Patrol Magazine has offered the latest salvo in the ongoing conversation about evangelicalism and its future. I am a little hesitant to characterize the website for those not familiar with it, as they have been a bit sensitive to some of my descriptions in the past. As best I can tell, they are a haven for post-evangelicals who are interested in asking questions that no other Christian website asks.*
There’s a lot to agree with in Patrol’s editorial. For instance, I think we can all agree that ‘evangelicalism’ is a movement that has always been hard to pin down. Conversations at this blog have made this obvious enough. And like Patrol, I have made my own arguments that evangelicals have inherited an unbaptized modernism (though I am skeptical that post-evangelicalism escapes it), and I think we can all agree that thinking too much about evangelicalism’s core is problematic.
But there are trouble spots in the essay, too. Consider Patrol’s dismissiveness of any sort of unifying core to evangelicalism. That might be true enough, except they seem to affirm Bebbington’s definition in the first paragraph. If that doesn’t point to a “unified, coherent tradition to which Protestants can return,” I don’t know what would.
More importantly, Patrol seems to be suggesting in this article (though I hope I am wrong about this) that we would do best to move forward without a doctrinal core at all. They write, “The fight to define evangelicalism in its latter days also operates on the mistaken premise that an imagined theological purity or conformance to a “lost” orthodoxy, rather than an emphasis on ethics, spiritual discipline and mystery, will revive the power of the Christian church. ” That they see fit to put an “or” where an “and” belongs suggests that they would like the one without the other. But why should evangelicals –or whomever–be forced to choose?
There are other indications of this, though, as well:
Adrift in the cultural sea, many turned to traditions and theological systems of the past, only to find those similarly unequipped to address the questions of our time. The only choice has been to begin the messy and at times overwhelming process of drafting something new.”
And:
Surely many of the intelligent professors, students, writers and bloggers rushing to its defense have also felt the naggings of cognitive dissonance and the inkling that the world might make more sense if they abandoned some of their cultural presuppositions. But haggling over the details of theology provides a psuedo-intellectual haven from real-world questions, where evangelicals can exercise their minds without coming to any unsettling conclusions.
Why details of theology? Why not simply say that haggling over theology is “pseudo-intellectual?” All theology is details, as any student of church history knows. And while some details are more important than others–Athanasius died for the detail of an omicron, because he knew that our immortal souls were at stake–it’s not clear that one can think theologically without thinking about details. At least not for very long.
Oddly, Patrol seems to be resurrecting perhaps the most problematic aspect of evangelicalism proper–its inability to stand within and appreciate tradition. Patrol’s insistence that the “traditions and theological systems of the past” are ill-equipped to answer today’s challenges is, well, precisely wrong. It is, in fact, our ignorance of those traditions and theological systems that has created the evangelicalism that Patrol has so much disdain for. If Patrol thinks that younger evangelicals will opt for a system that we have created ex nihilo over and against Rome, Canterbury, or Eastern Orthodoxy, they are just as naive as those whom they accuse of attempting to revive a dead horse. We may as well leave for Rome now. If anything, Patrol’s emphasis on novelty simply lays the groundwork for their prediction that evangelicalism faces “near certain extinction” to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Additionally, just as the “post-modernism” that Patrol seems to want to embrace never escapes the confines of modernism (a fact that most younger evangelicals miss), Patrol’s post-evangelicalism doesn’t escape the confines of evangelicalism. Rejecting evangelicalism’s shibboleths is only courageous if you care about and want the affirmation of those you are critiquing. Outside evangelicalism’s walls, critiques of evangelicals are an easy way to win applause. But apparently, the “dead horse” of evangelicalism must have enough life left in it to kick back.
But then, Patrol’s post-evangelicalism seems to derive most of its intellectual energy from its negative posture toward traditional evangelicalism. Let me be perfectly clear: there are many valid critiques that can be made, and they need to be made. I like Patrol, and I like Michael Spencer too. They speak with an important voice and evangelicals would be, well, idiotic to not heed their cautions and carefully consider their criticisms. But contra Patrol, I don’t think anyone really “fears” the post-evangelical voices. Mark Noll has been making many of these arguments for years (though without the headline-grabbing tendency to prophecy evangelicalism’s demise), and he is widely regarded and welcomed among evangelicals. People like Mark Driscoll are enormously popular precisely because they have spoken out against the problems of traditional evangelicalism.
