In an editorial posted over at Christianity Today today, a professor of theology named Telford Work illustrates a few aspects of modern Evangelical Christianity. Sure enough, as 20,000 Evangelicals trooped into the Rose Bowl to sing, dance, and pray, a few noisy ones with signs and pamphlets told the rest of them they were all dancing with the devil. The Evangelical worldview suffers from an overabundance of enemies. Work gamely explains that this experience "showed me what Evangelicalism is all about." Yeah, me too. He notes, It hit me that day that there are two kinds of evangelicals: those who make distinctions, and those who don't. I guess one could call them ecumenicals and sectarians. Mormons, who excel at making distinctions, would be sectarians under this analysis. But "ecumenical" Evangelicals are ecumenical only toward other Evangelicals--not much to brag about there. Perhaps we're all sectarians at heart. I liked Work's comments on mixed metaphors, which might better be described as "metaphors in tension," or perhaps antinomies.
So the article gives a nice summary of modern Evangelicalism: Too many metaphors, too many enemies, a goodly measure of singing and praying, with a few noisy Christians spewing tainted charity at people as they leave the stadium. Mormons are actually pretty familiar with the noisy spewers. I'm heartened there were only three of them at the Rose Bowl.
11:53:26 PM 
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