Shane over at Wesley Blog has posted a review of George G. Hunter’s Christian, Evangelical, and…Democrat?. Hunter is an Asbury Professor of Evangelism
Wesley Daily: Evangelicals and Politics
Shane listed what for him were the findings in the book that jumped out at him (and I bolded the ones that jumped out at me from Shane’s list:
* In 1980, evangelicals essentially left Jimmy Carter (an evangelical) for Ronald Reagan (who professed no born again experience).
* 75% of evangelicals label themselves as Republicans.
* In 1980, CEO’s received 42 times their company’s average employee salary. Today they make 476 times the average salary.
* Our exclusive fixation on American deaths in the Iraqi war (with less concern for Iraqi deaths) is a symptom of nationalistic idolatry.
* One reason less Democrats claim to be Christian is that evangelicals abandoned the party a quarter of a century ago, so there are less of us there having a positive impact.
* We need to rediscover the principle of “indigenous Christianity” in Acts 15.
* The Christian lifestyle should not be considered synonymous with the American lifestyle. We should be different.
After returning from DC, where I got a few doses of Church of the Saviour thinking on Sunday morning and lunch Monday, the last point, having to do with Christian vs American lifestyle, I am constantly bothered by the lack of such distinctions in practice or in conversation in the church. JUst walking around in most churches, overhearing conversations happening in the “in between times” before and after church, I am struck by how these conversations are almost exclusively dealing with vacations, sports, Television and movies, etc. etc. In other words, actual “church” issues and theological issues are extremely rare. It’s as if people actually are preoccupied with a way of life in the world that eschews the “set apart” quality; the “resident alien” aspect of life in the Christian colony; and therefore in effect treat the issues of church , lifestyle, and ultimate allegiance as “distractions” from the “real business” of “life in the real world”. And life in the “real world” is dominated by conversations about leisurely pursuits. It even happens in “Progressive Churches” ; very little “spilling over” of the “sermons” and the “content” into actual conversations. Very rarely do the “topical discussions” carry over into the “buzz”.
It seems that this is a grave problem; one which suggests that we are extremely addicted to this culture. I recognize it because I feel the effects in feelings of isolation. I am so drawn to visting Church of the Saviour because there I get the “spillover” and the energy of people who know how big a deal this dealing with our addictions to culture really is. People are milling around on Sunday talking church, and on Monday, they’re around tables at the Potter’s House conversing (I was there on Monday, and talking to Gordon and Kayla about online community…..Gentry Underwood, who presently lives in Nashville , and is moving to the West Coast in about a month, was also there after I had met him for lunch on the previous Thursday. I saw him come in to the morning worship at the Church of the Saviour headquarters on Sunday. Gentry is a “information architect” as described herehttp://www.entrepreneur27.org/misc/standpoint
I emailed Gentry when I got back, since with his online interests and CoS interests, and his inviting me at that lunch the week before to be involved with what he’s talking to Kayla McLung at CoS about, I am anxious to know some of the details about his journey to the point where Church of the Saviour spoke to him in their attempts to be faithful followers of Christ. Gentry knows, as I do, that these people have a strong sense of what it is to be church; and that there is a great deal of discipline and structure to be lived into and to allow ourselves to die and new birth happen. Just as Elizabeth O’Connor used the channel of books to express a rich narrative of this particular story of God’s people, a 21st Century narrative and channel is needed. I belive that the interactivity and “linkability” afforded by the Web and by RSS and blogs, and some of the “meme” enabling technologies that Gentry and Justin of Standpoint are doing, the possibilities for some exciting stuff is in the works.