Is Warren Cole Smith an Evangelical?

Published on by D. G. Hart

On the one hand, the associate publisher of World Magazine warns about people who call themselves evangelical but aren’t:

3. Not everyone who calls himself an evangelical is an evangelical.

We have an old saying in my part of the South: “Just because my dog sleeps in the garage, that doesn’t make him a pick-up truck.” Just because a blogger calls himself (or herself) an evangelical doesn’t make it so. You don’t have to vote Republican or go to a particular church, but you gotta believe in that stuff in #1 above, or you’re something else. Beware of “progressive evangelicals” who claim to speak for evangelicals but who, upon examination, reject core doctrines that evangelicals find essential.

On the other hand, Mr. Smith looks like a fairly progressive evangelical himself:

2. Jerry Falwell wasn’t the first evangelical.

In fact, when Jerry Falwell started out, he wasn’t an evangelical, but self-consciously fundamentalist — and there was (and is) a difference. Church historian Phil Johnson credits William Tyndale with first using the word “evangelical” in 1531, when Tyndale wrote this: “He exhorteth them to proceed constantly in the evangelical truth.” The great Catholic martyr Sir Thomas More used the phrase a year later to describe Tyndale and other Protestant Reformers. The great missionary movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were evangelical in character — think of the great evangelical statesman William Wilburforce, who fought against the slave trade in Great Britain.

In short, evangelicalism has a long history and is not a recent suburban American phenomenon.

5. Evangelicals are generous.

Virtually every reputable study, from Arthur Brooks’ book Who Really Cares? to the annual Empty Tombs, Inc. survey on church giving to the work of sociologist Bradley Wright, comes to the same conclusion: theologically conservative evangelical Christians give more money to charity than do theologically liberal Christians and non-Christians. And they don’t just give to evangelical Christian organizations. Liberals and non-Christians talk a good game when it comes to income equality or “social justice,” but evangelicals, not Episcopalians, are keeping the food banks of America alive.

6. Evangelicals love LGBTQIA people.

We are not homophobes. We are homophiles. Our churches welcome LGBTQIA people with the same message we present to all others: “Come as you are . . . but leave transformed.”

7. Evangelicals love the arts.

Ok, it’s true: our music mostly sucks. And so do our movies. At least, the music and movies we’ve made for the past 30 or 40 years. But not all of it, and it hasn’t always been so. I’m astonished and inspired when I see Kent Twitchell’s massive murals of Jesus on the public spaces in Los Angeles. Or Makoto Fujimura’s remarkable abstract expressionist paintings in chic Chelsea art galleries. Or hear anything by Bach.

Sure, contemporary evangelical writers, musicians, and artists are producing a lot of kitsch, but so are non-Christians. (You can’t blame the Kardashians and Honey-Boo-Boo on evangelicals.) And I predict that 100 years from now, if the Lord tarries, Christians will be singing Keith Getty’s and Stuart Townend’s “In Christ Alone” in the same churches that continue to sing Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and perform Handel’s “Messiah” at Christmastime.

8. Evangelicals are pro-science.

I support this assertion by noting that the rise of the scientific method and some of the great technological advancements of Europe correspond with the rise of evangelicalism in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. In our own day, Frances Collins (who leads the National Institutes of Health and led the Human Genome Project) is open about his Christian faith.

Evangelicals have endured the slanderous label of “anti-science” in recent years because of our skepticism about politically correct theories regarding the origins of man and climate change. In these arenas and many more, evangelicals joyfully go where the science takes us. But when ideology hijacks science — that is, when the pursuit of a point of view outruns logic, history, data, and reason — we rightfully object, and so should all who love pure science.

9. Evangelicals value quality education for all.

Because evangelicals operate most of the private schools in the country, and because most of the nation’s two million homeschoolers are evangelical Christians, we are often accused of being anti-public education and of having abandoned the public schools. That is simply not true.

For one thing, I state the obvious: evangelicals whose children do not attend the schools still support them with our tax dollars even though 100 percent of those dollars go to other people’s children. Secondly, most Christian schools I know about are generous with scholarships for those who would not otherwise be able to afford the school.

But the key point is that evangelical commitment to quality education for all means we do not support the government having a monopoly on education. The real threat to quality education for all is the near monopoly of the government-run education system, not the small-but-vibrant private Christian and homeschool sector. Private Christian education and homeschooling are the way up, not the way down.

10. Evangelicals are diverse and tolerant.

Evangelicals have never been, and are certainly not now, old white Americans. By some estimates, China has 30 million evangelical Christians. Some countries in Africa and South America have evangelical majorities. Here in the U.S. you can find millions of Hispanic evangelicals. That diversity is the result of — and has led more deeply into — a culture of tolerance evangelicals don’t get credit for.

No one values the free and honest exchange of ideas more than evangelical Christians. The Bible teaches evangelicals: “Come, let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18). We take that idea seriously. However, evangelicals believe mere tolerance is a low standard for those called to the much higher standard of love. Tolerance says, “Put up with those different from you.” Love says, “Help them achieve God’s highest and best.” (See #6 above.) Further, evangelicals see nothing tolerant in an ideology that brands any and all dissenting ideas as “hate speech.” Neither do we believe that tolerance demands us to view all ideas, beliefs, or behaviors as equally true and valid. Evangelicals believe some ideas are good and true and some are bad or false. Saying so does not make one a bigot.

