My blog post of last week left a loose end over the issue of gay marriage - or, as the advocates would prefer, marriage equality for gay people.
It does seem to have become a terribly polarizing issue - but my reaction is to want the middle ground.
In America, reactions to calls for people to be allowed to marry others of the same sex have certainly fallen out on largely political partisan lines - though by no means all Democrats are on one side, and occasionally a brave Republican will break ranks to call for change. In Britain, the Prime Minister (Conservative) recently suggested that having gay people marry each other was a thoroughly Conservative thing to do (since it tends to promote commitment, fidelity, stability; all [C]conservative values). Much of his party might disagree. Meanwhile, the Australian Prime Minister (Labor) seems to regard the idea as anathema, whereas her party appears largely to accept the idea.
Churches seem largely to be opposed - but my gripe with the EA last week was of course that the reasons for this seem to have more to do with either the practice of homosexual sex (which is not immediately relevant to he question), or to a somewhat circular argument that "marriage is defined as the union of a man and a women, so two men cannot get married". The bible largely takes man-women marriage as a given, but does not teach a great deal about it, and certainly doesn't set out to define it.
Undoubtedly, the first of those two positions is significant: it's a kind of rearguard action against society's broad acceptance of gay lifestyles. It's as if some want to say "well, we lost the argument long ago, but we want to continue to express our dislike." That's a powerful piece of prejudice, and leads to the rather curious argument which suggests that if gay people are married to each other this will somehow diminish the marriages of straight people. I can't quite fathom why. Undoubtedly, the aim is indeed to redefine the meaning of the word "marriage" to encompass more than it traditionally has.
There is additionally a red herring argument suggesting that whilst churches are not expected to be required to participate in solemnising marriages of gay people to each other (and, indeed, they may not be permitted to do so), some have thought that it will be only a matter of time before this is reversed, and equality laws will be invoked to force churches to act against their consciences. To this we might say that firstly if equality law were being invoked, the difference between marriage and civil partnership would be irrelevant - and even less speculatively, every church (perhaps excepting the CoE) has the right to marry whomsoever it chooses and deny marriage to whomsoever it chooses, according to its own criteria. That seems unlikely to change.
So the naming issue seems crucial, at least in the UK context. Civil Partnerships exist for gay people. They've been around for several years, and quite a few thousand people have taken advantage of that opportunity. Civil partnerships convey just about all the same rights and responsibilities upon those partnered and those who interact with them as civil marriages do. And many, colloquially, talk of them with the same vocabulary as is used for marriage - wedding, husband, married, and so on.
So it seems to me that all we must ask is "what's in a name?". To the gay community, I would have to ask whether it really matters what it says at the top of your certificate. the difference between "marriage certificate" and "civil partnership certificate" doesn't seem so very great to me - especially when your friends and family can and will call it the first anyway. There are many areas in society where the official wording differs from the vernacular.
But the same argument works in the other direction: it really is just a change of name, so why should anyone get upset about it happening? Of all the things to expend energy over, the use of one word instead of another seems among the most foolish. To say "it can be a partnership but not a marriage" really doesn't make a lot of sense, unless you want to argue that civil marriage is somehow sacred (which sounds like a contradiction in terms).
So, essentially I see no particularly strong reason for a change, and no particularly strong reason to deny a change. The difference is that making the change will make a few more people happy, and at least in their own judgement, reduce the total sum of iniquitous discrimination. That, in itself, seems a good enough reason to support the change.
2011/10/16
2011/10/09
a little milestone
This weekend, I resigned my membership of The Evangelical Alliance. I've been a member for most of the last twenty years, so that seems quite a big deal, somehow. I did it with a heavy heart, but it's been becoming an inevitable step, for a while now.
The EA often seems to be a force for good. It has generally avoided narrow sectarian positions, enabling it for a long time to claim to speak for one million UK residents (through personal and church memberships). They've dropped that line from their promotional material now, but they still seem to have a large following. In general, the EA promotes the positive things its members have been doing, and frequently undertakes sensible lobbying positions in speaking to government.
