Christianity Today's Editorial May Be Watershed Moment for 2020

From Sojourners-

Yesterday, the website for Christianity Today, the flagship publication for mainstream evangelicalism founded by Billy Graham, crashed from the influx of traffic when CT published an editorial arguing that President Trump should be removed from office. The editorial said that whether that happens via the impeachment process going on in the House and Senate, or the voters in November 2020 is a fair question on which reasonable people can disagree, but that the personal and public immorality of President Trump, as revealed in the House of Representatives’ impeachment investigation, is so egregious that he must be removed as a matter of faith.

The editorial was penned by Mark Galli, who is retiring as CT’s editor-in-chief on Jan. 3. Galli himself doesn’t think his editorial will move the needle for the average evangelical Trump supporter. It’s fair to say that, unfortunately, Fox News is much more influential than Christianity Today to the views of most white evangelical Trump supporters. That said, Christianity Today does reach more than 2.5 million people each month, and the importance of this editorial is that we may look back on it as a watershed moment for the 2020 election, when the first significant cracks in the wall of Trump’s political support from white evangelicals really became visible. Over time those cracks may now grow, and it’s important to also remember that it would only take a relatively small number of white evangelicals switching who they plan to vote for or deciding not to vote at all to shift the balance in key states away from President Trump.

More here-

https://sojo.net/articles/christianity-todays-editorial-may-be-watershed-moment-2020?fbclid=IwAR1bwpl6qbxjumAZ3l-IiFDGkArr-_KSt1Ox3sJMFDOHA5QnXqE2kLHmx9w

Nearly 200 evangelical leaders condemned Christianity Today editorial on Trump

From Fox-

Nearly 200 evangelical leaders condemned Christianity Today's editorial calling for the removal of President Trump, which “offensively questioned the spiritual integrity and Christian witness of tens-of-millions of believers who take seriously their civic and moral obligations," they wrote to the magazine's president.

Christianity Today, one of the nation's top Christian magazine publications called for the removal of Trump on Thursday, one day after the House of Representatives passed two articles of impeachment against him.

The letter to Timothy Dalrymple, the president of the magazine, also condemned the editorial for dismissing evangelicals who oppose its views as "far-right," the Christian Post reported.

More here-

https://www.foxnews.com/faith-values/nearly-200-evangelical-leaders-condemned-christianity-today-editorial-on-trump

What happened to U.S. evangelicals? In early America, they were our freedom fighters.

From The Washington Post-

In a span of three days, Jerry Falwell Jr., a close ally of President Trump, has been in the national news twice — neither time for good reason. Over the weekend, Falwell said the president was the victim of a “failed coup” and deserves two more years tacked onto on his term. Then on Tuesday, Reuters reported that Trump fixer Michael Cohen helped Falwell get rid of some racy “personal” photos of the Liberty University president.

In the past two years, comments and actions by evangelical leaders close to the president have made it easy for many Americans to conclude that evangelicals are the foremost enemies of democracy and freedom.

As someone who writes about American religious history, I think this is truly unfortunate, because no one group has arguably done more — in the past — to advance religious freedom than evangelicals. Understanding the crucial evangelical role in crafting religious freedom makes the position of folks like Falwell all the more tragic, but it also hints at a better way forward for the evangelical movement as a whole.

More here-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/05/08/what-happened-us-evangelicals-early-america-they-were-our-freedom-fighters/?utm_term=.3b14e51ed004

The Radically Inclusive Christianity of Rachel Held Evans

From The New Yorker-

Late on Friday evening, as Rachel Held Evans, a thirty-seven-year-old Christian activist, lay in a coma, in her hospital bed, in Nashville, Tennessee, her friend Nadia Bolz-Weber, a progressive pastor, anointed her forehead with frankincense. “Lord, let your servant go in peace,” Bolz-Weber intoned, beginning the liturgy of last rites. She couldn’t believe that she was performing them for her friend, and she told me later, “In times that we are collapsing, these are words that have been worn smooth by generations of the faithful.” To Bolz-Weber, and to Held Evans’s millions of fans, her sudden illness was inconceivable. She had two small children, and, just a month earlier, she and Bolz-Weber had been laughing about the challenges of motherhood. But soon after, while hospitalized for complications from the flu, doctors realized that she was experiencing seizures and placed her in a medically induced coma. Later, after weaning her off the coma medication, the medical team found that swelling of her brain had caused extensive damage from which she could not recover. She died on Saturday morning.