So hipster evangelicals are not progressive evangelicals. As if I needed additional reasons for not reading World. Journalism is not cheer leading or re-branding.

28 thoughts on “Is Warren Cole Smith an Evangelical?”

  1. Smith is describing either some Sasquatch-like Evangelicus Imaginarius or what the TGC and TKNY types imagine themselves to be — carefully-constructed marketing ideas more than real people in real clusters called churches.

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  4. Proof of being pro-public schools is that you pay your compulsory taxes? Weak. As if tomorrow vouchers – whose architects were eeeevangelicals – became legitimate they wouldn’t opt out? Please. Evangies are elbow-deep in the consumerist trend to atomize and tailor society through education. But if you and your kids are deliberately absent that hardly looks pro.

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  5. “… And I predict that 100 years from now, if the Lord tarries, Christians will be singing Keith Getty’s and Stuart Townend’s “In Christ Alone” in the same churches that continue to sing Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and perform Handel’s “Messiah” at Christmastime …”

    Huh? 100 years from now? This is already happening today.

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  6. The E-people played footsie with the Emergents and the Missionals and got burned (Bell, Driscoll) on both counts. They want to be U2 church (cool and compassionate, just a little edgy), sorta conservative but not mean, etc. So awful. It will be funny when the elder statesmen of the New Cals get truly old and start slapping the young ‘uns around and tell them to get off their yards. They will one day wish for fences.

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  7. Some of his headings are off. I’ll do him a favor and fix a few.

    2. Jerry Falwell wasn’t the first evangelical. [It’s Billy Graham, duh.]

    5. Evangelicals are generous. [Just don’t ask about how we handle the money.]

    7. Evangelical love [to use] the arts [for corny evangelism].

    8. Evangelicals are pro-science. [We preach from iPads and have wicked sound systems. What is more pro-science?]

    9. Evangelicals value [quality] education for all.

    10. Evangelicals are diverse and tolerant. [We whittled our confessions to nothing to get everyone in!]

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  8. “Come as you are . . . but leave transformed.”

    I agree that the younger generation may enter into Evangelical churches and leave transformed, only if by transformed Smith means “dashing madly toward the banks of the Tiber”.

    Most young Christians don’t even know that Confessionalism is even an option.

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  10. For the liberal/ emergent TGC, TKNY type a social gospel/justice is very relevant , but the Gospel (found in Scripture) that is rooted and grounded in sound doctrine and carried out via the ordinary means of grace (preaching, prayer & sacraments) is irrelevant, at least in practice via lack of emphasis.
    ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
    The following is taken from a World Magazine article (which was a take off on a Todd Wilken article) from almost a decade ago. When written it was directed more toward the Republican Party at prayer PCA and conservative Lutheran types, fast forward a decade later and those “artsy hipster do gooder left leaning TKNY emergents’ have just traded in one bad horse for another bad horse.

    “The article titled “Bible -believing Liberals” observes that many Christians are conservative politically, morally, family values wise, economically, culturally,and in every other way except in their view of the church and theology.
    “They are liberal/progressives when it comes to the church and theology. While they believe that the culture needs to return to its historic traditions, they think the church needs to abandon hers.” Mr. Wilken writes. “While they believe men & women have defined roles in marriage and family, they don’t see why a woman can’t replace a man in the pulpit. They want the Ten Commandments in the public square, but are unconcerned when those commandments are replaced with “principles for living” from the pulpit. To the Bible-believing liberal, ceremonies of a Presidential inauguration (for the modern TKNY emergent read social justice program that gets kudos from Oprah) are meaningful & inspiring, but the Sunday morning liturgy is boring and not “relevant”. For the Bible -believing liberal, the differences between political parties are serious, but the differences between Christian doctrines are petty. While they insist on a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution they play fast & loose with the Bible & theology, even while maintaining the Bible’s inerrancy and inspiration. These are the Bible-believing liberals.”
    “In other words many Christians reject the dogmas of progressivism in the culture wars, while embracing them in the church. By definition they consider themselves conservative. They are completely unaware that they have started thinking and speaking like old-line liberals. When it is pointed out to them, they are incredulous and usually offended.”
    “Christians who want to conserve traditional values and transform/reclaim the culture might start by conserving & reforming their churches.”

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  13. I have to agree with #9 (especially according to scotts list), If only it were actually true that evangelicals completely abandoned public schools. if only…

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  14. Don Dayton’s definition–the people who like Billy Graham.

    Along with Billy, Ockenga and Carl Henry wanted to have a different “world-view” than fundamentalists. And now we have Fuller’s Seminary “cultural engagement” along with its rejection of the atonement as penal substitution to satisfy the wrath of God. If the Lord Jesus did not bear the sins of specific elect persons, then the Lord Jesus has not and will take away their sins

    Isaiah 53—By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
    For He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
    And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
    Because He poured out His soul unto death,
    And He was numbered with the transgressors,
    And He bore the sin of many,
    And made intercession for the transgressors.

