A good lesson for Mormons:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/after-trump-and-moore-some-evangelicals-are-finding-their-own-label-too-toxic-to-use/2017/12/14/b034034c-e020-11e7-89e8-edec16379010_story.html

Discomfort with the term “evangelical” began in some quarters with the Moral Majority in the Reagan years, which helped make “evangelical” synonymous with the Republican Party. Ever since, evangelicals have disagreed with each other about mixing faith and politics.

Such debates intensified last year when President Trump was elected with the overwhelming support of white evangelical voters after a vitriolic campaign that alienated many Americans. Most recently, after Senate candidate Roy Moore drew strong majorities of white evangelicals in Alabama despite reports of his pursuit of teenage girls when he was in his 30s, some Christians across the country said they weren’t sure they wanted to be associated with the word anymore.


Even two of the grandchildren of Billy Graham, the famed evangelist who helped popularize the term, are abandoning the word. “The term has come to represent white Republicans and . . . sometimes close-mindedness and superiority,” said granddaughter Jerushah Armfield, a writer and pastor’s wife in South Carolina.

Jen Hatmaker, a Texas-based author with a large evangelical following, sees “a mass exodus” from the label in her community. “The term feels irreversibly tainted, and those of us who don’t align with the currently understood description are distancing ourselves to preserve our consciences,” she said.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2017 06:47AM by anybody.

He talks about calling himself "Christian" instead of "Evangelical". I think they both have negative connotations.

Spelling it *Evanjellocal* would make it more palatable, and mormons could identify.

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Spelling it *Evanjellocal* would make it more
> palatable, and mormons could identify.


Especially if it was red Evanjellocal.

It's not the label that's toxic, it's the beliefs.

Evangelical was a great word to hide behind for those who need a facade to cover their bigotry and mean spiritedness. Christian works about the same. I'm surprised there isn't a clothing line with the word all over it like Luis Vuitton or Ralph Lauren the way people like to wear their labels on the outside now.

"How can you say I'm bigoted when Im a good CHRISTIAN!?!? I love Old Testament God. You got a problem with that?"

Kind, supportive, and inclusive never needed labels or advertising. They just sort of subtly glow on their own.

Of course, your own bigotry against Christians in general is not bigotry because it's yours.

Oh. Poor persecuted Christians. There is no bigotry toward christians here. There is only shining a light on who some of them are and what they represent.

I'm not trying to stop Christians from marrying. I will bake a cake for them even though I'm gay and will sell them any product they want, as well. I will mingle with them, sit by them, help them across the street, and sometimes enjoy them. I don't care which bathroom they use.

But I will spot-light the way they treat others. I will spotlight when they hide behind their Christian facade as they treat others badly and try to turn their agenda to law. I will be appalled by some of their beliefs. However I will not treat them differently because of their beliefs because that would indeed be bigotry.

PS. I know a lot of Christians that when you put the spot light on them turn out to be wonderful,kind, caring, and most of all inclusive people who don't judge. Being Christian isn't the problem. It's what kind of Christian you are.

No persecution complex here and I do like to think of myself as among that group of Christians you describe. But when I see Christian used in the collective way, on an item of clothing or not, that you used it I tend to see bigotry pointing the finger at bigotry. That you clarified yourself later works for me.

Yes. I regret I can be as guilty as anyone of not being careful with words and thereby slipping into the generalizations and collectiveS even if that wan't my intent. I always know what I mean but that doesn't mean it comes out that way to someone else. Most of the time I see individuals--no two alike. Thank you for understanding my clarification.

(It would be unseemly, I suppose, to say, "Evangelical and proud of it.")

As a Christian, I fall in the general Reformed (theological) group, currently fellowshiping with an independent Baptist church, where I serve as a 2nd Assistant Associate Substitute Alternating Usher, 2nd Apprentice. But they let me clean the toilets!

Now, two serious points:
Personal: An important tenet of the Reformed tradition is "the priesthood of all believers," whereby everybody utilizes the Bible, personal conscience, and reason to understand God's truth himself. It personalizes faith, but it also allows for so much individualizing that we do get very eccentric, sometimes outrageous and embarrassing people and groups--which you, Anybody, take great delight in posting. This leads me to:

A general point: I know you poo-poo the "war on Christians" argument, but there is a trend to disparage, marginalize, and even demonize Christians and the Christian faith, to isolate it and remove it from the public square, and make it irrelevant, the kind of belief that "simply doesn't belong in polite society." My assessment is that the (pseudo)-"intellectual elite" such as the Washington (com)Post, lead the way, as this article indicates, with gleeful support of the "laity," such as Anybody and several others on the board.

I notice a dearth of postings on the shortcomings and violence of other religious groups.

I don't think I'm being paranoid, not yet, anyway. It's not rare for Christian groups to be excluded from campuses because they are insufficiently "inclusive," for example. People are encouraged, even pressured to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." But people who "name the Name") of Christ have it far worse in many parts of the world. But the thrust of the establishment culture (e.g. the WaPo) continue to cast the failures and shortcomings of certain Christians and groups as grounds to indict all of Christianity.

Last: A sincere Merry Christmas to you, Anybody, Done & Done, and all the other atheists on the Board. Even as you deny Him, Christ (and I) love(s) you and hope(s) that at this time of year your heart will open to his message and ministry of love.

Merry Christmas to you too caffeind, sincerely.

Just for clarification, when you say you hope that at this time of year my heart will open to a ministry of love, it feels like an insinuation that my heart is closed to a message of love or that I need to be told how to love like a child needs to be told how to cross a street.

Love isn't a commodity owned exclusively by Christians. I receive and give tons of it all the time without a handbook from one of Jesus' representatives. I don't mean that snarky. I just am tired of many Christians--not all by a long shot--believing I am incapable of love and kindness without Jesus team telling me how.

The Great American Melting Pot is curdling and dividing back into sub-groups it seems--old person talking here. I live and work in a place that is so mixed culturally and ethnically that it is still a melting pot and wish there were more of that everywhere. It's easier to love when no one is the other.

Best to you. I Hope your church on Sunday makes you as happy as my bird filled garden does me.

Thanks, Done & Done,

nor do I mean to imply that you are a heartless, miserable, immoral wretch lost in the misery of unrepentant sin. But I do believe that without Christ something is missing, even if you don't acknowledge or feel it. As CS Lewis put it, there is a Jesus-shaped hole in our hearts, and it needs to be filled. I would expand on his metaphor by describing it as a hole that has been covered with duct tape (maybe very sturdy, carbon-fibre duct tape), and you function well, but sooner or later, that will give way. Bear in mind, Christ will always be there.

As a writer, I admire your metaphor, "The Great American Melting Pot is curdling..."

Your second point is excellent, and the melting pot has been replaced with a "salad bowl," where people are in close proximity, yet fail, or refuse, to blend (assimilate). The social & political culture of Americanism is now derided, even denigrated as evil and racist.

I divide the people with whom I must deal into two groups and then behave (in my mind) appropriately.

1. givers

2. takers


these two divisions exist in EVERY race, tribe, assembly, religion, identity group, division, battalion, on down to squad...

People either reach out to help, or reach out to take, and their labels are no guide.

Of course there are those who fluctuate between giving and taking, based on how they view you, but I don't want to make it too complicated. 'Cause my basic point is that no group is holding the winning cards.