In some circles, what I’m about to say, will cause people to snicker:
I’m an Evangelical Christian. I studied at Moody Bible Institute. I tend to approach the Bible from a traditional, literal, cultural perspective. I’ve work at Baptist churches. With altar calls and hand raising. I know all of the words to a whole slew of hymns. (Well, most of the words.) And I kind of like them over the never-ending repetition of some of the new stuff rolling out.
Yes. I am “one of those.”
Except.
By “one of those” I mean that I take the Bible at face value. Which isn’t all that radical. But, I suppose, what is radical is that I hold that in authority over the culture that evangelicalism has created.
As I read the Bible day-by-day I refuse to be bound by the trappings of a church-created culture. Church culture holds no stone to the boulder of Biblical authority. For too long the church has stood for the wrong things for the sake of protecting their little-k-kingdoms in the face of BIG K calls to action. As I study Scripture I see that Jesus didn’t just come to earth so I could raise my hand and say a prayer which was a magic token to eternal life. As Ephesians 2 teaches, it’s no more important to “present the Gospel” as it is to “present yourself as the Gospel.”
Jesus didn’t die so that I could run around sharing Good News. He also wanted me to be Good News. To stand up for the poor, to give special attention to children, especially orphans, to put women on equal footing with men, to seek justice for the oppressed, on and on.
I refuse to over-emphasize Pauline epistles and forsake the radical words of Jesus in the Gospels. Or, for that matter, to ignore principles taught the Law which Jesus says he didn’t come to replace but to fulfill.
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