Learning, Not Deriding

I’ve been bothered lately by what “my people” (in the CREC orbit) call “big Eva.”  Too often they just mirror the culture's priorities in what they talk about.

But I've also been bothered by the often-self-serving, anti-big Eva rhetoric, from my people.

 

At the root of it is this question: what is the expected, particular shape that our Christian life should take? 

 

What do I mean?

 

In the general evangelical world, the ideal Christian is emotional in worship, nice to people relationally, fervent and spontaneous in prayer, gushingly gregarious, and avoids controversial issues.  But in my denomination, the CREC, the ideal Christian is martial in worship, rips on the woke, and pursues the distinctiveness of their biblical roles as men or women.

 

Now, here comes the hard part for everybody.  NEITHER OF THESE IDEALS IS BAD.

 

Each has its weaknesses.  But folks on both sides look at the other, and sadly believe they see unbiblical, compromising, unfaithfulness to Christ.  This is because each side has too narrow a view of what a Christian disciple should look like.

 

Avoiding controversy is sometimes compromise, and sometimes wisdom.

Critiquing the woke left is needed, until you unjustly condemn any teacher or institution that you suspect might possibly be woke.

 

I cringe when my guys deride niceness.  When nice means papering over problems, I get the critique.  But the derision is often an excuse to justify overly harsh critique.  We don’t want to have to be kind to people we disagree with.

 

I also cringe when their guys see my people as a bunch of angry, harsh, fighting dominionists.  Partly because sometimes it is true.  But their perception is often an excuse to not have to confront a problem: “I don’t have to listen to the merits of this guy’s argument, when he’s offending me personally with his strong rhetoric.”  They often hold back from discerning truth, to keep a relationship peaceful, or to hide real compromise with the culture that they are making.

 

 

Bringing this down to brass tacks, I dropped a child off at Grove City this past week.

 

If the evangelical ideal above is a 1, and the CREC ideal is a 10, I’d put Grove City at a 3-5 on the scale.

That really disappoints many of my CREC compatriots.  Why go to a school like that?  My answer:

Because my children have grown up in CREC culture for 18 years, and it is time they broaden their Christian experience, and learn more how the Christian world out there thinks and operates.  They have filters in place to avoid compromise.  And there are things to learn from the lower numbers on the scale, that a CREC church may be weak in, to balance one’s Christian life.  Likewise, Bible church or EPC type students at places like Grove could learn plenty from the OPC church in town, or from CREC teachers online.

Dustin Messer tweeted this, right when I was finishing this up:

 

I largely agree with his sentiment, but he falls into the ditch on the other side, deriding the anti-big Eva crowd as "school girl immaturity."  Not helpful.  Same shock-jock rhetoric you're critiquing.  The love of drama/attention probably gets more to the heart of things.  But pressing for your too-particular vision of what a Christian should look like is the core, in my view.

It would be wise to stop deriding each other, and start learning from each other.