I know that I’ve told this story before. The new focus that I have makes a rehash perfectly appropriate. So, bear with the retelling. There is a point here somewhere.
In 1971 I had an encounter with God. Yeah, I know, right? Anyway, that encounter set me on a path that would define my reality for the next 40 years.
Our particular brand of Church became known as Evangelicalism. Actually, that term had been coined a few decades earlier by fundamentalist Christians who wanted to distance themselves from the crazy fundamentalist Christians. People like Billy Graham were part of this redefined Evangelical world. Evangelicals are profoundly serious about Jesus and the Bible. Many of the commentaries that I use were written by Evangelical scholars. The Bible is the single most important document that we have. So, they dig deeply into its stories, languages, and world. For that we are all the better. Their diligence and hard work have given us volumes of relevant scholarship.
Some things got missed in the shuffle.
The high view of scripture ultimately leads to kind of deifying of the texts. In Paul’s second letter to his mentee, Timothy, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.” If you notice there’s a lot about things that are wrong. Unfortunately, Evangelicals took that idea to use the scriptures to correct and control the behavior of others. The scriptures became the ‘gold standard’ of personal piety and purity. Well, at least the evangelical interpretations that we held did that. We used our standards to evaluate and judge everyone and everything. In the late 1970s a guy named Francis Schaeffer came to center stage. Fran and his wife Edith ran a Christian retreat center called L’Abri in Switzerland. Francis wrote a couple of books that caught the attention of the powers-that-be in the Evangelical world. Soon he was rubbing elbows with presidents and C. Everett Koop, the Surgeon General of the U.S. at the time. Schaeffer’s stand on issues like abortion took hold in that world and almost over night the Evangelical world was married to conservative politics. Abortion became the battle that we would die fighting. It became a sign of our spiritual maturity to always vote Republican. They were the ‘Pro-Life’ party. That single issue became the rallying cry of the entire movement to stand against the sin of the secular world. The newly minted political clout of this marriage along with the elevation of the biblical text created a creature of such great power and influence that we were all taken by surprise. Yeah, we were responsible for much of the injustice and suffering that became reality through the policies of the conservatives. But they were against abortion!
Getting back to the part about the missing part.
In all of our zeal to obey God and create a world where Christ was King we appealed to the authority of Scripture. The Bible became an owners’ manual, a rule book that all people everywhere must learn to follow. And, yes, that’s as messed up as it sounds. I remember saying to one of the pastors of my Evangelical club that the Bible was not a users’ manual. He turned and barked at me that it WAS just that!
In Paul’s letter to the Church at Rome he wrote that they should not conform to the way that the world operates, but that they should be transformed by the renewing of their minds. I Evangelical parlance that meant to read, study, and memorize the scriptures in order to renew our minds. That would result in our transformation. Whatever that was.
There was one problem with that formula. It doesn’t work. While evangelicals talk a good line, the truth is that they have no means by which transformation may happen. At best they provide rules to follow. If you follow the rules well enough then we’ll let you stay in the club. Gatekeeping became their entire raison d’etre. Purity rules, all of those ‘You shall not dance or drink or hang out with sinner or speak a contrary thought, ruled the Evangelical church. And still does. Their way seeks to control people and project a façade of transformed righteous living. I know. I lived it. And I escaped from it.
I could write volumes on what transformation looks like in my life. I could call witnesses like my wife and kids. I am now living in that transformation. And the process continues to grow and produce fruit. The Evangelical church cannot allow for true transformation. They work too hard to control what transformation looks like rather than allowing God’s Holy Spirit to actually bring it about.
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