Jim and Ruth Bell - Engaged!

By Michael Bell

Quick, think of a stereotypical Evangelical. What attributes come to mind?

Here are some that you might have come up with.

• Anti-Union
• No Movies
• Lack of concern for the environment
• Driven by consumerism
• Homogeneous
• Complimentarian
• King James Version only (for some)
• Dispensational
• Young Earthers
• No Alcohol

I used the word stereotypical, because, for many Evangelicals this list is not true at all. It is certainly not true of my parents. I put the list above in the order that I did, because it reflects a sequence of events in my parents life through which I learned that as an Evangelical there were alternatives to these beliefs. This weekend we celebrated my parents’ fifty years of life together. As I have reflected upon my life with them, I have been amazed at how much I have learned from them, as they have broken through so many of the Evangelical stereotypes.

My great-grandfather on my father’s side of the family died when my grandfather was a young boy. As a result my grandfather and great-aunt had to work in a linen mill. My grandfather was twelve at the time, and his sister was eight. She was so small that she had to stand on a box in order to reach the work table. This family history certainly had an impact on my father, and many years later, when I was criticizing a particular union action, my Dad reminded me that, “If it wasn’t for unions, we would still have kids working in the factories.”

In order to escape that life my great-grandmother started to manage a movie theatre, for which she was condemned by the church. As the church did not offer any alternatives she persisted with her new position. It is not surprising then that my parents did not take the hard stand against movies that some evangelicals did.

Our family has had a sense of Adventure. My grandfather on my dad’s side of the family traveled the world with the Royal Navy. While born in Northern Ireland, he met his wife in Barbados, before they moved to South Africa, Zambia, England and finally Canada. On my mother’s side my grandfather trekked great distances across Africa on bicycle. After marrying my grandmother they lived for a number of years in a very remote corner of Zambia. While Evangelicals have never been known as being great stewards of the environment, my parents’ experiences in Africa helped to install a love for the great outdoors in me from a very early age. They had both lived in fairly wild areas of Africa, and appreciated the great areas of wilderness in Canada that was so close to our home. My first wilderness canoe trip was at age three, and I have so many good memories of time spent together canoeing, camping, swimming, hiking, or picnicking in some of Canada’s open spaces. Forty-five years later I still enjoy taking my kids up to the area, and passing the teaching on to them.

When I was eleven my parents moved from Canada back to Africa where we lived for a number of years. We didn’t have a lot of money, and never bought into consumerism that is so so prevalent in North America. My parents felt that giving their children different cultural experiences was more important that have nice things. While they might be considered conservatives in Canada, in Africa they were definitely considered liberal both politically and theologically. Their willingness to cross racial barriers created a basis for me to do so even more so as I entered adulthood.

Four years later we moved back to Canada, and my mother returned to the part-time job that she had held four years before. After a period of being assigned lousy shifts, and facing the prospects of even worse shifts, she decided to return to school, taking Business and Computers. After graduation, my parents broke the mold yet again when they moved to another community where my mother had been offered a good job. Again the tongues were wagging, as moving because of the “wife’s job” was unheard of in our church community. Decisions like that made it much easier for me to be egalitarian in my own marriage relationship.

Jim and Ruth Bell - 50th Anniversary

My grandfather on my mother’s side of the family finished his career as a Bible translator. He typed through the Bible seven times on a manual typewriter, while translating it into Chibemba, one of the main languages of Zambia. His favourite English version was the Revised Standard Version. As I was growing up my parents always had a variety of translations at home, and never bought into the King James only idea.

Our church however was not only very conservative with a strong emphasis on the King James Version, but it was also very dispensational, with what seemed to be an obsession with the idea of a pre-tribulation rapture. My parents did not hold these views and they took a lot of flack for having a contrary position. At another church it was a similar conflict, but this time over young earth creationism. I learned from them the value of independent thought, that scriptural interpretation wasn’t always black and white, and that I shouldn’t be afraid to challenge what I was taught.

When it came to some of the “vices” which were on the evangelical watch list, my parents were moderate conservatives. As mentioned above, we enjoyed a lot of different movies, and my parents had a very occasional glass of wine. I asked them why they drank so little, and remember my mom responding, “We have never really found any wine that we really like. We do like the taste of communion wine, but the Elders wouldn’t tell us what type it is!”

Having been involved with Internet Monk for several years, I have come to realize that my parents have experienced what this site calls a post-evangelical wilderness. They are evangelical at heart, but don’t fit the evangelical mold. Finding a church in which they feel at home has been difficult. I find it interesting, but not surprising, that they are currently worshiping in a church that is similar to my own, somewhere in the nether world between the evangelical and mainline traditions.

Mum and Dad, congratulations on reaching your 50th anniversary. I have learned so much from you from the nearly fifty years I have spent with you, and will continue to look to you for wisdom and guidance in the years to come.

There are many who will read this post who have been burned by Evangelical churches, or they look at the Evangelical movement as a whole and don’t like what they see. I recently read a comment by a reader who was out of work. His Evangelical churches did not offer any help, but his Catholic neighbors did. He concluded by saying that whatever church he ended up in next it would not be an Evangelical one.

