Wednesday 1 June 2011

EVANGELICALISM

'Today evangelicalism is still emerging form the fundamentalist era - still working to regain a more holistic understanding of the Lordship of Christ over all of life and culture. In recent decades, evangelicals have moved up the social and economic ladder. We are more likely to be educated and have high incomes. Yet I would suggest that in our churches and parachurch ministries we still encounter many of the basic patterns from an earlier age - the tendency to define religion primarily in emotional terms; the anti-creedal, anti-historical attitude that ignores the theological riches of the past; the assertion of individual choice as the final determinant of belief; the atomistic view of the church as merely a collection of individuals who happen to believe the same things; the preference for social activism over intellectual reflection. Most of all, perhaps, evangelicalism still produces a clebrity model of leadership - men who are entrepreneurial and pragmatic, who deliberately manipulate their listeners' emotions, who subtly enhance their own image through self-serving personal anecdotes, whose leadership style within their own congregations or parachurch ministry tends to be imperious and domineering, who calculate success in terms of results, and who are willing to emply the latest secular techniques to boost numbers.'
Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, p.291.