5 Challenges Ahead for Evangelicalism
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American evangelicalism is walking around with two black eyes right now. One could blame corporate media, the Twitterati, or disaffected exvangelicals, but none of these is really at fault. These wounds are self-inflicted. The American evangelical movement faces a pivotal moment, and our response will determine a great deal about our future. We will need to address the following five challenges in the coming years for the credibility of our witness.
1. The Challenge of Integrity
I won’t go through the litany of names, but the roll call of evangelical leaders (mostly men) who have been forced out of leadership over integrity issues in recent years is extensive. Allegations of sexual abuse, other sexual impropriety, abuse of power, and financial shenanagins are commonplace. They are often substantiated by compelling evidence. The question many ask after the fact is, “How did this go on for so long?”
It is imperative that, regardless of our denominational traditions, we have systems of accountability and transparency in place. Christian leaders are most often gifted, called, and well-intentioned people, but they are also just that--people--and people are prone to fall into sin. This is especially the case when we feel we have free rein to act as we choose and rationalize our choices.
Systems of accountability need to be impersonal in their application. If, for example, a pastor has a hand-picked board of elders or otherwise has surrounded himself or herself with sycophants, there may be a formal accountability structure in place, but de facto it will have no real power. In many cases personal feelings about the pastor will supersede the responsibility to hold him or her accountable.
In cases where the pastor is a person of real integrity, the congregation may deem it unnecessary to insist upon safeguards of accountability. This is a mistake. John Locke wrote that “the reigns of good princes have been always most dangerous to the liberties of their people.” Why? Good princes may lead us to believe that we do not need to regulate their power. But if there were to arise a prince of less noble character, he could abuse the prerogatives granted to his predecessor. Systems of accountability do not exist for specific people, but for offices, so that whoever occupies that office is equally constrained in his or her behavior.
To be fair, this isn’t simply a problem in evangelicalism. In response to “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill,” I’ve seen several people touting the virtues of denominationalism. The idea is that denominations involve formal structures and hierarchies that hold pastors accountable in ways that solo churches do not. Denominations, however, in no way guarantee accountability. In the United Methodist Church, for example, the jurisdictional system has created a breakdown in our accountability system. (For those not in the UMC, jurisdictions are large areas of regional governance comprising the territories of several bishops. The bishops in a jurisdiction are in charge of holding one another accountable to the larger church, but have often been reticent to do so.) The consequences have been significant. The debacle in the North Georgia Annual Conference related to Mt. Bethel UMC is a glaring example. The harassment of Jay Therrell, the leader of the Florida Conference Wesleyan Covenant Association chapter who has felt compelled to surrender his credentials, is another. Absent effective accountability structures, abuses of power in one way or another will result. There is not one way to develop accountability structures, but at the least they should be impersonal, clearly defined, and available for public review. Processes should be as transparent as possible.
2. The Challenge of Race
The decision by the presidents of Southern Baptist seminaries to condemn critical race theory (CRT) has generated no small amount of controversy. A number of African American pastors in the SBC have expressed their dismay over this decision, and some have felt it necessary to leave the denomination. CRT is not just controversial in churches, but in workplaces and schools.
Some reading this may ask, “What is CRT?” That’s a good question. CRT is not monolithic. What unifies the various proposals that we group under this heading is the idea that racism is not simply personal, but systemic. It is common to assert that racism is embedded in our systems of governance, commerce, education, and elsewhere in the United States. “Racism,” in these discussions, is not simply a term for personal prejudice. Rather, it refers to systemic disadvantage based on race.
This is not the place for an assessment of the merits and deficiencies of CRT, nor am I qualified to offer such an assessment. I do have two preliminary thoughts, though. First, it is clear that the Southern Baptist seminary presidents find CRT deeply problematic. The way to deal with ideas one finds problematic, however, is not to reject them out of hand, but to engage them. What truths does CRT convey? Why do some thinkers--Christian and non-Christian alike--find that CRT offers a compelling description of reality? What are the weaknesses inherent in CRT? What are its liabilities? Are its assumptions and philosophical underpinnings sound? A seminary classroom could be a great place to have such discussions, assuming there is sufficient academic freedom and intellectual space to discuss these matters without fear of reprisal.
Second, while secular theories can inform discussions of Christian faith and practice, they will never provide an answer that is ultimately satisfactory for Christians. My students are surely weary of hearing me adjure them to “think Christianly.” I’m going to keep saying it anyway. To think Christianly means that we draw upon a certain repertoire of historic theological concepts that helps us to make meaning and sense out of our lives and the world around us. What we think about right and wrong, about human beings, about the consequences of our decisions, about our motivations and volitions--these are all governed by the faith once and for all entrusted to the saints. It also means that we implore God to renew and sanctify our minds. We want our thoughts about the world to come into agreement with God’s thoughts about the world. This can only happen through the atoning work of Christ on the cross and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
What we cannot do is act as if racial tensions, conflict, and inequality do not exist. We must face these issues forthrightly and commit ourselves to the sanctification not simply of our own minds, but also our institutions.
3. The Challenges of Sexuality and Gender Ideology
Conversations and debates around sex and gender have accellerated at a blinding pace over the last twenty years. They show no signs of slowing down any time soon. Those who hold to a traditional sexual ethic--i.e., that there are two genders; that gender is not simply a function of internal disposition, but biology; and that proper sexual expression is between a man and a woman in marriage--will be increasingly out of step with the ambient culture. The Western culture war over sexual ethics has run its course. The progressives have won.
