We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Are Evangelicals an Endangered Species?
Tim Suttle offered some thoughts on the Huffington Post a few days ago about the state of evangelicalism and what is needed to keep it from going the way of the dinosaurs. In an atmosphere of increasing division and conflict, he offers mission as a unifying center that will keep evangelicalism vibrant. Rather than becoming more and more fractured along theological lines, is it possible for the church to set aside our differences and come together to serve? Let’s hope so.
From the article:
Theological diversity is nothing to fear. The Gospel doesn’t need people who will defend it. The Gospel needs people who will become transformed by it and live it out. That’s mission. And even if it does need defenders, the best defense of the Gospel is not an attack on the heterodox — it is a people who have been transformed by the love of God into instruments of redemption, learning to live in fidelity to God and each other no matter what our doctrinal disagreements. A people who have been formed in self-sacrificial love and theological humility of the one, the holy, the catholic and the apostolic — these are the marks of the church. Where these are absent, the church has ceased to be faithful and will most certainly falter.
Related Reading
Quotes to Chew On: Confronting Non-Christians
“When Christians confront people on the basis of presuppositions not shared by the people they confront, they come across as rude (hence unloving, I Cor. 13:4-5) and usually render the gospel less credible to the people they confront. What is not generally communicated to the people being evangelized is the one thing we are called…
Podcast: How Do I Share Jesus Without Sounding Weird?
Greg discusses sharing Jesus with non-believers. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0068.mp3
Do We Jeopardize a Person’s Salvation by Sharing the Gospel with Them? (podcast)
Greg considers the evangelism implications of the idea that we are all IN. Why risk someone having an opportunity to opt out? Episode 494 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0494.mp3
What do you think of “confrontational evangelism”?
Question: In The Myth of a Christian Nation, you emphasize our need to sacrificially serve others. But you didn’t emphasize our need to “preach the Gospel to every living creature.” I’ve been intrigued by the movement known as “confrontational evangelism,” associated with Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. They stress the need to get people to…
