Evangelical Reformation

We are still waiting. . . and waiting for the Republican Senate to find enough courage to stop the Democratic abuse of the filibuster. Maybe they will get there some day, but their foot-dragging makes them appear weak, allowing the Democrats opportunity to beat them up in the media. Meanwhile, back at the House, support for Tom Delay seems to be eroding, yet another expression of the Republican courage deficit.

Apparently one reason for Republican inertia and retreat is fear of reprisal by the liberal media. However, with the rise of some conservative media outlets, this threat is not nearly as daunting as in the past. But even more to the point, Republican politicians lose respect in their media appearances by their tentative demeanor during encounters. If they would fight with courage in the public arena, they would gain the favor of the American public rather than lose it. Here again we bump into the courage shortfall.

Courage deficiency seems to be a pathology plaguing conservatives in general, including evangelicals. One manifestation of this disease among evangelicals is found in their eagerness to convey the message of God’s love but a corresponding reticence to speak of God’s judgment.

Conveying the message of love requires no courage. People love it. Often the message is accompanied by assurances that the object of God’s love is unique and valuable, hence God’s attraction to them. In most cases (contemporary psychological and individual assertions notwithstanding), this message only serves to confirm people’s suspicions about themselves, producing a propensity to embrace the messenger.

But try exhortation, and of course the response quite different. “Thank you for pointing that out to me. I am grateful for your willingness to be honest,” is a response not often encountered in the real world, and especially in our culture governed by unconditional acceptance, which outlaws all criticism, even if it is valid and presented graciously. Messengers carrying this message tend to get shot. Therefore, exhortation requires courage.

Because the message of love without a corresponding message of exhortation transmits an erroneous view of God and His dealings with human beings, speaking truth requires the courage to convey the full message. Sadly, this courage is frequently lacking, resulting in a lopsided love-laden proclamation.

At the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, a story is told of two evangelical leaders who shared with President Clinton the message that God loved him at his deepest core. This represents a rather abrupt departure from the announcement by Nathan to David, “Thou art the man.” Another evangelical leader at a gathering attended by a number of homosexuals was asked if God hated homosexuality. He responded, “My message to you today is that God loves the homosexual.” Had he ministered in Sodom, he would not have spared them from the fire and brimstone, but until he came he could have had a sizable congregation.

If the Great Awakening was inspired by Jonathan Edwards’ message, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” today’s evangelical message is the spiritual equivalent of Tylenol PM. We need an evangelical reformation that will impart the courage to speak the whole truth, the truth that possesses the power to change individual lives and to purify our culture.

Victims or victors might be more biblical terminology, but I’m not sure. Jesus was a straight talker, and I suspect that if He was addressing a National Association of Evangelicals today he might refer to those propagating and embracing the victim mentality as wimps. And there is a lot of the victim mentality floating around evangelical circles today.

It is of interest to me that conservatives in general and evangelicals in particular tend toward being wimps. Isn’t it amazing that conservatives control the White House and both houses of Congress by a substantial margin and still fund Planned Parenthood, National Public Radio, and all sorts of other liberal causes?. One gets a little tired of seeing a majority of conservatives being bullied by a minority of liberals. It’s sort of like a Chihuahua chasing a German shepherd down the street. It would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic.

We are still waiting to find out if the Republicans have the intestinal fortitude to exercise what the liberal media refers to as the “nuclear option.” It is sad that the party has to go through all these theatricals to pass what should be a no-brainer and should have been passed several years ago. The conservative movement needs less wimps and more winners.

That’s one quality we loved about Ronald Reagan. He was willing to call the Soviet Union the “evil empire,” and endure the smirks of Sam Donaldson and the intellectuals, who still owe him an apology.

Unfortunately, evangelicals tend to possess the same wimp mentality. For example, if somebody gets offended we are sure that the offender must be in the wrong. For contemporary evangelicals the first commandment seems to be, “Thou shalt not offend.” The offender might be wrong, but then again he might have said or done the right thing in the right way at the right time, and the person who got offended might just have reacted sinfully.

