I would suggest that the IM blog and IM radio podcast audience are made up of people who may, at least at some point, have felt they were “the only ones,” or one of a few.

Slowly, as books and blogs and stories and coffee shop conversations proliferated, their view changed.

Now, they/we know. There are thousands of us at a thousand different places in the evangelical wilderness. Our experiences in evangelicalism weren’t exactly what we originally thought. Given a place to stop, listen and talk, it turns out there are many of us, not just a few. No one seems to have a map, everyone seems to have a story. Very few of us want to go back to whatever evangelicalism was when we were happily going along with the show.

We are simply here, and we’re greatly strengthened by the stories we’re hearing and the reality we’ve discovered can’t be questioned.

Whenever I write, I’m aware of this. An audience exists around this web site and around some of what I have written, who understand what the wilderness experience means. They do not all want or even understand the post-evangelical label. They do not all agree with me or my pessimism about the future. They are not a “movement.” (Good grief.) They are not all reading Brian Mclaren, or N.T. Wright or Don Miller. They are not all anything, any denomination or any common complaint. They are not some common hoard of emerging caricatures.

We are every denomination, every age, both genders, in and out of ministry, holding on to different parts of what we once were. We take encouragement from some of the same voices, but we are most definitely not anyone’s club of the discontented. We are tribes, hermits, monastics, liberals, conservatives, traditionalists, emergers, contemplatives, prophets, lamenters, artists, solo players and plodders. Most of us have found a place to live out this wilderness experience and we go to work every day doing something for Jesus.

The audience for what I write is very real and very there….having an experience that my critics will endlessly and tirelessly describe as nothing more than the whimperings and whinings of people who can’t get over some aspect of their fundamentalist past or can’t see the glory of the evangelical present and future.

This audience has found thousands of faithful and happy evangelicals, but it has also found those who have left, are leaving and will leave. The people with no where to go. The people who don’t know what to do with their experience in evangelicalism. The people who have found shelter in some half-way house, oasis or way station.

For eight years of blogging and for most of three years of controversy, this audience has grown every year.

I could name the names of other individual Christian bloggers with large audiences and no one would embarrass themselves saying they were illusions or insignificant. But my audience? Apparently this audience either isn’t there, doesn’t matter or should be labeled as the source of the problem.

Be that as it may, the audience for this blog is real. They can be diagnosed, shuttled off to the back lot with all the other wimps, cranks and troubled kids who won’t behave. You can dispose of this audience with a word and swish of your rhetorical wand, but this audience, its experiences and its place in and out of an evangelicalism gone sour is not imaginary.

This audience and their experience of evangelicalism is part of what is happening in evangelicalism, right there along side the culture war and the latest efforts to save everything with a conference. There is no amount of diagnosing me personally that is going to make one person in the IM/IMR audience cease to exist, cease to have their experience or cease to find themselves moving out of, through and beyond evangelicalism.

If you think it’s about me being “sensitive,” well have a coke and stay a while. Ask yourself if my lack of obsequiousness is the real core issue here. Ask yourself why the blogosphere would be such a pleasant place in some corners if I just closed up shop? Ask yourself what it is that this blog and its numbers represent? Ask yourself how the stories- and people- on this blog would be treated elsewhere?

Then go back to being REAL, IM audience. That’s what you do best.

COMMENTS OPEN!

COMMENTS CLOSED

No one reading, writing or commenting on the posts in this interview has ever been as angry as yours truly over the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. In ‘07 and ‘08, I was torn apart by this question.

Being unable to commune with my wife or Catholic friends, knowing my ordination to the Gospel ministry is considered invalid and having my community denied even the dignity of being “church” instead of the tedious nomenclature of “ecclesial community” galls me as much today as it has any time in the past two years.

I can’t speak for others, but few Protestants have invested the time in seeking to understand Catholicism and seeing its version of Christianity from a sympathetic position as I have as I worked through my wife’s move to the RCC.

I have taken the case for Catholicism’s claims as honestly and openly as possible, whether from Thomas Howard, Louis Bouyer, Scott Hahn, Lawrence Feingold or dozens of real life and online friends. I’ve been greatly enriched by my Catholic reading and where it has taken me.

I appreciate the worship, reverence, holiness, sacrifice, devotion and prayerfulness I see in Catholic Christians. In the category of Jesus shaped spirituality, there is much to affirm about the Catholic way of being Christian.

On many days, I have probably wanted the case for Catholicism to be persuasive more than most any Protestant you know. My life and home would be much different were I able to say “this is true.”

But ultimately, I am unconvinced. Ultimately, I am no closer than ever and less impressed with the answers on issues like the development of doctrine or the perpetual virginity of Mary. As much as I sense the sincerity and respectful openness in Bryan’s explanation of his passion for unity in the Catholic Church, it is not the goal of my journey to come into union with the RCC as I understand it.

The reasons may seem entirely pedestrian; not significantly different than most other evangelicals, though hopefully stated with less ignorance, animus and arrogance than some.

What continues to haunt me, however, is not the resolution of my own differences with Catholicism. I’m quite satisfied that, minus some devastating alteration in my own view of faith, God and the church, I’ll be a Protestant on the bus with the “Happy Enough” Protestants till the end of my ride.

Liturgy? Yes, and more of it. Catholicism without the dogmatic claims of Rome? I applaud. The Great Tradition and the common story we share up till 1517, and to a large extent, beyond? Yes, enthusiastically.

My problem remains that when I have once again worked through the claims and chosen my Protestant and evangelical “ecclesial community,” invalid ordination, paltry sacraments and all, I am still in a growing evangelical wilderness.

We’ve passed Reformation day, and what have we done? Come 500 years and we need a Reformation as much as Rome ever did.

We are a movement of strutting preachers. When Bryan Cross says he grew tired of “man-talk” and “men-talking,” my stomach goes nauseous with familiarity. A friend asked me today what was “with you and this liturgy.” My answer: men talking, on and on and on. Truly. If nothing else describes us, it is that: a movement of talking, talking, talking; preachers talking about whatever they have decided I need to hear. Some better, most worse, some painful, some edifying, but in the main, unimpressive and tediously mundane.

