Evangelicals Behaving Badly – Inaudacious Grace

“The problem of being in any profession is that you will get to see it’s dark side up close and personal.” That observation was shared with me a by a very wise man and it is just too true – no matter the profession. Sad to say, even the profession of ministry.

Behind the persona that the typical person-in-the-pew sees about church there are often stirrings and rumblings, turf wars and power struggles that may seem at best silly to the typical church attender or at worst appear to be the opposite of Jesus fundamental teaching about loving your enemy.

Roger Olsen is a truth-speaking theologian who does not mind raising the curtain to expose the dark side that is happening in the world called Evangelical. He keeps breaking the rules that keep families and organizations dysfunction and there is a price to pay for it.

If you don’t want to know or could care less about what’s happening behind the curtain called Evangelical then don’t read any more than the small portion of Roger’s post below. If you are ready to break some of those dysfunctional rules then read on.

From my perspective, SOME conservative evangelical theologians, denominational leaders, biblical scholars, etc., have DE FACTO already declared, by their behavior, the division between them and postconservative, progressive evangelicals who, generally speaking, believe in the same basic doctrines they believe in.  (To his dying day Stan Grenz affirmed biblical inerrancy, but some of his critics insisted he didn’t mean it because in Theology for the Community of God he placed the doctrine of Scripture within the doctrine of the Holy Spirit!)

There comes a point when one has to give up and say “Okay, have it your way.  We’re not part of the same movement anymore.”  I am saying that.  They may go their way and I and mine will go our way.  We both use the label “evangelical,” but it is too general to cover all of us without qualification.  To me, they are behaving like fundamentalists, so that’s what I’ll call them with “neo-” in front to distinguish them from Carl McIntire and the older, separatistic fundamentalist movement (that still exists but does not participate in evangelical endeavors).

Read Roger’s Post “Division in the evangelical house.”

Roger quotes a great response to this “dark side” bickering over the “truth” that calls Evangelicals to remember that discussing serious issues about Christ’s Truth must be done Christ’s Way if it is not to become destructive to Christ’s followers. Read here Great Comment re: evangelicals behaving badly

PS The cartoon is unashamedly lifted from David Hayward’s wonderful blog nakedpastor