There was a time when I thought those approaches were spot-on and just right: I was proud of the EA and proud to be a member. But somehow the things it does have become increasingly marginal to me - and, I'd suggest, to a lot of other people who might live with a label like emerging or post-evangelical. I know that I have moved in an inclusive direction - I rather suspect that the EA has moved in the opposite direction.
In thinking about membership, one might start with the basis of faith, since this is the thing that all members must agree on. It is an unexceptional list - and widely adopted by EA affiliates as their own basis also. Do I still believe it? Well, that depends what you mean. If I wanted to claim that I did, I would need to re-interpret several of the clauses to imply something other than what most would agree upon as their "plain meaning". But more than that, my problem really is with making such a list the basis of unity: it seems a category mistake. Where in that list is the teaching of Christ? Even is command to love our neighbours is relegated to something of an after-thought in clause 11, where the outworking of that command is given largely to the Spirit, not to the believer. Surrounded by people in need, is it really so important that we unite around the abstract idea of the Virgin Birth? And so on. The clause on the authority of Scripture is delightfully vague, but seems to mean something which I don't think I share.
Reaching the conclusion a while ago that the basis of faith was rather irrelevant, I wondered if I could continue membership. I decided to keep an eye on news, and decide whether I would wish to be publicly associated with the EA's positions. And so, on Friday, I came across two recent news articles:
I'm not leaving the EA on the strength of two short articles, but they are the proverbial last straw. Sorry EA, you don't speak for me.
The EA often seems to be a force for good. It has generally avoided narrow sectarian positions, enabling it for a long time to claim to speak for one million UK residents (through personal and church memberships). They've dropped that line from their promotional material now, but they still seem to have a large following. In general, the EA promotes the positive things its members have been doing, and frequently undertakes sensible lobbying positions in speaking to government.
There was a time when I thought those approaches were spot-on and just right: I was proud of the EA and proud to be a member. But somehow the things it does have become increasingly marginal to me - and, I'd suggest, to a lot of other people who might live with a label like emerging or post-evangelical. I know that I have moved in an inclusive direction - I rather suspect that the EA has moved in the opposite direction.
In thinking about membership, one might start with the basis of faith, since this is the thing that all members must agree on. It is an unexceptional list - and widely adopted by EA affiliates as their own basis also. Do I still believe it? Well, that depends what you mean. If I wanted to claim that I did, I would need to re-interpret several of the clauses to imply something other than what most would agree upon as their "plain meaning". But more than that, my problem really is with making such a list the basis of unity: it seems a category mistake. Where in that list is the teaching of Christ? Even is command to love our neighbours is relegated to something of an after-thought in clause 11, where the outworking of that command is given largely to the Spirit, not to the believer. Surrounded by people in need, is it really so important that we unite around the abstract idea of the Virgin Birth? And so on. The clause on the authority of Scripture is delightfully vague, but seems to mean something which I don't think I share.
Reaching the conclusion a while ago that the basis of faith was rather irrelevant, I wondered if I could continue membership. I decided to keep an eye on news, and decide whether I would wish to be publicly associated with the EA's positions. And so, on Friday, I came across two recent news articles:
- The government should celebrate and protect marriage, not re-define it, and
- More of a big mistake than a big bang
I'm not leaving the EA on the strength of two short articles, but they are the proverbial last straw. Sorry EA, you don't speak for me.
2011/08/15
excessively postmodern?
I'm in Australia on holidays again, and as with last year, confronted by some of the presentations surrounding Aboriginal culture.
In Kakadu National park, Official notices on signs side-by-side (or, in some cases, even on a single sign) report both details of the billion-year-old rocks, and the news that the land was created in the dream time by the rainbow serpent. Not 'Aboriginal people believe that...', but 'it was'. These narratives are not entirely compatible. Well, that is to say, they are not compatible within our dominant system of epistemology. To ditch that system for this reason is something of a bold move, because it is rather a successful one. (We'll return to success in a moment).
