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Lee Irons elaborates and responds to critics of his first post:
"Sure, our differences on TULIP, the covenants, the sacraments, and so on, are important, but if you hold to the white-hot core of the gospel, then I embrace you as a brother in Christ and I want to be identified with whatever label will work to make sure that this embrace is clear. Of course, I will worship at my own Reformed church on Sunday and you will go to your dispensational Bible-church or Baptist church or what have you, but we can do so without either one adopting an attitude of superiority or exceptionalism since we recognize one another as brothers based on the common bond that we have in Christ. read the whole post here
1 comment:
It's apparent in the first paragraph of Irons's response that he uses the term "Evangelical" in place of the word "conservative." But that is neither accurate nor correct. Evangelicalism is a movement in western protestant history which was a conservative reaction to fundamentalism.
To label all protestant conservatives "evangelical" makes just as much sense as Irons thinking that conservative protestants in the turn of the century should have all called themselves "fundamentalists" because that was the conservative movement of the day. Bizarre.
Reformed believers are neither fundamentalists, modernists, evangelicals, or liberals. Lee's objection to this is baffling, unless he is just really eager to be a part of the bigger evangelical cause, which is something I personally do not want to be a part of, and think that the reformed churches cannot be a part of.
What "bonds of identity, sympathy, affection and love" should we have with evangelicals? Are these bonds reinforced if we use their label for ourselves? Is this bond different than those we should have with all of our neighbors, or other confessional conservatives?
The historic use of the term evangelical meant specifically... lutheran. Even then we could not have used the term to refer to ourselves.
To use these terms correctly is far from being isolationist, it is being honest!
The movement label "evangelical" means just about as much as the label "community fellowship" does in place of the word "church." Let's not let fads and movements re-define what we are, and what we call ourselves.
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