"Dave has named what the real issue is in evangelicalism - power. Evangelicals are enamoured with power and control. That's why numbers and measures are so important to evangelicals, and why compliance is next to godliness. What's important to evangelicals is freeing you from the world that squeezes you into its mold so evangelicalism can, in turn, squeeze you into its mold. Evangelicals resist and declare as enemy anything they can't control - including God, by the way. A post-evangelical is not a one time evangelical who's given up on truth, she's an evangelical who's given up on control."
- Mike Yaconelli commenting on Dave Tomlinson's work, The Post-Evangelical.
This is especially interesting in view of the last election and the seemingly increasing political activism from evangelical leaders. But it is often true in denominations, churches and people too. My question for my own denomination is, "Is there a place for me even if I don't agree with you on a lot of non-essentials?" The pat answer is, "Of course." The reality is we haven't figured out the answer to that yet. It seems that if I don't agree on a lot of the non-essentials then I am not united but divisive. We haven't found a place where we can disagree comfortably yet. Maybe it is about power.
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4:25 PM
You've been a pastor for many years in our denomination, a missionary before that, a student at our college before that, an MK and PK before that. Now you're on the Executive Leadership Team. What will it take to prove to you that you have a place in our denomination? It seems like you've certainly, at least, been inhabiting a place in our denomination, and you've been co-existing reasonably well with people who hold variant views. Whence your paranoia? At least you haven't been ordered, by the denomination's highest governing body, to resign. :)
Steve
11:06 AM
Didn't someone say, "It isn't paranoia if the whole world really is out to get you." :-)
You seem to have taken what I wrote as referring to me personally and as I reread it I see your point. Aside from a few nasty letters every now and then I don't feel that way with regards to Tom as a person.
However I am very concerned with what I feel is a tension between philosophies of ministry. I don't think we are as diverse as we should be.
Perhaps it becomes most apparent when I look at people's views on ministry accountability. It is not a matter of "if" we should hold people accountable but to "what". Different philosophies will value different measures when it comes to accountability. I think you will find that a lot of good and smart people in our denomination do not agree with that statement and think the measure should be the same no matter what our philosophy if we are truly united. My question in the post is whether this is due to a sense of a loss of control.
As an example we put emphasis on number of conversions and we complain about those who have had none. I completely understand this but I feel differently. The fact is that if everyone who has supposedly been converted through the ministry of our denomination were truly converted I think we would look much differently today. The same is true for North America as a whole. (This is an even bigger problem in some other parts of the world.) Therefore that measure doesn't mean as much to me. I hold to a different philosophy when it comes to conversion and unfortunately it is not as easy to objectively measure.
So what happens now? What you measure determines what you do in ministry. Will people be exasperated with my view and expect me to "conform" or will we have enough of a relationship that we will be able to trust each other even though we disagree.
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