More here-

https://www.newyorker.com/news/postscript/the-radically-inclusive-christianity-of-rachel-held-evans

When Evangelicals go Anglican or Presbyterian

From Euangelion-

The phenomena of Evangelicals (usually of a non-denominational, baptistic, low-church variety) converting to Presbyterianism, Catholicism, Orthodox, or Anglicanism is interesting on theological and sociological levels.

Much has been written about the surge of evangelicals into liturgical churches (see here and here, plus the book Journeys of Faith: Evangelicalism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Anglicanism) and this phenomenon shows no signs of abating, if anything, it is picked up steam.
For those want to know more (or just keep their disgust fresh), I recommend a few things.

First, Scott Swain discusses his move from Baptist to Presbyterian on the podcast Church Grammar.
Second, a great article Ask an Anglican Pastor where Tish Harrison Warren answers some questions on evangelicals who want to go Anglican. She answers one question with these words:

When I first began attending an Anglican church, there were things I didn’t completely get or resonate with, like making the sign of the cross. I didn’t have a theological problem or any crisis of conscience about these parts of the liturgy; I just didn’t totally understand them, but I simply began to do them anyway, and I’m now very glad I did. Pick 2-3 new liturgical practices and practice them.

More here-

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2019/02/when-evangelicals-go-anglican-or-presbyterian/

Conservative Evangelicals Attempt to Disentangle Their Faith from Trumpism

From The New Yorker-

On a recent afternoon at Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Virginia, Karen Swallow Prior was leading a discussion of Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden” for the seventeen students enrolled in her English course on Victorian literature. Prior, who is fifty-three and was wearing a high-necked floral-print dress, looked as if she might have stepped out of “Great Expectations,” except for her startling magenta lipstick, and her hair, which is dyed bright orange at the crown and a paler blond around her face, resembling an upside-down flame. On the whiteboard behind her in the windowless classroom, she’d written, “Colonialism, Imperialism, Darwinism, Orientalism, Eurocentrism / Anglocentrism.”

She read aloud, “Take up the White Man’s burden— / Send forth the best ye breed— / Go bind your sons to exile / To serve your captives’ need,” then noted, “Kipling was encouraging the United States to use Christianity as a tool of empire.” The aggressive spread of the faith was an ideal of the Victorian age, she went on, but that doesn’t mean that the Bible supports imperialism. During the nineteenth century, Christianity was used as a justification for secular political projects, and this collapse continues today. “So much of what we think is Biblical Christianity is really Victorian,” she said. For example, contemporary Christians often claimed that traditional notions of proper gender roles—such as that a woman’s place was in the home—came from scripture, when, in fact, they were largely products of nineteenth-century European thought. “It’s super important to learn to distinguish between Victorianism and Biblical Christianity,” she said. It was the last day of classes before the Christmas break, and, outside, among the red-brick buildings, carols played from speakers on lampposts hung with wreaths. Students might have been forgiven for paying scant attention to the Victoriana, but Prior’s earnest-looking students, most of them women, were so engrossed in her lecture that, when the class ended, they lingered around her, reluctant to leave.

More here-

https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/conservative-evangelicals-attempt-to-disentangle-their-faith-from-trumpism

The former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has called for the Article 50 process to be revoked to allow the UK to come to a “reasoned sensible conclusion” on Brexit. Dr Williams said he feared the country was approaching a “very dangerous cliff edge” and needed more time to resolve the issues raised by the Brexit debate. The European Court of Justice ruled in early December that Britain could unilaterally revoke Article 50 and remain inside the EU on existing terms.

