the movement, repeatedly reincarnated to react to changed threats. Hal Lindsey proclaimed it in The Late Great Planet Earth in the 1970s and tailored the Chris tian gospel to resist the Soviet Union, European unification and the ecumenical movement. In the 1990s, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins retooled dispensationalism to rescue American conservative Christians from Arabic terrorists, one-world government and moral decline. Pop apocalyptics aside, playing defense has long been a major mode of discourse for evangelical media—arming the faithful against religious cults, then the New Age movement, then feminism, then secular humanism, and so on and so on.

Still, evangelicalism re mains wealthy by any number of quantitative and sociological measurements. How can I suggest that it is in trouble?

It is in deep trouble because it faces a significant cultural and generational shift. Identifying itself with the wedge tactics of the political right, which is now falling (at least for a time) out of power, the movement cannot easily shake the image of being primarily negative and destructive. Indicators show that it is losing attractiveness not only among unconverted fellow Americans, but among its own young.

http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=6484

Evangelical leader quits

More trouble in the evangelical ranks in Britain.

A new era beckons for evangelicals as the Church of England’s Evangelical Council (CEEC) announced the retirement of its chairman, and apologised for its ‘serious mistake’ at the recent National Evangelical Anglican Consultation (NEAC 5).

Dr Richard Turnbull had served as chairman for three years, but had recently attracted acrimony for ‘bullying’ evangelicals into a more conservative stance. He cited family commitments and responsibilities as Principal of Wycliffe Hall as reasons why he would not have time to continue as chairman.

The executive officer of CEEC, Canon Michael Walters, said council members were “shocked” at the resignation. Dr Turnbull has accepted an invitation to remain as a member on the council.

On November 15 the council sprung a surprise vote on NEAC 5, asking attendees to support Gafcon’s Jerusalem Declaration, which they refused to vote on. A statement by the council said: “CEEC apologises for the fact that we failed to circulate the proposed resolutions prior to the Consultation day. We acknowledge that this was a serious mistake which understandably caused consternation on the day.”

http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=3483

Anglicans Toot Somebody Else's Horn

A commentary of the odd way the "new province" was actually declared.

Every major paper covered the formation of the Anglican Church of North America, comprised of 100,000 now-former members of the 2.3 million strong -- make that 2.2 million -- Episcopal Church in the United States. But only evangelical magazine Christianity Today, gushingly enthusiastic about the split -- the breakaway Anglicans seem motivated chiefly by anger over the Episcopal Church's acceptance of gays and lesbians and women priests, none of which are approved by most evangelicals -- notes that the new church declared its creation by blasting a shofar, a Jewish ritual instrument made out of a ram's horn, traditionally blown on certain holidays -- or, as in the Book of Joshua, as a sort of battlecry. Why did the mainstream press ignore this unusual detail? Did it strike the NYT as too absurd? The Washington Post as simply confusing? I suspect this may be a case of the press neatening up some strange religion for broad public consumption.

More here-

http://www.therevealer.org/archives/timely_003140.php

When a schism has a schism of its own

From the Londodn Guardian. "Reform" is the hard line conservatives in England. It looks like there is a conservative split going to take place there.

Reform parishes have for years been refusing to fund liberal bishops, or in some cases even allow them inside, preferring to divert their congregations' money into their own networks. This has made them rich, but not popular; now they believe that they have hit upon a way to be popular too, by adopting the Gafcon statement of principles as the touchstone of orthodoxy: anyone who does not sign up to it, they maintain, has left the Church of England. Whatever the law, the General Synod, and the overwhelming majority of church members may say, Reform regards itself as the only true Anglicans and everyone else, from the Archbishop of Canterbury downwards, as apostates. As the Chairman of Reform's council, the Rev Rod Thomas put it,

"What makes us part of the Church of England is our common commitment to the doctrine of the Church, not our institutional structure … when bishops accommodate themselves to heretical teaching they deny the faith and therefore abandon their sees."

This is a position so ludicrous in its Trotskyite purity that the rest of the Church of England – even the other evangelical parties – had difficulty taking reform seriously until almost too late. Now there is a serious split within the evangelical movement, ostensibly about whether the rest of the church should recognise conservative Americans as the true representatives of the Anglican Communion there, but really about whether the Church of England too is to be split up as the Americans have been.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2008/dec/02/religion-anglicanism-schism

Conservative Anglicans determined to stay within church

From Canada an article about conservative parishes and clergy who are "loosening" their ties to Common Cause and deciding to stay in the Anglican Church of Canada. Oh Canada!

About 50 conservative Anglican leaders, including eight young theological students, gathered in Toronto for a one-day consultation on Nov. 25 and emerged with a determination to remain within the Anglican Church of Canada. They came from 16 dioceses across the country.