In fact, among younger evangelicals, it is much more popular, easier, and more natural to critique traditional evangelicalism than it is to defend it. We have turned those impeccable “worldview analysis” skills that our parents gave us on them, and on ourselves. If evangelicals were reactionary in their withdrawal from culture, most younger evangelicals are reactionary in their withdrawal from evangelical culture. I rarely meet a younger evangelical who needs to be encouraged to engage with the world, or who struggles to critique evangelicals for being politically captive or nationalistic.
But on this point, post-evangelicalism is simply an extension of evangelicalism. Evangelicals, historically, have failed to “find the good and praise it.” The post-evangelicalism of Patrol is no better, and so ends up being just as bleak. Except whereas traditional evangelicals have been pessimistic about “the world,” Patrol is pessimistic about evangelicals.
But just as evangelicals failed to transform the broader culture by critiquing it from outside, so I suspect post-evangelicals will be similarly impotent. Patrol isn’t interested, I take it, in reforming evangelicalism. It thinks its dead and gone. But until it can offer the world a viable alternative, an alternative way of life full of goods that we can see and praise, it will remain a negation of historical evangelicalism and so remain as powerless as the Christian kitsch it (rightly) critiques.
I highly doubt that most evangelicals are interested in “protecting the label” of evangelicalism. At the end of the day, if we are called something else, it doesn’t matter.
But beneath the label are real, sincere people who consume Christian culture because that’s all they know to do and who describe themselves as “evangelicals” because that’s what their leaders say they are. And they are worth talking to, worth listening to, and worth arguing with. They have an enormous amount of energy, and while we might think it is directed toward misguided ends, we miss out on the opportunity to help them if we stand outside of them and criticize. We must be evangelicalism’s harshest critics because we are her biggest fans. Only from such a position of loyalty and love will we be able to see evangelicalism as she is: always broken and dying, yet still being reborn and renewed from within.
*Two pre-emptive caveats: first, I realize this is just one editorial from Patrol. I sincerely hope that they will continue to clarify their response to evangelicalism, and their critiques.
Second, I attempted to narrow the critique to the post-evangelicalism of Patrol, not that of Michael Spencer. I have no idea whether they agree on this formulation or not, though from my casual reading of InternetMonk the last few years, I’d be inclined to say that Spencer is interested in a more historically grounded faith than Patrol seems to be.
November 16th, 2009 | 10:56 am | #1
You said that name. Now I can’t comment at all without being construed as being critical of that name.
November 16th, 2009 | 11:57 am | #2
Matt,
Why is it that they are saying something important?
I get criticisms of orthodoxy, evangelicalism, and just about any other form of Christianity by the pixel load from serious people in philosophy. I enjoy talking to them . . .and they actually know something about the Enlightenment.
I learn from them . . . and I don’t recall fearing the dialectical process in my whole life.
Perhaps the response they should dread more is not “fear” of their insights, but a certain weariness with the same-old-same-old I have heard since I was a wee nipper from the same type of people, though the parts of modernity (post-post-modernity?) they trick themselves out in changes over the decades.
This time they have an Internet site! How daring it all is! Oh! Next they shall mock televangelists! Oh! God is not an American! Oh! Mark Noll! Oh!
If only we had known . . .
I am sure they are nice folk and all . . . but given a global Christian perspective post-Evangelicals (or whatever they call themselves) hardly appear on my radar.
November 16th, 2009 | 11:57 am | #3
I would argue that moving forward with an emphasis on ethics, spiritual disciplines, and mystery without knowledge on which to base these things is problematic, and what would foster the demise of evangelicalism. That is, we need orthodoxy related to these things as well.
November 16th, 2009 | 12:15 pm | #4
Evidently the “real world” has become “difficult” all of the sudden.
Orthodoxy, instead of dealing with the hard issues (such as reviewing pop music) must keep hiding out wrestling with the trivial such as Arianism and the Nero-of-the-moment.
If only we had the intellectual courage to see what mass media is saying.
But then for today’s American Christian, it is way worse to grow up than in ancient Rome, because Christendom has made things just horrible and intellectually complicated.
If only we could ask the hard questions, like why we love Switchfoot and ignore the easy and unimportant issues such as the nature of the church and salvation.
