Thursday, October 14, 2021

Is fundagelical Christianity dying?

 "Fundagelical" is an ever-more-common mashup for "fundamentalist" and "(conservative) evangelical," for the unfamiliar. The two groups may differ in some doctrinal emphases; for example, evangelicals like Pat Robertson can be old-earth creationists without any problems, and fundamentalists may worry less about evangelism.

However, their overall largely literalist focus on doctrines and beliefs is pretty much the same. Their politics definitely are.

That said, the "conservative" in parentheses is important. Readers of Sojourners magazine or people like Jimmy Carter, liberal evangelicals who aren't liberal mainline Protestants, still exist in numbers.

With that, let's dig in.

Ex-Southern Baptist Convention ethicist Russell Moore (I don't know if he's ex-SBC by church attendance or not) talks about whether or not Christianity is dying, or will be.

Actually, that's not true.

He talks about whether his version of Xianity is dying, or will be.

And, the rise of the so-called "nones" say that he's probably whistling in the dark more than he'd like to admit.

To riff on Paul and turn him upside down, Christians who have belief in the next life only, and when people are long-term unemployed, can offer nothing more than a Calvinist "will of god," or even a Christian Social Darwinian "maybe you're still a sinner," don't have anything to offer Millennials.

To riff on Russell Moore?

If your witnessing is only a gospel that fails to include a social gospel, it's tohu wevohu, per the Hebrew opening the Torah. 

If your witnessing is a gospel with less tolerance and toleration than Pope Francis, then it's only a clanging cymbal, to go back to Paul.

So, if your Christianity is, if not dying, continuing to decline into a basket case, it's because you're helping strangle it, Moore.

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