We traded the errors of Rome for what we have now. I can be glad we do not believe in the assumption of Mary or in indulgences, but from there, I’m left sad that I can go weeks without hearing the Gospel, but never a day without moralism, culture war idolatry and consumer church.

Rejoicing that we have abandoned the errors of infallibility seems embarrassing when evangelicals have infallible popes by the dozen.

Gospel-centrism is harnessed to gender, worship style, theories of the atonement, arguments over personalities, definitions and even Bible translations. I recommended Liberty University to one of my most conservative students. A relative told her it was “corrupt.” This is evangelicalism. You cannot be so orthodox that some other evangelical won’t find you worthless and apostate.

Can we do any better with this reformation heritage of ours? Is this the best we can do? The endless cacophony of division? The constant tyranny of celebrity spirituality? The Jesus-less culture war that is meant to show us a kingdom without a cross presided over by the disciples of a savior deeply concerned about elections and referendums.

Is this the best we can do? Contemporary evangelicalism’s hour of praise music? Extreme youth ministries? Addiction to the Prosperity cancer? Or the new fad of criticizing the critics. Let’s all say the church is fine, doing fine, just fine, oh fine, she’s fine…….

Where has all this being right in comparisons Catholics gotten us? In my own “most evangelistic” of denominations the chances of hearing the Gospel on a Sunday morning in half of our churches is a crap shoot.

While I watch Catholics have serious worship and serious spiritual formation in scripture and the virtues of deep spirituality, I’ll keep asking: is this the best we can do?

Right answers only go so far. With us, it seems that after 500 years, we don’t know where we are going. The ship feels listless, but the ever-talking crew assures us that all is well.

But I’ve also learned what it is that snags me, and it’s not always the big issues. It’s usually one word. Yes, one word can throw my switch and give me an almost irresistible yearning to argue my point.

Three examples from the last 24 hours:

1) A debate is going on several places on the blogosphere around this question: “Are the doctrinally obsessed missing the heart of Jesus?”

My answer is a simply “yes,” and the reason is one word: obsessed. You said it. Not me.

Obsessed isn’t doctrinally interested, doctrinally aware or doctrinally correct. Doctrinally obsessed isn’t someone who makes doctrine a priority or who even brings it up frequently. Obsession is….obsession. Single mindedness. Idolatry. Loss of perspective.

I’m obsessed with vanilla oreos. When we are two weeks into February, I’m obsessed with “pitchers and catchers report.” I’m close to obsessed with a new Apple laptop. I’m obsessed with my family’s safety.

If I were obsessed with doctrine, I would be perverting my experience of the heart of Jesus, because obsession with doctrine is against the teaching and example of Jesus himself. Love God with all your heart, etc. Don’t be obsessed with the outlines and definitions. Let them do their good work. See the Pharisees for more information and I Corinthians 13 for a good picture of what we’re going for.

Doctrine rightly placed and rightly valued clarifies and carries the Gospel of Jesus. It centers it and gives it language. Obsession with doctrine equates Jesus with a right view of justification. If we don’t know the difference, our Christianity will become debate points and our discipleship nothing but promoting and publishing our favorite ideas.

2) An IM commenter says about Douglas Wilson, “…My abusive marriage was, in so many ways, modeled on his book, “Reforming Marriage.” (No disrespect to this commenter, with whom I greatly sympathize, as I do with all abused persons. Her comment simply raises an ongoing issue in talking about traditionalists and complementarians.)

I’m not a complementarian, but I understand and respect complementarians. I don’t agree with all of their rhetoric and I don’t agree with all of Wilson’s dramatic metaphors and illustrations in his early work on marriage (and on several other things as well.)

Now I don’t know what behavior the commenter is calling abusive, so I’m not assuming I know everything that went on in a family. That being said, the word “modeled” implies that Wilson would endorse the behavior the commenter calls an “abusive marriage.” I take your presentation and I seek to copy it, i.e. “model” it. It implies the abuser was following the words of Wilson in being abusive, not distorting or twisting them into abusive actions Wilson would not approve of and did not suggest. (I understand that Wilson’s rhetoric of male leadership inevitably leads to excesses with some people, and I have never known a complementarian that didn’t address that. But I lament the lack of focus on abuse, and have written about that here at IM.)

I don’t think we are going to get anywhere in talking about the differences in living out gender relations as Christians if we say taking the other fellow’s book at face value will lead you to abuse. We have to take a more complex view. Wilson is a great target, but great targets aren’t necessarily right targets.)

Anyone who has ever talked with an atheist who knows the Bible is aware of how someone can take many statements in scripture- such as the endorsement of stoning rebellious children to death – and say that abusive parents are “modeling” their abuse on a passage in Leviticus.

Here’s the problem: the writer’s choice of an illustration does not determine the ethics of a person undertaking an action. That ancient Israelites could stone their children in extreme cases and be right doesn’t imply that I should abuse my child and assume I’m right. No, no. That Wilson says a woman must be led by strong male leadership may fall far short of what I understand to be the New Testament message on family life, but it doesn’t give anyone permission to abuse a spouse and I don’t think complementarian views on male leadership make that jump without the addition of the male sinful nature. (Ever hear Mark Driscoll go off on the abusive men in his church?)

Someone who “models” their abuse on someone’s endorsement of strong complementarianism- such as you might see among traditional Amish or among Orthodox Jews- is not being approved in their abusiveness. They distorting a guideline.

I’m all for telling Wilson to chill out on some of those rhetorical theatrics, but the responsibility for abuse can’t be shuttled over to complementarians like Wilson, who teach that women are to be honored and loved as Christ loved the church.

Better sentence, in my opinion: “My confused husband took ideas from men like Douglas Wilson and misused them as a justification for abuse.” On target and helpful in this discussion.