I could trot out the statistics at this point and show how the Evangelical movement is better at caring for their neighbors than other faith expressions. But there would be no point, the experiences that people have with their local expression of Evangelicalism, would totally supersede any statistical summary that I would bring forward. Others, like Michael Spencer, look nationally, and see many aspects of Evangelicalism with which they are very uncomfortable. So Michael, like others, wander in this Post-Evangelical wilderness.

The problem is, how do you stop wandering in the wilderness? The wilderness is not where you want to be. It might provide some perspective for a time, and the solitude might be refreshing, but like the Israelites you want to eventually find the “Promised Land”. I wish Michael was alive to write a follow-up to his book Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality, because this is the question that I think he had the most difficulty answering.

For some this might be a matter of finding the right church.

Very early in my interaction with Internet Monk, I read a post by Michael Spencer about what his ideal church would look like. As I read it I found myself nodding in agreement. Michael and I were definitely kindred spirits. We differed on worship styles, but that was about it (I wish I could find that article again).

If we were both looking for a church, what would that church look like?

• Key to our search would be a church that was centered around the good news of Jesus Christ. Michael lived for the gospel. A church that does not have the gospel at its heart would be a non-starter for both of us.

• Michael was, like me, an egalitarian. That is, we believed that ministry in the church should be based upon spiritual gifts, and not upon gender prescribed roles. For me this is essential, I cannot be part of a church where my wife and daughters can not minister according to their gifts.

• Like Michael, I get annoyed at churches who are so focused on side issues like creation science, abortion, or homosexuality, that they forget the gospel. Pastors who dwell on these themes won’t have my attention for long.

• We both decry the focus on affluence in the North American church, and would love to see the church involved more in ministry to the poor. Churches need to genuinely care for those people inside them, and those around them. That too cuts my number of church choices.

• Like Michael Spencer, I believe that there is good to be found in many different Christian traditions. Churches that espouse that their way is the only way, or who put down other traditions, are not churches in which I am interested.

I could go on to give many other examples of what made finding a church difficult for me and Michael. If you have been reading Internet Monk long enough you will know many of them.

Finding a church that works for you, especially if you have already been burned by church, can be very difficult.

Both Michael and I tried starting a church based upon what we believed church should look like, and both of us had to abandon our attempts. While at Internet Monk we have many kindred spirits, trying to translate that idea into a local community is a very, very, difficult process.

In my community of 27,000 there is one Evangelical church, and one that is not a great fit for our family. While there are many, many more churches in the area where Michael Spencer lived, he had written once that to find a church that really worked for him would be a two hour drive—each way. On the other hand, my family and I were able to find a church that did work for us in a community that is just 15 minutes away.

This, I believe, accounted for much of the difference in our approach to post-evangelicalism. When the problems with evangelicalism impacts your Sunday morning experience, then your reaction is going to be quite different to someone like myself who has found a safe haven in an evangelical church.

So I have these questions for our readers—

For those of you who feel that you are no longer wandering in the wilderness, what has worked for you? What insights can you offer to those who are still in the post-evangelical wilderness and don’t know which way to turn?

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.

Not being sure of what to do, I talked to my professor. He said that one of my other professors knew a friend of the author of the journal article. Word was passed up the chain, and I heard back that the author of the journal article had a deadline for the journal, and couldn’t complete the work in time. He panicked and copied the work from the older journal, thinking/hoping that no one would ever notice.

Fast forward to the present day, almost 20 years later. I wondered whatever had become of author of the journal article. Much to my surprise I found out several interesting facts about him. He is now a high ranking academic within a Christian college, and had been very successful in his position. He continues to write at a prolific rate. Most interestingly, was that after being appointed to the academic post, he had written a book that covered much of the same ground as the journal article. Had he plagiarized the book as well? I ordered both the original commentary and the newer book from Amazon. They arrived recently.

To my disappointment he had used the commentary in his new book. I had hoped that he would have completely started anew, with his own material. To his credit, he did put the older material into his own words this time, and his did credit the original author in an footnote at the end of the chapter (though his footnote did not mention the name of the original work, or its page number).

You will have noticed that I have been deliberately vague with my details. It is not my attention to destroy anybody’s career. Many iMonk readers would know both the academics involved, so to give any more details would likely lead to the names becoming public.

Has the author of the journal article learned his lesson? His failure to again give proper credit, and his continued prolific output makes me wonder about the integrity of all that he has written.

But I also know that if a microscope was held up to my life, that I would fall short in a lot of different areas too. Yet, God hasn’t given up on me, and is able to use me in many different ways despite my shortcomings. I can tell from what the author in question has accomplished in other areas that God has used him in other ways as well.

My God is a God of second chances. I am thankful that although I sin, Jesus’ sacrifice has paid for my punishment. God has given me a second chance, and a third, and a fourth…

Can I do anything else but the same?

Friend of iMonk Michael Bell sent this to us the other day. It was written by a friend with a ministry to Muslims in North America.

The Islamic holy days of Ramadan ended Friday, and here is a timely reminder of how we can show Christ’s love to our Muslim neighbors and how that might make a difference. The author’s name has been withheld because of the sensitive nature of their ministry.

“Can I walk with you?” she asked.

This afghan lady had taken a gift basket last Christmas, but never warmed to the gospel.
She never returned our calls.
Never wanted to visit.
Seemed like a dead end.
What could she want now?

