"[Non-evangelicals] seem to be paralyzed by the thought that speaking ill of someone else’s religious belief is intolerant."
Well, not all, & not me. I've been shunned by some former evangelicals who say that evangelicals are still Christian. +
amp.thedailybeast.com/blame-evangeli…
Well, not all, & not me. I've been shunned by some former evangelicals who say that evangelicals are still Christian. +
amp.thedailybeast.com/blame-evangeli…
I cannot think of white evangelicals as Christian. I just can't. It goes against everything I was taught about Christianity, growing up in a liberal United Methodist minister's family, then getting my masters in religious ed from a liberal seminary in the early 80s. +
No one ever told me in those years that white evangelicals weren't Christian--they weren't quite what they are now--but I saw what a white evangelical church's real cult did to many of my high school friends. They took their methods straight from the Moonies & other cults. +
Over the years since, I've seen white evangelical churches take such a hypocritical turn that they go against the very Bible they claim to believe in. How can anyone claim that Jeff Sessions' & Sarah H. Sanders' use of Bible verses to put #ChildrenInCages is Christian?? +
Just believing in God & Jesus as the son of God does not make you a Christian. You have to follow the teachings of Christ. White evangelicals are not doing that. So while some Christians want to refrain from splitting completely from evangelicals, keep in mind that...
Before the Civil War, in 1845, the Methodist church split into northern & southern "branches"--really, different churches--over the issue of slavery. It took almost a century (till 1939) for them to reunite. So splits like this have happened in mainline churches before. +
It *is* possible to distinguish between people who call themselves Christian & those who really are. It also is true that few Protestant denominations are willing to call other denominations heretics, even if they don't all recognize a baptism in infancy as a real baptism. +
But Christians have managed to draw lines before, which is how Protestants split off from the Catholic Church, & such splits have often caused some reformations. Catholics don't charge money for a priest forgiving one of sins anymore, for instance. +
So I'll continue to speak my mind about what constitutes Christianity & what does not. Studying theology has given me more confidence in that. I see the difficulties inherited by millenials, who were raised in more white evangelical churches than my generation, & I'm saddened.
P.S.
P.P.S. the United Methodist Church is currently on the verge of yet another split between the traditionally more liberal church & the white evangelicals who began taking firm root within it in the 80s. Jeff Sessions v the UMC bishops represents that split.