3) My friend Mel says that “Swine flu is mostly hype, stirred up by the President and the media to get the public to support health care.”

The word that gets my attention: “hype.”

Hype as in “The reported numbers aren’t accurate?” Or hype as in “The reported deaths didn’t occur?” Hype as in “They are making this stuff up?” Really?

Now, if hype means “lack of context,” count me in. There’s not enough context in this discussion to be seen under a microscope.

And the public’s lack of scientific knowledge- it’s a known virus, people- is appalling. This isn’t the plague. 90,000 people die from the flu in a typical year in the U.S. The vulnerable populations don’t vary with any of these kinds of diseases. Various protocols are acceptable, but viruses aren’t going to be daunted. They’ve managed to be quite successful on planet earth.

And swine flu as political? How far is that from Farrakhan’s line that AIDS was invented in government labs to kill blacks? Not much different, because now he’s saying swine flu is a plot to kill blacks. When you join the conspiracy club, please take note who else is at the party

The “hype” could be the swine flue, or it could be the various interpretations of why we keep hearing about it. Does someone really believe the President calls in the story? “I want H1N1 on the front page?” His own kids aren’t vaccinated!

Here’s no hype: H1N1 is getting attention because news networks are dying in a war with the internet. Disease, terrorism, crime, entertainment and financial apocalypse keep an audience on the line so advertisers will still pay for Cialis commercials. End of plot.

You can’t just make this stuff up. Mess it up? Sure, but not make it up.

So there you have it: Obsession, modeled and hype. My three words for today. Who knows what tomorrow’s words will be?

At no point does that seem more obvious than in the recent evolution of worship within evangelicalism.

Does anyone- I mean, really, seriously- have any idea what is actually happening within the worship culture of evangelicals?

We have, within a matter of 50 years, completely changed the entire concept of what is a worship service. We’ve adopted an approach that demands ridiculous levels of musical, technical and financial commitment and resources.

We have tied ourselves to the Christian music industry and its endless appetite for change and profit. We have accepted that all of our worship leaders are going to be very, very young people. Traditional worship – a la Tenth Presbyterian in Philly- is on the verge of becoming a museum piece.

The reformed- of all people- have led the way in this revolution. I attended a seminar last week where a room full of reformed were instructed in why the optimum worship leadership option was “the band.” Not the choir, the worship team, etc. But “the band.” Does anyone realize what that means for public worship?

Diversity, generational compatibility, even simplicity are all being blown up. Worship is now a major audience event, led by skilled entertainers, aimed at a demographic and judged by the audience reaction.

God? God has been moved around to be things like a reluctant Spirit we sing down with our songs or a divine innovator always blessing as much radical change as possible.

Why do I call this a goof? Because there is no way for this to end well. This is like a NASCAR car with the throttle stuck open. We’re stuck on a roller coaster and we can’t get off.

Worship has now become a musical term. Praise and worship means music. Let’s worship means the band will play. We need to give more time to worship doesn’t mean silent prayer or public scripture reading or any kind of participatory liturgy. It means music.

Even singing is getting lost in this. As the volume and the performance level goes up, who knows who is singing?

And who can stand for 20, 30 or 40 minutes?

We have a lot of happy people right now. They have no idea what Biblical worship is outside of the context of their favorite songs played by a kickin’ band. They have little idea of worship in vocation, in family, in ordinary work or in silence. They credit their favorite songs as major spiritual events.

We have goofed up. Simple, plain liturgy. Diversity and inclusion. Appreciation and full Biblical understanding. Cross generational intentionality and suspicion of the profit motive. Renouncing the spirit of competition. Hearing the prophetic warnings about God’s disgust with much of Israel’s “big show” worship culture. We need all of this.

We need Jesus shaped worship, and we need worship that promotes a simple, direct, uncompromising Jesus shaped spirituality.
_______________________

Commenters: If you start a discussion on hymns vs choruses I will not post it. Read that sentence twice.

A bunch of things that occurred to me today, all related to the internet and what we do on it and with it.

1. It strikes me that the predominant sins in this medium are narcissism and waste. We need to differentiate narcissism from various kinds of legitimate self-revelation, but we need to proclaim that narcissism is a sin many of us are absolutely exulting in.

And waste is waste. Time. Affections. Work. Mental energy. Significance.

2. Was that first moment of excitement that came along with self-publishing (wherever you did it) a good thing? Was it “Hello? Anyone else out there?” Or was it “Now, the world will know about ME?” Or was it something else? I remember it. Compuserve. The SBC Forums. And then the first versions of my blog, which was about the Gospel of Mark. And the first emails that someone was reading. I was thrilled, and I wanted more.

Was all of that a good thing? Or was there seduction in there as well?

I know the answer to that question, and I just don’t like to think about it.

3. The temptations of this medium are so near to us we ought to be seriously intimidated. It used to take work to see pornography, ruin a reputation or even to waste time. Now, you can corrupt your character and waste your day far beyond what television ever made possible, just by sitting in a chair and clicking. And we are all so confident that having this amount of dynamite in the house is manageable.

You now have access to all the worst information and worst habits and indulgences in the world. How are you doing with that access?

4. What has it done to marriages? Do you ever notice that people seem to be saying stuff over the net that they probably are not saying to their wife/husband, pastor, real friends or anyone else? I don’t want to overdo that. My wife doesn’t need to hear all my thoughts on theology. But there are people in the same house, sitting in separate rooms, talking on computers to people in other houses doing the same things, and not talking to one another. At Christmas, when we finished opening the gifts at the grandparents house, all the younger members of the family whipped out the phones and starting checking mail and texting. It was very quiet.

5. Theology students: Have you worked out how a student behaves as compared to a teacher? Do you have a personal commitment to living out the difference between an amateur and a professional? The internet has allowed every theology student in the world- the bright ones, the not so bright ones, the ones with amazing things to say, the ones with nothing to say- to all have a web page with a Latin title infested with posts about the importance of expository preaching, the problem with N.T. Wright and the good news that some of their professors agree with them.

