BLOG 6/22/18. ‘EVANGELICAL’ PHONIES

Yes, I know it may sound tacky to label the segment of our populace who are (mistakenly) identified politically and culturally as ‘evangelical’ Christians as ‘tacky’, … but when anyone hijacks that noble designation and uses it to espouse policies that are the antithesis of that whole New Creation/Kingdom of God, which was taught and demonstrated in Jesus Christ, … then I’m going to come off the bench in protest. There is an old saying, that: “If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck.” Then, the obverse of that must also be true, if it doesn’t look like a duck, or doesn’t walk like a duck, or quack like a duck, … then in must not be a duck!

However, you approach the New Testament documents and absorb the life and mission of Jesus—which is designated by Jesus as the evangel, or the “thrilling news” of God’s New Creation, God’s great ‘search and rescue mission,’ God’s invasion of his creation in the person and work of Jesus to reconcile the world to himself—then the prejudices, the policies, the attitudes heralded by the religious right-wing… are anything but ‘evangelical’. Jesus came into a scene of a rigid religious establishment, a global political empire, of prejudices and broken-ness, of poverty and injustice … with his demonstration and teaching about a radical new ethic of love and mercy, of zeal for justice, of healing and forgiveness, of his creation of a whole new humanity that would demonstrate/incarnate the design of God for that human community that was recreated in the image of God’s Son. His was a ministry of reconciliation.

And just what were to be the evidences of those who were his followers, who were the products of this “thrilling news”?

1. They were to be those among whom his word was embraced richly and knowledgeably so that it transformed their lives into demonstrations of Christ’s life and teaching. This being so, they were also to be able to give a gentle and sensitive reason for their life and hope to anyone who asked.
2. They were to so wear their New Creation/Sermon on the Mount ethic-behavior that other could see the evidence and see God at work in their humanity.
3. They were to live-out Christ’s radical love first toward one another, but then to their neighbors, to strangers, and even to their enemies. Note: this is lived in a very complicated, often ambiguous cultural setting full of prejudices and hostility, or just plain indifference.
4. And they were to be aware that they were to do this so that the watching world would both hear and see God’s ‘thrilling news’ in flesh-and-blood human beings. They were to be the missionary arm of the Holy Trinity. They were to be the “sweet aroma of Christ” in the world.

That being so, for one to seek to justify political and social prejudices, insensitivity to human need, policies of injustice or indifference to justice under the cloak of being ‘evangelical’ Christians is more than ‘tacky’, … it is totally blasphemous.

There, I’ve said it. Christ’s people, his church, is to be the dwelling-place of God by the Holy Spirit in the world. Jesus shattered prejudices against Samaritans, Syro-Phoenecians, and Roman occupiers. This is radical stuff. To call one a true evangelical is to be the walking-talking demonstration of Jesus among the often-sordid stuff of daily life, … and not anything less. It is a calling that makes God’s people the light of the world, and the salt of the earth. They are those who wear the gospel of peace on their feet. Go for it! [I always love your comments, and your recommendation to friends that they subscribe to these blogs.]