My Name is Jan and I’m An Evangelical Christian

Hi there. I’m Jan and I’m an evangelical Christian even though some people don’t include me in that cohort. I wrote about this in 2015 but would like to elaborate now that our siblings in the Southern Baptist Convention have removed our sister – the Rev. Linda Barnes Popham – and her congregation – Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky from their denomination. I feel deeply sorry about this – mostly for the Southern Baptists.

According to the National Association of Evangelicals website:

Evangelicals take the Bible seriously and believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The term “evangelical” comes from the Greek word euangelion, meaning “the good news” or the “gospel.” Thus, the evangelical faith focuses on the “good news” of salvation brought to sinners by Jesus Christ.

• Evangelicals take the Bible seriously. Check. I take it so seriously that I even read the less familiar parts – in Greek and Hebrew.
• Evangelicals believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Check. Jesus has saved me, is saving me, and will save me.
• The term “evangelical” comes from the Greek word euangelion, meaning “the good news” or the “gospel.” Check. Again, I can read the Greek. My denomination requires it.
• The evangelical faith focuses on the “good news” of salvation brought to sinners by Jesus Christ. Amen and amen. I am a sinner in need of a merciful God and so are you. Also – if you read the Bible – you know that God doesn’t rank sin. My gluttony is no better or worse than your adultery. And yet we are called to confess, repent, and try to do better. Here’s the tricky part: when we do better then we invariably sink into the sin of Pharisee-ism. Dang it. We can’t win.

Do I believe in conversion? Absolutely. I’ve watched the hard hearts of mean people melt. I’ve seen people broken by addiction continue to recover. I’ve watched estranged family members come back together. We are drenched in sinful behavior and God makes it better. I want that for all people. I need it for myself.

Do I believe in Biblicism? Sure, but I also want to be clear. We don’t worship the Bible. The Bible is more than “the words of God.” We don’t believe God recited all the words (that would be Islam, my friends) and we acknowledge that humans wrote it (often using only consonants back in ancient Hebrew) and so there is room for interpretation. Also, there are no “original scrolls” that we can check to be sure we’re correct about abominations and how everybody was feeling about animal sacrifice. The oldest scrolls look like this and they were written on papyrus during the Second Temple Period (about 516 BCE–70 CE.) If you don’t know about the Second Temple, please read your Bibles. (Note: Moses didn’t write the Torah. If he did, there’s that tricky part in Deuteronomy when Moses died.) And I believe that the Bible is true – even inerrant in that it always points to the Truth. But it is not always scientifically or historically true. And – this is a serious suggestion – if you believe in scientific and historic inerrancy – please read your Bibles and note that the mustard seed is in fact not the smallest seed and Judas historically died in two different ways. This is not a problem. Jesus told parables which are stories he made up because he was a rabbi and that’s what rabbis do: they explain who God is through stories. (This also means there wasn’t a real Good Samaritan or Prodigal Son even though those stories are totally true. See?)

Do I believe in Crucicentrism? Yes, although I don’t ordinarily use that word. My theory of atonement is that God loved us so much that God would die for us and be raised for us. Because Jesus lives, so do we. And do I believe that people who don’t claim Jesus as Lord and Savior are doomed? Not. My. Role. I believe in a loving God (see above) who is just and I’m very glad I don’t get to judge who’s in and who’s out. Not worried.

Do I believe in Activism? Definitely. We are called to actively seek God’s will so that it will be “on earth as it is in heaven.” We are supposed to be like Jesus who touched lepers and bleeding people and even dead people. And the Spirit moves us to baptize eunuchs and heathens and include them in leadership.

A couple other things:

I am pro-life. I believe that the life of a minor child who’s pregnant is at least as valuable as the embryo or fetus growing inside her. I believe that children in refugee camps are at least as valuable as the unborn. I believe that women and non-binary people were created in the image of God, along with men. I believe that God not only loves us; God calls us to serve and lead.

How do I know this to be true? The Bible. And if God wants to call a murderer, a cheating twin, an adulterous king, a tax collector, multiple women shamed by their community, a blind beggar, or any of us – God gets to do that. Because only God is God. I trust that God calls all kinds of people we would probably not expect in leadership. It’s in the Bible.

So when anyone in the Church excludes those who don’t fulfill their own human understanding of who God is, who God loves, who God calls, it makes me nervous. I thank the LORD for having mercy and grace beyond measure. And I pray we’ll do better.

God bless the Southern Baptist denomination today. I think you got it wrong, though.

Image of the Rev. Linda Barnes Popham and this post is dedicated to Jeff and David. Happy 9th Anniversary, brothers.