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  15. Warren Smith needs to be truly sectarian instead of being one more partisan for his definition of the word “evangelical”.

    Robert Gundry: Jesus the Word according to John the Sectarian,

    1) Jesus is the Word to the world in spite of the world

    2) The Gospel of John is primarily for the elect, all of whom will believe the gospel.

    3) The love of God is not universal. John’s vision of the Christian community flows from a view of Christ that is separatist toward the world. The Fourth Gospel is unalterably countercultural and sectarian.

    p 94, Gundry commends the “paleo-fundamentalism” of John the sectarian, whose Christology of the Word has Jesus come into the world, sanctify himself (separation from the world) and exegete God (the message of the person and the work)

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  17. Zrim: “Proof of being pro-public schools is that you pay your compulsory taxes? Weak.”

    Yes, weak indeed. I’m all for separation of school and state, being an educational libertarian. We homeschool, so not only do we pay for our son’s education, we are also (unjustly, in my opinion) compelled by government force to pay for the education of our neighbors’ children through the hefty property taxes we pay. When I think about it I resent this state of affairs. However, because we want to obey Romans 13 (and, in terms of self-interest, because we want to avoid civil penalties), we pay our compulsory property taxes, faithfully and fully. Does that make us “pro-public schools”? Hardly.

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  18. Geoff, thanks. Here’s a question for someone a little more honest. What if the governmental piece could be removed or reduced from the equation? Would opposers like yourself warm up any more? As an advocate (who understands the imperfections), I do think there is much to be said for preserving what public education has managed give us. But is the next road block worldview?

    Pardon the length, but I think it’s worth it. Russell Fox makes the case and sounds more like someone who really is an advocate (eat your heart out, Mr. Smith):

    It is easy, of course, to dismiss or mock or even outright attack the public schooling ideal, or even if one accepts the ideal to criticize it in practice. Seeing as how most of my brothers and sisters and their spouses have chosen to home-school their children or send them to private schools, I’m pretty familiar with their arguments: less bureaucracy, more personal attention, fewer discipline problems, higher standards, more explicit moral or religious content, etc., etc. All of those arguments hold water (often enough, anyway). But they’ve never changed my or my wife’s minds; for all my own conflicted feelings, I remain very much a defender of the democratic principle of empowering local and state governments to fund and provide a common education for all. As a citizen, I obviously have my own views about how those schools and their curricula ought to be constructed, administered, and paid for, and sometimes those views are highly critical of what I see those in charge of the sprawling, multi-level, multi-faceted, often confusing, sometimes frustrating organization that goes by the name “Wichita Public Schools” doing. But the civic and egalitarian goods that the public schools provide make it worth it to me. Well, that, and the fact that the people who have taught our children really have by and large, provided them with something valuable, something that you might even call loving. Social skills, learning to work with and make friends with others, negotiating the diversity of expectations and interests which arise during every recess (which students still have in Wichita, thank goodness!) and every shared assignment in the classroom–these are sort of things which the disciplined, fun-loving, open-minded women (and they have overwhelmingly been women) who have taught my daughters have given them, and at the heart of those lessons is not just cognitive skill, but also ethics, citizenship, even a sort of charity. Am I saying that children educated outside of the public schools couldn’t learn those things? Not at all. I’m just saying that they have gained those things from our public schools, from Peterson Elementary in particular, and that itself is an argument in defense of the public schooling ideal.

    http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2014/05/public-schools-local-schools-family-schools/

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  20. He’s also wrong on virtually everyone of those points.

    Evangelicals consistently vote against social programs that benefit the poor and the disadvantaged, using far more money than private donations do. Evangelical states tend to be net recipients of aide.

    On just about every measure Evangelicals express greater hostility towards LGBTQIA people than almost any other group in the population. Even when you control for rate.

    The presense of large numbers of evangelicals correlates negative with school spending and evangelical colleges spend considerably less than seculars. Level of education is mildly negatively correlated with evangelical beliefs.

    etc…

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  23. @DgH

    I see Smith as sort of a modern day Victorian moral reformer. I’d generally agree with you that the Victorian moral reformers were the ones who planted the seeds of liberalism in the church. OTOH they met the surface definition of what we would today would consider evangelicals but they fundamentally changed the mission of the church. Which is one of the reasons that in my list of Christian sects I associate Origin of Species with them, they formed in reaction to modernism as a modernist form of Christianity.

    So I think the origin of the debate is whether Olasky would consider a Victorian moral reformer a liberal or a conservative and I suspect he’d go with conservative while I suspect you would go with liberal.

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  24. Erik:

    I try. It’s more stating the blindingly obvious, like a man on his wedding day noticing his bride is female.

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  25. “And now we have Fuller’s Seminary “cultural engagement” along with its rejection of the atonement as penal substitution to satisfy the wrath of God. ”

    Huh?

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  27. Erik Charter
    Posted November 26, 2014 at 4:23 pm | Permalink
    Some others,

    Post less.

    There’s a hammer for that (emoticon).

    I’m out (really).

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