Categories: uncategorized
Date: 20 February 2008 14:13:02
It's a political term, it's a stereotyped term, it's a misunderstood term, it's a source of fear, it's a source of identity. it's a tool used by the devil to created division, it's a tool used by God to bring freedom, it's a term I hate, it's a term that I love and apparently it is a term, according to Ekklesia that Joel Edwards is seeking to rehabilitate through a new book and an accompanying book tour.
The book is called Agenda for Change and the book tour is taking in:
23 April - Kings Church, Eastbourne
27 April - Emmanuel Christian Centre, London
06 May - All Nations Centre, Leicester
07 May - The King's Centre, Kings Community Church, Norwich
08 May - Great St Mary's, Cambridge
18 May - Vineyard Church, Sutton, Surrey
21 May - Cornerstone Church, Swansea
22 May - Glenwood Church, Cardiff
25 May - New Community Church, Southampton
29 May - Barnabas Community Church, Shrewsbury
2 June - Oxford Community Church, Oxford
3 June - Trinity Church, Cheltenham
24 June - St James, Carlisle
25 June - Kirkintilloch Baptist Church, Glasgow
26 June - St Paul's and St Georges, Edinburgh
30 June - St George's, Leeds
1 July - St Thomas Church, Philadelphia, Sheffield
2 July - Kings Church, Manchester
3 July - Frontline Church, Liverpool
Now I hope that the idea is for a conversation to be engaged in, rather than an offensive for ownership to be launched from one position. Whichever way it is clear that Edwards is trying to make the E word acceptable again and trying to refocus people back onto a positive meaning of the word. So I think this can only be a good thing.
Hopefully debates within and outside of evangelicalism will move beyond the negative and back towards this being a broad term for those who believe in the saving power of Jesus life, death and ressurection and want to communicate that with the world they are part of.
I have yet to read the book, and I hope to be able to do that sooner than later, but I do have one worry. That in the current climate Edwards may be seeking to redefine evangelicalism as a specific brand rather than a generic term which comes in a variety of forms. Now don't get me wrong I don't like or support the climate of division that has hit the upper reaches of UK evangelicalism in recent years and I do think at the moment British Evangelicalism is looking far to much like being a bad parody of the "splitters" scene in The Life of Brian, but... The but is that I am concerned that if the search for unity may be turning into a search for conformity.
Whether I like it or not (and sometimes I do and sometimes I don't) I am basically an evangelical; it's part of who I am. Now, I admit I am on the liberal / radical edge of the movement and struggle to understand my brothers and sisters in Christ who often take a more conservative and at times anti-intellectual line. Yet they are my brothers and sisters in Christ whom I, as a Baptist and as an evangelical, share a common ancestory and heritage with. I admit what I am scared of is that in the brave new world that Edwards is looking for I might have to give up that part of my identity and find someother way to define myself.
Beyond that I am also scared that if I lost my identity I might also somehow lose my faith. Now I know on one level that's nuts because God is bigger than any earthly labels we seek to impose on our institutional practice or religious perspective. However, my identity as a Christian has been shaped in a certain way and if I were to let go of that it has been shaped around I am not sure if I would also let go of God. I guess that's why even in my moments of greatest frustration when I've tried to I've never managed to escape from church and the institutional evangelical sub-culture, if I leave I could lose everything.