Essential Tenets of an evangelical

After spending several decades working within evangelicalism, I would summarize its essential tenets in three statements:

This is our Father's world. Evangelicals believe that God created the world and lavished it with care. Any residue of goodness on the planet reflects God's "common grace": the sun shines and rain falls both on those who believe and on those who don't. All pleasure, including beauty, sexuality, art, and work, are God's gifts to us, and we look to God's revelation for the pattern in best ordering our desires so that in them we may find fulfillment and not bondage.

As an expression of love for the world, God entered its history (the Incarnation) and gave the Son's life as a sacrifice for its redemption (the Atonement). Its emphasis on Jesus and the Cross separates Christianity from all other religions, and evangelicals hold fast to that distinctive.

In the mystery of the Trinity, God was "in Christ reconciling the world unto himself" (the apostle Paul's words). Evangelicals recognize that the world has been invaded by evil and believe that Christ began a process of reclamation. In that thrust the church plays a crucial role that will culminate in a final victory.

On one of Karl Barth's visits to Union Seminary in New York, someone asked him what he would say if he met Adolf Hitler. He replied, "Jesus Christ died for your sins."

Our emphasis on conversion stems from a profound belief that, as Paul put it, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." Almost every message delivered by evangelist Billy Graham centered on that theme. And yet Graham himself insisted that a stress on getting right with God does not imply a faith "so heavenly minded that it does no earthly good." Quite the contrary.

Through the power of the Spirit, followers of Jesus advance God's kingdom in the world. Karl Barth also said, "To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world." Yes, and in recent years evangelicals have increasingly recognized the corresponding need sometimes to unclasp those hands and lead the uprising against that disorder.

by Philip Yancey

To Own a Dragon

Nirusen's recommended reading!

Annoying Preachers

by Oscar Romero

A preaching that does not point out sin
is not the preaching of the gospel.
A preaching that makes sinners feel good,
so that they become entrenched in their sinful state,
betrays the gospel’s call.

A preaching that awakens,
a preaching that enlightens –
as when a light turned on
awakens and of course annoys a sleeper –
that is the preaching of Christ, calling:
Wake up! Be converted!

THE HOLY SPIRIT'S BIOGRAPHY OF CHRIST

Chapter Four: CHRIST GREATER THAN ALL

Charles Wesley wrote one poem that has never become a hymn to be sung, and I do not know whether it would be possible to sing it. Certainly those in denominations would not be able to sing it honestly, nor would anyone in the Christian system as it is today. In that poem Charles Wesley depicted all the different kinds of Christians: the Presbyterian with his clerical clothes and collar, and his special kind of hat, and even the Plymouth Brother, whom he depicted with a Bible in his hand. He brought them all to Jordan, and when they got into the midst of Jordan, the stream was rushing so fast that it carried away the clothes of the Presbyterian, everything that marked the different denominations, and even the Bible of the Plymouth Brother! All that went down the river, and all that was left was just men stripped of everything. Did your baptism mean that? You cannot be a sectarian if you understand your baptism! You cannot be any of these things that Christianity makes us in these times. The waters of the Jordan take from us all these artificial things and leave us just men and women before God. That is the meaning of baptism.

William the conqueror says,

"When you've seen that kind of love it is irresistable."

SLAUGHTERING SACRED COWS: PART ONE

"God Told Me"
by Frank Viola
Copyright 2006 Present Testimony Ministry

In certain movements of the Christian faith, God’s people are taught by both precept and example to preface many of their decisions with the words "God told me."

"God told me to start attending this church."

"God told me to marry this person."

"God told me what my ministry is."

"God spoke to me and told me to rebuke my Aunt Harriet."

It’s central to the vocabulary of a number of Christian traditions.
In the 30 years that I’ve been a Christian, I’ve made a disturbing observation about this type of language. That at least in half the cases when I’ve heard a person use this phrase ("God told me"), what they said God told them to do later turned out to be what the person wanted to do. And God got the rap for it.

For further reading, see Rethinking the Will of God by Frank Viola.
The book contains a chapter on hearing the Lord subjectively.