POST CONSERVATIVE EVANGELICALS

When my theology was in its formative stages, I was instructed by Great Tradition evangelicals. It was a conservative Evangelical theology that accepted the Bible as God’s inspired and trustworthy word. At the same time I was aware of scholars and theologians who attempted to reform or correct the great faith traditions. Reform or correction was accomplished by questioning divine authorship of parts of the Bible. In my circles, those who deviated from orthodoxy were deemed ‘liberal,’ or left leaning at best. I remember the trivial sense of safety in viewing ‘them’ as different from ’us.’ Evangelical students generally attended small Bible colleges where theological uniformity marked the graduates who were often hired by churches outside major mainline denominations. Nonetheless, I remember being impressed with students who could maintain an evangelical conviction while attending liberal institutions where they met resistance for conservative positions, and they later even served in mainline churches.

A fresh wave of energy has arisen that emboldens Christians to question and even reject traditional creeds as man-made statements of faith. The short-lived good news is that this is argued with an appeal to the Bible as the final authority. However, that is immediately diffused by the apprehension that even the Bible is suspect with regard to inspiration. That suspicion suggests that scripture is subject to individual interpretation, and then of course, the Catholic-Protestant-Orthodox consensus of faith is up for grabs. If modern culture guides the interpretation of scripture, then some key elements of conservative faith such as penal substitutionary atonement will be jettisoned. That doctrine reasons the Father necessarily punished Jesus the Son who served as a sin-bearer in the place of sinners, in order to provide a justification for God to forgive the sinner. The truth is there is no evading the New Testament evidence which reveals the indignation of God and Jesus against sin. Wrath it is called.