As we strolled to school she unexpectedly poured out her heart.
Her family struggles.
Her confusion.
Her pain.

At the end of the stroll she turned and said “Thank you. I knew you would pray for me”

What if this was what Muslims thought of Christians.
What if they didn’t think of Quran burnings or troops invading.
What if this was the message we sent to the Muslim world:

That we are praying for them.
That we love them.
That Jesus loves them and will answer them if they cry out to him to save them.

Today, we are experiencing the climax in a crescendo of religious furor.
The end of Ramadan.
Threats of Quran burnings.
Mosque building plans.
Eid celebrations.

But will the church pray today?
Will you pray for them tomorrow?
Join with us and cry out to God for this lady who believes that we are people of prayer?

Wherever you are.
Whatever you are doing.
Take time to pray.

Reprinted with permission The Jesus Network – www.jesusnetwork.ca

This past month we celebrated both Canada Day on July 1st, and Independence Day on July 4th. This inspired some thoughts about getting some Canadian perspectives on “American Patriotic Christianity”. As I am the lone Canadian writer at Internet Monk, I gathered up seven of my Canadian, primarily “unchurched” friends, to get their perspective on the topic. A couple of friends, for personal reasons, asked not to be identified, so I have chosen to refer to all by their initials.

Many of you will find the discussion below stereotypical and offensive. Others may find it enlightening. I would ask that you persevere to the end. After interacting with some of their ideas, I will conclude with some thoughts about the Canadian Church, and how it is impacted by American Christianity.

To get a completely different perspective, from someone who has spent decades interacting with both Canadian and American Christians, I would suggest you read this article.

Now, take a moment, sit in on our discussion, and let us know what you think.

Michael Bell: Thank you everyone for being willing to contribute to this discussion. My first question is this—What do you think of Americans in general?

J.L.: I have traveled widely and frequently in the USA. I find Americans to be extremely friendly, welcoming and helpful. This reflects a quietly confident and respectful spirituality that I believe characterizes America far more than the outspoken and extreme views often quoted in the media.

S.F.: It is a nation with such potential to lead the world with intelligence, foresight and understanding.

Michael Bell: I have many American friends who I hold in very high regard.

Michael Bell: I would now like us to look at the intersection of faith and politics. Politically, if Canadians were to vote in the United States, we would be overwhelmingly Democrat. Canadian opposition parties try really hard to portray the governing Conservative party as closest to American Republicans, but truth be told, Obama has enjoyed an approval rating in Canada that has never dropped below 74 percent. This means that Canadians of all political stripes identify most closely with the American Democrats. If you were to look at policies, issue by issue, you would find that in some issues Canadians are to the left of the Democrats, and on some they are to the right. Politicians in Canada tend to move towards the center of the political spectrum which means that Evangelicals are found in significant numbers in all the political parties. In the U.S. you see Evangelical Christians most closely aligned to the Republican Party. Why do you think this is?

T.S.: There are good, honest, well intentioned Christian people in the U.S. who I believe are being sucked into bad political policies under the guise they are losing their Christian vote and freedoms. It is so sad to witness these events. Adding to the volume of rhetoric is the Republican voice that Obama is not a Patriot—there is even a segment who still does not believe Obama was born an American citizen (The “Birthers”). The GOP is all about fear and obstruction. Those who might fall into the “American Patriotic Christianity” are getting sucked in and don’t see the world outside their own backyard.

J.L.: The fact that patriotism is tied to a specific religious belief system is downright frightening; it implies that anyone who does not “fit” is unfit to be an American. If I understand Christ’s message at all, I believe that He would be frustrated by the exclusionary tone of the American Patriotic Christian movement. Christ taught that all are loved and add value to humanity and that defining one self by pointing out what others are not is hypocritical.

A.S.: Ah yes, this is God’s country, the land of free speech, and the land of freedom of religion. Bring us your tired, your weak, your hungry, and so long as (it’s in the fine print) they conform to the Christian part of our country’s founding fathers’ Judeo-Christian values, they will be welcomed with open arms.

Michael Bell: What other issues do you see with Patriotic American Christianity?

A.S.: If it is not too much to ask our president to say his daily prayers, and thank God for blessing America each day for His and it’s existence, is it not too much to have our children recite the Lord’s Prayer each day in our public schools? We would not have gun violence, gangs, sex, unwanted pregnancies and sin in our schools if our children recited the Lord’s Prayer each day because they would learn it, listen to it, and live it.

Michael Bell: Little bit of sarcasm there A.S.?

A.S.: Maybe just a little!

S.F.: God bless us all should they fall prey to the cancerous rantings of backward fundamentalism and ignorant nationalism. To me, American Patriotic Christianity looks, sounds and acts a lot like Sarah Palin—and that should scare the hell out of anyone who wants the world to move forward.

P.B.: The prosperity gospel mentality is another dark side of American Patriotic Christianity. It’s a beautiful country with some really great people, so it’s really easy to sow in a little patriotism and make the average Sunday school kid grow up believing that heaven will look something like the rolling hills of Kentucky on a perfect sunny day, except with more mansions.