To select those two narratives, and omit, say, 'creation science' or 'flood geology' seems a little arbitrary - not that I am uncomfortable with their omission, since they do not strike me as useful descriptions. One's own perspective is of course subjective: how is the National Parks Authority to select narratives, stories, and explanations? Do you privilege the Aboriginal perspective due to its longevity? Due to the sensibilities of the 'traditional owners' (a phrase itself laden with competing meanings)? Due to the expectations of the readers? Due to the long standing oppression and disadvantage of the Aboriginal people - to allow a voice that was for a long time denied?
Privileging the voices of the marginalized sounds like a good thing to do. But I can't help wondering if, applied naively, doing so is eventually self-defeating: you'd want to ask how those people became marginalized in the first place. The more successful voice/culture tends to overwhelm the less successful one, it was ever thus. In many walks of life, we would be in a parlous state if not. Perhaps that is an equally naive appeal to a kind of cultural survival of the fittest.
Success tends to be measured in terms of money, sex, and power. Perhaps it would be better if it were not. Instead, we might appeal to justice for the poor, living in harmony with the environment, self-giving, and a heap of other values that we tend to recognize as good humanistic qualities. Indeed, we might see those as biblical values, as Christ-like characteristics.
But does that really work? Would justice for the poor be best served by giving equal balance to the voices of the homeopath as to the voice of the scientific medical community? Will our emissions of CO2 be reduced by giving weight both to those who don't understand physics and chemistry, as well as to those who do? For the way that we understand the last 500 years of science, with all its very tangible benefits to the quality of life for all (all? most? some?) is very deeply rooted in a privileged narrative, with a value system of very definite 'right' and 'wrong', and based upon a culture which very often promotes those with sharpest elbows. Can we truly turn our backs on that - or embrace an epistemic humility - without losing its benefits? I guess it's a matter of scale.
I want to inhabit a world - and a system of knowing - where we give proportionate weight to every voice. But who decides what's proportionate?
In Kakadu National park, Official notices on signs side-by-side (or, in some cases, even on a single sign) report both details of the billion-year-old rocks, and the news that the land was created in the dream time by the rainbow serpent. Not 'Aboriginal people believe that...', but 'it was'. These narratives are not entirely compatible. Well, that is to say, they are not compatible within our dominant system of epistemology. To ditch that system for this reason is something of a bold move, because it is rather a successful one. (We'll return to success in a moment).
To select those two narratives, and omit, say, 'creation science' or 'flood geology' seems a little arbitrary - not that I am uncomfortable with their omission, since they do not strike me as useful descriptions. One's own perspective is of course subjective: how is the National Parks Authority to select narratives, stories, and explanations? Do you privilege the Aboriginal perspective due to its longevity? Due to the sensibilities of the 'traditional owners' (a phrase itself laden with competing meanings)? Due to the expectations of the readers? Due to the long standing oppression and disadvantage of the Aboriginal people - to allow a voice that was for a long time denied?
Privileging the voices of the marginalized sounds like a good thing to do. But I can't help wondering if, applied naively, doing so is eventually self-defeating: you'd want to ask how those people became marginalized in the first place. The more successful voice/culture tends to overwhelm the less successful one, it was ever thus. In many walks of life, we would be in a parlous state if not. Perhaps that is an equally naive appeal to a kind of cultural survival of the fittest.
Success tends to be measured in terms of money, sex, and power. Perhaps it would be better if it were not. Instead, we might appeal to justice for the poor, living in harmony with the environment, self-giving, and a heap of other values that we tend to recognize as good humanistic qualities. Indeed, we might see those as biblical values, as Christ-like characteristics.
