LiberalEvangelical.org News Coverage
Evangelicals could learn a few lessons from Paul
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- Published on Sunday, 02 October 2011 12:03
- Written by Francis Chiminje
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I’m beginning to wonder how long we’ll ever go in this country without an evangelical leader making some controversial remark or getting in trouble for something controversial they said in the past.
A few months ago, it was Pat Robertson (far right) and his explanation of what caused the earthquake in Haiti, and more recently, Billy Graham’s son, Franklin (near right), was in the news for having his invitation to speak at the Pentagon prayer service rescinded because of some comments he made about Islam. While I understand the thinking and the zeal that justify their rhetoric, I must say that there are far better ways to address the world, and you would find them nowhere else than in the scriptures.
Reflections on the "Alien"
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- Published on Wednesday, 18 May 2011 11:19
- Written by Brice Tennant
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Last week I watched the new release Thor (2011), and this morning I awoke reflecting upon the “alien.” Over the years I have grown more and more frustrated with how, as a culture, we represent our engagement with “aliens.” And, now, I will finally put my ideas on electronic paper and submit them to the feedback of the generous and keen readers of Liberal Evangelical.
A Christian Patriot
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- Published on Tuesday, 16 September 2008 20:00
- Written by Andrew Warner
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What does it mean to be a Christian in America? These last few weeks, with presidential campaigns in full gear, this has become an unavoidable question.
This important ethical question is too often reduced to caricatures: withdrawal from politics on one side and assumption that the church is the fourth branch of government on the other. In my own life, neither of these positions captures where I am. I love Jesus; as an old spiritual goes, “You may have all this world, give me Jesus.” But I’m also proud of America; or more specifically, I am proud of the founding ideals of our nation and the vision of freedom that we lift up. For lack of a better word, I am a Christian patriot. And it is a phrase that I need to explain, if only for myself.
COMING OUT – Liberal and Evangelical
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- Published on Friday, 18 July 2008 21:50
- Written by Chapin Garner
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Feeling Different
In seminary, I knew I was different, but I didn’t have a name for what I was. I was the product of an unusual union of Christian traditions, and this left me feeling out of place. My early faith formation took place in small evangelical house churches where being born-again, faith healing, speaking in tongues, and the daily battle with the devil over my soul were paramount to the Christian life. At this same time, I was an active member of the First Congregational Church in Fairport, New York. This was a very proper church in the center of town that was concerned about the poor, prided itself on its youth and church school programs, and was always wary that the slate roof might spring a leak and cost a small fortune to repair.
When Narrative Identities Clash: Liberals versus Evangelicals
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- Published on Wednesday, 18 June 2008 11:00
- Written by Wesley Wildman
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Culture Wars, Seminary Styles, Congregational Politics
If there is one thing North American Christians at the beginning of the twenty-first century think they understand, it is the divide between liberal and evangelical in the church. Polarized ecclesiastical publications tell their stories from the left or from the right, constructing competing denominational identities that clash in the consciousness of members. If a denomination has only one important publication, it avoids the issue with quaint desperation, trying to keep everyone happy. Mainstream media relentlessly draw our attention to “religious culture wars” and lavish attention on high profile court cases on controversial moral issues.
Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic, by Reinhold Niebuhr
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- Published on Friday, 22 August 2008 01:00
- Written by Roy L. Smith
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Leaves From The Notebook Of A Tamed Cynic. By Reinhold Niebuhr. First published 1929; reissued Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990. 152 pages. $26.95. One of the great liberal Protestant theologians of the twentieth century, Reinhold Niebuhr, offers an autobiographical account of his early years as a pastor in Leaves From The Notebook Of A Tamed Cynic. Reinhold (1892-1971), brother to H.R. Niebuhr, contributed enormously to theology, ethics, and political philosophy during his later years as professor at Union Theological Seminary (New York City). Among his many accomplishments, Niebuhr had a hand in bringing German theologian Paul Tillich to America, essentially saving Tillich from the Nazis he had repudiated. However, this book consists of Niebuhr’s journal entries prior to his later fame and accomplishments.
The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, by Carl Henry
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- Published on Sunday, 12 April 2009 22:33
- Written by “Dan” Chinhyo Kim
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The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. By Carl F. H. Henry. Originally published 1947; reprinted, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003. 89 pages. Paperback, $12.00.
Carl F. H. Henry is back from the dead. And no, I’m not a fundamentalist so I don’t mean that literally, but I do suggest that Henry’s desire for fundamentalism in this book still finds resonance with today’s evangelical community. Although this book was written in the late 40’s, it seems to eerily touch on issues still pervasive within the evangelical movement 62 years after its original publication. Carl Henry’s The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism is a short but poignant read into what it really means to be an authentic evangelical. Moreover, this book is essentially a critique of fundamentalism and its inability to equip socially conscious evangelicals. It is a call for evangelicals to actively participate in the world through sound Christian engagement.
