Obsessed evangelicals
As I suppose was predictable, letters and emails have been coming in over the past few days critical of one of my recent CHNs—the piece about the Colours conference run by Hillsong—in which I not only questioned Hillsong's status as an ‘evangelical’ movement, but cast aspersions on whether the message of the Colours conference (at least as represented by their advertising) could even be called ‘Christian’.
It's got me thinking again about labels, and in particular about the word ‘evangelical’. In one sense, it's hard to get very excited about a word, and how you define it, and who deserves to be able to wear the label. Then again, it's much easier to get excited about what genuine, straightforward, biblical Christianity is, which is what disputes about the word ‘evangelical’ are most often about.
It occurs to me a short handy definition of an ‘evangelical’ would be this: ‘someone obsessed by the gospel of Jesus Christ’.
To be obsessed by something is to have it “occupy one's thoughts constantly and exclusively” (as the dictionary puts it). I think that's what really distinguishes an ‘evangelical’ (i.e. a ‘gosp-elical’) from other groups within Christendom, and always has?our obsession with the gospel of Christ.
I suppose if you wanted to be pedantic about it you might say that evangelicals should be obsessed with Jesus Christ himself, rather than just his gospel. But to say that we're obsessed by the gospel of Christ is the same thing as saying we're obsessed by Christ himself, since it is only in the gospel that we have access to Christ. The gospel is where we meet him, and nowhere else. As we hear the message of him, of his atoning death and glorious resurrection, of his present rule as Lord and Christ, and his imminent return as Judge of all, we respond in faith and repentance as the Spirit of Christ works within us; and thusly (as the old doctrinal treatises might say), we come into sweet and personal relationship with him.
(This is why, it occurs to me in passing, that it is misguided to criticise people for speaking about the ‘gospel’ as if it indicates they have lost touch with the person of Jesus; for we know no other Jesus except the one who comes to us wrapped in the words of the gospel, and we can have no personal relationship with him at any point in our Christian lives except through that gospel. If ever we drive a wedge between our ‘personal encounter with Jesus’ and the gospel, we are in deep trouble.)
(Part 2 tomorrow)