Whatever the subject, there's more uncomfortable tension in the evangelical family than a Sacha Baron Cohen movie. This has many evangelicals wondering if we have a future together at all.
I still want to call myself an evangelical. I do so knowing that evangelicals have made mistakes, in America, in Britain and probably in every other country. We need to ask for forgiveness for when we have failed
Those who have redefined "evangelical" so as to exclude those supportive of women in ministry speak only for their own brand of evangelicalism, not for many other evangelical groups
While secularists may disagree with his extremely public exhibitions of faith, there presently doesn't seem to be much to complain about and a good deal to laud.
We are in the early stages of what I think historians will one day call religion's Evidential Reformation. Increasingly, most of us relate to scientific, historic and cross-cultural evidence as more authoritative than a literalist reading of Scripture.
We now know that the moral dimension of human life derives not from religion but from our need, as social animals, to cooperate and live in community with each other.
Liberty is only a virtue when held in tandem with the common good. Societies do not achieve liberty by pursuing liberty alone. Liberty is the byproduct of a just society.
Calls for reforming the community's engagement of homosexuality are, I think, having an effect. In my observation, evangelicals increasingly are fed up with the way the Christian church has often spoken to and about gays and lesbians
The church cannot become the state, but the church has an obligation to bear witness to the state. To fulfill this role, evangelicals must rise above the typical left-right debate and learn to speak with a voice that is truly Christian.
Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. were both evangelical Christians. They both preached a gospel which was incomplete without the other. Graham's message needs King's message and vice versa.
I imagine Rob Bell feels a lot like I have on many occasions: it's not that the critics have understood what I'm trying to say and have explained why they disagree. They've misrepresented what I'm trying to say and have explained why the misrepresentation is audacious and ludicrous.
No matter what I do, it's going to be a political statement, and women will be writing articles and preaching to paying audiences about all the people in the group I accidentally affiliated with.
Many believers never outgrow their childhood concept of God as a kind or mean daddy in the sky, one who needs our admiration, can be cajoled for special favors, and covers or beats our backs when we get ourselves into trouble.
Inasmuch as evangelicalism as most people understand it today really came into being after the mainstream media sanctioned its existence, it has died. Thus, it was dead the moment it was most alive.
Since Clemmons was pardoned by Mike Huckabee, the presidential hopeful who has made fundamentalist religion the center of his politics, I couldn't help wondering if religion played a part.
Both good and bad consequences of "faith" are the direct product of an agreement we make with each other, that it's okay to believe things on paltry evidence, the kind that would never stand up in court.