I have a review of Sarah McCammon’s book The Exvangelicals up at Mere Orthodoxy. Here’s an excerpt:
She opens by recounting an Easter reenactment of the crucifixion she attended as a child. She observes that the evangelical story of the crucifixion “was meant to illustrate a deeper reality: that lurking beneath the veneer of our comfortable, suburban, midwestern American lives was a threat so severe that God had to send his only son to brutally suffer and die to save us from it. The blood might be fake, but the danger was not. That threat informed every aspect of my life.” Her portrayal of evangelicalism is a life policed by fear: fear of hell, fear of the world, fear of transgressing boundaries.
Click over to read the rest.
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Thought that I would copy and paste my response to the article from the Mere Orthodoxy website:
I found the article interesting for two reasons. First, I have appreciated Shaffer’s writing and perspectives for a while. He takes a balanced approach in forming his analysis of things. That doesn’t mean that he necessarily takes a middle of the road approach. What it does mean is that he considers multiple issues when commenting on a topic, group or ideology.
Second, with evangelicalism being so closely tied to conservative political ideologies and political parties, I could consider myself a half exvangelical because of the dramatic changes that have taken place in my political views. I was once a political conservative and I now lean toward Marx–that should not be confused with supporting totalitarian regimes that were Marxist in name only.
First, let’s throw the term ‘winsome’ out the window. In reality, the best examples of being winsome were simply examples of displaying the fruit of the Spirit. Once one has separated what is winsome from the fruit of the Spirit, which really cannot happen, one has given oneself license to criticize the displaying of the fruit of the Spirit.
As for the book review/response, we should note that there are going to be both unnecessary and necessary offenses associated with the Gospel. The necessary ones are the parts of the Gospel message that talk about what sin is as well as both its consequences and remedies. The unnecessary offenses are the personal sins and the extraneous beliefs, such as political beliefs, and practices, of the Gospel’s messengers–that’s us Christians.
But we should also note one other thing, that is that sometimes an implied message of spiritual superiority is passed along by the believer when sharing the Gospel. To remedy that implied message, we need to constantly reread the parable of the two men praying (Luke 18:9-14) and ask this question: At what point in life is it safe to pray the prayer of the Pharisee?
Hi Curt,
Thanks for the kind comments and passing along your thoughts from the MO post.