Mark's Notebook


	If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of him. - Thomas Carlyle

Evangelicals can still be saved

Houston Chronicle

Monday 6 December 2004, 12:49 pm
Keywords: Christian Topics , News Articles

Mainline Protestantism underwent a crisis in the early 20th century with the introduction of a liberal theology at odds with many points of traditional Christian belief. The disagreements erupted in what is known as the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy. Fundamentalists were evangelicals with an attitude. They opposed biblical criticism, all strains of liberal theology and the secularizing impulses of their age.

In the 1940s and 1950s, evangelicalism began to undergo a renewal. Prominent evangelical leaders such as Billy Graham rejected the negative fundamentalist mind-set. Evangelicals increasingly realized that they no longer stood in complete opposition to all strains of liberal theology or every idea articulated by secularists.

Evangelicalism became more at home in the world. It sent its sons and daughters to elite schools such as Harvard, Yale and Stanford. It rediscovered common areas of agreement with mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics.

In short, it became more and more diverse, less and less easy to characterize. Evangelicalism now covers a broad spectrum of religious belief and practice from the fundamentalist fringe to socially (though not theologically) liberal activists.

Democrats like to regard themselves as more cosmopolitan than Republicans. But they have been woefully unsophisticated in their analysis of evangelicals, whom they tend to paint in monochromatic hues.

In point of fact there always have been, and still are, evangelicals in the Democratic Party, including former President Jimmy Carter, who once caused distress in the media by announcing he was "born again."

At least 22 percent of self-identified evangelicals voted for John Kerry, a number buoyed by black evangelicals, who vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates.

However, this electoral setback is no reason for Democrats to walk away from a tough debate over values. People who love the Bible know that it has hard things to say about anyone who fails to take care of the poor and powerless.

Democrats believe that at their best they are a party that does precisely that — protects people who cannot protect themselves. It is certainly a starting point for a values conversation with evangelicals.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/2920482