Freethinkers sometimes mistakenly imagine that there is a group of people who all think alike in a category with the label “evangelical” on it.

There are many different strains of thought in this as in other movements, including movements of freethinkers.

Today’s fundies who hijack the term “evangelical” to shelter under are not being honest. Their proper title is “fundamentalist,” originated in America around 1915.

The original Evangelicals were a “low church” wing in the Church of England. They were liberals, not conservatives, and worked hard for social reforms, such as temperance, restriction of gambling, and - notably - did excellent work successful in ending slavery.

Of all persons whose efforts put an end to slavery, the foremost was arguably William Wilberforce, an evangelical Christian. Americans who make a big deal of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation may be overlooking the fact that in the West Indies and elsewhere under British law, the good work of England’s evangelicals, aided by Quakers and freethinkers and others, ended slavery thirty years before America did. Those real Evangelicals deserve honor - today’s fundies who pose behind the name do not.

one of the things i like is that the authors have chosen not to list creationism and inerrancy as non-negotiables. for the first, there’s very little biblical justification anymore behind whatever the latest flavor of anti-natural-selection dessert is being served up; for the latter, somehow we can admit that we can’t prove the existence of God, but goshdarnit we have a golden egg this unprovable God laid right here. still, some people hold to these positions; so be it. there’s simply too much of a tendency to add items to the ever-increasing laundry list of ideas and doctrines to which we have to pledge allegiance before we’re allowed into the room marked “Christian.”

nothing’s going to please everybody, and there are a few things i object to. for instance, i don’t agree with this statement: We Evangelicals should be defined theologically, and not politically, socially, or culturally. Jesus’ message uses “action” verbs: teach them to DO as I have commanded you, LOVE God and LOVE your neighbor, by this will all men know … if you LOVE one another. any theology that defines us must have feet.

i did, however, like these words: We are also troubled by the fact that the advance of globalization and the emergence of a global public square finds no matching vision of how we are to live freely, justly, and peacefully with our deepest differences on the global stage. somehow, we’ve got to figure out how we’re going to peacefully share the same bathroom over the next few decades in our ever-shrinking world.

more than anything, i find myself motivated and energized by the very positive nature of the piece - that it isn’t yet another “here’s everything we’re against” rant but an effort to make the gospel again a message of good news. imagine that - the gospel being good news. American Christianity has lost this defining characteristic that once served it well.

mike rucker
fairburn, georgia, usa
mikerucker.wordpress.com