demythologizing "evangelical" and if I am one (thoughts on church, state and Richard Cizik)
I can remember pulling my Ford Explorer into the gravel "SUV" lot our church made to free up some visitor spaces. The Baptist Campus Ministry from the University 400 yards away was starting to gather. I watched as their fearless leader, a member of our church, unloaded boxes from his truck before moving it to another spot. I felt that I should go volunteer to help him, but I couldn't leave the car. I had stumbled into an interview on NPR's Fresh Air that had me riveted to my bucket seat. It was the voice of Richard Cizik, now former Vice President for Governmental Affairs (read as "lobbyist-in-chief") for the National Association of Evangelicals. I say former because of this very interview (which you can here in it's entirety here ). Cizik resigned almost immediately and for the fifteen other people out there who were listening when it was broadcast, you had to hear it coming.
Terry Gross' seasoned-reporter-voice kept rising in shock as Cizik implied voting for Barack Obama for President, suggested that perspectives on gay marriage were shifting, even within himself--he even moved past abortion to speak about having a consistent ethic of human life that considers poverty, global warming and creation care as *gulp* equally as important as unborn babies? Gross made him repeat more than a few responses. It reminded me of when Tony Campolo was on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher years ago and a flustered Maher said "We have the Baptist preacher on, and all the people are clapping? What's going on here !?!?!?!" Maher's shock was echoed in Gross' voice, but mine wasn't far behind. I thought "Is anybody listening to this? He's gonna be out of a job! But how can he? He prompted Reagan to give the 'Evil Empire' Speech!"
A reporter was speechless and I was in tears. Literally. Here was someone articulating the very things I've felt and wrestled with. That Jen and I have wrestled with. That my thirty-something generation has/is/will be wrestling with. I felt hopeful. And then they fired him. You could argue that it was coming. One person told me "He was beyond the mainstream of the NAE--it was only a matter of time." But that doesn't make me feel any better about it. Today there was this story on ABCNews to make me know that I'm not alone, but questions still linger.
Am I an evangelical? Am I a liberal? Can I be both?
Etymologically, the word is rooted in the Greek word meaning "good news" (transliterated, the "euangellion"). Though we associate "good news" and it's cognate, the "gospel" with Jesus, the reality is the early Christians hijacked this term from the tyrannical Emperors of Rome. They were known to send out letters of their surpassing greatness and militaristic exploits to cities through the Empire, touting them as "good news." There's a sort of beautiful irony that a word once synonymous with Caesar became synonymous with Jesus Christ, a humble infant, wandering teacher and healer who "bore our sins upon his back."
But then the word became synonymous with something else. A moral agenda, a certain way of running government, all with the sincere, resounding belief that this was what God had in mind. That's not to say there weren't others arguing for and against those issues calling themselves evangelicals. Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis and others certainly were pres(ci)ent, but they couldn't stop a hurricane.
For most of my life the word "evangelical" has been synonymous with a brand of politics that can find very little in the red letters to identify with. So whenever a well-intentioned church-goer who is trying to take the words of Jesus seriously refers a fellow church-goer to hear a Tony Campolo sermon she is dismissed. "I don't like him, he's just one of those liberal democrats." And Campolo is one person (maybe the only one) left arguing to still be known as an evangelical. Because labels de-humanize and categorize.
I remember struggling with filling out my political views on Facebook. In resignation, I put liberal. It's not a badge of honor, but in the world of news tickers and Facebook statuses, it's the best way to pigeonhole me. But it's so much more than that. I don't mind disagreements. Honest, open political discourse, particularly between people of faith. What I don't like is what comes with it. Cizik, for all intents and purposes, isn't an evangelical anymore, or at least not as much of one as he used to be. Like a de-frocked priest he sits in the ambiguity of someone who was great once-upon-a-time because he believed something until his conscience/Spirit told him otherwise. When Campolo calls himself an evangelical, the baby-boomer heirs of the Religious Right chuckle because he's not their brand of evangelical.
Some of this conversation comes down to generational gaps. Speaking of Faith did a great panel earlier this year with Chuck Colson, Greg Boyd and Shane Claiborne called "3 Generations of Evangelical Politics". (check it out here) What's missing from that conversation is whether or not they're all evangelicals, and would call one another by those names.
So, for the mean-time, let's eschew the whole "evangelical" label for something better, more primal.
"Christian" perhaps.
I am trying to orient my life around the teachings of Jesus Christ. Interpretations of these teachings clearly differ, as this is largely the result of the lens through which the reader sees the text, but for my intents and purposes, I genuinely attempt to understand and follow the words of Jesus.
In fairness, "Christian" may or may not be a better term than evangelical. You could argue that it was tarnished as soon as you added any letters to "Christ". We're not perfect, we don't get to be, but some Christians have done some pretty lousy things, including me, but, by definition of the whole forgiveness thing, they get to keep their title.
It's not a Miss USA crown or something that can be revoked whenever we drop our guard, or salacious tales of past behavior make waves. It's a status of sorts. Actually, it's a bit of an anti-status.
Every day when I am tempted to think I'm better at it than you are, or you're better at it than me, there's Jesus staring up at us, washing our feet and saying "Is this what you're arguing about?"
So farewell, Richard Cizik, apparently you're no longer Evangelical, or at least not enough of one to be Nationally Associated. I'm right there with you and though it's tempting to create another club or Facebook group to win you over to, I think I'll just try and remember the joy of hearing someone else talk about their faith as passionately as I feel about mine.
I think I'd call that group "the Body" but someone already took it.
