Sacred Roots Workshop

Session 2 Going Back to the Future Why We Need to Retrieve the Great Tradition Today

Evangelicalism as an Incoherent Movement: Why We’re in Trouble

Yet today, with these antagonisms diminished, it’s not so easy to identify an evangelical. Some evangelicals claim to be post-conservative. Others are confessional. Still more are progressive, Reformed, emerg- ing, or mainstream evangelicals. A few drop the term altogether and call themselves simply “Christ followers.” It was a simpler time when evangelicals found common cause in their mutual distaste for Rome, communism, the National Council of Churches, and the fightin’ fundies. But now we’re realizing that so-called evangelicals often struggle to reach a common definition for the evangel, the gospel. Hence, we splinter into competing camps. This is hardly the posture of a coherent movement. A quick survey of movement building reveals that many groups struggle to shift from destruction to construction. The Tea Party movement hates taxes and wants to defeat President Obama. But what’s their shared vision for governance? Who knows. The Demo- cratic Party built large congressional majorities and recaptured the White House behind unified opposition to President Bush. But less than two years later, polls indicate widespread voter dissatisfaction with Democratic policies amid intraparty squabbling. Strategists now suggest that Democrats – who control two of three government branches – should blame the minority Republicans rather than try to campaign on their own accomplishments. Back in the realm of theology, the emerging movement began to break up when shared disgust of traditional church practice no longer sufficed as an organizing principle. “Where is your solution?” critics asked. It turned out there was no constructive consensus for how churches might faithfully adapt to the challenges of postmodernism. ~ Collin Hansen. “Piper, Warren, and the Perils of Movement Building: Why the debate over separatism still matters.” posted 4/19/2010 09:55AM. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/aprilweb-only/26-11.0.html?start=2

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I. Who Gets to Narrate the World?: The Growing Crisis in Evangelicalism Today

The Christian gospel is a narrative. The Word did not become text or a series of abstracted propositions; the Word became flesh (John 1.14). Consequently Christian theology, if it is to be done

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