A.S.: P.B. is half right—Heaven IS the rolling hills of Kentucky on a perfect sunny day, or Indiana, with more mansions, flowers, and everyone is carrying their firearm in plain view, a Bible in one hand, a gun in the other, gleefully singing “God Bless America” and “America the Beautiful,” like at the start of a NASCAR race, waiting to fight off Satan’s hordes when they attempt to plant their truck-bomb at the pearly gates and invade. Diligence, perseverance and duty are part of patriotism. Who but God’s chosen American people will fight to protect Heaven from the outsiders?

C.S.: The Patriotic Christian American sees the U.S. position in the world as part of Godís plan, thus a position of global dominance is natural and should be defended.

Michael Bell: Your use of the word “natural” reminded me of something that I had read recently, that Americans have “natural God given rights”. How do you respond to that C.S.?

C.S.: The American Christian feels that he’s entitled by divine right to whatever he’s accumulated and, thus, resists any and all government initiatives that may cost him a few bucks.

Michael Bell: I guess that ties back into P.B.’s concern about the “Prosperity Gospel.”

T.S.: Tell me how it is a Christian organization is not in favour of health care for those who cannot afford it? I think it happens because they keep drinking the Kool-Aid of disinformation from the GOP.

Michael Bell: Do you have any fears of this brand of Christianity being exported? You have been awfully quiet there R.C., anything to say on this matter?

R.C.: I was thinking of some of the manipulative things that have gone on between some strong-handed Christian leaders and some smaller African country’s governments, for example their influence to make homosexuality a crime punishable by death. (Ed. Note: You can read Americansí Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push for more information about R.C.ís concern.)

A.S.: Once others think and believe as we do, that God is good, that God is great, that God is right, that God is American, they will have no reason to attack us anymore.

Michael Bell: Enough with the sarcasm already! So I take it that you think that Americans believe that if they could just export their politics and religion that everything would be right in the world?

A.S.: Absolutely.

Michael Bell: I would be interested in getting some our reader’s thoughts on that one!

Michael Bell: Thanks to everyone for participating, your comments have certainly been enlightening. I would love to see you interact with some of our readers as well.

So how does this impact the Canadian Church?

Canadians and Americans are in many ways joined at the hip. Over half a trillion dollars in trade crosses the border between our two countries each year. Eighty percent of Canadian exports are consumed by Americans. When America sneezes, the world catches a cold, and Canada goes into cardiac arrest. (This most recent recession being the exception!)

Our airwaves are bombarded by American signals. American programming fills our T.V. sets. American music saturates our radios. It is not surprising that the Christian voice that is heard loudest and most often is the American Christian voice.

The voice that we hear is not the moderate Christian voice, it is the bombastic, outrageous, extreme voice. The voice that tells us that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment, or that the earthquake in Haiti was because of a pact with the Devil.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that there are many moderate American Christians. I read their comments on Internet Monk all the time. Their voice is starting to get stronger with advocates like Tony Campolo, Rick Warren, and Willow Creek. So maybe the Canadian view will change over time. Right now, however, I believe that the Canadian response to Patriotic American Christianity is one of the reasons why Canadian expressions of Christianity has become withdrawn and quiet. We end up having to spend a lot of time and energy to show that “We are not like that.”

That is problematic for me as I already find it difficult to be a Christian up here. For a while in my home city Christian clubs were banned in the schools. At work (a previous employer) a request to play a Christmas Gift Exchange game as part of the “Holiday Festivities” was turned down because some might find it offensive. Christmas decorations were welcomed, but there had to be symbols of other other faiths represented as well. We experience similar situations in our public schools in the area where I live.

On the positive side, perhaps because I have somewhat of an outgoing personality, I have had no problems letting others know that I am a Christian, and that it is not something that I keep siloed and just practice on Sundays. My wife has been invited into the public school to tell the Christmas story. At my current place of employment, while few would share my Evangelical perspective, many have been open to conversations about faith, and several will be reading this post.

So while I get frustrated at times when workmates ask me about Joel Osteen or Benny Hinn, or Evangelical support for the Republican Party, I believe they have a pretty clear sense that Canadian Christianity is different.

I believe that Canadians having such a negative view of American Christianity impacts their receptivity to the good news of Jesus Christ, and as such becomes a hindrance to the gospel.

My questions for our readers is this: Do you agree? If so, what can more moderate American Christians do to rectify this? Does moderate American Christianity collectively have a responsibility to change what it does, or change what and how it communicates?

I would love to hear your thoughts and comments on this topic.

The title of Bradley Wright’s Book, Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites… and Other Lies You’ve Been Told, certainly grabs your attention. The book itself does a pretty good job of keeping that attention. If you are looking for a book that gives an easy to read, yet comprehensive assessment of the status of Christianity in America, then this book is for you. While many statistical based books cause my eyes to glaze over, Bradley explains what is happening to Christianity in America in easy to understand language, and with a sprinkling of humor, that made for an enjoyable read. Graphs and figures are displayed liberally throughout the book which I found helped me quickly understand many of the concepts that Bradley was discussing.

So why did Bradley Wright write this book?

The purpose of this book is rather simple. Using the best available data, I will describe how Christians are doing in six areas: church growth, what we believe, our participation in church activities, family and sexual issues, how we treat others, and how others see us. In each of these areas, there are various myths floating around about American Christianity and I want to examine if these myths are true.