It’s too much, boys. Too much. Most of your professors are rarely heard from in this medium. (I’m not saying that’s a good thing. It’s just a fact.) But vast numbers of you are buzzing away like a swarm of theological locusts. I believe in free speech, but let’s find some of the status of a student, and let’s embrace it with a commitment to sound like a student.

I have a favorite blogger who is a one of the finest theological minds I’ve ever encountered. I carry several pages of some of his posts in my satchel all the time.

He quit blogging. He said he was a student.

6. But here’s the other thing. Why do I listen to so many people on the internet that I really do not want to hear from or about?

Don’t get me wrong. I like these people. I do. Really.

I just don’t care what they are eating. Or what their kids are saying. Or what store they are at. Or what chore they just started. Or what they are studying or what music they are listening to. Or a hundred other perfectly normal, good things that I really do not need to know and shouldn’t be reading about anyone. The Pope. Obama. LaBron. Anyone.

Imagine if ten years ago someone had said “We have a new service where you can get a recorded message from any and all of your friends telling you what they are doing at that very moment. It will come by phone.”

The idea of your phone ringing all day to tell you that Bob was at the grocery would have sounded like a nightmare.

Well…..here we are.

I started calculating today how much my Twitter client and Facebook status checks cost me in time (if I have them on) while I’m working.

I’m 52. I do not have this kind of time. And neither do you if you are 18.

It’s too much. It’s not community. It’s not socializing. It’s too much. There are things I need to do. Books to read and write. People next door and in hospitals and shut in to talk to. Letters to write. Thoughts to think. Dreams to dream. Music to listen to. (And I can do all of this without taking another two hours of my day to tell you all about it.)

Yes, I bear some guilt, so stop wagging your finger. I’m just thinking here.

7. Some of you are surrounded by people who are on the net or twitter of facebook all the time, so you can talk about these things in the real world. But I’m not. Everytime I catch myself saying the words “internet friend” I hesitate. What did I just say? What does that mean?

A bunch of my best friends are people I never see. Is that good?

I say things like “there’s a controversy in the blogosphere about….,” and I realize that for most of the people who hear that, I might as well have said “There’s a controversy on Saturn.”

Is this good? Is this “social networking?” Really? Why does it feel like I’m spending a lot of time listening for something that I know good and well isn’t worth the investment of time to listen for it.

8. I know. I sound like I’m selling buggy whips. This medium has been very, very good to me, and here I am grousing about it. I just don’t think we’re thinking about it much.

We’re googling, not thinking. Not reading. Not asking questions.

We’re given these immense tools, and we’re not using them all that well or wisely. Some of us are doing a much better job than others. Please teach the rest of us how to be better stewards. Or how to repent.

There are real treasures out here, and I do not deny that or have any plans to abandon the good uses of the medium. But we no longer live in a time when anything is just one thing. Any one thing, especially in the world of technology, is actually many things, and it always demands of us more thought, more careful engagement, more willingness to sacrifice and more calls for honesty.

Your constructive thoughts are welcome as well….

David Wilkerson (Cross and the Switchblade, Times Square Church) is predicting a world changing disaster, and advises that you dust off those cans of Spam you still have from Y2k. It’s getting serious coverage by the unhinged conservative media.

I wrote about Evangelical anxiety about the end of the world in the “Evangelical Anxieties” series in February of 07. Not only have I not changed my mind, I’m more bothered by this than ever.

If eschatology were a multiple choice question, with answers like this:

a) be Christ centered
b) proclaim the Gospel
c) do missions and evangelism
d) look forward to the new heaven and the new earth
e) be idiots

…guess what a large chunk of Evangelicalism would choose?

Evangelicals really can’t get enough of this stuff. Wilkerson- and a thousand other end times prophets like Kim CLement- have predicted similar events before. The “end of the world” section of the bookstore is only the front end of the “end of the world warehouse” that stores all the books that have been predicting the end of the world as long as evangelical authors could find a pen.

In no other area of Christian belief are Evangelicals more irresponsible and bizarrely repetitive. If doing the same thing, over and over and over again with no result, qualifies as a form of mental illness, then we can fill up an entire chain of hospitals. We’re talking about people who will take their eschatology and turn it into a VIDEO GAME here.

The Bible is obviously too simple for Evangelicals at this point. The instincts of some Christians tell them that it never can just mean what it says. So when Jesus says “no one knows, not even the Son,” or “don’t believe people who say they know,” it actually means “Oh yeah, we can know ALL about future events. Just get the right teacher with a big chart and you’re in there.”

Maybe it’s the fact that weird eschatology is the closest thing Christianity has to the kind of material that shows up on the Sci-Fi channel late at night. Bad acting. Cheap special effects. Teenagers caught having sex. Maybe rapture anxiety just plays like a bad B-movie, so Evangelicals get it.

The history of Christian apocalyticism is a story in and of itself. I recommend Jason Boyett’s Pocket Guide To The Apocalypse. Seriously. Get it. Good book with lots of humor and even more information.

I am never more envious of Catholics/Orthodox than on the subjects of evolution and eschatology. Catholics simply don’t lose their minds over this sort of thing. The catechism is calm. If the pope has anything to say about the end of the world, it must be edited out. You’d never hear Benedict going on like Tim Lahaye. (Too bad Art Bell isn’t on Christian radio.)

I’m sure Catholics and Orthodox have their hysterical eschatology committees like every other religion, and I’m sure Fr. So and So is out there in the road with a placard proclaiming the end, but you just get the impression that Catholics are in the “it will all work out” camp, and they aren’t going to get in the bunker with Ned Flanders. Have a beer. Go to a Barbeque. Don’t start screaming. No one likes a religion with people screaming.

Evangelicals don’t seem to blink when they realize that the business of various apocalyptic scenarios is making millions of dollars for people convinced it’s all about to be over. They don’t mind that the people making these prophecies either abuse, don’t use, or no longer need to use a Bible. No, from Thief in the Night to 89 Reasons Christ Will Return in 1989, we just keep on keepin’ on.