(snip)

He said there are five key areas on which the federation will focus: giving voice to the issues at various meetings of dioceses and synods, continuing to network with other conservative organizations and denominations in Canada, international representation (Mr. Cane says he will attend the Common Cause Partnership meeting in December as an observer), encouraging conservative theologians to meet and work on the issues, and working with theological students and others under age 40 to “help the rest of the church affirm authentic Anglicanism.”

Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, sent a lengthy pastoral letter to the consultation in which he acknowledged differences in biblical interpretation and expressed appreciation for the fellowship’s determination to work within the Anglican Church of Canada. In his letter, the primate said that “the St. Michael Report itself acknowledges that ‘the interpretation of scripture is a central and complex matter’ and that, at times in the church’s history, ‘faithful readings have led to mutually contradictory understandings, requiring on-going dialogue and prayer toward discernment of the one voice of the gospel.’

http://www.anglicanjournal.com/100/article/conservative-anglicans-determined-to-stay-within-church/?cHash=4418952c5e

The tensions between moderates and hardliners among the Church of England's evangelicals have come to a head

The Guardian report on what happened at the Evangelical Conference in London Saturday. It looks like liberals aren't the only ones who manipulate by parliamentary procedure. At any rate it shows how deep the divisions are among conservatives relative to Gafcon and a new province. This one's worth going to the link and reading in its entirety.

The chair of CEEC, Richard Turnbull, is the Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, which is currently being inspected by the Church of England following the controversial multiple resignations and sackings there.

He proposed a motion in the afternoon which was not on the agenda published beforehand, but merely put on the chairs prior to the beginning of the consultation, with the added note that "no amendments will be permitted". Some saw the motion, others did not. It was not mentioned at all from the front in the morning.

The motion, in effect, backed the Gafcon movement (which is about to set up a separate "province" in North America) while ignoring the process urged by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference, which is supported by many evangelical Anglicans. This pursues, with patience and urgency, the Covenant for the Anglican Communion and a pastoral forum for conservatives in North America.

At the consultation, our unity was clear in that we are committed to the teaching of the communion on sexuality and opposed to the developments in North America which have caused this crisis. However, we differed on ecclesiology, the shape of the church. Some spoke up for Gafcon and others for the Lambeth process. The difficulty of the motion was that it seemed to be trying to force this division by being sprung on us at the last minute without opportunity for amendment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2008/nov/17/religion-anglicanism

Church of England Evangelicals dodge homosexuality vote

I find the following interesting and a little curious considering the post below it which would appear to be about the same meeting.

Church of England Evangelicals meeting on Saturday refused to vote to establish their position on homosexuality -- an issue that has caused deep splits within the worldwide Anglican communion.

The Church of England Evangelical Council met in central London but the 300 attendees declined an opportunity to vote. "The opinions expressed were a wide range of opinions," said The Reverend Doctor Richard Turnbull, chairman of the Church of England Evangelical Council. "People decided that they didn't actually want to vote on a resolution.

The disadvantage of that is you then don't exactly know what people think." The council meets again on December 4.

The Lambeth Conference in April, a once-a-decade gathering of bishops from the world's 77-million-strong Anglican Communion, was boycotted by around 200 bishops over the consecration five years ago of the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, the bishop of New Hampshire in the United States. The issue of homosexuality remains a turbulent matter for the Anglican communion.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gdwVkEfG7xkCeO6GBaF6scC1_JeQ

Conservatives grow wary of mixing church, politics

From the Associated Press a report on the way conservative Christian thinking is shifting. Looks like the Moral Majority days are over.

"Fifty percent of conservatives think churches and other places of worship should stay out of social and political matters, up from 30 percent four years ago, according to a survey released Thursday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

That significant shift in conservative thought has brought the country to a tipping point on the question: a slim majority of Americans - 52 percent - now think churches should keep out of politics."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/REL_RELIGION_POLITICS_POLL?SITE=NCAGW&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

E. J. Dionne on Evangelicals and politics

In the category of "further signs of the impending Apocalypse" E. J. Dionne has nice things to say about today's evangelicals.

"Just a few years back, 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 the issues of abortion and gay marriage would not dominate the pastor's queries?

Oh yes, and who would have anticipated that the passions of the pastor in question would be engaged not in the divisions created by the culture wars but in the imperative of civility in politics and the plight of the world's 148 million orphans? Here's betting that the next president will help those orphans find homes.

The notion that Christianity in general and evangelicalism in particular are by nature right-wing creeds has always been wrong. How can a faith built around a commitment to the poor and the vulnerable be seen as leading ineluctably to conservative political conclusions?"

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5951666.html