The following post is from August of 2011. Little of my opinion has changed since writing this. Lord willing I will comfortably vote for Donald Trump but his candidacy has highlighted one serious weakness in the evangelical community, that being that we still, in spite of the spiraling collapse of our nation, trust in princes instead of casting all of our hope on the mercy of He who planned this nation and sustained us even with our wayward behavior.
So just who, and what, is the Evangelical that we hear about so often in the mainstream media? Today the term is used as a pejorative, and if it were possible to do, would flash red to alert the reader to pay particular attention to what they are up to. Evangelicalism is a very big tent, a revival tent of sorts, with room enough for many diverse church goers. At times, most recently at the Iowa straw poll, it's more like a huge tailgate party. I was an Evangelical for the better part of the 1980s, my high water mark when I went to a fundraiser for Pat Robertson's 1988 bid for the presidency. We needed a Christian president, I thought, who was also informed and intelligent and Pat filled that bill.
Contrary to the accepted opinion on the Left, Evangelicals do not merely march in lock-step to the commands of their favorite televangelist. They all hold to the same social issues because those issues are very clear in God's Word. They tend to back candidates that openly admit to going first to the Bible. They are generally model citizens. They, generally once again, pay their taxes, give generously to charities and proudly send their sons and daughters off to the military making our armed forces America's most distinguished and honorable group!
The Evangelical ushered in Ronald Reagan while keeping Al Gore and John Kerry out of the White House although it obviously failed with Bill and Hillary Clinton, and with Barack Hussein Obama. Evangelicals are red state, or would it be more apropos to say red states are evangelical? Without the evangelical community from the 1970s to today, America might be already past tense as I write this.
As if at a state fair, they can easily move from the Evangelical tent to the Tea Party tent and mingle without any questions. When they enter the Libertarian tent, they can be viewed suspiciously even though they tend to feel at home. On Saturdays in the fall they fill Ohio Stadium, Notre Dame Stadium, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Bryant-Denny Stadium and Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. They fly the Stars and Stripes (as I do) in front of their homes. They often have blended, interracial families. They coach youth athletics and swarm to coastal beaches (when they're not repairing homes in Appalachia) without littering the sand with bear cans. They read, read, read and are more at home, in politics anyway, listening to the spoken word on talk radio rather than watching carefully crafted television news reports. They hunt, they fish and they vote. Their children tend to be polite and respectful of their elders. For all of this, they are feared and ridiculed.
The other day, while watering the flowers, my cell phone rang. I rarely get calls on my cell phone for to me it is more of a constant conduit of news with a quaint app that lets you make phone calls in an emergency. It was a Gallop/USA Today pollster and I was as excited as a Democrat chief-of-elections 'finding' a box of votes under the ice cream maker in the back of the hall. One question asked of me was if I were an Evangelical. Futilely, I attempted to explain the problem with the concept of Evangelical but had no other choice than to answer...yes. Such is it with much of America. All who are part of "Christianity," who apply Biblical truth to social issues, are labeled...Evangelicals.
C. S. Lewis once said "The problem is not so much the de-Christianization of England, as the de-Christianization of the church." This is the problem with much of Evangelicalism today. The American pulpit, to a great degree, has failed the church. Christianity and Christendom have become united. The cross of Calvary is seldom preached, rather the felt needs of the congregation. The name of Jesus is ever-present but the person of Jesus Christ is unknown, the blood shed on Calvary for our sins ignored. One glaring example of our lack of discernment is Glenn Beck. Here is a man who saturates his broadcasts with biblical terminology and a near worship of the state of Israel but exalts a false Christ of Mormonism but this doesn't seem very important to the Evangelical. In fairness, if they were properly discipled in their churches they might still respect Glen Beck the citizen but not be so enamored with the evangelist Glenn Beck. The Evangelical is weak on doctrine and thus we have a weak church They come too close to thinking of America as God's nation thus failing to separate the declaration of our redemption in the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ from the Declaration of Independence. Politically the Evangelical can be naive, as I was with Pat Robertson.
The media often points to the belief in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture where the Christians are taken away, leaving the unbeliever to face the Antichrist. This false doctrine permits the Christian to adopt the attitude expressed on a t-shirt I saw in a Christian bookstore where a pair of sneakers was all that was left as the basketball fan was taken up and out of his seat at a basketball game. Prophesy can be a best seller but it often excites for the wrong reason. It can warn others but fails to adequately turn the warning inwards, something which Christians, and I as much as anyone, are in need of doing! The Evangelical voter can all too easily be taken in by the evangelical rhetoric of a run-of-the-mill establishment politician whose evangelical words are so strong that vetting of their history is not necessary.
Still, the Evangelical has been a blessing to America as they are citizens who still have their heads above water in a culture that is drowning. Unfortunately, because of the confusion enhanced by the media and the failure of our pulpits to consistently preach the cross, the unbeliever thinks that he /she must necessarily enter that Evangelical tent (become an Evangelical) if he were ever to consider his/her fallen condition before God.