My evangelical students read Left Behind with far more interest than they read scripture. If everyone who read Left Behind read ONE other decent Christian book, a Great Awakening would arrive. My students also assume that all Christians buy into this approach to the future. I haven’t met one yet, in 17 years, that has a pastor who even sent clue one that we might not be on the verge of the great tribulation because the stock market is zonked. Judgment house. Hell house. Rapture house. We really need an amusement park to get the whole show together.

Does it occur to most Evangelicals that their brothers and sisters around the world sort of LIVE in the Apocalypse? If we have a Columbine or a Katrina, John Hagee is n TV the next night with a chart so big you can see it behind him. Meanwhile, in Sudan, it’s all just another day at the office.

Americans are afraid of the end. They are afraid of losing their life here. They don’t want II Thessalonians 1 to happen. They want to keep running up their credit cards and driving the leased SUV.

Kingdom? New world? End of old world? Resurrection? Christ all in all?

Missional hope? Reach the nations? Gospel to every people group? Bible in every language?

Don’t be bothered by earthquakes, rumors of wars, bank collapses, elections, etc?

Nah. Put in the next Left Behind movie. The one where Kirk Cameron sings “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” to Carpathia.

[Comment ideas: 1) Catholics and Orthodox are allowed one comment to make fun of evangelicals. 2) What's your best story about Evangelicals and Apocalypse fever?]

Recently, I received an email from someone who has been a longtime reader of this blog, giving his reasons for being a regular reader and generous supporter.

This particular reader appreciated the writing I’ve done on the subjects of mental illness, psychiatric medication and emotional health. As this person is a professional in those fields and far beyond me in understanding, I was understandably happy to read that email.

I have received many thousands of emails in the last 8 years of Internet Monk. A sizable portion express appreciation for something that deserves a moment’s consideration: that this blog is one of the few places some folks have found where certain points of view can be discussed with relative civility.

I won’t attempt a listing, but any regular readers will know that I’ve made it part of the mission of this blog to be present an alternative view of any number of issues within evangelicalism in particular. I do so with provocative writing if possible, and with active moderation of the discussion. I’ve done this without expectation of finding there would be thousands of people reading and thinking “SO I’m not the only person who feels this way.” In fact, I’ve expected considerably more hostility and objection than I’ve received.

Recently, the IM comment threads have started routinely going over 100 comments. Interpret that as you will. In all the time I’ve done this blog, I have temporarily banned around 20 people, and absolutely banned 2.

Yesterday, a commenter aired the usual complaints at me:

I don’t affirm inerrancy.
I’m critical of “my brethren.”
I give “Papists and liberals” plenty of space.
I limit conversation.

Of course, as most readers know, I fully affirm the truthfulness of the Bible in the language of the Second London Confession and the Westminster Confession. Ask any of the dozens of advocates of gay marriage and gay ordination how I’m doing on taking the Bible seriously. What I’m not doing is allowing the word “inerrancy” to become a code word for a set of positions I don’t believe the Bible teaches. I’m not turning a blind eye to the hypocrisy that the “inerrancy” stampede has foisted on my denomination. Give me a confession made before the word “inerrancy” was invented, and I’m perfectly content.

There are thousands of people who don’t buy the kind of flat, literalistic inerrancy that is being sold among conservative evangelicals today, and, sorry to disappoint the gallery, but we don’t have to. Being a Baptist doesn’t force me to buy the search for the ark, young earth creationism, Hamm/Hovind, complementarianism, homeschooling, conspiracy theories, Dobson’s view of politics, bad Christian art, arrogant leaders, bad scholarship or the SBC’s view of itself as compared to other denominations.

Yes, I am critical of some of my brethren. I’ve never lived a day in Protestantism that there wasn’t a critical conversation going on. If the memo has gone out that we’ve stop asking questions and contending for answers, I didn’t get it. My blog is one tiny voice in the midst of a massive evangelical self-promotion machine. When I first called for the outing of Osteen as a motivational speaker, what had you heard from anyone in the evangelical establishment about him? (Oh, that’s different. Of course it is.)

The animosity some have towards this writer and this space comes simply because I have staked out a different position than they’ve been led to believe is the only allowable, God-endorsed, position allowed by the Christian worldview. Their orthodoxy, and the God who sponsors it, requires that dissent be quenched as an act of faithfulness. When I express dissent and protect its expression by others, I’m certain to be told by some amateur fundamentalist Freudian there’s something psychologically wrong with me. (Friend, if you believe you are the ultimate measure of mental health, please go on a world tour so the rest of us can see what it looks like. But just between you and me, I wouldn’t quit my day job on that one.)

The commenting voices at this site give witness to another view. There are Protestants who aren’t Catholics and don’t hate Catholics. There are Catholics willing to talk with Protestants as fellow Christians. There are Orthodox and mainliners seeking to relate to evangelicalism. There are Lutherans insisting we all know nothing about law and gospel. (That’s a joke.) There are Baptists who question the “What we need is more evangelism!” mantra. There are evangelicals who have nuanced views on the issue of abortion, women’s ordination, the nature of homosexuality and the Christian view of mental illness. There are people who give “Papists” and “liberals” space to talk just like the other kids in the class. There are many of us lost in the evangelical wilderness trying to find a drink of water and some food.

I don’t endorse all these views or their opposites. There are a number of issues where I’m not sure what I think, but I am determined to not be railroaded into being told that I must endorse or bow down to positions that I do not hold, am not required to hold and are not my conviction. I’m just as determined to tell my audience that other views exist as held by REAL PEOPLE.

