Careful Thought

Excerpts from Tim Keller at the 2007 Evangelical Ministry Assembly on the current state of evangelicalism in western society.

Evangelicalism used to occupy the middle ground between fundamentalism and liberalism. It was orthodox, pro-scholarship, and facing the world. Recently, evangelicalism has become more hostile and condemning of culture. A younger generation has given up on evangelicalism as a middle ground and are looking for a new consensus. This group goes by a number of names, such as post-evangelicals or the emerging church.

Basically evangelicalism is this: The liberals are not orthodox in their theology, but are engaged with culture and scholarship. Fundamentalists are orthodox in their theology, but are separatist and anti-intellectual. Evangelicalism aimed to be orthodox but engaged, concerned with scholarship, and facing the world. And actually, it worked. This middle ground has been the most vital - until recently.

The rise of the Christian right has made many evangelicals more hostile and condemning to culture. Then you have the charismatic movement, which has been good in many ways but is sometimes anti-intellectual.

A younger generation - sometimes called the emerging church, sometimes post-conservatives or post-evangelicals, are saying, “The old consensus isn’t going to work anymore.” They are responding to the anti-intellectualism of the charismatic movement, and to the rigidity, self-righteousness, and political narrowness of the Christian right. And they are blaming it on classical evangelical doctrine.

(HT:  DashHouse by way of JollyBlogger by way of Blogotional.  You want to hit all those links.  Each has something great to add to the discussion.)

This is an excellent summary.  I consider myself a recovering evangelical, but that’s just a label.  I’m looking for that ‘orthodox (i.e., Scripturally sound) theology’ that is ‘engaged with the world,’ just as Christ called us to be.

Technorati Tags: evangelicalism, faith, fundamentalism, Tim Keller

Tags: evangelicalism, faith, fundamentalism, Tim Keller