Should God have mercy on us as a nation and should His Spirit move over this land with His convicting power of irresistible grace, that Evangelical tent, as the word 'evangelical' has come to be known in the last 40 years, will not even be noticeable in the mass of humanity seeking the mercy of forgiveness through faith in the name that is above every name.
So just who, and what, is the Evangelical that we hear about so often in the mainstream media? Today the term is used as a pejorative, and if it were possible to do, would flash red to alert the reader to pay particular attention to what they are up to. Evangelicalism is a very big tent, a revival tent of sorts, with room enough for many diverse church goers. At times, most recently at the Iowa straw poll, it's more like a huge tailgate party. I was an Evangelical for the better part of the 1980s, my high water mark when I went to a fundraiser for Pat Robertson's 1988 bid for the presidency. We needed a Christian president, I thought, who was also informed and intelligent and Pat filled that bill.
Contrary to the accepted opinion on the Left, Evangelicals do not merely march in lock-step to the commands of their favorite televangelist. They all hold to the same social issues because those issues are very clear in God's Word. They tend to back candidates that openly admit to going first to the Bible. They are generally model citizens. They, generally once again, pay their taxes, give generously to charities and proudly send their sons and daughters off to the military making our armed forces America's most distinguished and honorable group!
The Evangelical ushered in Ronald Reagan while keeping Al Gore and John Kerry out of the White House although it obviously failed with Bill and Hillary Clinton, and with Barack Hussein Obama. Evangelicals are red state, or would it be more apropos to say red states are evangelical? Without the evangelical community from the 1970s to today, America might be already past tense as I write this.
As if at a state fair, they can easily move from the Evangelical tent to the Tea Party tent and mingle without any questions. When they enter the Libertarian tent, they can be viewed suspiciously even though they tend to feel at home. On Saturdays in the fall they fill Ohio Stadium, Notre Dame Stadium, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Bryant-Denny Stadium and Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. They fly the Stars and Stripes (as I do) in front of their homes. They often have blended, interracial families. They coach youth athletics and swarm to coastal beaches (when they're not repairing homes in Appalachia) without littering the sand with bear cans. They read, read, read and are more at home, in politics anyway, listening to the spoken word on talk radio rather than watching carefully crafted television news reports. They hunt, they fish and they vote. Their children tend to be polite and respectful of their elders. For all of this, they are feared and ridiculed.
The other day, while watering the flowers, my cell phone rang. I rarely get calls on my cell phone for to me it is more of a constant conduit of news with a quaint app that lets you make phone calls in an emergency. It was a Gallop/USA Today pollster and I was as excited as a Democrat chief-of-elections 'finding' a box of votes under the ice cream maker in the back of the hall. One question asked of me was if I were an Evangelical. Futilely, I attempted to explain the problem with the concept of Evangelical but had no other choice than to answer...yes. Such is it with much of America. All who are part of "Christianity," who apply Biblical truth to social issues, are labeled...Evangelicals.
C. S. Lewis once said "The problem is not so much the de-Christianization of England, as the de-Christianization of the church." This is the problem with much of Evangelicalism today. The American pulpit, to a great degree, has failed the church. Christianity and Christendom have become united. The cross of Calvary is seldom preached, rather the felt needs of the congregation. The name of Jesus is ever-present but the person of Jesus Christ is unknown, the blood shed on Calvary for our sins ignored. One glaring example of our lack of discernment is Glenn Beck. Here is a man who saturates his broadcasts with biblical terminology and a near worship of the state of Israel but exalts a false Christ of Mormonism but this doesn't seem very important to the Evangelical. In fairness, if they were properly discipled in their churches they might still respect Glen Beck the citizen but not be so enamored with the evangelist Glenn Beck. The Evangelical is weak on doctrine and thus we have a weak church They come too close to thinking of America as God's nation thus failing to separate the declaration of our redemption in the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ from the Declaration of Independence. Politically the Evangelical can be naive, as I was with Pat Robertson.
The media often points to the belief in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture where the Christians are taken away, leaving the unbeliever to face the Antichrist. This false doctrine permits the Christian to adopt the attitude expressed on a t-shirt I saw in a Christian bookstore where a pair of sneakers was all that was left as the basketball fan was taken up and out of his seat at a basketball game. Prophesy can be a best seller but it often excites for the wrong reason. It can warn others but fails to adequately turn the warning inwards, something which Christians, and I as much as anyone, are in need of doing! The Evangelical voter can all too easily be taken in by the evangelical rhetoric of a run-of-the-mill establishment politician whose evangelical words are so strong that vetting of their history is not necessary.
Still, the Evangelical has been a blessing to America as they are citizens who still have their heads above water in a culture that is drowning. Unfortunately, because of the confusion enhanced by the media and the failure of our pulpits to consistently preach the cross, the unbeliever thinks that he /she must necessarily enter that Evangelical tent (become an Evangelical) if he were ever to consider his/her fallen condition before God.
Should God have mercy on us as a nation and should His Spirit move over this land with His convicting power of irresistible grace, that Evangelical tent, as the word 'evangelical' has come to be known in the last 40 years, will not even be noticeable in the mass of humanity seeking the mercy of forgiveness through faith in the name that is above every name.