If you look out in the back yard of the last twenty years of battles in the Southern Baptist Convention, there’s a baby in the bathwater. That baby’s older name was “soul competency.” More recently, he went by the name “priesthood of the believer,” but I like the previous name much better. In the “battle for the Bible” in the SBC, the moderate/liberals took those terms and used/abused them, causing conservatives to spend most of two decades bad-mouthing “soul competency” and “priesthood of the believer” as anathema to Bible-believing Christianity. Some of that response was necessary, but some of it has been singularly unfortunate and overblown.

In truth, Baptists have historically stood with the individual in his right to have his/her own convictions in regard to what scripture or a person’s own religion teaches. We sided with that principle when it caused us to defend Muslims and atheists. We sided with that conviction as a proper summary of Luther’s contention that his conscience about the Bible was adequate defense as to why he stood against the Pope. We defended that principle as essential to the classic definition separation of church and state endorsed religion. We understood that, without embracing all the tenets of anarchic individualism, it was right to protect and hear the minority. We rejected, historically, the tyranny of a class of theological enforcers and their political ambitions. We defended confessionalism, but we did not mindlessly defend all levels of uniformity. We realized, after painful lessons in the civil rights era and beyond, that the majority and their Bibles can be completely wrong.

Today, we live in an evangelicalism that is enamored with numbers and success. And of course, those vast numbers are told they must think, write, worship, vote, educate, live, preach and teach identically to one another because they possess the truth. (Or someone at the home office does…somewhere.) This is the sadness of being ranted at about the “sin” of refusing to use the proscribed word to describe inspiration or of daring to differ with some well-funded, fat cat majority with a mailing list. I may be wrong, but this web site is exercising something Baptist Christians used to care deeply about: dissent. But in today’s atmosphere of sheeple following the media and denominational shepherds, we place no value on dissent. It’s far more impressive to rant about my failure to appreciate the fact that anyone who waves a Bible around should be free from having anyone actually differ with them. It’s now good, conservative sport to tell a dissenting fellow Christian that, as I heard today, my faith is about to collapse and/or I’m going Catholic. All this- ALL- because you have steadfastly decided other views are not worthy of your RESPECTFUL appreciation.

The reason I am unafraid to side with the dissenters and those asking questions that aren’t allowed is that history is moving to our side. The manipulators of orthodoxy are in trouble. They’ve taken our confidence and put the screws to us for the sake of their own power. The celebrity-driven churches are, for the most part, going to be exposed as having no clothes. The laboratories that produce these evangelical clones are shutting down as the experiments seem to have gone horribly wrong. The deluded majority can act as if they have squashed everyone’s arguments and rendered all competing opinions foolish, but in fact, quite the opposite is happening. A lot of people are dissenting, even in an atmosphere of intimidation and spiritual abuse. Write all the books and blogs you want. Have a conference and get 3000 men to wring their hands with you. You aren’t gong to stop the collapse of the kind of authoritarian fundamentalism that wants to keep all of evangelicalism in a stranglehold. It’s over.

Occasionally, I write with the express purpose of sounding a wake up call. I’m provocative and my audience appreciates that in my writing. I am not sounding so much of a call to arms as a literal wake up alarm to the sluggish and the sleepy. We are standing on the brink of momentous changes in the evangelical world. Many Christians brought up in a fundamentalism with all of the answers have discovered things are much different than they would have anticipated. They are exploring this new world, even as the old one is still shifting beneath their feet. Part of that experience is being told you shouldn’t speak or write what you feel. The better part of the experience is ignoring that, and speaking exactly what you’re thinking, feeling and discovering. “Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say,” as Will Shakespeare put it.

In the meantime, I consider IM a public service to people who need to get out of the way before a chunk of crumbling evangelicalism falls on their head. If the house isn’t falling where you are, that’s wonderful. Make whatever you want out of the reports from my part of the house. That’s your privilege as a reader.

Dear Ed Young,

It was the grin that really got to me.

The arrogant, know-it-all, self-confident, re-inventing the wheel, just got me some grin.

The “I am a young pastor and I know everything in the world” grin.

You were sitting there on CNN, with your wife, talking about having sex 6 out of 7 nights this week.

Your wife said it was great. (That’s a relief. Bummer if she said she would rather not be forced into daily marital relations by pastoral demand.)

And the reporters are interested, because your church isn’t talking about God. It’s talking about sex so it can talk about God.

And you’re grinning from ear to ear. You’ve got the world on a string. Or by a thong.

You’re the master of the evangelical universe. You’ve got the Bible on your side. Song of Solomon. It’s about sex. So couples, take the seven day sex challenge. Or the 30 day. Or whatever doesn’t kill you.

Women, it is time to submit! God’s will has been announced! It’s the Seven Day Sex Challenge!

Git ‘er done there Christians.

We’re sexy now. We’re having sex, yes we are. Sex. Ask me to say it again. Sex.

Here’s the message for the world this week: We’re for having sex. Lots of sex. Sex in bed. Sex in sexy lingerie. (Maybe a show at the ladies ministry this month? Yes?) Sex with the pastor’s approval.

“Oh Gaaawd.”

“Amen, honey. Amen.”

The boys are coming to church now. What will grinning Ed say next? Men like this church. They can’t wait to be there…and to get home! “Go to your rooms, kids. Mom and Dad have some church stuff to do.”

“MOM AND DAD ARE DOING THE SEVEN DAY SEX CHALLENGE!!! EEEWWWW!

Will he take a cue from Pastor Mark and his hottie wife and answer texted questions about penis enlargement and various forms of non-traditional intercourse?

Song of Solomon! Whoo-hooo! We got a sexy Bible book, yes we do. We’re grinnin’!!

No wonder Ed is grinning. Everybody in Fellowship church is getting it on.

The singles can look forward to it. The disabled can pray about it. The troubled marriages can argue about it. The engaged can almost do it. The widows and widowers can remember it.

The married people can DO IT and get to talk about it. “How many days did you do it?” “Oh we did it eight.” “We only did four. Pray for us.”

The folks at church want you to know that it’s time to obey God and have seven days of AWESOME SEX! (And we also have some other stuff to talk about when we have time, but it’s not that important.)