As someone who has more than a passing interest in statistics, I found that his data, and presentation of it was rock solid. Most of his analysis is based upon large reputable survey samples, and when he uses smaller data sets, he is careful to make that clear to the reader.

His book begins and ends with an explanation and caution about how statistical reporting can easily be distorted. In short, bad news sells better than good news, and so it is the negative statistic that tends to get the press. It is only when an airplane crashes that it tends to make the news, yet it might have had thousands of successful flights that didn’t get a single news story.

Chapters two and three, Is American Christianity on the Brink of Extinction, and Are we losing our young people, are chapters that certainly should get the attention of Internet Monk readers. In fact he opens chapter two with a quotation from Michael Spencer:

We are on the verge – within ten years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. Michael Spencer—Internetmonk.com

Bradley Wright does not believe this to be the case and ends chapter three with this statement.

…there seems to be no compelling evidence – based on the data we have about our young people – that the church in America is on the verge of collapse.

Obviously I have some bias in evaluating these claims. The reason that I started writing for Internet Monk was because Michael Spencer was being pilloried for his initial claim and I could see that there was sufficient statistical support to back him up. So why do Bradley and I differ on this matter? I agree with Bradley that the church has grown significantly since independence. The data to support that is rather astonishing. The religious affiliation of people today is much, much higher than two hundred years ago. There are however, three primary factors that would make me disagree with his conclusions. (Note: I don’t disagree with his data, just his conclusions.)

• Bradley’s own data shows that the church affiliation peaked in about 1990 (pg. 38).
• The evangelical church faces the same generational horizon now that the mainline church faced forty years ago before it began its own significant decline.
• The ratio of attendance to membership in groups like the Southern Baptist lead me to believe that they will experience the same sort of declines as we have seen in the mainline churches.

You can read my full arguments in support of Michael Spencer, here, and here. Note the change in the maps in the second link that occur over just 10 years. I would encourage you to read Bradley’s book to get his full perspective on the issue, which I could not hope to encapsulate in a short review. Like the global warming debate, the next forty years will tell who is right, but by then it may be too late to do anything about it.

The next chapter asks the question: Are Evangelicals All Poor, Uneducated, Southern Whites? There was one statement that jumped out at me that added to my feeling that Bradley is maybe painting a sunnier picture than reality.

Nationwide, 27% of all adults have graduated from college… Evangelicals are somewhat below the national average. The religious unaffiliated are just slightly above average in levels of college education.

Doesn’t sound too bad does it? But what if it had been stated this way:

On a per-capita basis, the religiously unaffiliated graduate from college at a rate 45% higher that Evangelicals, and Hindus at 350% the rate of evangelicals.

Both statements are based on the same set of data. Both are true. The first is a glass half-full interpretation, the second glass half-empty. Here are the actual numbers. 75% of Hindus graduate college in the U.S. 29% of the religious unaffiliated, and 20% of Evangelicals. Are these numbers of concern? Is it a myth that we are uneducated? You be the judge.

Bradley’s numbers show that we are certainly predominantly white, and have our strength in the southern States. He also notes that we are becoming significantly more integrated, and less regionalized over time.

I want to deal with Chapters 6, 7, and 8 together. Have Christians gone wild? Do Christians love others? What do non-christians think of us? The first two chapters really influence what we find in the third. I would like to focus in on a few select statistics. Pastors, look out over your evangelical congregation. On average 46% of the adults are divorced or separated (38% among weekly attenders), 20% of your youth have had premarital sex, one in six of your women (who attend weekly) have had abortions. How does this make you feel? Consider that some of these numbers are glass half-full perspectives. What if I told you that at by age eighteen 36% of your youth had had sex, and that of those youth who were between the ages of 18 and 23, in a relationship, but not married, 80% were sexually active. The first set of numbers come from Bradley’s data source, the second set from a data source that I used. They are not inconsistent, but looking at a different subset of ages. Bradley cautions us in his introduction that our standard of measurement cannot be perfection, because then we would all fail, but that we should look for differences between us and society at large. He writes:

… becoming a Christian doesn’t make people good, it just makes them better. In other words, Christians believe that the Christian faith should, in fact, change how people live their lives, but this change isn’t necessarily instantaneous… Our expectations, therefore, should not be that Christians are blemish-free, but rather that they are different than non-Christians when it comes to various measures of morality – specifically those “rights and wrongs” that the Bible and churches teach about. And, lo and behold, the research seems to bear this out.

How different do we have to be though? In all these measures, I think we look way too much like the society around us, and not nearly enough like Christ. If we say that Christ changes lives, and then we look not a whole lot different, then are we not being hypocrites?

The key finding of chapter seven that I wanted to focus on has to do with inter-racial marriage. Bradley acknowledges that our attitudes about race is probably the Evangelical church’s greatest weakness. 34 percent of Evangelical whites would oppose a close relative marrying an black/African-American person. This is more than three times higher than the response of those not affiliated with a religion! Among our youth, 28 percent would oppose the marriage. On the positive side, the rate among all evangelicals has dropped from a level of 77 percent only 20 years ago. When Jesus commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves, our response in this area should be so much better than those who have no religious affiliation. I believe that it is attitudes like this have given us the reputation of “Hate-filled Hypocrites”, and it is going to take a lot of attitude changing, and a lot of time for us to shake that reputation. Again Bradley concludes with what I consider to be very positive spin on the situation.

