Categories: uncategorized
Date: 24 March 2008 06:50:43
There is something quietly happening in this country which is really exciting, sensible evangelicals are beginning to have the courage to say what they really think rather than what they think they should say. I've recently been reading Others by Chick Yuill. It's an interesting book, part exploration of Jonah and part of polemic on how the church in this country needs to open it's eyes, smell the coffee and properly get off it's Ikea sofa and do something but still maintain the integrity of the gospel.
The stuff on Jonah was really interesting as was his take on what Christians should be doing, (although as usual it was really urban centric - we don't all live in cities). The way he was trying to put them together was an ickle forced at times, and I have to say in some ways I thought why don't you just do Jonah in part one and then move onto the contemporary stuff.
So often the challenging books like this have been coming out of the US or have challenged in a very polite way which has sort to avoid the really hot potatoes or to link them to the type of anacdotes which mean the "nice middle class" Christian has been able to legitimately say, well that's not going to happen in my world. This was different, this was an evangelical writing a book which, on a couple of occassions - particularly near the end - said it how it is. It didn't seek to dress up stuff with anacdotes very much or avoid the stuff we find it easier not to talk about but rather just gave us progressive evangelicalism with a very British slant.
Warning: proper radicals would read this book and decide it is about as radical or challenging as afternoon tea with a Blue Peter badge winner, but that's not the point. This book has to be taken in relation to the culture it has come out of and the body of work that culture produces. It is another sign that something significant is happening within British evangelicalism and that it may not retreat into the ghetto of religious bigotary but rather manage, on a national aswell as local level, to follow Jesus into a broken world with compassion.