Some Evangelicals Criticize Others for not Being Aggressive


"Push back harder than you are being pushed," is the message, in one form or another, I read on Christian sites. It reflects the views that the public would accept the tenets of the faith, virgin birth, resurrection, original sin, anti-gay and anti-abortion if it was told this in a forceful way. Especially, if it quoted from the Bible in its arguments.  

What I always wonder when reading these essays is who the evangelical is to push back against. When people just stop showing up for church, what is the church member or preacher to do? Knock on the door and scold them? Or, what about the just confirmed young person stops coming to church? When asked why he/she just shrugs the shoulders and walks away. When we get to the growing populations of "nones", people who claim no religious affiliation, there is no one view that represents them.  There is nothing to push back against.

And then there is the question of what the evangelical is to push back with. Only by patching together various bits to scripture that are addressing some other issue can one say the Bible condemns homosexuality or trans gender. It's the same with abortion. Jesus is never quoted as opposing either of these. There is nothing to push back against and nothing to push back with. 

Advice to "push back" is easy to give is one is sitting in the gallery watching from afar. For a preacher or clergy of any strip with a congregation in front of him/her might be suicide. Offending those who fill the collection plate makes the collection smaller. The preacher's salary comes from the plate.

One of the sites I follow comes from Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). In videos, two preachers about 40 years old lament the rapidly declining numbers in their denomination and the reluctance of high officers to act. They point out that many congregations "paper over" disagreements within their church because that is the only option. They are disgusted, however, when their denomination papers over the problem of declining membership. Options are available to move against the decline but nothing happens because disputes about solutions are papered over as if they do not exist.

Aggressive push back is not an option for Christianity. Maybe aggressive accommodation to cultural change is.

  

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