And now, Ed, here’s something else you can grin about.

Try and preach regular sermons from the Bible now. See where the crowd is when the dog and pony show is over.

Talk about discipleship. Or stewardship. Or world hunger. Or some other sexy topic.

And grin.

Also, thanks on behalf of all the normal pastors, Ed, whose people are going to be asking why their pastor isn’t talking about his sex life? Why isn’t the pastor’s wife talking about how much she enjoys sex with the pastor? Why aren’t they up there together sitting on a bed talking about sex?

If they cared about church growth they would sit on the bed and talk about how much they love to have sex every day if possible.

Guess those pastors who have too much maturity and personal humility to drop their pants in the pulpit will just have to watch those young families go down to fellowship church where the grinning pastor and his satisfied wife talk SEX.

If my pastor was forced to talk this way, he’d weep. But he’s kindof an old guy. His members should be in a megachurch anyway.

How about a little video right from the bedroom, Ed. WIth you and the wife right afterward? Wow. The Lord could really use that couldn’t he? Prayer video while everyone is a little steamed up?

Ever thought of the video production possibilities, Ed? Couples might need a little video instruction. Could be verrry profitable. Look into that.

I used to think that John Crowder- with his faux marijuana routine- was as bad as it gets in evangelicalism.

But you’ve kicked that door down. You’ve made Crowder’s “Tokin’ the Ghost” look like a seminar on exegeting Hebrews.

Brilliant move, Ed. We’ve used sex to sell everything else. Now we can use it to get people into church. Sexy sermons. Sexy wives. Sexy grins. Sex. Sex. Sex. Can’t get enough of it.

(You know, if I did this routine about my sex life in front of my high school classes, I’d get fired. What’s the deal?)

On behalf of the few thousand of us who now have no reason to remain evangelicals at all. thanks. I couldn’t be more humiliated. And whatever you’re doing, keep it in Texas.

And remember this: Joel Osteen’s is bigger than yours. Uh…his grin, that is.

Keep having sex and telling us all about it. Keep smiling. (I almost said keep it up. Boy, this is hard. Oh…sorry….)

Sincerely,

Michael Spencer

Don’t get me wrong about what I’m about to say here. It was just a feeling. I’m not claiming any powers of discernment or certainty.

I got the distinct feeling there’s something wrong with a lot of people who say they are Jesus-followers/believers.

If you want to supply your own vocabulary, like “aren’t saved” or “aren’t Christians,” do so at your own risk. I’m not saying that. (There’s other blogs for that game, if you are burning to know.)

No, but it was as plain as daylight to me that when I hear a lot of people talk about Jesus, I feel like I am hearing….an abbreviation.

I said abbreviation. A shortened version of the real word. You see the abbreviation, you’re supposed to know what it means. We all agree on the abbreviation.

Don’t we?

We all know what the shorthand version stands for.

Right?

Or maybe we don’t.

I’m beginning to get the feeling that when people say Jesus, I can’t trust the abbreviation.

I’m getting the feeling that we’re talking about a kind of “mini-Jesus.” A diluted, declawed, demoted savior who is a symbolic representation for a kind of anemic, watered-down, unBiblical, culturally acceptable Jesus.

I get the feeling that if you move beyond the standard biographical paragraph, you’re going to discover that the Jesus you’re hearing about has considerably less to say than Jesus as we meet him in the Gospels.

You’re going to discover that he has little or nothing to do with most of the Bible, especially the Old Testament and the more demanding parts of the new.

You’re going to discover that there’s a remarkable resemblance between the abbreviated Jesus and the current version of political correctness. (Isn’t it unusual how Jesus takes an interest in whatever happens to be the current rage on CNNMSNBCCBSSUSATODAY?)

I’m not sure this abbreviated Jesus believes in hell.

He seems considerably more flexible on sexual matters than one would believe reading the Bible.

Living together before marriage? The abbreviated Jesus seems to have not issued a statement on that one.

I actually think the abbreviated Jesus doesn’t like to be bothered with issues of morality, character or behavior. He’s mostly interested in larger political and cultural issues, or your experience at your local church, or how you’re doing in your relationships.

The abbreviated Jesus has quite a bit in common with contemporary “life coaches,” talk show hosts, political apologists, faith-based advocates, teachers of “principles,” community organizers and family values lobbyists.

The people who talk about the abbreviated Jesus don’t seem to know much about the Bible. Not at all.

But they still have a surprisingly strong opinion about the meaning of all kinds of things Jesus said and did in the Bible.

The abbreviated Jesus can convincingly seem like the real Jesus, until you look and listen closely. Then it appears that he’s lost his laptop, his luggage and his cell phone. So for right now, he’s reading it all off the teleprompter.

The abbreviated Jesus doesn’t vary much from the script.

In fact- and this is what really got my attention- the abbreviated Jesus would only get crucified if there were some terrible mix-up.

The abbreviated Jesus is Jesus without the Biblical context, Jesus without church history, Jesus without Jesus theology, Jesus without costly discipleship, Jesus without offensive teaching or mysterious parables. The abbreviated Jesus is so easily explained, so comprehensible and user-friendly that anyone can follow him, even without instructions.

In millions of cases, the abbreviated Jesus is Jesus without the church. He’s Jesus who lets you pick your friends, pick your community and pick your comfortable seat. He’s OK with whatever your plans are for the weekend. He’s not making demands on your time. (He’s a major spokesperson for unplugging the fourth commandment.) He’s not making any demands on your money that don’t follow your emotions. (He wants you to feel personally fulfilled about whatever you choose to support.)
The abbreviated Jesus seems to always need one more book to really get down to what he actually means.

He has a lot of preachers who understand him, and a lot of churches where his way of doing things has become very popular.

Aside from abortion and gay marriage, the abbreviated Jesus is pretty happy in America. There’s so much for his friends to do and enjoy!

I don’t trust the abbreviated Jesus.

Sometimes, he’s been in my house, my head, my heart and my preaching. And I don’t like him.