November 16th, 2009 | 12:21 pm | #5
Mr. Anderson:
I commented extensively on the Patrol piece at IM Radio 165.
I am interested in a different option that is more historically grounded. I don’t believe I, or any other post-evangelical, is saving or perpetuating evangelicalism. I’d gladly go out any number of doors were those doors available to me.
Post evangelicals like Patrol and myself are endeavoring to help evangelicalism hear the voice of the de-churched, discouraged, unplugged and estranged in its midst. Hearing those voices is important. As irritating as it can be, there is something that needs to be heard. Post-evangelicals are not feigning some kind of authority to remake evangelicalism or to blame someone for the demise of evangelicalism. The other shoe has dropped. The collapse is happening. There are churches that will thrive and there are churches that will never know anything happened. But there will be a quiet departure of millions of former evangelicals to something- or nothing- else.
That’s all there is to say, and I don’t pretend it is anything earth-shaking. For me and many like me, we’re living in another reality than what is typically discussed among more hopeful evangelicals.
God’s best to all on the Evangel blog.
peace
ms
November 16th, 2009 | 12:36 pm | #6
Why is it particularly important for all of us to hear every voice?
I can understand why the parents or pastors of a particular disaffected former Evangelical may need to hear a particular voice. I can understand why some (like our own Anderson) may feel called to hear particular voices . . .
But in general what if the voices (when we check in) are not saying anything new? What if they sound like people who got burned, but lack charity? What about the millions globally who are joining Evangelical churches? Are the few millions here in the United States, awash in the freedom and safety their parents helped provide, really not getting heard? Do they really lack resources from the many, many books and blog sites that cater to their latest cry of the heart?
I don’t feel like I can pick up Newsweek without hearing them.
I know they are sad, so bitterly sad, but there are people dying in the Sudan, Christians in concentration camps in China and a good bit of Plato I don’t yet understand (let alone Romans!).
Do I need reminding again that God is not a Republican or that swearing is not as bad as the Holocaust?
We get it. Can you tell me what is being said that is new that I can use as grist for my dialectical mill?
I really want to know.
John Mark
November 16th, 2009 | 1:42 pm | #7
Strike 2 for TUAD. That’s two comments removed in about three weeks. 3rd time’s a charm, TUAD, and we’ll find a more permanent solution.
November 16th, 2009 | 1:42 pm | #8
Don’t let me imply that a choice to write and a desire to be heard means that I or anyone who might identify with us thinks you or anyone here at evangel “need” to be told the same story a hundred times. I surely don’t. I intend to represent my audience in what I write and to lament for the sake and hope of others, but I’ll ask forgiveness for anything I’ve ever said that amounted to force-feeding the same whine and cheese to the unwilling. I’m aware enough of the comments at my own blog to know that everyone isn’t having the same experience, and I hope I acknowledge that whenever I write.
November 16th, 2009 | 1:49 pm | #9
Whatever.
November 16th, 2009 | 2:09 pm | #10
So all of that said, I have two questions:
[1] Everybody wants to be Martin Luther, but nobody wants to nail anything to the door. Isn’t it the right thing to do to start with what is true, and good, and whatever is beautiful, then understand the “ought”, and then address our disaffections with our circumstnaces?
[2] Can the Nicene Creed really solve this problem? There’s not a lot there about redeeming the culture or the pH scale of sins to tell us how much offense the Holocaust can muster in us vs. how much scatalogical jokes ought to revile us — let alone the relevance of music styles. How’s Nicene Confessionalism going to solve this problem?
November 16th, 2009 | 2:12 pm | #11
[...] a comment to Matt’s post, Michael Spencer says: I don’t believe I, or any other post-evangelical, is saving or perpetuating evangelicalism. [...]
November 16th, 2009 | 2:13 pm | #12
Frank is right. Let’s hear what we should be doing from everyone.
As for me, I am a citizen of Christendom and a Nicene Christian . . . trying to understand my King and my Kingdom (and live out my Creed) is more than enough.
I am trying to solve my problems . . . and hope that this is at least some contribution to the culture as a whole.
November 16th, 2009 | 2:15 pm | #13
I should add a suspicion that whenever post-evangelicals tell me what they are for they end up:
1. telling me something that fits some already existing older group of Christians.
