Rolling With Evangelicals

Craig November 18, 2020 2 Comments

The freedom afforded to Christians in North America would probably be considered miraculous by the first disciples of Jesus and the churches initiated by the witness and ministry of the Apostles. I really have little to complain about. I am so grateful; this gratitude only grows as I intercede for sisters and brothers in Christ who are pressured and oppressed, tortured and killed, because of their witness to Jesus as Lord today in other places around the world. 

I am not saying that pressure and social exclusion doesn’t happen in North America because of our confession of Christ; but I am saying that in spite of the fear expressed by some of my brothers and sisters within evangelical institutions, we are enjoying immense amounts of freedom. 

Our inclination within in protestantism is to find something to resist. But the main goal of evangelical resistance has unfortunately become protection of our freedoms rather than a persistent resistance of the kingdom of darkness and its intent to kill, steal, and destroy the precious lives of people through greed which is idolatry and apathy, exploitation and violence, hate and the accompanying shadow of unbelief cast over the knowledge of God. People who don’t know Jesus still have a longing for righteousness, so they protest. But we refuse the protest because we have alienated ourselves from and envisioned ourselves as above or better than the crowd. (1. Jennings)

Not only have we have forgotten how to protest, but we have situated ourselves in enclaves of power so that any protest not initiated within our own institutions must be resisted. For the past year I have pleaded with some evangelicals to abandon the following: the exaltation of  patriarchy over women, the demonization of anyone who acknowledges the reality of racism and violence towards other humans, a rage towards those who plead for creation care by calling for limits to our consumption, and a contempt of the poor and those who seek refuge because their own countries of origin have become inhospitable toward them.

In my own pain and in my own impulse to resist I am left to wonder at times, “Who am I?” I have degrees from three institutions whose histories are inextricably linked to racism and the idolatry of slavery. I have been a part of and served in six congregations in this Southern Baptist stream and now lead a seventh. Sometimes I sort out the pain I feel by saying, “I’m a little b baptist.” Other times I answer the question of who I am by retreating to the answer formed by the question, “Who loves you?” I am loved by Jesus, and so I belong to Him.

I rarely use the word evangelical to describe myself. Yet, I am located in this stream. I am evangelical. (2. Foster)

Some folks would like to distance themselves from evangelicalism, especially the American Patriot variety. Dear Andy, I get it! (3. Green) Perhaps what we really want to do is distance ourselves from the tribalism that has centred around allegiance to one political figure or party. Perhaps what we want to do is distance ourselves from meanness. Perhaps what we want to do is distance ourselves from undisciplined emotional lives and unmitigated hostility toward the complexities uncovered in the study of history, theology and science. Perhaps what we want to do is distance ourselves from white christian nationalism.

The challenge of locating myself within evangelicalism doesn’t have anything to do with my love for Jesus, high view of Scripture, delight in the Church, or zealous participation in the mission of God for the salvation of people in all their relationships. Actually those impulses keep me there as a messenger of the Evangel — Jesus Himself. He is good news for the poor and for all who will see. I don’t want to give over the word evangelical. The challenge comes when the very institutions located in evangelicalism and from which I came would spit me out. 

My ethics professor, Dr. Bill Tillman (4. Tillman) said that institutions are like rock tumblers. You come in as an unfinished rock with lots of edges. But the institution rolls you around and likes having you there as long as your edges will be knocked off. If you retain an edge, the institution will spit you out. It wants you to be smooth.

Confession — I’m a 9 on the enneagram. Hiding my edges is how I deal with the world. But here’s the thing, Jesus keeps chiselling away and He doesn’t just go after the edges. He goes after the smooth places and says, “Hey I don’t want you to conform to the world’s mold!” So Jesus seems to make me crossways with the world and with the institutions with whom I roll.  Somehow being with Jesus in His Word compels me not to hide, but to engage with the hostilities and enmities abounding around me so that the transforming power of the Spirit of God might be released in our lives.

I have a few friends who roll. That is — they practice some form of Jiujutsu. They love it. They roll. There are rules for engagement. There are communities that roll more generously and less viciously than others. My friends roll even though they have separated a shoulder, bruised a rib, pinched a nerve, and torn an ear. They stay and they roll because they have found a circle of friendship that fuels their desire for improvement.

Somehow I think I’m going to keep rolling with evangelicals. I find myself in-between a rock and a hard place. Even though I have sensitives shaped by histories of living at the edges of my Georgia small town society, of Catholic parents who landed in a baptist church, of serving in Vancouver, Canada as an immigrant, and of listening to lots of diverse university students, I’m going to keep rolling with evangelicals because evangelism matters to me. Sharing my life and making proclamation of Jesus and even entering into persuasive speech about life in Him, is restlessly generated in me by the Spirit of God as I read the Bible and try to locate myself in it and in the world.

There’s a common calling available here for evangelicals. We share this calling with so many followers of Jesus, so let’s roll! (5. A note about the metaphor.)

Notes: 

1. Willie James Jennings, After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging. See his discussion of how discipleship begins with the crowd.

2. Emma Green, writing about Andy Stanley in the Atlantic; The Evangelical Reckoning Begins.

3. Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith.

4. Dr. Bill Tillman, discussed this during an ethics class at SouthWestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1991.

5. A note about the metaphor. “Rolling.” Perhaps this combative metaphor for evangelical fellowship is appropriate but is also critiqued in Jennings work After Whiteness, especially in his discussion of the “right kind of theologian” sought out by the seminary and the academy. But I am after the sense of familial friendship I observed among friends who roll. At the end of the day they are not training for combat with each other, but for life in the world. For truly, we wrestle, but we wrestle “not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12) I would rather that together we would wrestle in prayer like Epaphras who was a prayer wrestler. (Colossians 4:12-13 — “he is always wresting in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and those at Laodicea and Hieropolis.”) I would rather that our rolling prepare us to be active with God in the world He loves. (Like Jacob who wrestled with God and became Israel but was received by Easu, his older brother who acted more in keeping with the Father’s Heart as shown us by Jesus in Luke 15 and thus participated in God’s transformation of Jacob.)