Still Evangelical?

I have to admit, when I saw the first sentence of the promotional blurb about Still Evangelical? Insiders Consider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning, I was turned off.  "Evangelicalism in America has cracked, split on the shoals of the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath, leaving many wondering if they want to be in or out of the evangelical tribe."  Overreact much?  The 2016 election was divisive, especially is you pay attention to the partisan press or spend a lot of time reading the comments sections on social media.  But if you're living your life in the real world, most of us realize that life goes on.

That said, the evangelical label has been morphing for many years.  No one will argue that the last few decades of life in these United States has seen a transformation in the use of the term, and as our sight turns more global, we have to acknowledge and examine its use in the church abroad.  As I read Still Evangelical?, I was happy to see that not all of the authors focused on the political alone, but brought in the social and theological as well.

Mark Labberton, president of Fuller Seminary, unfortunately set the tone in his introductory essay, describing Trump's win as an "apocalypse," "disorienting to an extreme," leaving many "gasping in despair."  These disappointed voters, convinced that evangelicals who voted for Trump are deceived and fully embrace every jot and tittle of his lifestyle and background, fail to acknowledge the deep moral and policy objections Trump voters had to Trump's opponent.  This election was not "Trump: Yes or No" but a binary choice between two deeply flawed candidates.  To cast evangelical Trump voters as "controlled by white supremacy, more and political inconsistency, and a fearful nationalism and isolationism" is inaccurate, hurtful, and harmful to Christian unity.  I know, it goes both ways, but books like this, to the extent that they embrace this mindset, need to be balanced and reined in. Thankfully, many of the other essays in Still Evangelical? departed from the reaction to the 2016 election.  Karen Swallow Prior stresses the positive elements and historical contributions of evangelicalism.  Historically, evangelicalism has been known for a "commitment to pursue orthodoxy and orthopraxy," "the gift of liberty," and a "good and true belief in the equal worth and dignity of each human soul."  I agree with her that "some of those quitting evangelicalism today do so, seemingly, from embarrassment and shame over the way evangelicalism looks today reflected in the distorted glass held up by media and poorly designed polls."  If all I knew of evangelicalism was portrayals in the media, I probably wouldn't want to be an evangelical, either.
I appreciated the global perspective offered by writers such as Allen Yeh, who teaches at Biola University, but whose academic work and missions experience spans several continents.  He writes, "many Western evangelicals think that everything different is simply wrong."  In a call for unity, Yeh asks evangelicals to reexamine orthodoxy and orthopraxy and acknowledge that "diversity is a beautiful thing." 

Shane Claiborne would agree with Yeh, but falls down hard on the side of those who believe that evangelicals have compromised by supporting Trump.  "To be frank, my commitment to Jesus has put me add odds with evangelicalism."  He said that an alien listening in on election coverage "may have reasonably concluded that the Savior of white evangelicals is a man named Donald Trump rather than a man named Jesus."  Sounds like Shane listened to CNN a lot more than he listened to white evangelicals. . . .  He complains that Trump voters "claim to be Christian and support a man who contradicts nearly every one of the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, both in his policies and in his personal life."  To which, if I were inhospitable and confrontational, and I try not to be, I might ask Shane how he can be a Christian and support a woman who, in my estimation, contradicts Jesus' teachings in her policies and personal life.  Again, this was a binary choice between two flawed candidates.  

Resisting this focus on a narrow, time-sensitive political view of evangelicalism, Tom Lin reminds us that "the decision of some American evangelicals to abandon the term is insensitive to our overseas sisters and brothers; it reflects the worst impulses of American exceptionalism and self-absorbtion."  As president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Lin has seen vibrant expressions of evangelicalism around the world.  As evangelicalism grows and matures in other countries, American worries about portrayals of American evangelicalism will become moot.

No one likes to have one's "tribe" or "family" misrepresented.  We evangelicals don't have a lot of control over how the media portrays us.  Some of the essays in Still Evangelical? bought into this popularity contest, but, for the most part, the essays balanced each other out and kept the focus on evangelicalism's emphasis on Jesus, the Bible, and missions.  We should also recognize that evangelicalism and the gospel transcend the short-term conditions of one presidential administration, no matter how worked up some of these contributors might get over Trump's tweets.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!