But does that really work? Would justice for the poor be best served by giving equal balance to the voices of the homeopath as to the voice of the scientific medical community? Will our emissions of CO2 be reduced by giving weight both to those who don't understand physics and chemistry, as well as to those who do? For the way that we understand the last 500 years of science, with all its very tangible benefits to the quality of life for all (all? most? some?) is very deeply rooted in a privileged narrative, with a value system of very definite 'right' and 'wrong', and based upon a culture which very often promotes those with sharpest elbows. Can we truly turn our backs on that - or embrace an epistemic humility - without losing its benefits? I guess it's a matter of scale.
I want to inhabit a world - and a system of knowing - where we give proportionate weight to every voice. But who decides what's proportionate?
2011/08/14
review: Church in the present tense
Church in the present tense: A candid look at what is emerging
Scot McKnight, Peter Rollins, Kevin Corcoran, Jason Clark
My rule these days is that I buy hard copy books if I expect to enjoy them and lend them to others, and Kindle books if no lending is anticipated. I bought Church in the Present Tense in hard copy. But I'm not sure I will be lending it to many others.
In terms of disappointment, this book most puts me in mind of D A Carson's book on the Emerging Church, but the comparison is hardly fair. Carson seemingly spoke from a position of little real engagement: these authors are clearly active participants in what is emerging. And yet, because each really only speaks from a narrow personal perspective, the picture is still patchy, and didn't seem to me to amount to a candid look at all. Perhaps I just expected the wrong thing,
The book consists of eight chapters, with each author contributing two. Corcoran is the editor and writes first, about philosophical realism. This is a curious wander through Postmodernism, epistemic humility, and a heap of related topics: I felt as if I was receiving lots of polemic from Corcoran and understanding his own belief system - but it did little to persuade me to adopt it for myself. The second essay in the 'philosophy' section is by Rollins: surely he is writing about his favourote topic. I'm not sure that excuses a line discussing "Heidegger's somewhat Kierkegaardian reading of Nietzsche ...", but over-all the is Rollins at his more readable.
The successive parts take us through Theology, Worship, and Bible and Doctrine. Each takes us on a tour of the author's perspective, which is interesting,but doesn't really pretend to be representative or typical of the emerging churches they invoke (patchily). McKnight's chapter on scripture in the emerging movement put me very much in mind of McLaren's distinction of bible as constitution versus bible as library. But I fear the latter made the point more clearly. Under worship, Rollins writes on Transformance Art, reprising some of the parable-based stuff from his recent Orthodox Heretic. He also offers the helpful observation "It is not difficult to avoid hipocrisy when you believe in nothing."
The book comes with a DVD - another reason to but the hard copy - but no reference is made to it in the pages of the book, and as I write this I haven't had opportunity ot view it.
Overall, this must be said to be a book at the 'academic' end of the 'popular' spectrum. It's well constructed, but I cannot really describe it as instructive. It's a bit disappointing; it feels like a lost opportunity .
2011/07/17
the tension
Recent posts by Ross McKenzie and Philip Jensen (h/t to Ross, again; I wouldn't have gone seeking out that particular blogger) remind me to try to sum up the tension that's really bothering me. Here goes.
My Christian friends are not nearly scientific enough. And my scientist friends are not nearly spiritual enough. It's a rather longstanding tension, of course, but that doesn't make it any easier to handle.
On the one hand, Christians (and especially Evangelical Christians) really are prone to lapse into a rather mediaeval understanding of the world around us. They are not alone in this, of course: woeful ignorance of, say, Newton's laws of motion is quite common in the general population. But as I've said previously, the theology of prayer really needs a radical overhaul. Many of the things which are said to arise through spiritual means are much, much better explained by chance or by psychology, or a raft of other sciences. Just tolerating the young earth creationists (even without agreeing with them) is a shocking piece of intellectual sloppiness. Failing to follow through and accept that archaeology casts doubt on the historicity of big bits of the rest of the Old Testament is equally a careless piece of head-in-the-sand thinking. Denying the results of good textual criticism of the biblical texts - and holding instead to vague myths about origin and authorship - is just setting yourself up for a fall.
