{"id":34884,"date":"2018-07-16T13:27:50","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T17:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pbs-wnet-preprod.digi-producers.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/?p=34884"},"modified":"2018-08-20T14:17:58","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T18:17:58","slug":"shocked-devastated-worried-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pbs-wnet-preprod.digi-producers.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2018\/07\/16\/shocked-devastated-worried-future\/34884\/","title":{"rendered":"Shocked. Devastated. And most of all, worried about the future."},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jana Riess, RNS senior columnist<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s how I\u2019d describe the tone of the new book \u201cStill Evangelical?: Insiders Reconsider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning,\u201d\u00a0in which evangelical leaders grapple with the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, which galvanized an identity crisis for American evangelicals. As contributor Shane Claiborne puts it in the book, when more than 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for a man whose \u201cactions and life choices contradict the core values of evangelicalism itself,\u201d there\u2019s a problem: Jesus and the GOP have been whirled up in a blender, and there may not be hope of separating them ever again.<\/p>\n

What, then, happens to the term \u201cevangelical\u201d? I spoke with Mark Labberton, who edited the volume at the request of InterVarsity Press, about the book and what it represents. Their goal, he says, was \u201cto have an array of people from across the evangelical spectrum from left to the right, and also to have a diversity of voices with gender and race. It included people who were leaders of institutions or organizations, or people that are involved in movements, like Shane Claiborne or Lisa Sharon Harper.\u201d Harper, an African-American woman whose essay opens the collection, is a case study of how complicated the term \u201cevangelical\u201d is, because when the media use it, what they often mean is white evangelicals. Which would not include her. Yet she opens the book by revealing the come-to-Jesus moment she experienced as a young teenager in 1983, a conversion story that would be familiar to many evangelicals, replete as it is with memories of Amy Grant concerts, camp meetings and altar calls on a sawdust trail.<\/p>\n

And she\u2019s not alone. Many of the essayists are Christians of color, including InterVarsity President Tom Lin, seminary professor Soong-Chan Rah, and pastor and activist Sandra Maria Van Opstal, who contributes the book\u2019s most arresting metaphor when she writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cMy blood type is O-negative, so I am the universal donor\u2014a blood bank\u2019s dream. A universal donor can give to anyone, so hospital shelves are lined with O negative. The reverse is not true; the universal donor can receive only O negative blood. In seminary, I learned that the universal theological donor is a white evangelical. This donor is always translating books into other languages, planting churches in other countries, setting up seminaries on other continents, and sending professors to teach global Christians. And this donor never seems to receive from the global church.\u201d Part of the impetus for the book, says Labberton, is to challenge a narrative that equates \u201cwhite\u201d with \u201cnormative\u201d by soliciting the voices of nonwhite Christian<\/p>\n

Mark Labberton, president of Fuller Theological Seminary and editor of \u201cStill Evangelical?\u201d book. Photo courtesy of InterVarsity Press
\nleaders. It\u2019s a way of troubling the waters of what people mean when they say \u201cevangelical,\u201d which Labberton says has become \u201can almost unusable word \u2026 so indefinite that it\u2019s difficult to determine what people mean when they use it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labberton\u2019s own weekend is a case in point. As the president of the evangelical flagship institution Fuller Theological Seminary, Labberton is deep in the thick of American evangelicalism. When I spoke to him on Thursday (March 1), he was heading to a speaking event in California, then getting on a plane to attend Billy Graham\u2019s funeral on Friday. There he would be surrounded by various strands of evangelicalism, from the old-school Christian crusading of Billy himself to the relentless political crusading of Billy\u2019s son Franklin.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just varieties of white evangelicalism. There are so many others, many of which have been uncentered, marginalized or ignored. One problem caused by people like Franklin Graham and other Trump supporters, according to several essayists in this book, is that they are actively alienating evangelical Christians of a rising generation who care about diversity, inclusion and having leaders who practice what they preach.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fundamental instinct of millennials about life is that it\u2019s about authenticity and integrity, so the crisis of this election is that evangelicals appear to be willing to sell their birthright for political power, but surrender authenticity and integrity,\u201d says Labberton. \u201cThey\u2019re people who are longing, and who are disillusioned by an older generation who have sold themselves for influence, while compromising the gospel and its central character.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s hope for evangelicalism, if the essays in this book are any indication. There can be rebirth from the ashes of evangelicalism\u2019s cultural captivity.
\n\u201cEvangelicalism is far deeper, wider, and greater than its particular foibles born of particular times,\u201d writes Liberty University professor Karen Swallow Prior, in an essay that Labberton holds up as his favorite in the book. She maintains that it was evangelicalism that catalyzed an \u201cactivist spirit\u201d inside of her, \u201cmolding and refining a passion to do right politically, socially, personally.\u201d
\nEvangelicalism can survive the damage done by its political enthrallment, but only if it embraces change and diverse voices.<\/p>\n

Jana Riess<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0has a doctorate in American religious history from Columbia University and is the author of \u201cThe Next Mormons,\u201d a study of millennial Latter-day Saints, which will be released from Oxford in March 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jana Riess, RNS senior columnist That\u2019s how I\u2019d describe the tone of the new book \u201cStill Evangelical?: Insiders Reconsider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning,\u201d\u00a0in which evangelical leaders grapple with the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, which galvanized an … More →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":34949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","topics-chapter-verse"],"yoast_head":"\nShocked. Devastated. 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