I’m uncomfortable with labels.  Over the years I’ve tried on several: Christian, fundamentalist, feminist, post-feminist, rural, evangelical, humanist.  Labels are uncomfortable because they limit us. Like a too tight jacket, we don’t have room to flex and grow.  A label I’ve been uncomfortable with for a while is “evangelicalism”.  This is probably because of the negative image I’ve associated with right-wing fundamentalism of any persuasion.  I simply don’t believe that I gain freedom of religion by killing people (literally or figuratively) who disagree with me.  At the same time, let me say that I completely agree that Jesus shows us the way to life.  Perhaps what I embrace most passionately is the essence of Christian evangelicalism which is the good news of living at peace with God.  My entire life’s purpose is to live such a way that others are attracted by the aroma of Christ in me.

I recently responded to my friend Mark’s blog entry on evangelicalism, kind of a “coming out” for post-evangelicals (another label).  Speaking counter-culturally is a problem when you are a public figure (Jesus was murdered for it). You always have to calculate how your word will be perceived, because as we all know, perception by others does not always (or even usually) reflect the speakers intent. A major issue with “coming out” as non-evangelical is the automatic assumption that the speaker is “liberal” or “a heretic” or even, (oh horrors), New Age. This kind of witch hunt mentality represents exactly the kind of evangelicalism that I refuse to identify with – an evangelicalism that rejects difference instead of engaging in conversation and dialogue.

In the end, I am much more comfortable calling myself a Christ-follower.  To my way of thinking, being a Christ-follower includes many of the features of evangelicalism without the baggage of a movement that is entrenched in materialistic modern Western culture.  I continue to believe that one of the things Jesus taught was that in following him, we would find eternal life.  However, I don’t think the only way to practice followership is by creating a subculture with its own rules and entry criteria.  In that sense, the colleagues of Jesus present a much more organic, story based, grass-roots movement.  He took rules and turned them on their head (You have heard it said…but I say to you).  He spoke paradoxically about having the faith of a child and in the next breath told stories those closest to him were confused by.  Quite simply, he is an out-of-the-box Saviour.  His truth is so profound it hurts.  It is so compelling, that I am full of awe, or in biblical language, fear.  I FEAR GOD too much to put him in a box of my making.

Caveat: Even as I write this I acknowledge the limitations of my argument. For we have been created as a people of order, with limitations. We automatically categorize people and ideas to try to understand them. So I too create God in the image of who I think he should be. However, my prayer, the cry of my heart, is that God in his mercy would continually break out of my boxes and reveal himself to me anew.

One new label I’m playing with is Christian humanism.  I found a reference to it on the Image website in an editorial by Gregory Wolfe.  If you’re interested in learning more here’s a link to some articles he has posted on his website on the topic.

For those of you who are interested Wikipedia defines evangelicalism as:

Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s.^[1] Most adherents consider its key characteristics to be: a belief in the need for personal conversion (or being “born again“); some expression of the gospel in effort; a high regard for Biblical authority; and an emphasis on the death and resurrection of Jesus.^[2] David Bebbington has termed these four distinctive aspects conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism, saying, “Together they form a quadrilateral of priorities that is the basis of Evangelicalism.”^[3]

Note that the term “Evangelical” does not equal Fundamentalist Christianity, although the latter is sometimes regarded simply as the most theologically conservative subset of the former. The major differences largely hinge upon views of how to regard and approach scripture (“Theology of Scripture”), as well as construing its broader worldview implications. While most conservative Evangelicals believe the label has broadened too much beyond its more limiting traditional distinctives, this trend is nonetheless strong enough to create significant ambiguity in the term.^[4] As a result, the dichotomy between “evangelical” vs. “mainline” denominations is increasingly complex (particularly with such innovations as the “Emergent Church” movement).