a tale of two evangelicals

Date: 08 March 2012 23:58:28

Forty blogs of Lent

15

I have got into arguments on the internet about faith, I have even been accused of not being an evangelical. I and my accusers have a lot in common. We both profess faith in Jesus Christ. We both value justice. We both have a high regard for the Bible. The trouble is they don't see me as being interested enough in evangelism in the way that they define it. They don't see me as being interested in drawing people to faith in God through Jesus crist, whose death on the cross was the payment for our sins. Actually I am very interested in it, But I am also very interested in social justice, I see again and again in scripture that God is on the side of the widows, orphans, poor and oppressed. Without this there isn't much of a Bible. What I cannot understand is how people can read the bible and not see such a major theme. God is a god of justice, and demands that we give justice to all. Now. Maybe it's because they don't have much of an experience of injustice in their lives that they do not seem to notice these verses. Two prominent Christian leaders in the 20th Century which epitomise these two approaches were Dr Billy Graham and Dr Martin Luther King Jr, One majored in leading people to personal faith, The other led protests for equality. Did they say that the other one was not a Christian or not an evangelical because their focus was different? Not at all. In fact Dr Graham and Dr King have shared a pulpit. I wish we could all accept each other in the same way.