Is there still room to improve? Plenty, but it appears that society in general, including Evangelical Christians, is making progress on an almost yearly basis.

People’s opinions of evangelicals has been improving over the past twenty years. This may be because we have been improving in areas like that of race mentioned above. Bradley thinks that becoming less political has helped us, a view that matches my experience here in Canada.

[The 1990s] was the heyday of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition. But now the figureheads of Evangelical Christianity are much less political, for example, Rick Warren, and the Willow Creek Association. So quite possibly, non-Christians (and Christians as well) think more favorably of Evangelical Christianity now because they are much less political as a group.

Bradley Wright concludes his book with an interesting score card of the various issues that he has covered in his book. One score that jumped out at me was the one dealing with non-Christians’ attitudes towards us. He gives this category a score of “B” and notes that there are “Mixed feelings, but getting more positive over time. May not interfere much with mission.” In my next post, which will come in about a week, I will be writing about the topic of “Canadian Perspectives on American Patriotic Christianity”. In it I will discuss how non-Christian views of Evangelical Christianity has had a definite negative impact on our mission, so on this point we will have to disagree with Bradley as well.

While I do have areas in which I have disagreed with Bradley, almost all of them come down to interpretation. Bradley, I think, would be okay with that, because most of all he wants us to be thinking about these issues, and drawing our own conclusions. He concludes his book by encouraging us to “do the following with any statistic about Christianity:”

• Question whether it’s accurate
• Question the motives of the person writing
• Disagree with the conclusions
• Judge the statistic in light of your own experiences
• Not believe it for any reason, including just being in a cranky mood.

I took those encouragements to heart when writing my review, and even though I did disagree at points with Bradley Wright, I still found it an excellent book that will help many Christians understand both themselves and their place in the society in which they find themselves. Understanding where we are in regards to issues that we face will help us move towards finding solutions. Reading Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites… and Other Lies You’ve Been Told would certainly be a good first step.

Disclaimer
I contributed the graph “Religious migration changes” on page 102 of the book. Bradley Wright, recognized this contribution in the books acknowledgments, footnotes, and on page 101. He also sent me a free copy of the book.

The problem is that where I live, Evangelicals are in the minority. In my community of 27,000 there is one Evangelical church. I helped start it. It was a Pentecostal church, and although I am not Pentecostal I figured that having one Evangelical church in town was better than having no Evangelical church, and so I offered my help.

My wife and I served under two Pastors there. We led worship, served on the leadership team, served on the pastoral search committee, taught Sunday School, and organized outreaches and banquets. All the while I was dreading the time when the church would become large enough to receive its “organized” status. For when the church received this status, membership would have to be formalized. We didn’t qualify. Membership required agreement to the statement of faith, and we didn’t believe the Pentecostal teaching on tongues.

Eventually we felt God calling us away from this church community, and we had a very amicable parting of the ways. We ended up at a church in another community, which unfortunately due to competing visions within its elders’ board closed its doors three years later. As we looked at other churches, most had something in their statement of faith that excluded us. They were either too Calvinist, or too fundamentalist, or too dispensational, or too anti-Charismatic for us to fit.

After a long search we found a church in a third community. We quite love it, and I have some very good things to say about it. Again, we didn’t qualify for membership, this time because my wife’s mode of baptism differed slightly from theirs. Although we do not believe in rebaptism (especially for those who have already been baptized as believers), our desire to belong eventually became stronger that our distaste for rebaptism and my wife was rebaptized. We became members shortly afterwards.

Are there others like me who have difficulty belonging? Conversations with people at places like Internetmonk.com make me think that my experience is hardly unique. So here are some questions I would like us to consider:

1. Does requiring agreement with a statement of faith lead to increased fragmentation within the body of Christ?

2. Or are there essentials that need to be agreed upon no matter what in order for someone to be accepted as a member?

3. If Christ has accepted me as a member of his body, are there ways to make it easier for me to be accepted into a local church body?

4. Could we lessen the requirement of membership in many evangelical churches, so that prospective members do not have to give complete agreement to a statement of faith, but instead will agree to uphold it and not teach contrary to it?

5. Are there similar situations in other faith traditions? If so, are there resolution that have been seen to work?

6. Finally, what could you do in your church to help people in my situation become part of your congregation and membership?

I don’t have a problem with a church having a statement of faith. I feel it is a good tool to say “this is what we are about as a church.” Is it not possible to say that “We welcome those who have slightly differing viewpoints” as long as they agree to uphold and abide by the statement of faith”?

Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

By Michael Bell

A study just published in the March issue of the Social Psychology Quarterly confirms what many liberals and atheists have told us for years. Those who hold to conservative religious beliefs are just not as smart as their liberal and atheistic counterparts.

Based upon data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the General Social Surveys, two VERY large studies of American youth, Satoshi Kanazawa found the following:

1a. Average IQ of very liberal youth – 106
1b. Average IQ of very conservative youth – 95

2a. Average IQ of those young adults “not at all religious” – 103
2b. Average IQ of “very religious” young adults – 97.

It would then follow that the average liberal atheist is quite a bit smarter than the average religious conservative.