And so it goes on. None of these things is essential or central to the Christian gospel, and pretending that the metaphysics of the dark ages is better than today's scholarship is just a distraction, and liable to make thinking people reject the whole package out of hand. Then there's issues of morality ... but those are best left to a different discussion.
On the other hand entirely, many scientists seem equally stuck - albeit in the nineteenth century instead of the fourteenth. There is an optimistic hubris which assumes every problem will be solved eventually. There is an appeal to a kind of reductionism which 20th century mathematics and physics showed to be fundamentally untenable. Some will point out that in the middle ages, the thinkers of the day were kept from certain topics whereas today everything is open for research: conveniently ignoring that there is a long list of areas in which you would truly struggle to get taken seriously, or even allowed to proceed at all. (I refer not to the periodic nutter who invents a perpetual motion machine, but to a range of questions whose answers are not incontrovertibly settled but are nevertheless entirely un-researchable. There are subjects for which we do not want to know the answer, or are unwilling due to concerns of ethics, to ask the question). Equally, epistemology has moved on immeasurably, even to the point of asking whether there are truths about the universe which human minds will never comprehend.
The language we use to describe those truths is of course instructive. If pressed, most will admit that they are dealing with models of reality, models which must be mutable to take account of new observations. Frequently that language is suppressed in favour of a discussion of "how it is" - deficient as such wording is, along with its cousin "existence". A fixation upon whether or not things "exist" seems awfully dated, and not terribly helpful - whether one is dealing with quantum theory or theology. Insofar as we can understand the cosmos from our position inside it, taking account of the role of the observer seems to matter greatly - and therein is spirituality.
So I find myself reluctantly living in that tension. I find a lot of people who want glibly to resolve it one way or the other, or who want to inhabit "faith with science-lite" or "science, with personal faith if you must" but both seem really quite unsatisfactory to me. Perhaps this is partly due to that unhealthy parting of the ways in the mid-to-late 19th century, wherein real rigorous dialogue dried up in favour of is/isn't debates which often miss the point. In many ways, I envy those priest-scholar-scientists who lived before that divide, for theirs was a more holistic existence. But we cannot go back there. The Universe is much more wonderful than they could possibly have imagined; life more incredible than they might have dared to think.
My Christian friends are not nearly scientific enough. And my scientist friends are not nearly spiritual enough. It's a rather longstanding tension, of course, but that doesn't make it any easier to handle.
On the one hand, Christians (and especially Evangelical Christians) really are prone to lapse into a rather mediaeval understanding of the world around us. They are not alone in this, of course: woeful ignorance of, say, Newton's laws of motion is quite common in the general population. But as I've said previously, the theology of prayer really needs a radical overhaul. Many of the things which are said to arise through spiritual means are much, much better explained by chance or by psychology, or a raft of other sciences. Just tolerating the young earth creationists (even without agreeing with them) is a shocking piece of intellectual sloppiness. Failing to follow through and accept that archaeology casts doubt on the historicity of big bits of the rest of the Old Testament is equally a careless piece of head-in-the-sand thinking. Denying the results of good textual criticism of the biblical texts - and holding instead to vague myths about origin and authorship - is just setting yourself up for a fall.
And so it goes on. None of these things is essential or central to the Christian gospel, and pretending that the metaphysics of the dark ages is better than today's scholarship is just a distraction, and liable to make thinking people reject the whole package out of hand. Then there's issues of morality ... but those are best left to a different discussion.
On the other hand entirely, many scientists seem equally stuck - albeit in the nineteenth century instead of the fourteenth. There is an optimistic hubris which assumes every problem will be solved eventually. There is an appeal to a kind of reductionism which 20th century mathematics and physics showed to be fundamentally untenable. Some will point out that in the middle ages, the thinkers of the day were kept from certain topics whereas today everything is open for research: conveniently ignoring that there is a long list of areas in which you would truly struggle to get taken seriously, or even allowed to proceed at all. (I refer not to the periodic nutter who invents a perpetual motion machine, but to a range of questions whose answers are not incontrovertibly settled but are nevertheless entirely un-researchable. There are subjects for which we do not want to know the answer, or are unwilling due to concerns of ethics, to ask the question). Equally, epistemology has moved on immeasurably, even to the point of asking whether there are truths about the universe which human minds will never comprehend.
