My Struggle with the term Evangelical
Part 2: back to the basics
The original spirit of being an Evangelical meant that you believed a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is central to living. Because of how deeply meaningful one’s journey with Jesus is, the person is divinely motivated to share the Gospel. Oftentimes, Evangelicals have a dramatic ‘born again’ spiritual awakening, wherein afterwards they live a new kind of life. New Birth is not only the title of one of my favorite John Wesley sermons; it’s an essential concept he preached on frequently.
Once a upon a time I took being called a ‘Jesus Freak’ as a compliment, it meant in the best sense that you were ‘on fire’ for God. The root of the word ‘enthusiasm’ is key to understanding the zealous passion of an evangelical’s faith. For the purposes of discussion let’s understand ‘Enthusiasm’ as to be full of the creative life-giving force we call the Holy Spirit. God-given passion, excitement. Be a Jesus enthusiast, an anomaly of grace. Be a Jesus enthusiast, an oddity of forgiveness, a rarity of inclusiveness, a proclaimer of peace, a partitioner of humility, a prophet of the Kin-dom possible here and now!
As the Christian Church, we’ve been so concerned about who is going up and who is going down that we have neglected lifting up those made low in love. Far too many are experiencing a hell in their earthly lives right now. John Welsey believed that ‘Hell’ can be a here and now, “experience of loss...a place of hate, horror, greed, rage, lust, unsatisfied desires, envy, jealousy, malice, and revenge, characterized by fear, guilt and shame…incessantly gnaw the soul.”
The need for healing is now, those in Hell need salvation now. The burning desire to lift up others is that Holy Spirit fueled life-giving motivation that is core to what I mean when I say ‘evangelical.’ I am so blessed to serve with faithful members of the Body of Christ of FUMC that are dedicated to lifting up those society has deemed ‘the least of these.’ Charles Wesley called folks that society has neglected, ‘Jesus’ bosom friends’ because he believed that those who suffer the most are closet to the crucified Christ.
More and more Evangelical Christians have felt that their faith has been overrun by the Empire of White Christian Nationalism. The dominant political Empire has hallowed out all the substance of the Spirit from the term ‘evangelical’ and left only the rotting husk. I’m picturing how Darth Vader looked after the epic battle with his son, when Luke took off his father’s mask. Gasping for breath, the Spirit has left the blackened withering body once heralded as ‘evangelical.’ All the life has been sucked out of the term. There is little more than death-rattles left of authentic evangelical faith that has not been strangled by the strong arm of the political Empire. It is even hard to imagine a pure form of evangelicalism that has not been infected by politics, hypocrisy, greed and scandals.
Has the Christian Church forgot that it was historically established as a counter-cultural movement opposed to the Empire? As noted in another entry, followers of Jesus were first called ‘Christian’ at Antioch, the site of an inclusive, diverse congregation. Prior even to that in the Book of Acts, the earliest group of organized followers of Christ ruled that all in the community must share all their possessions. The earliest Christians lived in an egalitarian society that we would describe today as socialism. Yet ironically politicians who claim to be Evangelical Christians blast concepts that seek to bring economic equity to the lower class.
Thank God for the steadfast representatives of evangelicalism that stay true to the enthusiastic Spirit-giving lived-out faith. Such as the Horizon Texas Conference Evangelical Fellowship, “of theologically conservative/center-to-right United Methodists.” Praise God for you siblings in Christ! Thank you for keeping the revival mindset of the Wesleyan movement alive and active in this part of the great state of Texas! I’m fully confident in this handful of theological conservative United Methodist clergy to be stalwarts of the true meaning of being evangelical. Especially as some narratives are giving the impression that all the ‘conservates’ left the UMC and also that the UMC has become too influenced by ‘liberal’ American culture. The need for theological conservative voices within the UMC in the USA is paramount to being the kind of church that the Wesley brothers formed. In our denominations strides to fully embrace inclusion, we must be diligent to make strategic efforts to be inclusive of those with so called ‘conservate’ theology.
John and Charles Wesley were evangelicals. The Wesley brothers felt that passionate preaching was so vital to their revival movement that they would recruit preachers that the Church of England deemed ‘too enthusiastic.’ George Whitefield played a prominent role in the movement by illustrating the fruitfulness of field preaching. Although Whitefield would soon spilt-off from the Wesleyan movement, his evangelical sermon delivery and open-field preaching became beacons of the Methodist movement. Centuries before Billy Grahman was packing football stadiums, John Wesley preached to thousands at a time in fields and outside of coal mines. It was the evangelical spirit that drove John out of the white-washed chapel and out to where the ‘common people’ gathered. The Wesley brother’s evangelical nature led them to sing praises in bars, educate children chimney sweepers, aid their circuit riding preachers with medical kits, care for those in prisons and hospitals. Historically to be evangelical was to be inclusive of the working-class folks who could not dare to darken the church door in their dirty rags. The Wesleyan evangelical movement appealed to the ‘down and out’ who would be turned away from the traditional church institution of the day.
Like the apostles in the book of Acts, to the Wesley brothers to be evangelical was to live out one’s faith in acts of service and healing to the outcasts. To be evangelical like the Wesley brothers is to bring the Gospel out of the church into the public square, to be evangelical was to proclaim God’s love for all and to put love in action.
Let’s get back to the basics of evangelicalism- a passionate love for Jesus that overflows from the heart in the outpouring of grace for the outcast. A personal spiritual experience so moving it fuels a new way of living that gives of one’s self to those who know nothing of the love of Christ Jesus.