Traditionalist Christians of any stripe are going to have to articulate a clear sexual ethic. By this I mean it will be necessary to say not simply what we believe is right, but why it is right. Why is it that we hold a different view of sex and gender than much of the culture in which we live? What resources do we draw upon in making these decisions? Theologically speaking, what is marriage? What is the purpose of sex? How does Scripture come to bear on these decisions? What are the arguments against a traditionalist reading of Scripture on sexual ethics, and how do we answer them? How do other resources, such as natural law, come to bear on our ethical decisions? What is the compassionate, Christlike response when people come forward who experience same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria?
The extent to which Christians of various traditions have thought through these issues from top to bottom varies quite widely. The mainline denominations in the West have largely embraced the sexual ethics of the ambient culture. As the culture has changed, so have these denominations. Evangelicals, Roman Catholics, and the Eastern Orthodox--three groups that have been resistant to the changes of the sexual revolution--will face a challenging road ahead. Within these traditions, there are compelling and coherent resources for thinking about a Christian vision of sex, gender, and marriage, but they don’t always find their way into pulpits, Sunday school classes, or other settings for lay education. Without clarity on why we differ from so much of the culture around us, our teachings will simply put up a stumbling block to those we wish to lead to faith in Christ.
4. The Challenge of Good Theology
One might think that an area in which evangelicals would be particularly strong is in basic Christian belief. Think again. Research from Lifeway and Ligonier Ministries indicates that 30% of American evangelicals believe that Jesus was a great teacher, but not God. In other words, 30% of American evangelicals reject the doctrine of the incarnation. As our forebears in the faith realized, without this doctrine, Christianity loses its coherence. This is but one of the doctrinal deficiencies among evangelicals today.
Evangelical churches often have a “primitivist” orientation. In other words, they understand themselves as reaching back behind the layers of Christian tradition in order to get back to a “New Testament” church. Evangelicals sometimes see the church’s historic creeds as “man-made” accretions, and they attempt to use the Bible in such a way as to fill the role historically filled by creeds. In other words, based upon particular readings of Scripture, they develop unwritten creeds that function as “rules of faith” in their communities.
This is not, however, the proper function of the Bible. The function of the Bible is to teach the faith of the church in order to lead sinners into the life of God. Before there was ever a New Testament canon, there was the apostolic witness, which we see in early rules of faith such as the one that Irenaeus recounts in Against Heresies. Works that were included in the canon were those that were widely understood to preserve important elements of the apostolic witness and were useful for teaching it in the churches.
One pitfall for evangelicals tends to be pragmatism. We do what works, or at least what appears to work. But pragmatism in the absence of good theology is lethal for the church’s witness. We may be leading people to Christ, but who is this Christ? Why is he important? What difference does he make for their lives? What is this “salvation” that Christians are always talking about? Issues from personal finance to the beginning and end of life to online pornography to the raising of children need a solid theological starting point. Effective catechesis is essential. Without a coherent theological basis, we will inadvertently, in the words of John Wesley, “beget children for the murderer.”
5. The Challenge of Being Outsiders
The dissonance between the church and the rest of Western culture is becoming ever more pronounced. As in the ancient world in which the early church emerged, it is the particularity of our claims that raises suspicion. The early Christians lived in an incredibly religious world, one the classicist Keith Hopkins called “a world full of gods.” Almost everyone in the ancient Greco-Roman context was quite happy with the pluralism that so characterized their world, but Jews and Christians were different. Within this polytheistic world, they insisted that there was only one God, and that the other “gods” were at best imaginary, at worst demonic. And the Christians identified their God in a very particular way, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is one way they distinguished their God within the “world full of gods” in which they lived. Part of what made life difficult for them, however, was that if you did not worship the gods of the traditional Greco-Roman pantheon, you were suspected of being disloyal to the empire. Making sacrifice to the emperor was a sure way to prove your loyalty. Many Christians refused to do so, a decision that cost them their lives.
Western culture is now undeniably pluralistic. We once again live in a world full of gods. Not all of our gods are named as such, but if religion is an expression of “ultimate concern,” then the gods of the neo-pagan Western world come clearly into focus: sex, politics, comfort, and above all, absolute autonomy. In particular, it has amazed me how ready Christians have been to outsource their ethical positions to political parties. Christians are consistently pressured to bow the knee, to go along to get along, to conform to the patterns of this age rather than insisting upon the renewing of our minds. To do so will spell the end of Western Christianity--until such time as we are re-evangelized by faithful brothers and sisters from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Christians must be different. We must be peculiar. We must stand out from a world that does not know God and lives in rebellion against his precepts. Living into the “scandal of particularity” will not make life easier for us, but it is an absolute requirement for the faithfulness of our witness. Jesus’ claim on our life is absolute. He warns us to count the cost (Luke 14:25-33). Evangelicalism has become too comfortable in the Western world, and the challenge before us will be to learn again what it means to be aliens and exiles.
These aren’t the only challenges that evangelicals will face in the years to come. Perhaps others will point out areas that I haven’t covered in this essay. Regardless, if evangelicals can’t get our house in order in these areas, we will diminish our already-tarnished witness and find it increasingly difficult to fulfill our mandate of bringing people to Christ.
David F. Watson is Lead Editor of Firebrand. He serves as Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.