The language we use to describe those truths is of course instructive. If pressed, most will admit that they are dealing with models of reality, models which must be mutable to take account of new observations. Frequently that language is suppressed in favour of a discussion of "how it is" - deficient as such wording is, along with its cousin "existence". A fixation upon whether or not things "exist" seems awfully dated, and not terribly helpful - whether one is dealing with quantum theory or theology. Insofar as we can understand the cosmos from our position inside it, taking account of the role of the observer seems to matter greatly - and therein is spirituality.
So I find myself reluctantly living in that tension. I find a lot of people who want glibly to resolve it one way or the other, or who want to inhabit "faith with science-lite" or "science, with personal faith if you must" but both seem really quite unsatisfactory to me. Perhaps this is partly due to that unhealthy parting of the ways in the mid-to-late 19th century, wherein real rigorous dialogue dried up in favour of is/isn't debates which often miss the point. In many ways, I envy those priest-scholar-scientists who lived before that divide, for theirs was a more holistic existence. But we cannot go back there. The Universe is much more wonderful than they could possibly have imagined; life more incredible than they might have dared to think.
2011/07/02
schism
Insofar as I understand Anglican ecclesiology, this seems significant news:
My impression is that this may mark the beginning of the end for conservative Evangelicals in the Church of England. I imagine that quite a few will be wondering now whether they want to be counted in the AMiE or in a gay-clergy-affirming women-bishop-consecrating Church of England. The whole thing has been played out in slow motion, and it's easy to be impatient for a resolution - but I have a grudging respect for the tortuous processes involved, which may yet lead to a compromise which keeps everyone in the fold. I used to despise such Anglican fudge, but am coming round to the view that it is preferable to open schism. That said, the polemic on both sides appears irreconcilable: if a parting of fellowship is inevitable, it would be best done quickly, for delay will simply inflame passions and raise the temperature to no good benefit.
A NEW conservative Evangelical group, the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE), already has three newly ordained clergy waiting to minister in the UK.The Society, launched at the end of last week, offers alternative episcopal oversight when diocesan bishops “are failing in their canonical duty to uphold sound teaching”.The three unnamed clerics were ordained in Kenya on 11 June by the Archbishop of Kenya, Dr Eliud Wabukala [...]The AMiE has appointed its own “panel” of five bishops “to provide effective oversight in collaboration with senior clergy”. The panel consists of one serving bishop, the Bishop of Lewes, the Rt Revd Wallace Benn, and four retired bishops [...]To this outsider, flying people off on a rather hush-hush basis, on a long-haul flight, so that someone can lay on hands, and pray for them and their future ministry, seems a most peculiar way to pursue "biblical Christianity". But what do I know?
My impression is that this may mark the beginning of the end for conservative Evangelicals in the Church of England. I imagine that quite a few will be wondering now whether they want to be counted in the AMiE or in a gay-clergy-affirming women-bishop-consecrating Church of England. The whole thing has been played out in slow motion, and it's easy to be impatient for a resolution - but I have a grudging respect for the tortuous processes involved, which may yet lead to a compromise which keeps everyone in the fold. I used to despise such Anglican fudge, but am coming round to the view that it is preferable to open schism. That said, the polemic on both sides appears irreconcilable: if a parting of fellowship is inevitable, it would be best done quickly, for delay will simply inflame passions and raise the temperature to no good benefit.
2011/07/01
Evangelicals surveyed
[Where did June go? Blogs have been getting infrequent. Oh dear.]
A couple of weeks ago, the Pew Forum published the results of a substantial Global Survey of Evangelical Protestant Leaders.