Christ offended plenty of people, in fact so much so that they finally killed Him. In Mark 9:32 and Luke 9:45 it is recorded that the disciples were afraid to ask Jesus a question. When is the last time you heard a sermon about that Jesus? And notice that Jesus did nothing to assuage this fear. We read nothing about him saying, “Oh, don’t be afraid. Feel free to ask anything that is on your mind.” The fact is that Jesus is a strong personality who at times, certainly not all the time, was intimidating and offensive.

Please don’t misunderstand. The New Testament commands us to work at not intimidating or offending. But as with Christ, in the process of doing God’s will at times this will be the outcome. Contemporary evangelicals in their effort to be inoffensive regardless of the cost have lost their strength and become wimpy. Instead of allowing the example of Christ to be a corrective for us, we have recast Jesus into the image of Mr. Rogers, that is, into our own image.

Not only does our fear of offending make us into wimpy ministers, but it produces wimpy followers. Instead of exhorting the person who gets offended without legitimate cause, we coddle him, encouraging him to feel sorry for himself instead of challenging him to face his faults and deal with them. In so doing we confirm him in his weakness rather than helping him develop strength. We allow him to see himself as a victim rather than encouraging him to become a victor. We produce a wimp instead of a winner.

The fear of offending at all costs is just one of the ways in which evangelicals are inclined to be wimps and engender that quality within the evangelical community. Tomorrow we will consider another area, and in future days we will identify the force that is influencing us in this direction. We need to eradicate that influence. God calls us to be overcomers, victors. Evangelical reformation requires the transformation from wimp to winner, from victim to victor.

Evangelicals have quite a week ahead of them with all their activities surrounding the persecuted Church.

This week persecuted brothers and sisters in three different countries are facing major court battles. In Iran, an Army colonel who also pastored an Assemblies of God church has been accused of evangelizing, stripped of his commission in the Army, imprisoned, and this week goes to trial, potentially facing the death penalty. In Vietnam several Mennonite pastors have been imprisoned for their faith. This week their appeal is scheduled to be heard. If their case is not overturned they face substantial sentences. Their fate differs substantially from that of Martha Stewart in that already some of them have endured frequent severe beatings by fellow prisoners who have been bribed by cruel guards to commit this brutality. A third court case involves a Christian mother of two children in Jordan. Her husband died, and an unscrupulous brother of her late husband for financial gain is claiming that he should be given custody since his deceased brother secretly converted to Islam prior to his death. This court battle, which has been waged for seven years, is scheduled to be settled this week. All this in addition to the usual concern over hundreds of believers jailed in Eritrea, thousands in death camps in North Korea, and millions targeted in Sudan—just a few of the trouble spots.

No doubt the evangelical community in America will respond to the heightened challenges of this week with a flurry of responses: thousands participating in protest marches at the various embassies, hundreds of thousands of letters to Senators, Representatives, ambassadors, and others in a position to make a difference, numerous articles and evangelical publications providing the details, Christian media giving regular updates on the various cases and activities surrounding them, efforts by evangelical spokesman to raise the awareness in the secular media, and delegations of evangelical leaders going to the various countries to demonstrate solidarity with our Christian brothers and sisters.

Unfortunately, none of this is happening this week, nor has it happened any week, ever. The reality is that the evangelical community in the United States could do all of these things and more, but just does not care enough to do so. The only case in which American Evangelicals came close had to do with the plight of the Burnham’s in the Philippines, where the evangelical response went all way to the White House—proof that we can do it if we want to, but when it has the do with foreigners it’s just a lot harder to be concerned and invested.

Our inactivity is especially tragic since history shows that even some of our past minimal efforts secured relief for those being persecuted. In other words, the problem is not that we can’t do anything; the problem is that we don’t do anything, at least anything of substance.

Of course, it is understandable that we would not be able to make a special effort this week. As we come into springtime we have kids starting soccer practice, lawnmowers to get ready for the season, fertilizer to put on the lawn, all added to the other pressing demands on our time. Too bad that these trials could not have taken place during the summer, but then there would have been picnics, vacations. . . . You get the picture.

All of this reflects a serious illness. Imagine if an enemy was in the process of cutting off one of your fingers with garden shears, and with the other hand you were using the remote to flip through channels. This response would suggest either an advanced case of leprosy or serious mental pathology. Likewise, the American evangelical response to the mutilation of part of its body also reveals serious illness and the need for reformation.