I am so tired of the Religious Right in this country, in such thrall to the right wing of the GOP that leading spokespersons like Franklin Graham and Tony Perkins are giving “mulligans” to Drumpf’s adulteries and other immorality and defending him as “godly." These folk, who also supported pedophile Roy Moore, are not “evangelical,” which means “good news centered” (referring to the good news about Jesus of Nazareth).
Menno Simons (1496-1561), one of the 16th C. Anabaptist leaders (the left wing of the Reformation of the 16th C.), after whom the Mennonites are named, said this:
“True evangelical faith is of such a nature it cannot lie dormant, but spreads itself out in all kinds of righteousness and fruits of love;
it dies to flesh and blood (1);
it destroys all lusts and forbidden desires (2);
it seeks, serves and fears God in its inmost soul (3);
it clothes the naked (4);
it feeds the hungry (5);
it comforts the sorrowful (6);
it shelters the destitute (7);
it aids and consoles the sad (8);
it does good to those who do it harm (9);
b it serves those that harm it (10);
it prays for those who persecute it (11);
it teaches, admonishes and judges us with the Word of the Lord (12);
it seeks those who are lost (13);
it binds up what is wounded (14);
it heals the sick (15);
it saves what is strong (sound) (16);
it becomes all things to all people (17).
The persecution, suffering and anguish that come to it for the sake of the Lord’s truth have become a glorious joy and comfort to it.”
Or take the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. The transatlantic phenomenon that is known in North America as “The Great Awakening” (1730s-1740s) was called the “Evangelical Revival” in the United Kingdom. Wesley said that faith that was not shown in advocacy for the poor was false faith.
“Evangelicals” historically created the first orphanages, worked for prison reform, were the early leaders of the movement to abolish slavery, first wave feminism, and the 19th C. peace movement.
Whatever the leaders of the politicized fundamentalists of the Religious Right are, they are not true Evangelicals.
Update after reading the comments later:
Yes, I know about the “no true Scotsman” logical fallacy. I’m trying to compare the historic use of the term “evangelical” with those in the Religious Right who use it as a self-label, today. They didn’t always claim the term. When the Religious Right came on the scene c. 1980 (about the same time as Reagan’s campaign), they rejected the term “evangelical” as “too wishy washy” and proudly called themselves “Fundamentalists. Jerry Falwell even published The Fundamentalist Journal for a time. But by 1984, the media was calling these folk “Evangelicals” with caps and they were claiming the term. I find their use of the term objectional—and false to its historic uses.
Second, yes, I grew up an evangelical in the 1960s and 1970s, but even by historic uses of the term, I’m not really one for decades, now. I did not become agnostic or atheist (tried as a teen, but it didn’t take), but I did move to a more liberal Protestant form of Christianity. I still have connections to the community, but not enough to know how many are trying to reclaim the term away from the Religious Right. I agree that the Religious Right needs to be confronted by other Christians—I have done this quite often.
3rd, I quoted only Menno and Wesley, but could have multiplied the example up to the late 1970s: Roger Williams, Elder John Leland, many of the Abolitionists and the founders of Oberlin College and Berea College, etc.
Finally, one reason I posted here is to caution against reifying labels: I am Christian. I am also a philosophy teacher, husband, father to daughters, member of the Democratic Socialists of America since 1984, former soldier turned peace activist, writer, dog and cat lover, and science fiction addict. Others are equally complex. No one adjective fully describes anyone, much less whole groups.
Update II:
1st, I greatly recommend Constance Hilliard’s companion analysis diary. It was a very helpful engagement that definitely deserved its own diary and I was glad to see and engage it.
2nd, it occurs to me that the rise of “televangelism,” “televised ministries,” dominated almost exclusively by ultra-right fundamentalists in the mid-to-late ‘70s was a big factor in the rise of the Religious Right—the resurgence and political dominance of what Ms. Hilliard calls “antebellum white evangelicalism.” The parallel rise of conservative secular media isn’t a coincidence. In both cases the Right, religious and secular, was faster to use media to their advantage and still are. The shaping of religion or other culture by capitalism and big media has been a big factor in transforming religion and the culture in general in a right wing direction. I don’t have anything profound to say to that, but the interlinks seem important to me: The evangelical culture I knew as a child had nothing to do with televised religion (and we foolishly laughed at it as crass, boorish, etc.).
3rd, related to that is what kind of people are shaped by those different experiences: A congregation-based, free church, community shapes people who develop skills in reading and interpreting texts, who dialogue with each other and in service of others. They become a community of moral discourse. But people who “get their religion” mostly through TV or whose church services are basically televised services, they become an audience to a performance! It leads them to become passive vessels for authoritarian messengers, easily manipulated. In my home congregation, we had open Bibles when the minister preached. We followed along, and questioned. The freedom of the pulpit and the freedom of the pew to disagree with the pulpit were both valued highly. Ministers led by persuasion—or found another pulpit elsewhere if they couldn’t persuade. By contrast, TV preachers and mega-church pastors expect audiences to swallow hook, line, and sinker. The authoritarian mindset is encouraged by these mass media approaches.