2. fracturing over disagreements just like their parents.
November 16th, 2009 | 2:16 pm | #14
Frank Turk: “Strike 2 for TUAD. That’s two comments removed in about three weeks. 3rd time’s a charm, TUAD, and we’ll find a more permanent solution.”
I didn’t even know that I had a previous comment removed on this blog in the past several weeks.
Can you provide evidence to substantiate your charges? What was the blog post/thread and my comment that you removed previously?
And for the record, I don’t think that my earlier comment was wrong and it shouldn’t have been removed.
Anyways, can you provide evidence to substantiate your charge that you removed a prior comment of mine on this blog in the last several weeks? I’m not aware of any “Strike One.”
November 16th, 2009 | 2:36 pm | #15
I am not sure I am having a different experience than you, Michael, at least not in the sense of “evangelical experience.” I’m younger, in a different place, have my own idiosyncrasies and backgrounds, etc etc. But in terms of what we “see,” I resonate strongly with 99% of what you observe. I think that may be what has made us kindred spirits in the first place.
Yet I’m still hopeful about this thing evangelicalism, whatever it is. I agree with you on the collapse (although it sort of took Tim Keller to agree it was gonna happen to make me put my chips in :-), but I think those who persist in small(?) pockets of missional, confessing communities will be substantially evangelical, even if they don’t like the name.
And let’s at least observe that the megachurchianity crowd has little use for the word evangelical anyway. Few even know what it means. I don’t think it’s fair to let them keep it. :-)
Bottom line: I may be playing the violin while the Titanic sinks, but it’s only because the music is truer than the ship.
November 16th, 2009 | 3:02 pm | #16
Since Michael doesn’t have comments on his site, I’ll post a response he made there and give my reply:
As a fan and as a brother, Michael, I have to say: You are way, way too sensitive to anything that even smells like criticism. In my post, I disagree with you. That’s it. I don’t think I was being harsh (though if I was someone please let me know).
Also, I think we’d all do well to get outside of our holy huddles and learn more about other groups. Evangelicalism is a big place. The moment you start making pronouncements about what is happening to it as a whole you are bound to get it wrong.
I’ll give you one example from my own life. When I lived in Chicago I decided to visit Willow Creek so that I could see first hand what I had been making fun of for years. I slipped into a Saturday night service thinking I was going to get plenty of material to mock them on my blog. Instead, I heard a preacher (not Hybels) proffer one of the clearest Gospel messages I had heard in a long, long time. I have no doubt that God used that message to save the lost that night.
Since then I still level criticisms at Willow Creek. But now when I do so now the my complaints are narrower and more circumspect. If someone were to say that Willow Creek is a gospel-less church I’d call them out on such a slanderous accusation. Once we start thinking that we are doing church right and everyone else is wrong, we’re treading on dangerous ground.
We should always remember that we are not the final judges of the evangelical church. That task belongs to the One who sees what we sometimes miss.
November 16th, 2009 | 3:46 pm | #17
Joe Carter: “As a fan and as a brother, Michael, I have to say: You are way, way too sensitive to anything that even smells like criticism.”
Thanks for having the courage to say so.
November 16th, 2009 | 3:55 pm | #18
Thanks, all, for the comments. Let me make a couple points:
First, to John Mark, I’m not sure that anything new is being said in the criticisms of evangelicalism. But after reflection, I’m not sure that’s a problem. Those who have been around evangelicalism for a while have heard (and probably made) all the critiques, but there’s still a place for them. We stand, I think, under judgment and are in need of being constantly called to renewal. In that way, I think the post-evangelicals are helpful (as were the emergents, and the online church people, and every other dissenting or progressive group).
In that way, like Jared I am sympathetic to the critiques of post-evangelicals like Patrol and Michael. I think we should keep dialoging with them, and try to get to the root of the problems of evangelicalism. But my basic problem with much of post-evangelicalism–though I really think Spencer avoids this problem–is having a blind spot for what they are critiquing. We bemoan political captivity while justifying our cultural captivity. We embrace post-modernism even while decrying its effects on religious and social life. Critiques of evangelicalism’s captivity to modernity don’t have much force for me if they stay within that domain, as so many of them do. But then, this is simply to retread arguments I’ve made elsewhere.