He’s flat. Empty. Easy. Moldable.

He’s not full of the Holy Spirit. He’s full of us.

Frankly, he seems to be full of….well…..there are words here that my daddy used, which I’m not supposed to use on this blog. If you don’t know what they are, write me. Or ask a farmer who knows the real Jesus.

I’m announcing that I’m afraid of the abbreviated Jesus and his followers. I’m afraid of his “church,” his books and his kind of “discipleship.”

I’m uninviting him from my life and my interactions with other Christians.

I want to know Jesus. The untamed, old school, offensive, mysterious, demanding, awe-inspiring, transformational, life altering, crucified, risen, ascended, revolutionary Jesus.

Spell it out: He’s the creator. The mediator. The fulfiller and establisher of the law. His the passover lamb. He’s the head of the church. He’s the heart and key to Holy Scripture. He’s the meal on the table. He’s life in the living water. He pours out the Holy Spirit. He’s the rider on the white horse. He’s the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He’s the eternal God.

He doesn’t need my explanations, endorsements or euphemisms. He isn’t reading my note cards and nodding. He doesn’t tolerate my sin. He’s the life of God for the sin of the world. He’s righteousness, sanctification and holiness. He’s the Kingdom bringer, the executor of judgement, the one who is worthy to open the scroll and read the books. He’s the light of heaven and the conquerer of hell, death, sin and the grave.

He’s the one in whom all history, poetry, story and theology come together into the great I AM. He’s the mystery and the Word that reveals God to all persons. He’s the Gospel itself, the meaning of every message and the open door of God’s mercy.

You can’t abbreviate him.

You fall at his feet and worship. You get up and follow. You die and he raises you on the last day.

That’s Jesus, and I’ve got a feeling a lot of people really don’t have a clue.

My denomination is about to have a ten year emphasis on evangelism.

I’ve been a Southern Baptist since birth. As far as I know, my denomination has never had any other emphasis than evangelism.

My denomination is more interested in evangelism than any other denomination in existence or Christian history. Its entire apparatus of denominational machinery is devoted to the promotion of evangelism. Its denominational publications and web sites are basically all evangelism, all the time.

Oh there’s the occasional break for the culture war and to promote the new Kirk Cameron movie, but no one is missing the SBC’s concern with evangelism.

I’ve lived through more evangelism training programs than I can name.

I’ve been part of more evangelism emphases than I can list.

I’ve seen every kind of evangelism gimmick that the mind can conceive of brought out with a straight face.

I’ve seen the ethics and manners of normal human interaction go out the window in favor of confrontational tactics on beaches, on sidewalks and in public.

I grew up believing the entire Christian life was about soul winning and that if you couldn’t turn any conversation into an evangelistic conversation with closure, then you were a backslider.

I’ve been through evangelistic invitations at church, at youth group, at revivals, at youth revivals, at stadium events, at concerts, at ball games, at Bible studies, at Vacation Bible school, at movies, at meals and everywhere else.

My denomination is always starting a prayer emphasis in the cause of evangelism. We actually have an office of spiritual awakening, if you can believe it. I’m sure there’s a five year plan to move the hand of God somewhere.

I’ve heard thousands and thousands of evangelistic sermons. I’ve heard invitations that made me want to dig a tunnel to China.

I’m been exposed to guilt, manipulation, entertainment, scare tactics, lies, exaggeration, bribery and threats in the name of evangelism.

I’m part of a denomination that regularly baptizes five, six and seven year olds, then has the nerve to point at infant baptizing Christians and criticize them.

I’m part of a denomination that has rebaptized and rebaptized and rebaptized, again and again. And counted each one somewhere.

A few years ago, the baptism numbers started dropping for Southern Baptists. This year was the lowest in recent history.

The problem we’re told, of course, is that we’re not evangelistic enough.

I want to put forward another theory. Just call it a hunch.

I think our baptism numbers are dropping because ALL WE ARE IS EVANGELISTIC.

We don’t want to talk about anything else because if we do, we’re going have to admit we’re in very, very bad shape.

We need to have healthy churches. (With all 9 Marks.)

We need to have a clear Gospel message. (What’s being preached in SBC pulpits in many places can hardly be categorized using normal English.)

We need meaningful church membership.

We need pastors who can grow disciples.

We need Christians on mission in the world where God’s placed them.

We need to love people.

We need to live authentically human lives.

We need a missional mindset for going into the world.

We need to see our prevailing sins, like materialism, classism, racism and involvement in the prosperity Gospel.

We need to repent of our pragmatism, because it’s not true that if just one walks forward, everything we did was right.

We’re proud and sometimes we’re almost unteachable.

When a younger leader does something right in our denomination, chances are he’s in trouble.

Thousands of our churches are two generations from closing the doors.

Thousands of our churches need to either stop abusing pastors and their families or shut the doors.

We need to realize God isn’t adding many to us because we’ve got problems.

Every time Southern Baptists see some evidence that the ship is lurching, they go and attempt to get more people to join the cruise.

We’re like a hospital with real problems. Doctor problems. Staff problems. Quality problems. Effectiveness problems. People aren’t getting well. Some are getting a lot worse. Some aren’t making it. And we are concerned……about getting more patients.

Millions of Southern Baptists apparently don’t even exist.

Millions of other Southern Baptists would leave their churches for $5 and couldn’t write a three sentence paragraph on why anyone should join their church.

I love what the SBC does right. I really do. My denomination can be awesome at some things, especially in the area of cooperative missions.

I’m not dogging evangelists. I spend a significant amount of my time in evangelistic ministry. It’s one reason I will remain an evangelical.

Our denomination has some wonderful churches and some great people.

But let’s just say it: We’re Johnny One Notes on evangelism because we don’t want to admit how flawed, hurting, confused and increasingly dysfunctional we are.

We need evangelism in its place, and that won’t happen till we stop and look at the whole, not just the parts we want to blame.

And 100,000 more baptisms won’t solve those problems.