At Least Two Cheers for American Protestants!

Patheos ^ | November 11, 2013 | John Mark Reynolds

[Alex Murphy]

Evangelicals are not loved by people who should be allies. Go to Europe and talk to a European Evangelical and one hears a quick disclaimer that they are not “that kind of Christian.” Hipster Christians oft define themselves as “not” very American, not very Evangelical, and not very Protestant. Hipster Christians are also no very hip and too often not very Christian, in addition to being not very numerous or influential, but that is another story. No Catholic parish in my experience is so dead or divided over Vatican II that it cannot be snobby over the local First Baptist. A Greek church may only have all the membership turn up for the food festival, but at least they don’t have TV evangelists . . . and this is comforting when almost no cradle members come on the average Sunday. Wouldn’t it be better to suffer TBN’s existence (that almost no American Protestant Evangelical watches) and have members who believed, read the Bible, and prayed? You would think not to hear some triumphalists outside of American Protestant Evangelical circles....

....Orthodoxy “missed” the Reformation for good and bad. There are issues raised by the Reformers and the Counter-Reformation that deserve Eastern attention. This attention is on-going in Christian dialogue between the Orthodox and Protestants and Catholics. To the extent that I understand those historic issues and follow the dialogues, I see great merit in the views of Lutherans and Anglicans, though within an Orthodox context. Evangelical Protestants are marked by a desire to share their faith, a very high view of Scripture, and a willingness to engage the modern world. If you don’t want to see that kind of zeal in your church, I don’t get what form of Christianity you have adopted....

....If Cranmer could be burned at the stake as a Reformer, then everyone at my parish, which uses his liturgy with only a few modifications, owes a debt to the Reforming literary and liturgical mind. I would not cheat myself of the beauty of Milton, Rembrandt, Hooker, or Chalmers. Wesley combines a powerful mind with a zeal for God’s word: pity the church that does not read him. When “great books” programs in non-Protestant schools ignore Calvin, Bunyan, or the great Protestant divines, they are parochial and cheat themselves. I know of no (dominantly) Protestant great books program that does not read Aquinas and Date, but Catholic programs skimp on Luther and Calvin....

....On the pressing issues of the time, where the Christian faith is under assault, American Protestants, especially Evangelicals, are on the side of the angels and often almost the only foot soldiers standing with us. On the ground stands against theological confusion, Biblical illiteracy, communism, slavery, infanticide, and libertine morals have all been blessed by Evangelical thought leaders and foot soldiers. I am on their side.

[Alex Murphy]

Wouldn’t it be better to suffer TBN’s existence (that almost no American Protestant Evangelical watches) and have members who believed, read the Bible, and prayed? You would think not to hear some triumphalists outside of American Protestant Evangelical circles....

Ping!

[madameguinot]

Great post/article.

[jonno]

John Piper on the Aims of Education

We aim to enable and to motivate the student:
- to observe his subject matter accurately and thoroughly,
- to understand clearly what he has observed,
- to evaluate fairly what he has come to understand,
- to appropriate wisely in life what he has found valuable, and
- to express in speech and writing what he has seen, understood, evaluated, and appropriated in such a way that its accuracy, clarity, fairness, and value can be known and enjoyed by others.
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/biblical-foundations-for-bethlehem-college-and-seminary

Education is about God - taste and see...
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/a-compelling-reason-for-rigorous-training-of-the-mind

[Fai Mao]

Try being an Evangelical in academia. It is enough to make to both anti-Semitic and rabidly anti-catholic.
I know a lot of nominal Catholic academics who are little better than pagans and have met several Jews, (all from the US or UK never from Israel interestedly enough)that seldom miss an opportunity to disparage Evangelicals. I am spared their wrath somewhat because I can claim to be a lapsed Mennonite so they assume I am a pacifist.

(A rabbit trail)

The left like the Amish and Mennonites because they are weird. They live on farms by themselves, don;t complain if you say untrue things about them and fit the liberal stereotype of what they think Christians should be. Simple, uneducated, rubes that don’t ever confront you with your sinfulness. I think that often times the Amish and Old Order Mennonites are disobedient to the command of Jesus to be “In the world but not of the world” They are not really in this world and have very little zeal to see the lost brought to Christ.

[GeronL]

There is nothing more anti-intellectual than today’s pop-culture leftism

[Mark17]

Amen to that. I can testify.

I can too, but Jesus said we could expect it. When He says, they hated me without a cause, we can relate.

[zerosix]

Thanks for that article.

[Springfield Reformer]

Ping for later

[metmom]

I can too, but Jesus said we could expect it. When He says, they hated me without a cause, we can relate.

He also tells us to not be surprised when they hate us because they hated Him first.

If the world system hated Jesus, if it doesn't hate us as well, we have to question whether we are really the disciples of Jesus that we claim to be.

[Salvation]

The Catholic Church is hated above any Protestant Church, though.

The media proves it.

[Mark17]

He also tells us to not be surprised when they hate us because they hated Him first.

Yes, that too.

[Fiji Hill]

Perhaps continental Europe could have used a strong evangelical movement, which might have made Europeans less susceptible to fascism, Communism, and now radical Islam.

[GreyFriar]

An interesting column

[wmfights]

Orthodoxy “missed” the Reformation for good and bad. There are issues raised by the Reformers and the Counter-Reformation that deserve Eastern attention. This attention is on-going in Christian dialogue between the Orthodox and Protestants and Catholics. To the extent that I understand those historic issues and follow the dialogues, I see great merit in the views of Lutherans and Anglicans, though within an Orthodox context. Evangelical Protestants are marked by a desire to share their faith, a very high view of Scripture, and a willingness to engage the modern world.

This jumped out at me as well.

It's an interesting read, but the author does show some misunderstanding of the non Roman Catholic and Orthodox religious world. As an Evangelical Christian, a baptized Baptist, I am not a Protestant. I share a common faith with my Reformed brethren especially in the 5 Solas, but Evangelicals are not Protestants.

....On the pressing issues of the time, where the Christian faith is under assault, American Protestants, especially Evangelicals, are on the side of the angels and often almost the only foot soldiers standing with us.

It would be nice to have the added numbers at the ballot box, but I don't see the Orthodox, or Roman Catholics, voting for the conservatives in anything close to the numbers that Evangelicals do. If they did states dominated by these 2 religious groups would be conservative rather than the liberal bastion's they are.

[Salvation]

**but Evangelicals are not Protestants. **

I’ve never seen anyone say that before.

So are evangelicals closer to Catholicism?