Additionally, I worry about our ability to *see well* outside the context of loving relationships with the Church. I’m a Chestertonian about such matters: love isn’t blind, it is bound. And the more it is bound, the less it is blind. I worry that by consciously separating themselves from evangelicalism, those who have perhaps the most prophetic insight will lose their ability to see it as it is–in need of judgment, but also full of hope and possibilities. See Chesterton’s “The Flag of the World” for more.
I don’t know much about the impending collapse of evangelicalism, nor do I much care. It seems like the sort of interesting prediction that I love to debate, but doesn’t affect much of how I behave or live. In the meantime, we will all go about loving our neighbor as best we can and working for the sake of the Gospel in our own lives and in our churches. Check back with me in a decade and maybe we can reflect about how such predictions turned out.
Additionally, I wrote this keeping Patrol and Michael Spencer distinct in my mind, a distinction that I hoped would be maintained. I agree that Michael’s interest is much more historically grounded, and I appreciate very much his criticisms and even more his drawing many people’s attention to things like liturgy (more, please!). My hope was simply to get Patrol to clarify their own position, as the editorial had a number of aspects that were troubling to me.
Here’s what I want to say about the future of evangelicalism and post-evangelicalism: it’s bleak. It’s dying. But then, the Church is always dying in every generation, for the Church is a human church full of human problems. But because I think that evangelicalism has been Christ’s, and Christ is God’s, I have hope that it will continue to be reborn. In this, I think Mark Galli’s take on the matter is instructive (yes, more self-linking from me): http://mereorthodoxy.com/?p=2018
So, in sum, yes to Michael Spencer, yes to hearing the people that are disaffected from evangelicalism, but yes also to robust orthodoxy, the people in the pew, and evangelical loyalties. And no to false dichotomies. I hate false dichotomies.
Best,
Matt
November 16th, 2009 | 4:21 pm | #19
Patrol editorial:
If you are a twenty-something year old and you think you’ve engaged the traditions of two millenia of historic Christianity enough to dismiss them as irrelevant and “begin the messy and at times overwhelming process of drafting something new,” you’re kidding yourself.
I could be missing something; this is the first I’ve heard of Patrol. But if this adolescence is really representative of their work, I think I will respectfully pass on their publication and recommend they read those writings again with a more humble and charitable disposition.
November 16th, 2009 | 4:29 pm | #20
Albert,
Amen to that.
My knowledge of church history is not anywhere where I’d like it to be. Having said that, the more I learn, the more I realize that every single issue or alternative point of view that anyone ever comes up with, has be hashed and re-hashed over the centuries.
And, in most cases, sufficiently answered for those who would take the time to listen.
November 16th, 2009 | 7:01 pm | #21
Albert said:
If you are a twenty-something year old and you think you’ve engaged the traditions of two millenia of historic Christianity enough to dismiss them as irrelevant and “begin the messy and at times overwhelming process of drafting something new,” you’re kidding yourself.
Believe me when I say, we don’t think we’ve engaged the traditions of two millenia enough to dismiss them as irrelevant. No one is advocating for an outright and across the board dismissal of tradition, unless that tradition is deemed to be irrelevant and not helpful for moving Christianity forward.
We do want to build something new on the solid foundation of good, Biblically based tradition, shirking only those things that do not stand the test of time and of sound theology. We believe, and few would argue, that many of the “traditions” that bolster evangelicalism are barely old enough to be considered tradition, nor fundamental enough to be saved.
I would ask you, Albert, not to pass on Patrol, nor anything you encounter for the first time based on a slight initial analysis. You will miss out on a lot of good this way, I believe.
November 16th, 2009 | 7:17 pm | #22
Jonathan:
No one is advocating for an outright and across the board dismissal of tradition, unless that tradition is deemed to be irrelevant and not helpful for moving Christianity forward.
John Mark:
Ah, there is the thing. I feel safest in calling a tradition “irrelevant” when I am in community with those who deeply wish it isn’t irrelevant and carefully argue it is not. I don’t trust myself that much . . . or the kind of people my age who happen to like music I like.
If I am not part of a big, old, continuous conversation (read: Church), I always suspect I am about to cater to the spirit of the age or at least the spirit of my crotchety age.
John Mark
P.S. If this my last post on this thread, it is only because time is short and Plato is long . . . and I have to go think some more about Plato.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact