McKnight argues that American evangelicalism has been unmasked as corrupt and has lost its social credibility through clergy abuse, complicity in racism, alignment with the Republican Party, and masculinist power-seeking. He commends works by Burge, Du Mez, Barr, and Byrd as exposing these problems, criticizes opposition to Critical Race Theory and the Southern Baptist Convention's leadership, and calls for a Jesus-shaped life of using power for others.
Reviewed
Its text teaches none of the positions Doxa lists.
Evangelicalism has lost its credibility through its own failures and is now being exposed for what it is.
Evangelicalism is a loose, ecumenical alliance of Christians defined by traditional beliefs, the necessity of personal new-birth experience of God in Christ, and (formerly) a strong commitment to evangelism.
Evangelicalism's claim to possess final truth about Jesus is undermined by the immorality and inconsistency of its adherents, since theology must be joined to a serious life.
Evangelicalism once enjoyed social and political respect, but all churches are now under suspicion and cannot prove themselves innocent; respect can return only through a Jesus-shaped authentic life lived over a generation.
Pervasive pastor and priest failures (power abuse, greed, sexual predation), as in the Catholic scandals, the Southern Baptist abuse reports, and megachurch celebrity pastors, reveal systemic corruption, and churches have protected themselves rather than the wounded.
Evangelicalism has an unacknowledged and unrepented complicity in racism, from overt white supremacy to condescension, and a system that props up power at the expense of non-white people.
The gospel welcomes everyone to the table, not just people of one's own race, ethnicity, class, or education.
Racial injustice is built into the whole American system, not only colonial America or Jim Crow, and those who benefit most are called to acknowledge complicity and work to end it, in real action rather than social media.
Evangelical leaders who oppose academic disciplines like Critical Race Theory that unmask complicity in racism are hypocritical, since behind the opposition lie powermongering white men who shielded sexual abusers; they cannot despise discoveries of racism while defending predators.
Evangelicals have accommodated themselves to the Republican Party, so that their faith appears shaped more by politics than theology, and the gospel of 'all' becomes a gospel for 'all who vote like us.'
- Endorses a source· Ryan Burge, The Nones
Evangelicalism is more a politics than a theology.
- Endorses a source· Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne
Evangelicalism is too often led as a masculinist culture rather than a culture shaped by the life of Jesus.
- Endorses a source· Beth Allison Barr, The Making of Biblical Womanhood
Complementarian claims can be challenged by both church history and the Bible itself.
- Endorses a source· Aimee Byrd, Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Aimee Byrd unmasked a cultural script in biblical manhood and womanhood teaching, and the treatment she received from masculinist men was disgusting and deepens the case against masculinist evangelicalism.
Critical reviews of these books that rely on cheap tricks, ad hominem, and scare tactics fail to convince and expose the reviewers.
The critique of evangelicalism is not about wokeness but about Jesus and discipleship; Jesus rejected money and power, taught self-denial and the cross, and restored the broken to the table, so powermongers are not following him and using power for others is his way.
The Southern Baptist Convention is marked by duplicity, power-seeking, racism, and politics, as shown by the leaked Executive Committee information.
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