Evangelical Reformation

By church, I refer to the evangelical church, which currently is the cutting edge of the American church. Ultimately I speak of the individuals that comprise that church and the leadership that formulates the culture of those individuals. How are we doing?

I named this blog Evangelical Reformation because of my conviction that the church is not doing okay—that just as the church during the time of Martin Luther needed reformation, so with the evangelical church in America.

The facts supporting this position are compelling:

• We are losing market share. George Barna provides statistics demonstrating that we are precipitously shrinking. Mega-churches, best-selling books, and other factors camouflage this decline.
• We are losing our identity. George Barna provides statistics demonstrating that we act more like the secular world all the time, in some cases outstripping the world in our worldliness.
• We are losing our marriages. George Barna provides the statistics demonstrating that the rate of marriage breakup among evangelicals is the same as or greater than that of secular society.
• We are losing our children. George Barna provides statistics demonstrating that our children are buying into secular relativism and that once they leave high school they tend not to return to church. Why should they return if they do not believe that the church is the guardian of the truth but only one perspective among many.
• We are losing our effectiveness as salt and light. George Barna provides statistics demonstrating that we are losing the culture war. We don’t need George Barna to tell us that. The designation “post-Christian era” means that we are losing. Listening to the news on any given day should remove any doubt.
• We are losing our compassion. Our indifference to the plight of persecuted brothers and sisters around the world displays our self-absorption.
• Worst of all, we tend to be blind to the devastating symptoms above, believing that we are okay. Just as the AIDS virus disarms the immune system, so our spiritual immune system is failing to activate our defenses.

We tend to see ourselves as we do our congressman. While Congress has been destroying this nation across the past several decades, congressmen and women have continued to get reelected.

How has that happened? The answer resides in the rationale that while Congress is bad, my congressman is okay. Likewise, though the church in America may be failing, we tend to think that we are doing okay.

Economically our nation has reached such crisis that the Tea Party movement is in the process of replacing congressmen who have created this disaster with candidates who promise more responsible fiscal decisions. I hope they do.

Wouldn’t it be a blessing if we had an evangelical Tea Party that was as sensitive to our spiritual plight as the Tea Party is to our impending economic doom—and if that spiritual Tea Party would promote changes needed to precipitate an evangelical reformation? It is that hope that keeps me posting to this blog.

Recently leaders of the Muslim community wrote an open letter addressed to Christians entitled “A Common Word between Us and You,” calling us to work together for the common good based on the mutually shared commitments of both communities to love of God and of neighbor. A group of Christian leaders, including some evangelicals, formulated a response that they called “Loving God and Neighbor Together.”

My purpose in this post is to express the following concerns related to this Christian response:

• “A Common Word between Us and You” keeps referring to a line from the Koran regarding God which asserts that “He has no associates.” That sounds very much like a repudiation of the Trinity and the deity of Christ. Though this term is discussed, this discussion does little to assuage concerns that this language might constitute a rejection of Christ’s deity. We must have their assurance that this is not the intent of this language before we proceed. We must insist on that as a condition for working together.

• The “Loving God and Neighbor Together” response extends a groveling apology about the Crusades— a misguided attempt at humility. As we look over the history of Islam and Christianity, we have done substantially better than they have in conveying the love of God and neighbor. Had they begun by owning up to their shortcomings, perhaps this response might find warrant. They did not. Therefore, this apology leaves the impression that Christianity has failed in the area of love while Islam has succeeded. Though the church’s record is stained, it has done a far better job of manifesting love of God and neighbor than any other institution in history. Therefore, such an impression impugns the name of Jesus, the Lord of the church.

• This misrepresentation of the record leads to my third objection to the Christian response. “A Common Word between Us and You,” which recounts the commitment of Islam to love of God and neighbor, fails to address the deafening silence of the Islamic community in the face of atrocities committed in the name of their religion. If they believe in love of God and neighbor, where is their condemnation of their Islamic brothers who are murdering innocent people in cold blood, and continue to do so? Where is their disassociation from them and from their behavior? Though there has been some denunciation, it has been far too weak to be meaningful. I remember the memorial service convened in Washington, DC, after 9/11, which included a Muslim cleric. I waited for any repudiation at all of the horrendous deeds that have been perpetrated in the name of Allah. None were forthcoming. Nor does this document seem to notice the continuing atrocities. To write this letter to us without first addressing that issue, and without addressing it in the letter, represents the grossest form of insincerity, especially since the bloodletting in the name of Allah continues. And what of the Muslim nations that make becoming a Christian a crime or the inequities of sharia law or the widespread preaching of hate? This unloving behavior that seems to be an integral part of the practice of Islam in much of today’s Muslim world should have been addressed in any Christian response. Where was it? What is the point of dialogue about love if they are not willing to display love of neighbor by confronting the ongoing, widespread destruction of neighbor by their fellow Muslims? The failure of the Christians responding to their letter to address this issue constitutes a betrayal by them of brothers and sisters in Christ and others who suffer mercilessly at the hands of Muslims with no significant outcry from the Muslim community or its leadership.

It is my hope that stronger evangelical leadership will rise up to provide a better response to this offer to work together extended by Islamic clerics.

My last post introduced the contemporary evangelical tension between the use of psychology and the Bible in dealing with problems. I stated that I would continue with that topic, and I plan to do so. However, a current development in the Muslim world relates to a recent posting regarding Islam, and therefore I believe that this issue needs attention.

I had discussed problems with the representation of Islam as a peaceful religion, citing among other factors the failure of mainstream Muslims to distance themselves from, and express opposition to, the heinous acts of radical Muslims.

One breaking story represents a major departure from this typical Muslim silence. This development is of special importance because it is occurring in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation, and also because it entails highly visible and influential manifestations of Islam in that nation.

This development begins with the account I reported to you earlier of the arrest, conviction, and sentencing to three years imprisonment of three Sunday school teachers for seeking to convert Muslim children. As I noted in describing this case, what the women did was clearly within the law, and the attempts of Muslims to obstruct the judicial process was overt and flagrant. Therefore, their conviction and sentencing was a travesty.

The women have now appealed. What is of special interest is the outpouring of opposition to those radicals who want them punished from high-profile segments of the Muslim community. The World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission reports that the intolerance demonstrated by these radical Muslims, and the extremist ideology driving it, has produced a schism in the Indonesian Muslim community.

Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, who is president of the Nahdlatul Ulama, has rejected this extremist ideology and has issued a strong condemnation of the recent violence against Christians and their churches. The Nahdlatul Ulama is the largest Muslim organization in Indonesia and boasts more than 40 million members.

Indonesia’s Democratic Education Association also has condemned this ideology as “unconstitutional” and has urged the government to uphold the people’s constitutional rights. They urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s administration “to be proactive in maintaining pluralism” instead of caving in to radical Muslim teaching.

The appeal by these three imprisoned women serves as a test case to see if these shrill voices and radical concepts of Muslim extremists will prevail, or whether the more moderate position described above and the rule of law will triumph. In any case, it is heartening that in Indonesia some prominent Muslim voices are being raised against extremism. If these voices are heard and heeded, Indonesia might serve as a model that other Muslim countries might emulate. Perhaps this Muslim call for justice instead of terrorism may serve as a crack in the armor of Muslim extremism.