Friday, June 8, 2012

Irrepressible Culture Wars, Past and Present

A new generation of evangelical elites is imploring evangelicals to step back from the culture wars. Mostly they want to escape polarizing strong stances on same-sex marriage and abortion, and perhaps also contentious church-state issues, like the Obamacare contraceptive mandate.

Purportedly the evangelical church is failing to reach young, upwardly mobile professionals because evangelicals, who now broadly comprise perhaps one third of all Americans, are seen as reactionary and hateful. On their college campuses, at their coffee shops, and in their yoga classes, among other venues, some outspoken hip young evangelicals want a new public image for their faith.

One such prominent voice is Jonathan Merritt, a progressive Southern Baptist and son of a former Southern Baptist Convention president. His new book, A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars, has earned him many recent bookings on cable talk shows.

A popular young evangelical blogger echoing Merritt's theme is Rachel Evans, who conveniently grew up in the Tennessee small town famous for the Scopes Monkey Trial. Her 2010 book was Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions. "We are tired of the culture wars," she explained in a recent interview. "We are tired of politics." Lamenting the church's preoccupation with "shame and guilt," she urged evangelicals to reconsider their opposition to same-sex unions. Read more.....

4 comments:

  1. Hated Christ, will hate His too..to remake their persona into something more appealing shows what their fixated on and where their heart is-with the world.

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  2. It would be refreshing to see all religions turn away from extreme positions and take a softer more common sense position on issues of the day. Winner take all, extreme ego, self gratification, greed has gotten us where we are today often inspired by zealot within the religious community. Very few people could survive today without the necessitates of modern life and grocery stores and modern agricultural product we have today, we are not an island. Is it really so hard to see that all people have a fair wage, food on the table and a roof over our head. We keep investing in a war machine that is causing hatred all over the planet if even a small portion of that was invested in the thing that help people instead of destroying lives and infrastructure I can't imagine what life could be like if only we took a softer footstep and offered our fellow man a step up instead of a boot down. Maybe its time for the religious community to start leading the way with a softer spoken gentler message. Its long overdue.

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  3. Remember Ms. Evans, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever! Better re-read the Bible, which is {forever} settled in Heaven! These are eternal truths that you or anyone else will (never) remove or remake. The hour is late missy, better get it together!!

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  4. If your church is under the 501/c3 exempt,GET OUT!!! Quit feeding the BEAST!!!!

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