"Labels fail me: Am I still an Evangelical?"

[yallerdawg]

Another voice shouting from the Bible Belt!

Source: AL.com, by Dana Hall McCain

So why the discomfort with the label?

It's because I have awakened in mid-life to find the label as frequently associated with the political as the spiritual. It started with a seemingly innocent commingling of the two in the 1980s. The idea was to mobilize conservative Christians in order to have our values better heard and represented in Washington.

When we believe that government--rather than our own submission to Christ and evangelism--is the whole ballgame, or even the most important facet of it, we become vulnerable to all sorts of compromises needed to win and maintain power. Truth is no longer what we pursue at all costs--power is, because we believe we can't live without it. (First century Christians would LOL at the thought.)

The second problem is that when we come to associate one political party, wholly and without exception, with the cause of Christ, but we don't do the hard work of bringing that party to heel regarding the values of Christ, we're no longer leading. We are being led. Such is the relationship between Evangelicals and the GOP. We don't bring our weight to bear in the party for causes like DACA, because we're prone to embrace and hold up as immutable truth the party talking points on immigration, even when they are at odds with the words of Christ.

Call me dogmatic, but I'll go with the words in red over what the Steven Millers of the world espouse when the two disagree. And I won't tell you that hateful speech, or arrogance, or trite dishonesty from any president is a good thing, even if some of his policy positions align with my own. We've lost the guts needed to take our own people to the woodshed, because we've believed that our primary job is to beat Democrats instead of the Devil.

The Devil is delighted by this misunderstanding.

Read it all at: http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2018/02/labels_fail_me_am_i_still_an_e.html

[MineralMan]

1. Excellent! Keep it coming!

[murielm99]

2. Evangelical is another word whose meaning

has been hijacked. It is like the word "liberal."

Evangelical simply means one who follows the Gospels. I refuse to use the word in a political context. I am quick to tell people that, too.

BTW, I am a liberal. I am not a progressive, or anything else. You don't twist language and redefine words, at least not around me.

Up is not down. Black is not white. War is not peace. Fuck that noise.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. The opinions of Russell Moore, whom she admires:

Attendees of The Justice Conference (TJC) fell silent on June 4 when Russell Moore delivered a keynote talk decrying “the violent act” of abortion. But silence gave way to protest when the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s political arm shifted his focus to homosexuality midway through his 26-minute talk.

“[Some Christians are] afraid to speak up on a biblical view of issues of human sexuality because they’re afraid that somehow that means they will be associated with people in polyester somewhere that they don’t want to be like,” Moore said, “How cowardly!”

At this point, one attendee noted “an audible ‘wow’ from somewhere on the other side of the sanctuary…a moment of shocked silence…snarky murmurs.” A handful of apparently frustrated attendees even stormed out of the venue in protest. In the next session, speakers Lisa Sharon Harper and Rev. Traci Blackmon took subtle swipes at Moore’s comments and affirmed LGBT people.

Following Moore’s talk, some conservatives celebrated the brave proclamation as a helpful framing of today’s most pressing issues. They saw his comments as truth spoken in love. But progressive Christians voices condemned his comments, with some characterizing them as “hateful.” But neither assessment seems fair or complete.

https://religionnews.com/2016/06/13/russell-moores-controversial-lgbt-comments-at-justice-conference-hateful-or-helpful/

So, you know, she's just saying "you can be an evangelical and think Trump is wrong" (Moore has criticised Trump strongly, and she names Stephen Miller as a problem). Big wow. This is not a liberal. She's more like what we would have thought of as a mainstream Republican, before they lost their minds.

[yallerdawg]

4. I'm in Alabama.

I don't know where you're at - but I consider hers a "progressive liberal" position for an Evangelical down here!