Cake or Death

Hi lovely and much neglected blog readers.  It's been a bit crazy here in meatspace and so cyberspace has had to be a little neglected, as I plough through my blog reader from the last few months, I'll be sharing some highlights with you.  Alex Baker is a cartoonist who works out of the UK and features in the Baptist Times over there.  You can go to his website here.  I liked both these cartoons, for very different reasons,

this one rang true:

this one is puntastic:

No Such Thing as Evangelicalism?

Yet as soon as evangelicalism becomes a subject, it splinters and splits. Indeed, taken together, recent studies by more-or-less outsiders show there is no such thing as evangelicalism. The term represents a broad range of significantly different theologies, practices, and religious movements within Christianity, and there are often tensions among and within them. Which is no revelation at all to most more-or-less insiders, who call themselves evangelicals, however qualified, and who argue as much with others who do the same as with those of us who don't.

From The Chronicle of Higher Education, HT

Is Evangelicalism a Mental Disease?

At a biblical studies conference last week I was having fun asking the politically incorrect question of the people I met as to whether or not they were a Christian.  To me, one's religious committments are bound to have a big affect on your scholarship (no matter what you say about "objectivity") and so I'm always keen to know, and at least I do it in person rather than public.  Well one very civilised chap I spoke to answered my question with a scowl and the statement "well, i'm not an evangelical" which was interesting, because I do self identify as such, but the way he said it I wasn't sure we would use the word in the same way.

But then reading about street preachers on Stuart's blog it occurred to me that for many evangelical is code for intolerance, bigotry, irrationality, right wing politics, emotional instability and public outbursts of hatred.  And this is the problem, I know lots and lots of evanglicals and they are by and large open minded, compassionate, polite, intelligent and a little shy.  How is it that such a huge majority has its reputation determined by a tiny excentric minority?

So really there are two meanings for this one word, and I wonder if like "fundamentalist" what was originally coined as a positive self descriptor will soon become an irreparably pejorative slur.  What do you think, is it a word you use of yourself?  To stand in the tradition of such conversionist and social activist examplars as Wesley and Wilberforce, for example, is no small thing, but then neither is being lumped in with every illiterate street preacher or free marketeering hawkish US politician.  Has the term reached the limit of it's usefulness?  Has it's broadness ceased to be useful for unity and become a liability to misunderstanding?

Let me know what you think.

brick-a-brack 8/12/10

• Randy Alcom takes evangelical dishonesty to task, it is a chilling article.
• Robin Gunston, National Director of Prison Fellowship NZ, speaks on Prisons (their rising costs), Penal Policy (our highly punitive outlook), and how ordinary New Zealanders can influence both for the better. 
• Lots of people have been getting excited about Scot McKnight's article on Jesus and Paul.  
• Stuart has a great post on preaching in a digital age.
• A fascinating post on Joseph's reasons for wanting to send Mary away, suspicion or humility?

Rhett Pings Scott McKnight

Well it is not really as bad as that, but he has a point, will you Americans PLEASE STOP behaving and speaking as if you are the centre of the evangelical universe, there are plenty of us out in the real world, just take a look at the Laussanne conversation this month, Americans are welcome to contribute but you might also learn something.  [update 12/10, final sentence removed for sake of international relations]