ken wilson online

Robert Putnam is the most careful purveyor of survey data alive.  He understands religion in America as few others do, and with great appreciation for its benefits.  So when he speaks, we’re smart to listen.  And this is what he’s telling us: evangelicalism in America grew robustly in th 1970’s and 1980’s (when my church community, Vineyard, was founded.) But by 1990 it hit a wall, and since then has been in numerical decline.
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Like many of you, I’d just as soon replace the word, “evangelical” with something else.  Not because it isn’t a perfectly fine word, but for the response it evokes, thanks to the culture war tactics of so many American evangelicals in the last thirty years.  But the fact is, labels are difficult to shed, and the labeled are not consulted about their moniker preferences. (My parents didn’t seek my permission to name me and “Christians” were so named by the people of Antioch who were not believers.)  And I wonder if the hand of God isn’t behind this label’s stickiness.  Like God himself may be holding it in place on us until we understand what it means.
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What drives a concern for thinking about set theory?  This is a sub-text in this ongoing conversation.  Maybe set theory is a ruse for being soft on sin.  We don’t want to obey the Bible’s teaching on sin, so we are trying to find a way around it, and set theory is a convenient sin dodge.  The bounded set seems to be driven by a concern for moral rigor or moral purity. Therefore any attempt to consider a different approach must be driven by a concern to accomodate to the surrounding culture when it comes to sin.
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Many of you are cringing. Not to worry, this post won’t be a laundry list of American evangelicals at our worst.   There’s only one thing worth mentioning and it trumps all the others: at our worst, we’re more concerned with being right than being evangelical.  It’s the saddest thing about American evangelicalism today, how much passion we have for being right and how little for being evangelical.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with being right, unless it keeps you from being what you are meant to be.  And in this case it does.
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I’ve owed you this post for a while.  Yes, I have a pebble in my shoe over the current state of the American evangelical movement of which my tribe, the Vineyard, is a part.   Yes, I think Phariseeism is alive and well in evangelicalism.  I’d call my own out if I saw it, but others are free to do so in the comments section.  And yes,  I’m bored by Christians who call out the sins of the world like it’s a worthwhile hobby.  Or like it’s news.  Been there, done that.  Spent fifteen years of my life in that mode, and I guess I got it off my chest.  I can imagine being wearied by this–hearing this, reading this– just as I am wearied, but not so much to stop.  So the first of a two-parter: evangelicals at our best (to be followed by evangelicals at our worst.)

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Words are very potent things.  They carry things like truth in them.  They can function as “memes.”  Memes are bits of cultural data that are analogous to genes.  They get transferred from person to person, outlasting persons and seem to have a life of their own.  They can be as difficult to shake off as your grandaddy’s DNA.   I’ve made my peace with that.  There are three words that I’ve accepted and despite pressure from many quarters don’t wish to relegate to the word bin of history: evangelical, religion, and love. 
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Advice to young pastors: to be a pastor in the context of the evangelical landscape is a privilege. By all  measures evangelical Christianity is the most vibrant form of faith in the United States. Evangelical Christians volunteer more, give more money to their churches and give more to non-church charities than any other group.  Nothing says “I love you” like time and cash.  Evangelicals get things done, so you could do worse than to be a pastor in an evangelical setting. But there’s also a cross to bear and your being truly evangelical requires that you bear it. You must be willing to face and confront religious hostility in the camp.
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Something’s happening in American Evangelicalism. We are waking up from a stupor. We are attempting to fear our founder more than we fear our movement’s group think.  Because He is asserting his proprietary rights over His brand–a brand which has been the subject of trademark infringement for too long.  We are standing up to be counted as  conscientious objectors to the evangelical culture war that has been distracting us from the evangelical mission.
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This question of identity and how we understand ours as Jesus followers is important.  It’s fraught for a reason. We’d like to think it’s all about convictions.  If I have X convictions then I’m an X. If my convictions are Y then I’m a Y.  As usual we think we’ve got more control over this than we do.
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Evangelical, what’s in a name?  It’s funny how you get these names.  I don’t recall signing up to be an evangelical.  It just happened.  Well, not quite.  I was a Jesus freak.  But  you can’t escape history, especially not with a religion whose founder was God coming into history and wearing it like a tool apron.  Who would want to take off what he put on? So you find yourself or that community of people that you’re part of, I don’t know, slowing down just long enough to let history catch up with you.
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