In the old days (when I was growing up) there were basically four Christian camps you could be in. These were largely determined by the Wesleyan quadrilateral of authority.
If the Bible was the source of your authority then you were evangelical and you were concerned on getting truth right and seeing people become Christian.
If tradition was your source of your authority then you were Catholic or High Church and you were concerned with making sure we kept doing what were doing 50 years ago.
If rationalism was your authority then you were liberal and you were concerned with making sure Christianity was in touch with culture, mainly through social action.
And if experience was your authority then you were charismatic and you were concerned with getting the latest experience: tongues, blessings, the latest CD or cool hair cut.
But now the lines have changed. However, many of us are still playing as if the are not. It is like we were playing rugby and don’t understand why there are now 4 vertical sticks, not two and there is no offside (The game changed from rugby to AFL if you are missing it!).
While we used to have charismatic, evangelical, liberal and high church clearly marked out we cannot work in these categories any more. Let me offer three illustrations, there are more but I am a preacher so there must be three points!
Firstly, Gen Y, as it is known, has made social action more important and more importantly cool. The globalisation of society and meant that Gen Y is more connected to the rest of the world in a way that previous generations are not. (Interestingly, this has lead to a downturn in nationalism but I am not sure what to make of that.) As such globalisation has meant that people are more concerned about “Making Poverty History”, “Live 8”, and the whole Bono thing! Social action no longer for the lefty, out there, vegetarian anymore as it was for Gen X; it is for anyone who is cool! This has made its way into our churches with the growth of Compassion, churches making sure they are ‘green’, etc. This means that evangelicals are now seeing an increasing role of social action in their community, not replacing evangelism, but sitting comfortably with it. Hillsong likewise used to be clearly in the charismatic camp, but now is doing much more in terms of social action.
Secondly, we see popular evangelicals having charismatic experiences. Mark Driscoll is the most popular of these with his own “charismatic with a seat belt” label. Though others are similar. I have still not worked out where to put Louis Giglio, even though he will be in Sydney next month with the Passion event (Oct 21, Ent Cent). He preaches an evangelical message but when I have spoken to his staff appears to have a charismatic approach to making decisions about where he goes and what he does.
Thirdly, new players on the scene don’t seem to fit anywhere. What do we make of the New Perspective, Emerging, Emergent churches? Is Tom Wright an evangelical? If he is not then what do we call him? Emergent churches appear to want to borrow from everyone: mysticism from the high church, interaction with culture from liberalism, experience mainly of community from the charismatics and something with the Bible from evangelicals. Though they do this with varying degrees of success, it makes them very hard to label!
If the game has changed, how do we play? Here are some suggestions:
1. Be aware that the lines have shifted. I am concerned, as I mentioned before that we have not acknowledged that the game has changed at least a little. We are therefore quick to label people who seem to hold a characteristic of another camp. I fear this is leading to the wrong fights. I am not against fights, just against ones that don't have to be fought. Rather than having the fight over evangelical v charismatic (both of whom we do not know exist anymore), we might need to have the fight between evangelical cessationists and evangelical non-cessationists.
2. It would be nice to say we should ignore labels altogether, and assess everyone on their own merits. But frankly this is not realistic. There are too many people to do this and we need to be able to identify who we need to be wary of and who we should warn others to be wary of. We probably need to come up with a new set of labels: New Calvinists, Emergent, Attractional Megachurch, etc. But someone smarter than me needs to do that!
3. Be careful of using words in derogatory ways. Doing social action does not make someone a liberal anymore, anymore than having an unusual experience makes them charismatic. For example, I am no longer sure of what to make of people raising their hands when they are singing, though 10 years ago they were clearly charismatic. Again, I am no longer sure how to 'label' Hillsong, though some of the things they do are good (did he just say that? I think he did, blogging must be making him soft!).
4. The Wesleyan quadrilateral is not something we should throw out. But it does need some modification. The question is what is at the heart of what you are doing? I believe evangelicals may have some experiences, do social action, etc. But what is driving them? The Gospel. Why? Because their final authority is the Bible. I suspect this means that Louis Giglio would be regarded in the old labels as charismatic. He wants to give people an experience that will change them in the Passion events. That being said, I guess I have to put KCC in the same basket!
Any thoughts on how the game has changed?
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