But what does this all really mean?

First lets represent this graphically.

As you can see, roughly 68 percent of the population falls within an IQ of 85 and 115. If we look at the differences between the conservatives and the liberals, you will note that the conservative red bar is significantly to the left of the liberal blue bar. (If you are a Canadian reader, please note that I am using a U.S. color scheme. In Canada, the colors are reversed for liberals and conservatives.)

I decided to look for further data that would confirm or deny these results, and I found it in two places. If a higer IQ is related to liberal thinking then you would think that if we could determine IQ by state then we could cross reference it against voting patterns or church attendance to see sort of impact differences in IQ might have. A hoax website, that has been duplicated widely by people not realizing it was a host, showed just that. In this hoax almost all states with a higher IQ voted Democrat and almost the states with a lower IQ voted Republican. The chart was even published in the Economist magazine, for which they later had to offer a retraction. I see that the same fake study has shown up for the 2008 election as well.

The truth is that there is a difference, though it is not as great as the fake websites have shown. The true relationship showing the difference between IQ and state voting patterns is shown below. (IQ by State is calculated here.)

For each state I have plotted IQ on the horizonal (x) axis and voting share on the vertical (y) axis. You can see that there really is quite a lot of variety between IQ and political preference. This is demonstrated by the intersection of IQ and voting percentage represented by dots on the graph. The lines running on a diagonal through the graph are called “best fit” lines, and they show that on average, a one point increase in IQ leads to between a .36 and .58 decrease in Republican support, depending upon the election. Notice that I wrote “on average”, because as we all know that there are really intelligent people, and really unintelligent people at both ends of the political spectrum.

The best fit lines are even more striking when it comes to charting IQ against Church attendance. This is the matter to which I want to draw our attention to most. As can be seen from the graph below, on average, a one percent increase in IQ corresponds with a 1.4 percent drop in church attendance. Clearly the idea that the smarter you are the least likely you are to be religious in an idea with some validity.

I confirmed the data through a third source, though this was not a properly randomized study its results mirrored what we see above. In Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) has a yearly test the nation challenge. The results were much higher than a truly randomized test, and typically, the smarter you are, the more willing you would be to take a test like this. Those who took the test also answered some questions that would help to determine things like political groupings, or religious leanings. In Canada, the political parties are not as differentiated as they are in the United States, so it was not surprising to see that all the primary parties (we have five up here) scored within two points of each other.

Religion showed a much wider difference. Those who called themselves religious scored on average almost three IQ points below those who called themselves atheist, and almost four IQ points below those who called themselves agnostic. This spread is not as large as what we saw for the U.S. data, but still quite significant.

So why does this happen?

While Kanazawa, the author of the original study, uses an evolutionary argument to explain the difference, I think some of the reasons for this disparity can be something quite a bit simpler.

It has been proven that IQ has been increasing with each succeeding generation. One of explanations for this is an increased information flow in each successive generation. It would follow then that you would expect a higher IQ in an urban area compared to a rural area, not because of political leaning, but as a result of geography and urbanization. The CBC data also tended to confirm this idea that IQ is higher in larger metropolitan areas. As there is also strong correlation between conservatism and rural areas, and liberalism and urban areas, you would expect a higher IQ from liberals living in urban areas. We have to be careful with our cause and effect relationship here. Are people liberal because they are smarter, or are they are smarter because they live in an urban area with increased access to information? Are there other factors that make urban areas more liberal than rural areas? These are questions that are perhaps beyond the scope of what can be handled in this post.

Secondly, because we are looking at adolescents, we know that they will question some of the presuppositions of their parents or society as a whole. This can be seen in election campaigns where youth are dramatically more liberal than the generation that preceded them. We also might make the assumption that the smarter you are, the more that you might be likely to question societal standards, and so the more likely in a conservative society that you will be liberal. I have also read an argument that in a liberal education system, the smarter kids will absorb more of the liberal ideas, and so will increase the correlation between IQ and liberal thought. Again, these are just theories, you might have some better ones.

U.S. Evangelicals 2000

These same two arguments can also be used when considering IQ and religious trends. Could it be that geography plays a significant role in the IQs of those who are religious and those who are Atheist or Agnostic. As you can see from the accompanying graph, Evangelical Christians certainly are more concentrated in certain regions.

So what are we to do?

Regardless of the reasons for the difference, there is a problem. One of the concerns that Michael Spencer spoke of in the “Coming Evangelical Collapse”, was the Christian shunning of higher education. He writes:

Despite some very successful developments in the last 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can hold the line in the rising tide of secularism. The ingrown, self-evaluated ghetto of evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself. I believe Christian schools always have a mission in our culture, but I am skeptical that they can produce any sort of effect that will make any difference. Millions of Christian school graduates are going to walk away from the faith and the church.

Chaplain Mike Mercer, in his recent post on staying in the discussion, wrote the following:

Christians have nothing to fear from science. What we should be afraid of is being marginalized, not because of our thoughtful and considerate faith, but because we think it is somehow faithful to refuse to imagine we might be wrong in some of our assumptions or commitments. I, for one, am thankful for serious Bible scholars like Waltke, who has not stopped thinking and who continues to use his gifts in active engagement with truth from many different sources.

