For two-and-a-half centuries, evangelicalism – a belief system marked by the concept of being “born again” – shaped many Protestant’s approaches to Christianity across the globe. But the world is changing now more than ever before, and an offshoot of this belief system has emerged as society is being transformed.
Several factors are attributed to post-evangelicalism, a movement that has started picking up steam in recent years. Christians subscribing to a post-evangelical ideology differ from traditional evangelicals for any number of reasons, including opposing views on culture, politics and theology.
Scholars generally trace evangelicalism’s roots to Great Britain in the middle of the 18th Century. In addition to the aforementioned concept of being converted – or “born again” – some of the other fundamental beliefs within evangelicalism have included a high emphasis on the Bible and the Gospels, as well as the death and resurrection of Christ.
Evangelicalism was long lumped into one category, but it began to splinter in the 1950s when such popular preachers as Billy Graham started packing arenas to share the joy one can find in walking with the Lord. A separate grouping, fundamentalists, began breaking away because of disagreements with some of these popular preachers’ tactics.
Within the past six decades, new societal issues have bubbled to the surface. More than ever before, people from different racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds are talking amongst themselves. Because of this, the spectrums within evangelicalism have stretched even further.
On one far extreme are people who have that more fundamentalist view of their faith – meaning a continued strict adherence to traditional theology. On the other end are those who have tweaked traditional beliefs and conformed them to modern society. It could be argued evangelicalism is in the center. But the spectrums are growing increasingly complex, and attempts at simple categorization are difficult, if not futile.
Generally speaking, post-evangelical Christians take aim at mainline evangelicals’ narrow views on the thorny issue of homosexuality – evangelicals tend to view the lifestyle as a flat-out sin, while post-evangelicals tend to embrace people within this community.
Followers of the post-evangelicalism movement also take aim at evangelicals for perceived narrow, partisan political views – many back the Republican Party in the United States, regardless of who the specific candidate is – and a seeming deaf ear toward the intellectual community. Additional criticism toward evangelicals has been linked to little or no emphasis on the arts and media.
Michael Spencer runs a Web site, the Internet Monk, devoted to post-evangelicalism. In his Blog posts, Spencer says this movement is still in the defining stages.
“I do not recognize the boundary lines of American evangelicalism as the boundary lines of true Christianity,” Spencer wrote in a 2006 post on his site. “I recognize that Christian belief emerges from a matrix of the text of Holy Scripture, the history of interpretation, cultural and sub-cultural presuppositions, the use of reason, the place of experience, the wisdom of the teachers of the larger church and the work of the Holy Spirit in revealing more light.”
Post-evangelicalism, as a movement, also has received ink in a book, “The Post Evangelical.” The British-based author, Dave Tomlinson, grew up in a Christian household, but says the constraints within evangelicalism smothered his quest to find where God was calling him in his life journey. Once he began looking outside the boundaries, Tomlinson says he began experiencing an authentic relationship with his Maker.
In his book, Tomlinson says evangelical churches in England have oftentimes failed when it comes to addressing social justice and poverty. Tomlinson in published reports says he hopes Christians desiring to live out their faith in a deeper, more socially-relevant manner, will begin to question some of the constraints mainline evangelical Christians have placed on ideology.
Graham came to prominence at a time when television began as a medium, and he quickly realized the public airwaves could be a powerful means of spreading Christianity. This led to the emergence of other so-called televangelists. There have been a plethora of them, at times with differing views amongst themselves, in the United States in the past six decades. Televised preachers have included Jim Baker, Jerry Falwell, Joel Osteen, Pat Robertson, Charles Stanley and Jimmy Swaggart.
But the very public sins of some of these televangelists has led some people in the post-evangelicalism movement to take a critical view of the hypocrisy and lack of authenticity that can sometimes crop up in mainline evangelical circles.
Traditional evangelicals, not surprisingly, have concerns linked to the post-evangelical movement. Criticisms include diluting or outright ignoring the Bible and faulty theology. Other people within the evangelicalism movement discredit the popularity of post-evangelicalism.
On the Blog site First Things, author Joe Carter says evangelicalism remains a vibrant, growing and effective movement.
“The idea that the collapse of evangelicalism is currently under way is more wishful thinking on the part of post-evangelicals that anything that can be backed up with evidence,” Carter wrote in a 2009 Blog post. “There are more people that attend a Willow Creek associated church than there are post-evangelicals in all of America.”
Nathan Martin, another writer on First Things, says evangelicalism is in a refining stage, but makes a case for its continued existence in a Blog post from 2009.
“As Christianity is moving out of the mainstream, it’s harder than ever to be a Christian in America,” Martin said. “There has been a shaking off of the chaff and wandering from the fold of many church-raised children. But this doesn’t indicate the failure of evangelicalism, as it does the failure of churches within the evangelical community.”
While Protestant ideology is going through a transformation – and countless strands are developing – one notion is certain: God remains a profound force in Christians’ lives. In a world with millions upon billions of people, He gave everyone a unique, custom story. Human beings are so different, yet so alike, and this mind-bending concept is evidenced through the debate between the evangelical and post-evangelical movements – and all other ideologies.