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/brexit-article-50-archbishop-of-canterbury-rowan-willams/

he former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has called for the Article 50 process to be revoked to allow the UK to come to a “reasoned sensible conclusion” on Brexit. Dr Williams said he feared the country was approaching a “very dangerous cliff edge” and needed more time to resolve the issues raised by the Brexit debate. The European Court of Justice ruled in early December that Britain could unilaterally revoke Article 50 and remain inside the EU on existing terms.

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/brexit-article-50-archbishop-of-canterbury-rowan-willams/

he former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has called for the Article 50 process to be revoked to allow the UK to come to a “reasoned sensible conclusion” on Brexit. Dr Williams said he feared the country was approaching a “very dangerous cliff edge” and needed more time to resolve the issues raised by the Brexit debate. The European Court of Justice ruled in early December that Britain could unilaterally revoke Article 50 and remain inside the EU on existing terms.

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/brexit-article-50-archbishop-of-canterbury-rowan-willams/

As simple as a cartoon: At the New Yorker, white evangelicalism = Ku Klux Klan + patriarchy

From Get Religion-

I know reporters do not control the headlines assigned to their piece, so I am hoping Eliza Griswold was chagrined at the click-bait headline give to her recent New Yorker piece: “Evangelicals of Color Fight Back Against the Religious Right.”

Where is this happening, I wondered. And what. precisely, is the “religious right” these days?

Answer: White evangelicals. Period. 

You know: The evangelical Deep State that’s part Ku Klux Klan and part white patriarchy.

In recent years, I’ve noticed how Eliza Griswold is the major go-to writer who gets to explain the religious world to New Yorker readers. The daughter of former Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, and more of a Christianity-and-Islam specialist, she didn’t exactly grow up in an evangelical context. I’m curious as to why she gets to define this group.

More here-

https://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2018/12/31/as-simple-as-a-cartoon-at-the-new-yorker-white-evangelicalism-ku-klux-klan-patriarchy

The Washington Post Discovers The Magnificat

From Patheos-

he Washington Post—and Evangelicals—just discovered the Magnificat. Apparently this portion of scripture is unknown to a goodly portion of American Christians. On one hand this surprises me because it is in the Bible, but on the other hand doesn’t because of all those recent polls illuminating the amazing fact that hefty numbers of “evangelicals” are not versed in the most basic elements of Christian doctrine. If ordinary “evangelicals” think that Jesus is a spirit emanation and that you can work your way to heaven, then the Magnificat is probably not something they are any more used to than the Lord’s Prayer.

Anyway, I’m Anglican and the Magnificat has always been my favorite, just like the whole Bible. And not only should everyone read it, but it should be so often sung that everyone knows it by heart. But, like the Bible, it is a dangerous song. And if you think that it belongs to you, or that you can sing it on behalf of others, or that Mary—as the Wapo article intimates—is a revolutionary, well, then you are just reading the prayer and haven’t heard the gospel.

More here-

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/preventingrace/2018/12/23/the-washington-post-discovers-the-magnificat/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=share_bar&fbclid=IwAR2EK_r5iB6tIYnxjKZ9CtLT1ZXrtYsSrY8dioXktteQmoOdDy8VYOVTVPc#lKp7l5EX8F9tkscq.01

George H.W. Bush helped lead GOP toward evangelicalism

From The Washington Post-

George H.W. Bush, who died Friday, was a lifetime Episcopalian, part of the blue blood of America’s founding Christianity. But as a presidential candidate, he was part of a Republican opening to evangelicalism that changed the country’s landscape.

A bombing mission that plunged him into the Pacific Ocean during World War II and his younger daughter’s death from leukemia were among the times when he said he looked to God and prayer.

Bush attended Christ Episcopal Church in Greenwich, Conn., as a child. His father, Prescott Bush, was a Republican senator from Connecticut. The future president’s mother, Dorothy Walker, would read to her family from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.