I agree… up to a point. There is a verse on the wall at the front of our church sanctuary. Wir aber predigen den gekreuzigten Christus. (My church is of a German heritage.) For those in the congregation, like me, who don’t understand German, they finally added the reference last year, 1 Corinthians 1:23. But we preach the crucified Christ, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. Our message is one that doesn’t make sense. To the Jews, a crucified Messiah was a paradox that they could not get there minds around. For the non-Jew, a leader sentenced to death is not much of a leader to follow.

This is a theme of Paul’s throughout the early chapters of 1st Corinthians:

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God… For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe… but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles… For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength… The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The message of the good news of Jesus Christ is a hard one to accept. It will appear as foolishness to many. We need to engage with those around us. We need to engage with science. We need to be prepared to have an answer for the hope that is within us. We need to not put up unneccessary stumbling blocks. But we also need to be prepared to be seen as fools in the eyes of the world.

I leave you with the word’s of Michael Card:

Seems I’ve imagined Him all of my life
As the wisest of all of mankind
But if God’s Holy wisdom is foolish to men
He must have seemed out of His mind

For even His family said He was mad
And the priest say a demon’s to blame
But God in the form of this angry young man
Could not have seemed perfectly sane

Chorus
We in our foolishness thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
And we in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
And so we follow God’s own fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable
Come be a fool as well

So come lose our life for a carpenter’s son
For a man who had died for a dream
And you’ll feel the faith His first followers had
And you’ll feel the weight of the beam
So surrender the hunger to say you must know
Have the courage to say I believe
For the power of paradox opens your eyes
And blinds those who say they can see

Chorus

So we follow God’s own Fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable, come be a fool as well

Are Liberals and Atheists smarter? Maybe, but this is one guy who doesn’t mind being a fool for God.

Today’s post is by IM First Officer Michael Bell.

It was my birthday today, April 5th. Easter Monday. It will be a day that I will now forever remember for two reasons, for my friend Michael Spencer, also passed away today. I mourn for a friend, whose passing will leave a hole in my life, but I grieve much more for those he has left behind, who have lost a husband, father, and pastor/shepherd. He has been a pastor/shepherd to so many of us, leading us through the “Evangelical Wilderness.” His blog, www.internetmonk.com, was a home for so many who struggled in their own church home, or who struggled even to find a church home.

Michael had been blogging for 10 years, long before most of us knew that there was such a thing as blogging. Yet, it seemed that he was just starting to come into his prime, where the rest of the world was just starting to discover the incredible writing gift that God had given him. Reading Michael’s blog has been one of the first things that I would do every morning for the past three years. I rejoiced that I had found another kindred spirit who understood me, placed a priority on many of the same that were important to me, and struggled with many of the same issues with which I struggled. Not only that, but he gave voice to a community of people, who had concerns with what they saw in the church, but who’s voice was not being heard. As I read Michael each morning, my jaw would often drop with the profoundness of what was written, and I would marvel at the gift that God had given this remarkable individual. I would often exclaim to my wife, “How does he come up with such incredible material day after day after day!” Michael loved baseball, and to use a baseball analogy, it was like he had an on base average of .900, swatting 100+ home runs a season.

But first and foremost, Michael was about the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ. This was what was closest to his heart, and what drew me to him. His concern was that in all the many things that the church was doing, the gospel was being obscured. This was his greatest concern, and to what he paid the most attention in his writting. He regretted that so many people got the wrong idea from the “Coming Evangelical Collapse”, that more than anything it was a call to action, a call to return to the first love of the good news that God has given us.

So, while horribly sad, it seems somewhat appropriate that Easter would be the time when God would call him home. For Easter is a time of good news, and Michael’s life was all about proclaiming this good news of Jesus Christ. This was his unceasing focus, and one that he maintained until the very end.

I echo the words of the Apostle Paul:

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

—Philippians 1: 3-6

In the words of Jesus Christ: “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

Today’s post is from IM First Officer Michael Bell.

This past year has been a difficult one for me medically. In March I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, which for the uninformed means that I stop breathing while sleeping, for up to 90 seconds at a time, up to 60 times an hour. So now I have to sleep with a mask, which I absolutely hate. Then just before Christmas I got a flu bug. While things are not confirmed yet, it appears as if the virus attacked my pancreas. As a result I have become diabetic, and as of this writing the medicines have not been working, I am off work, and I may have to be started on insulin injections. One of the earlier symptoms that I was experiencing was a foggy brain, and making uncharacteristic mistakes at work.

So you might be wondering how I am feeling about this. Well, to be honest, not too bad. I think that recent events in Haiti, along with Michael Spencer’s current health difficulties help me to realize that I don’t really have much to complain about. I have a lovely, loving wife, three great kids, a house, a job, and a church I love.

The diabetes will eventually get under control. I have been losing weight and that should start to help with the sleep apnea. My life continues not that much different from the way it was a year ago.

Michael Spencer faces a much more difficult future. His income has ended, his health insurance is ending, and he faces some very trying times ahead with his cancer. Michael has given so much of himself to this blog over the last number of years.

As a community of Internet Monk readers, I would urge each of us to be a blessing to Michael Spencer. Please consider using the Pay Pal button to make a gift to Michael. Let us see what we can do to meet the needs of one of our own.