Conservative... Evangelical... Christian?

There once were Christians.  Then, skip forward a few hundred years... there were Evangelical Christians.

The noun was Christian, the adjective was Evangelical.

Then the adjective slowly became the noun, as we spoke of Evangelicals.

And now there are Conservative Evangelicals, where the adjective is Conservative and the noun is Evangelical.

I wonder what the next stage in the Evolution of our constant attempt to redefine ourselves (usually by comparison to another "outgroup") will be?

And what about the other end of the spectrum?  We had Liberal Christians, who are now just Liberals.  Are there different types of Liberals in the same way there are different types of Evangelicals?

But most intriguingly, it's no longer suitable to say "I'm a Christian".  We now seem to need to ask "what kind of Christian are you?".  And that, is sad.  You see, we're dropping the word Christian ever so slowly.

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Are we pushed into counter-extremism?

Over the years, I've noted that when a group of people start to become extreme in their views, they begin to alienate more and more people, but not only this, they seem to provoke stronger than normal reactions in the other extreme.

Perhaps it's to do with the old theory that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction?

The first time I appreciated this in a religious context was when sitting in a car with a minister who started talking about Literalists.  It took me a while to work out what she was meaning.  As an evangelical Christian, I was puzzled, until I realised she was referring to a group I'd call Conservative Evangelical (further along the spectrum than where I sit).  And it's true, when you listen to some conservative views, they do seem to take the Bible incredibly literally.  By this I mean they take some words off the page, ignore any context whatsoever and say "see, it says it in the Bible".

You'll read on another post that I think if you take the Genesis template of one man and one woman being the only acceptable template for relationships, because it's written there, then you have some challenges ahead.  The first challenge comes only 1 verse later.  In Genesis 2:24 it says that a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife and they become one flesh.  So a literal application of this is that we must all practice heterosexual monogamy.  Speaking as a monogamous heterosexual male, that suits me fine.

But what's this? The next verse says "Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.". Uh oh.  Now I know that my agnostic naturist friend might have a stronger Biblical case than me on this one.  Let's just gloss over that one shall we?

And while we're glossing over things, I'd also like to gloss over 2 Samuel 12:8 where God speaks to David through the prophet Nathan and says "I gave your master's house to you, and your master's wives... [cut] . And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more'"

Now hold on a second.  Did God just tell David he would have given David more wives if he'd wanted?  And let's fast forward to the teachings of celibacy of Paul.  He says it's better to be single.  Oh if only Paul knew his scriptures eh?  (In case you didn't know, Paul knew his scriptures better than most!)

But what's the point I'm making?  As an evangelical Christian who takes his Bible seriously and turns to that sacred book in all my devotional times and for support in difficult days to hear God speak to me through the Holy Spirit, it pains me to see people being pushed away from the Bible because of extremist views on it.

When someone you don't agree with stands up and waves a Bible around to justify horrendous hatred, or waves placards at FUNERALS of all places quoting scripture instead of mourning with those who mourn (another scripture), then it makes you ashamed.  When people who don't know the difference start to think "that book must be awful if it inspires that kind of behaviour" then it drives loving Christians away from the Bible as they don't want anything to do with extremism and what it represents.

That is why I think as Christians we need to stand up strongly and say how much we LOVE the Bible, but also acknowledge how much we have to wrestle with it, pray through it, discuss and debate in loving ways not only what it says, but what God might be saying to us through it and how we apply it in our world and lives today.

Here endeth this morning's rant!  Thank you for listening :-)