More here-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2018/12/01/george-hw-bush-helped-push-gop-towards-evangelicalism/?utm_term=.3ca5335aa8b5

‘God Is Going to Have to Forgive Me’: Young Evangelicals Speak Out

From The New York Times-

The role of evangelical Christianity in American politics has been a hotly discussed topic this year, intersecting with front-burner issues like immigration, the Supreme Court and social justice. Often the loudest evangelical voices are white, male and … not young.

With just days left before the midterm elections — two years after President Trump won the White House with a record share of white, evangelical support — we asked young evangelicals to tell The Times about the relationship between their faith and their politics.

Nearly 1,500 readers replied, from every state but Alaska and Vermont. Hundreds wrote long essays about their families and communities. They go to prominent megachurches as well as small Southern Baptist, nondenominational and even mainline Protestant congregations. Some said they have left evangelicalism altogether.

We read every submission and spent many hours interviewing respondents. Here’s what we learned:

More here-

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/us/young-evangelicals-politics-midterms.html?fbclid=IwAR34XrTgIufbNhht16NAonaWRTYlNyJIoLHq5-Jcz0khFKPS0oOTlaKwwao

Evangelical bishops seek to reassure GAFCON in another letter

From The Church Times-

THIRTEEN Evangelical bishops have written to GAFCON expressing sympathy with much of its analysis of the Anglican Communion and a desire to “build bridges . . . in order to further the work of the gospel in England”.

The letter, signed by the diocesan bishops of Peterborough, Durham, Winchester, Blackburn, Carlisle, Guildford, and Southwell & Nottingham is a response to the Letter to the Churches issued at the end of GAFCON’s gathering in Jerusalem in June (News, 22 June).

Four of them — Blackburn, Carlisle, Durham, and Peterborough — were also signatories to a letter earlier this month warning of a possible split over teaching on marriage (News, 19 October).

“We, too, see our task, as set out in the scriptures and in the ordinal, to be shepherds of the flock, to guard the gospel and to teach the faith,” the 13 write: there was nothing in section one of the letter (“Proclaiming God’s Gospel”) with which they would disagree.

Among the assertions made in this section is that “Secularism seeks to exclude God from all public discourse and to dismantle the Christian heritage of many nations. This has been most obvious in the redefinition of what it means to be human, especially in the areas of gender, sexuality, and marriage. . . Tragically, there has been a failure of leadership in our churches to address these threats to the gospel of God.”

More here-

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/26-october/news/uk/evangelical-bishops-seek-to-reassure-gafcon-in-another-letter

Retired bishops rebuff letter from fellow Evangelical bishops that warned of schism over marriage

From The Church Times-

TWO retired bishops, both Evangelicals, have criticised a letter from 11 serving bishops that hinted at a schism in the Anglican Communion should the Church of England change its teaching on marriage.

The 1800-word letter, posted on the website of the Church of England Evangelical Council last week, defines traditional teaching in the light of Resolution 1.10 from the 1998 Lambeth Conference, stating: “We believe that this vision of (1) sexual intercourse as ‘an act of total commitment which belongs properly within a permanent married relationship’, (2) marriage as a union of a man and woman in a covenant of love marked by exclusivity and life-long commitment, and (3) faithful, sexually abstinent love in singleness and non-marital friendships, is the teaching of scripture. It therefore expresses the character and will of God.”

It is addressed to the Bishop of Coventry, Dr Christopher Cocksworth, who chairs the co-ordinating group of the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) project. The project was set up by the House of Bishops as an attempt to look more deeply into matters of sexuality after earlier attempts failed to heal divisions (News, 30 June 2017).

In a critique of the letter, posted on the ViaMedia website, the Rt Revd David Atkinson, a former Bishop of Thetford, argues that, far from being fixed: “Christian understanding of the ‘scriptural teaching’ on marriage and sexuality has developed from Augustine, Aquinas and Cranmer, and within Anglican theology in recent decades, not least post-Freud.”

More here-

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/19-october/news/uk/retired-bishops-rebuff-letter-from-fellow-evangelical-bishops-that-warned-of-schism-over-marriage

Prominent evangelical leader on Khashoggi crisis: let’s not risk “$100 billion worth of arms sales”

From Vox-

A major evangelical leader has spoken in defense of US-Saudi relations after the apparent killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate, saying that America has more important things — like arms deals — to focus on.

Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, appeared on its flagship television show The 700 Club on Monday to caution Americans against allowing the United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia to deteriorate over Khashoggi’s death.

“For those who are screaming blood for the Saudis — look, these people are key allies,” Robertson said. While he called the faith of the Wahabists — the hardline Islamist sect to which the Saudi Royal Family belongs — “obnoxious,” he urged viewers to remember that “we’ve got an arms deal that everybody wanted a piece of…it’ll be a lot of jobs, a lot of money come to our coffers. It’s not something you want to blow up willy-nilly.” 

More here-

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/17/17990268/pat-robertson-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-trump-crisis?fbclid=IwAR1_IKawYpOSSGw_874PYQwt6XpKJMqK_hOTQdgJKjg4fmHtrLZtrWrMaqI

Evangelical Bishops Warn of 'Major Problems' If Church of England Changes Stance on Sexuality

From Christian Post-

A group of evangelical bishops have sent a warning about the consequences that could arise if the Church of England decides to alter its stance on sexuality.

Eleven bishops affiliated with the Church of England Evangelical Council signed onto a joint letter sent Saturday to the head of the Church of England's Living in Love and Faith project, which was established last summer by the House of Bishops as a two-year initiative to develop a deeper understanding on sexuality in light of the cultural push for LGBT affirmation and rights.

The project will culminate in the production of teaching resources expected to be released in 2020.
The letter sent to the Bishop of Coventry Christopher Cocksworth urges him and other leaders involved in the LLF initiative to clearly articulate the "traditional teaching" of sexuality in which intercourse is only permitted in the confines of a one man-one woman marriage.

More here-

https://www.christianpost.com/news/evangelical-bishops-warn-major-problems-church-of-england-changes-stance-sexuality-227968/

Eugene Peterson Enters Hospice Care

From Christianity Today-

“Every moment in this man’s presence is sacred.”

So concluded the son of Eugene Peterson in a weekend announcement that the 85-year-old retired pastor and bestselling author of The Message and A Long Obedience in the Same Direction is receiving hospice care.

Robert Creech, a professor of Christian ministries at Baylor University’s Truett Seminary, shared the announcement from Eric Peterson on Facebook.

“Eugene Peterson has encouraged, formed, and often literally saved the ministry of more than one pastor over the years through his writing and thinking (I would include myself in that list),” wrote Creech in a Saturday post now shared more than 1,000 times. “He has refreshed Scripture for many through his thoughtful paraphrase of the Bible published as The Message.

More here-

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/october/eugene-peterson-hospice-long-obedience-living-resurrection.html?fbclid=IwAR0qK9ApOFIAhZkREV59hS2_y77OZXlEDfH-8b_gemukb5V_Q1bW9plrKhI

Evangelical bishops issue blunt warning to Church of England on sexuality

From Christian Today-

Anglican evangelical bishops have warned of 'major problems' and the danger of division if the Church of England changes its stance on sexuality.

Eleven leading evangelical bishops have issued a joint letter in which they say that the traditional Christian view of sex as being for heterosexual marriage alone 'is the teaching of Scripture' and 'therefore expresses the character and will of God'.

They warn any changes in that stance 'will create major problems for many of us, both here and in the wider [Anglican] Communion', declaring that 'recent history tragically demonstrates that introducing changes in teaching and liturgy has consistently divided Anglicans globally and within provinces'.

More here-

https://www.christiantoday.com/article/exclusive-evangelical-bishops-issue-blunt-warning-to-church-of-england-on-sexuality/130698.htm

Terry Gross's Anti-Christian Crusade

From Christian Examiner-

Terry Gross, the host of NPR's Fresh Air, has been taking advantage of the good weather during the summer months to wage a war on Christianity. We will see whether the assault slows down for winter, but I am writing just days before the official start of autumn and there is no sign of any change of tactics yet. Today (18 September) it was an interview with Linda Kay Klein, the author of Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Women and How I Broke Free.