Christ and Culture, by H. Richard Niebuhr
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- Published on Friday, 22 August 2008 01:00
- Written by Brandon Daniel-Hughes
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Though the text came out in 1951, the content of Christ and Culture grew out of a series of lectures H. Richard Niebuhr gave to seminarians in 1949. Many of the aspiring ministers in the audience would have been veterans of the recent conflicts in Europe and the Pacific, well aware of the dangers of elevating a state or political leader to semi-divine status, but equally aware of the great goods that a culture can produce when its people rally around a just cause. What then, Niebuhr asks, ought to be the relationship between Christ and culture?
Niebuhr begins by alerting us to the timelessness of this “enduring problem.” There is an inherent tension between Christ, his character, and the claims he makes on his followers on the one hand, and the demands of culture, any culture, on the other. The Romans early on made this point when they highlighted the extent to which followers of Christ neglected their cultural and social duties, but the tension persisted even as the empire was “christianized." Throughout Christian history some have argued (and even today some still insist) that Christians make the best citizens, but Niebuhr calls the reader’s attention to the perpetual potential for opposition that lurks below the surface. Culture never captures Christ. Christ is never tamed.
The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, by Ronald Sider
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- Published on Wednesday, 25 February 2009 22:16
- Written by Jay Ford
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The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? By Ronald Sider. Baker Books, 2005. 144 pp. $15.00.
If Christians are called to live different lives why aren’t they? Ronald Sider, professor at Eastern Baptist seminary and president of Evangelicals for Social Action, has written a book to address just that issue. He feels that the fact that today’s disciples of Jesus do not act like Jesus and “this scandalous behavior mocks Christ, undermines evangelism, and destroys Christian credibility” (15). This book seeks to understand the crisis of evangelical behavior and state “obedient, faithful correctives” (15).
The Politics of Jesus, by John Howard Yoder
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- Published on Tuesday, 10 February 2009 13:55
- Written by Kenneth Mantler
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The Politics of Jesus: Behold the Man! Our Victorious Lamb. By John Howard Yoder. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1994.
Are the ethics that Jesus and the early church relevant in our crazy world today? What the heck does this Kingdom of God that Jesus speaks of mean? In Politics of Jesus John Yoder, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, seeks to answer these questions by creating a social ethic that relies on the “bulk of specific and concrete content in Jesus’ vision of the divine order which can speak to our age as it has seldom been free to do before, if it can be unleashed from the bonds of inappropriate a prioris” (xi). To accomplish this Yoder negates the “a prioris” or previous ways of thinking that believed that Jesus could speak to modern ethics. Throughout the book Yoder directly addresses the arguments of those who think Jesus’ ethical teachings are not relevant. In this second edition, he updates original 1972 book to address the people that sought to argue against his notion that Jesus’ ethics are applicable to modern society through the use of brief epilogues after each chapter that bring modern scholarship into Yoder’s ethical arguments.
Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, by George Marsden
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- Published on Tuesday, 10 February 2009 13:55
- Written by Kenneth Mantler
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Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism. By George Marsden. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1991.
There is a great divide in this country between Fundamentalist, Evangelicals, and Liberals within Christianity. Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism traces the history of these theologies back primarily to the mid-19th century with the emergence of Darwinism. The vast majority of the book is focused on the 20th-century divide between Fundamentalism from Evangelicalism with some discussion of liberalism to complete the spectrum of theologies that emerged from the same American Protestant roots.
The author George Marsden is a professor of history at Duke University, School of Divinity. This book emerges from essays written during the 1980’s. Thus, it is important to view the book more as collection of essays woven together around a particular topic than as a cohesive book.
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- Speaking My Mind, by Tony Campolo
- Christianity for the Rest of Us, by Diana Butler Bass
- The Post Evangelical, by Dave Tomlinson
- Thy Kingdom Come, by Randall Balmer
- Evangelical Disenchantment, by David Hempton
- Fidelity With Plausibility, by Wesley J. Wildman
- The Evangelical Universalist, by Gregory MacDonald
- Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, by John Shelby Spong
- American Evangelical Christianity, by Mark A. Noll
- Generous Orthodoxy, by Brian McLaren
- A Secular Age, by Charles Taylor
- The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, by Mark Noll
- American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving, by Christian Smith
- The Struggle for American’s Soul, by Robert Wuthnow
- The Dialects of Secularization, by Jürgen Habermas and Joseph Ratzinger
- Evangelical vs. Liberal, by James K Wellman Jr.
- Fit Bodies Fat Minds, by Os Guinness
- Sympathy and Understanding for Conservatives
- A Sad Lack of Responsibility in the Florida Panhandle
- FREEDOM!!! Braveheart Comes to the Middle East
