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By Faith Alone? The Boundaries of Evangelicalism

By Faith Alone? The Boundaries of Evangelicalism

Last updated on: August 11, 2015 at 7:16 am by Libby Anne

By Faith Alone? The Boundaries of Evangelicalism 2015-08-11T07:16:46-04:00 Libby Anne

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Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior. In Your Name. Amen.

This is often referred to as the “sinner’s prayer.” Indeed, most evangelicals believe that once you’re saved, you’re always saved. There is nothing you can do to lose your salvation.

But.

If you prayed the sinner’s prayer but support gay rights, accept evolution, or vote Democrat, you’re going to see your salvation questioned by other evangelicals. Ahab of Republic of Gilead recently noted just this, offering a list of what he called the “fine print” of fundamentalism. Here are a few of the items he listed:

(1) Thou shall tithe AT LEAST 10% of ones’ gross income to the church, regardless of whether one is struggling with poverty, and regardless of whether the church is transparent about its finances.

(2) Thou shall adopt an anti-abortion, anti-Planned Parenthood stance, no matter how much evidence shows that reproductive health services help women.

(3) Thou shall adopt an anti-LGBTQ stance and support efforts to deny rights to the LGBTQ community.

(4) Thou shall resist church-state separation, no matter how fair or reasonable the wall of separation.

(5) Thou shall vote Republican, no matter how disastrous or unreasonable their policies.

What’s going on here, exactly? Several things, I would argue.

First, evangelicals believe that anyone who prays the sinner’s prayer will want to learn more about the Bible and to follow it’s teachings, and they believe that the Bible mandates opposition to abortion, support for capitalism, and abstinence before marriage. They believe that anyone who approaches the Bible with a desire to learn God’s will will come away from it with the same conclusions that they have. They don’t see the Bible as something that is ambiguous, or can be interpreted in different ways.

As I’ve already noted, most evangelicals believe that once you’re saved you can’t become unsaved. To suggest that you could would be questioning Jesus’ power. But there’s a but, and it’s a big one. If your salvation does not show “fruit” in your life—i.e. if your beliefs and actions do not change to align with their interpretation of the Bible—they may conclude that you were never saved to begin with. For the sinner’s prayer to work, you see, you have to mean it, and if there’s no fruit, well, you probably didn’t mean it.

Second, evangelical Christianity isn’t just a belief system, it’s also a culture, and those who pray the sinner’s prayer are supposed to become a part of that culture. Evangelicals claim they’re trying to follow Christianity as it was practiced in the early church, but any such claim ignores the scads of Christian bookstores, trendy devotionals, and Christian kitsch so ubiquitous in evangelical Christianity. Being an evangelical doesn’t just mean believing XYZ, it also means assimilating into a culture of megachurches, prayer groups, and religious-political rallies.

Could an evangelical stand outside of evangelical culture and still be recognized by other evangelicals as part of the in-group? Not easily. Evangelicals are big on emphasizing the New Testament mandate for believers to live in fellowship with each other, which makes standing outside of that fellowship iffy. Participating in fellowship with other evangelicals without assimilating to evangelical culture is complicated if not impossible, and challenging mainstays of evangelical culture will generally get you labeled as an outsider.

Now, there are some evangelicals who are attempting to challenge key facets of evangelical culture and question key portions of evangelicals’ beliefs, but these fringe evangelicals are often viewed with suspicion by the more mainstream evangelical culture. As an example, “emergent” evangelicals question the tie between evangelicals and conservative politics and even work to upset evangelical worship patterns, overturning dominant hierarchies and encouraging questions and individual paths. But again, these evangelicals are often held at arm’s distance.

As my regular readers know, I am in the process of reviewing Michael Farris’ Anonymous Tip. It should be clear to anyone following along that the book’s main female character, Gwen, will end up having a conversion experience of some sort as the book goes on. When that happens, Gwen will be expected to turn to the Bible for answers to any questions she may have and come away from it with the standard evangelical conclusions on a variety of topics. She will also be expected to begin attending an evangelical church and assimilate into evangelical culture. Should she pray the sinner’s prayer and not do these things—not adopt a long list of evangelical beliefs or not assimilate into evangelical culture through a local church—the veracity of her conversion would be questioned.

It’s worth noting that the Nicene Creed, the statement of faith that has united virtually all Christians for over a millennia and a half, is silent on just about every issue evangelicals have made so central to their beliefs and culture. Have a look:

The Nicene Creed

I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Let’s imagine, for a moment, that instead of praying the sinner’s prayer, salvation was predicated on affirming the Nicene Creed. It is possible to affirm this creed and yet hold any number of a variety of positions on abortion, gay marriage, or capitalism. Indeed, the Nicene Creed does not even mention the Bible as such, let alone affirm that it is the source of all truth.

Now let’s look at the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) Statement of Faith:

We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.

We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.

We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.

We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

The only real difference here is the affirmation of the Bible as the inspired and infallible “Word of God.” Nowhere is there anything about sex before marriage or voting Republican. Ahab of the Republic of Gilead is right that all of these things are in the fine print and never stated outright.

Becoming an evangelical means much more than praying the sinner’s prayer or affirming either the Nicene Creed or the NAE Statement of Faith. I suspect that all of these additional things are left out of the original pitch because of the assumption that they naturally follow. In other words, evangelicals are confident that believing that the Bible is infallible will naturally mean believing that gay relationships are incompatible with Christianity, or that abortion is murder, and they are confident that a newly converted evangelical will want to become a part of evangelical culture.

That someone could affirm the core beliefs in the sinner’s prayer, Nicene Creed, or NAE statement of faith and yet disagree with standard evangelical positions or take serious issue with modern evangelical culture is not in evangelicals’ frame of reference. And yet, such is possible, is it not? I think of liberation theology, with its emphasis on Jesus’ subversive nature and overthrowing of contemporary power structures. Indeed, even the NAE statement of faith is not incompatible with universalism.

When I explored Catholicism, one of the things I appreciated most was the catechism. They actually had a document listing all of their beliefs, right there, where I could see them and look things up! Evangelicals don’t have a catechism, assuming, instead, that the Bible is all that is needed. But if that were so, why do we have so many different Christian sects and denominations? The Bible is not a catechism, and was never intended to be. It is full of stories, poetry, and sometimes statements that are quite contradictory.

It’s not that evangelicals don’t have enough beliefs to fill a catechism—they do! It is rather that they prefer to relegate what they would have put in said catechism to a sort of fine print that is left out of the pitch but no less binding.

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