Our Evangelical Friends

Evangelicals get pretty bad press these days. (Christians in general do but the characterization and criticism of the evangelical end of the continuum is brutal, I think and a great deal of it unfair.) There are several things in the interpretive realm about the evangelical view of their religion and of Jesus with which I cannot agree. But in at least one key way, I admire them, even envy them. And that is that they live their days with their God and with Jesus, front and center. He is their companion minute by minute. He is the most important aspect of their lives and it is their heartfelt desire, so it seems, to always be deepening and strengthening that.

Those of us "intellectuals", those of us with lots of "sophisticated" education, those of us for whom critical thinking becomes the guiding principle in their religion and for whom liberal interpretation was the rule in their seminary education--we lose some, if not all of that relational aspect. We are so afraid of political incorrectness, of heart instead of mind, of not being able to footnote what we say, of somehow or another betraying that almighty intellect, that we cease (or at least I did and am working hard to get some of it back) to remember that above all, our God wants our hearts.

In my dealings with my evangelical friends--the most consistent and obvious is in the community that has grown up around the Walk to Emmaus retreats in the Bloomington, Indiana area--I sometimes have to closet my more liberal views in order to function as a pastor in their midst (an opportunity I find dear, time and time again). But I also am faced over and over again with these truly religious people, people whose hearts are far more engaged then mine, who speak so much more freely of their emotional attachment to their savior then I do. And I am chastised. For even though I have Rev. in front of my name, I do not love God as they do, nor do I access him minute by minute as so many of them do. And I realize how much I can learn from them.