It makes interesting reading for two reasons: first, because I think that many of its questions are quite insightful and go to the heart of quite a few matters. Second, because the answers are enlightening, and often scary.
Take, for example, these snippets:
More than half say that consuming alcohol is enough to stop you being a good evangelical. Ooops; that's 'Good Evangelical'. Oh dear. Then again, if 97% see it as essential to follow the teachings of Christ, but 27% don't see that as extending to helping the poor and needy, which bible did they read, actually?
It's interesting in the light of my blog from a couple of months ago that 76% have experienced or witnessed divine healing. I'm also a little blown away by the fact that 61% confidently assert that "the rapture of the Church will take place before the Great Tribulation". Perhaps it's more positive to learn that 13% think that homosexuality should be accepted by society (51% of those in Latin America; 23% of those in Europe), even if 55% think a wife must always obey her husband, and 33% think women should stay home and raise children.
I think the thing that struck me most was this question:
Firstly, missing is any kind of self-doubt. Perhaps that's the survey's fault, but if you fear a decline in Evangelicalism (and a small majority in the global North anticipate one), surely you have to ask yourself whether that decline is due to an inherent flaw - a mistaken theology, philosophy, or pattern of thinking or behaviour. But, more generally, what can "influence of secularism" possibly mean here? That there's a battle of ideas - and you're losing? Likewise, "influence of Islam": if you believe that the gospel of Christ is the truth, and that the teaching of the Koran is not, well, why fear the latter? And so on. Many of the other things are fears about the gospel or the work of the Holy Spirit being insufficiently strong to protect the faithful: that seems at odds with the rhetoric about the power of the gospel.
Over all, the survey gives me the sense of evangelicalism - at least, northern hemisphere evangelical protestantism - being a spent force, far more concerned with the maintenance of its own way of being than with an essential spark of a movement of the Holy Spirit of God. But perhaps I'm unduly cynical.
A couple of weeks ago, the Pew Forum published the results of a substantial Global Survey of Evangelical Protestant Leaders.
It makes interesting reading for two reasons: first, because I think that many of its questions are quite insightful and go to the heart of quite a few matters. Second, because the answers are enlightening, and often scary.
Take, for example, these snippets:
More than half say that consuming alcohol is enough to stop you being a good evangelical. Ooops; that's 'Good Evangelical'. Oh dear. Then again, if 97% see it as essential to follow the teachings of Christ, but 27% don't see that as extending to helping the poor and needy, which bible did they read, actually?
It's interesting in the light of my blog from a couple of months ago that 76% have experienced or witnessed divine healing. I'm also a little blown away by the fact that 61% confidently assert that "the rapture of the Church will take place before the Great Tribulation". Perhaps it's more positive to learn that 13% think that homosexuality should be accepted by society (51% of those in Latin America; 23% of those in Europe), even if 55% think a wife must always obey her husband, and 33% think women should stay home and raise children.
I think the thing that struck me most was this question:
Firstly, missing is any kind of self-doubt. Perhaps that's the survey's fault, but if you fear a decline in Evangelicalism (and a small majority in the global North anticipate one), surely you have to ask yourself whether that decline is due to an inherent flaw - a mistaken theology, philosophy, or pattern of thinking or behaviour. But, more generally, what can "influence of secularism" possibly mean here? That there's a battle of ideas - and you're losing? Likewise, "influence of Islam": if you believe that the gospel of Christ is the truth, and that the teaching of the Koran is not, well, why fear the latter? And so on. Many of the other things are fears about the gospel or the work of the Holy Spirit being insufficiently strong to protect the faithful: that seems at odds with the rhetoric about the power of the gospel.
Over all, the survey gives me the sense of evangelicalism - at least, northern hemisphere evangelical protestantism - being a spent force, far more concerned with the maintenance of its own way of being than with an essential spark of a movement of the Holy Spirit of God. But perhaps I'm unduly cynical.
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