Can we take a break to talk about words?
I’m always amazed at how much words matter.
For example,
the principle point of contention
that precipitated the pulling apart
we now know as the Great Schism
(and all of the resulting theological and cultural dissension)
was from a single preposition.
Yep, 1054 AD—
the year the Church split over the word “from.”
It was known as the “Filioque Controversy,”
a final creedal clash between East and West,
the culmination of a tension that had been brewing for centuries,
made manifest in a theological falling out
over the ramifications of one word:
“from.”
Of course, it wasn’t the word itself, but what it represented,
because words are just our most basic form of expressing ideas,
a codified system of symbols
that our culture has all agreed mean the same things,
and those meanings have deeper meanings,
and now our words carry layers upon layers of significance.
If you doubt for a moment
the importance of words,
consider the sentence:
“_______ lives matter.”
and think about how all your friends and family
will judge you
and debate you
and maybe even hate you
depending on what word you use
to fill in that blank.
Yes, there is power in words.
And over the past few months,
I’ve been thinking over a specific one
that’s been giving me great trouble,
and candidly,
it gives me trouble every election cycle.
That word is Evangelical.
No, not evangelical—
an adjective used to describe
one who believes that every human being
can benefit from the love of Jesus
and, prompted by this conviction,
shares that message
whenever and wherever and however possible.
I’m talking about Evangelical—
a noun used to describe
a traditionally conservative voting bloc
usually associated with the Republican party
and infamous for selling out their own religious tenets
(care for the poor, welcoming the stranger, etc.)
when it’s convenient for attaining political power.
And I’ve noticed that, in today’s media,
the phrase “Evangelical voters”
is more common than the phrase
“Evangelical Christians,”
and that’s not okay.
This is the eighth presidential election I’ve lived through,
and every time,
it’s not the Republicans or Democrats who lose;
it’s the reputation of the Church
as our most publicized leaders
jump into bed
with anyone they think will grant them power.
As Evangelical rhetoric drifts idolatrously into
one candidate being the messiah
and the other candidate being the antichrist,
the rest of the world looks on in dismay
and misses a glimpse at the love of Christ
because Evangelicals don’t have it on display.
The word Evangelical
carries with it the assumption
that Jerry Falwell Jr.
and James Dobson
and Wayne Grudem
and Franklin Graham
somehow speak for me and every other Christian in America,
and I can’t help but think:
I wish that these Evangelicals were more evangelical
so that they’d preach more Good News
instead of mongering fear on cable news.
Because of leaders like these,
I see the word Evangelical
going the way of Fundamentalist
within my lifetime.
We don’t really say Fundamentalist anymore.
That word went out of fashion about a decade ago.
The fundamentals of the Christian faith are
love, forgiveness, hope, holiness, mercy, charity, community,
and a slew of other good things,
so how strange is it that Fundamentalists
were the people most notorious for practicing none of those
and instead focusing on the laws
that Jesus himself never commented on?
It seems that,
somewhere over the past century,
we’ve gone off the rails a bit,
and now we’ve lost our best words.
They no longer stand for what they should
because, perhaps in this country,
the Christian religion
no longer stands for what it should.
I love the fundamentals of the faith,
and my faith is fundamentally evangelical.
The problem is that,
when I talk to people out loud,
few will hear the lower case letters I’m using
to describe my upper case convictions:
fundamentalist evangelical Follower of Christ
who, at this point,
is neither a Fundamentalist nor an Evangelical.
I suspect many of you share this sentiment,
this feeling that
I am these words,
but I’m also not,
and it’s frustrating trying to communicate that
to the person on the next barstool,
so how about this:
It’s pretty clear
that the Fundamentalists were anything but fundamental,
and it’s pretty clear
that the Evangelicals are now anything but evangelical,
so can we have our words back
before they do any more damage?