In truth, however, every time Gross addresses evangelicalism, the theme is: I once was a conservative Christian, realized the movement was sinister and oppressive, and now I'm an ex-evangelical who has broken free. I have a day job and do not listen to Fresh Air regularly, so I am not able to provide an exhaustive list. Highlights, however, include the episodes on The Miseducation of Cameron Post (18 and 25 July) which were about how evangelicalism is sinisterly wrong and oppressive. 

Michael Arceneaux's I Can't Date Jesus a few days earlier (23 July), on the other hand, was about how conservative Christianity is sinisterly wrong and oppressive. A week and a half before that it was another breaking free story: "An Evangelical Minister's Change of Heart on Abortion" (11 July). To come back closer to the present, 14 August was on Karen Piper's memoir, A Girl's Guide to Missiles. Gross found the escaping-evangelicalism part of her story particularly worth probing.

More here-

https://www.christianexaminer.com/article/terry-grosss-anti-christian-crusade/51980.htm

How evangelicals took over the Church of England

From Premier Christian-

In 1966 two of the most well-loved and respected church leaders of their day faced off against one another. Speaking at an Evangelical Alliance event in Westminster, famed preacher Martin Lloyd-Jones publicly criticised evangelicals for remaining inside the Church of England, thereby aligning themselves with leaders in the denomination who promoted liberalism. He said evangelicals “scattered about in various major denominations” were “weak and ineffective”. The Welsh minister of Westminster Chapel suggested evangelicals should instead form their own association of churches.

As chair of the event, John Stott was expected to offer his polite thanks to Lloyd-Jones. Instead the rector of All Souls Church issued an impassioned spontaneous rebuttal, arguing that evangelicals should remain inside the Church of England and fight for truth from within. Thankfully the two men were later reconciled after their very public falling out.

More here-

https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2017/November-2017/How-evangelicals-took-over-the-Church-of-England

Could the Trump Compromise Cause Evangelicals to Follow the Path of the Mainline?

From The National Review-

I’ve long thought that one of the most important stories of modern times is the precipitous decline of so-called mainline Protestant denominations. It wasn’t long ago that mainline denominations such as the Episcopal Church and Presbyterian Church (USA) were titans in the American religious landscape. Now, many of them are declining so fast that they’re in danger of disappearing entirely. Books and essays have been written analyzing the decline, and the point of this post isn’t to rehash every explanation. However, central to the analysis is that fact that each of these churches compromised on core tenets of biblical Christianity. In fundamental ways, they secularized. They responded to social pressure by conforming to (mainly) secular progressive moral norms. They merged with the ambient culture to the extent that the distinct meaning and purpose of the church was lost.

The loss of the mainline and the corresponding rise of the Evangelical church has changed American culture and transformed American politics. And each step of the way, Evangelicals looked at their brothers and sisters across the theological aisle and told them that church is purposeless when it merges with NPR.

More here-

 https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/evangelical-trump-compromise-mainline-decline/

Evangelical Christians 'sold' their principles in supporting Trump, says evangelical pastor

From The Washington Examiner-

Rev. Rob Schenck, a prominent evangelical minister and founding president of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute, said Tuesday that evangelical Christians "sold" their principles in supporting President Trump and called for a return to the message of the Gospel.

"The justification for support of Trump is he is seen as Cyrus, a megalomaniac mass murderer, so I guess that qualifies," said Schenck at a luncheon in Washington, D.C., for his new book Costly Grace. "It’s the ends justifying the means. We support this ungodly character with massive flaws so we can get what he’s giving us. We did a deal with Donald Trump. We sold our principles if not our souls to get a laundry list of promises."

In his book, Schenck discusses his 1970s conversion from nominal Judaism to Christianity and his subsequent 1980s political activism as a "leader of the most extreme wing of the anti-abortion movement." 

More here-

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/evangelical-christians-sold-their-principles-in-supporting-trump-says-evangelical-pastor