Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, The: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? [Paperback]

A much needed view of Christianity in our current "Purpose Driven" individualistic culture. Sider points out that most evangelicals emphasize a one-sided gospel of forgiveness of sins without equal emphasis of repentance and discipleship. He goes on to state that evangelism is often defined primarily as "saving souls" calling that, "flatly unbiblical", since we are in the biblical sense "body-soul unities made for community". What a good point. Much is preached at least in my own Mennonite congregation about saving souls and coming to Jesus and little if anything taught about the costly obedience and radical discipleship of following Jesus and the social implications that brings. I agree with Sider in his statement that evangelicals need to grasp the biblical teaching that sin is social as well as personal. This is an excellent book which is easy to understand and deeply challenges the conventional evangelical wisdom of our time.

I first picked up this book, "scandal of the evangelical conscience: why are christians living just like the rest of the world," while browsing half-asleep at a Borders Book Store. Wow, did it wake me up! Over the years I haven't been much of a Ronald Sider fan, mostly because I felt he used his own social and political views to judge Christians for not holding to his own social and political views. But this book is really enough to win me over. It is so clear and just comes right out and says things that are obvious upon reflection, but not many people just come out and say, at least not many christian writers who want to sell books to the christian public, or christian speakers who want to get invited back to speaking engagements. he says that christians in this country think and act nearly the same as non-christians; and then he gives statistics to prove it. he then says that the main reason for this is a faulty gospel is being preached in christian churches that fails to produce truly converted people. the false gospel teaches that one need not actually turn away from sins and turn to christ, but that one need only believe in christ to be saved. and people are doing it but nothing profoundly changes in their attitudes and actions -- that's the problem. as a result, religion is up, morality is down. sider delivers a prophetic message that every christian leader as well as every christian should be alarmed about. it should cause us to rethink what we are really calling the gospel and compare it to what the new testament calls the gospel, and rethink conversion in the same way. as john the baptist says to anyone who claims a spiritual conversion: "bring forth the fruit that is keeping with repentance." if enough christian churches begin preaching and teaching true christian gospel conversion, maybe christians would begin to look different from the rest of the world. the book makes this very clear.

The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience:

Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World

Author: Ronald J. Sider is professor of theology, holistic ministry, and public policy as well as director of the Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also a president of Evangelicals for Social Action.

Thesis: Within evangelical Christianity there is a gross inconsistency between Christian beliefs and Christian living. Ronald Sider argues that for Christian faith to survive an understanding and an uncovering of the depth of this dichotomy is in order. Recognizing the rationale behind this crisis serves as a catalyst for a faithful corrective calling all to prophetic awareness, repentant obedience, vivid honesty, and compassionate love.

Structure: Ronald Sider introduces The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience by reciting a brief history of evangelical Christians. He explores the call of evangelicals as christianizing Christianity by living out fundamental Christian values. He begins to argue that this attempt was a huge success initially but as time continued it became increasingly evident that there was incongruency between evangelical values and evangelical behavior. This behavior mirrored that of the rest of world. This book begins examining the depth of the crisis by exploring evangelical behavior of values in which evangelicals find essential. He places importance of holding beliefs, values, and practices together to witness to a Christian God. He argues this as he examines the New Testament passages, philosophy, and theology. Primary themes that Sider argues in these pages to encourage disengagement between behavior and practices are the following:

* The Evangelical political agenda never includes the poor.

* Evangelicals fail to define the gospel properly (He presents that it is about the Kingdom of God and not the forgiveness of sins.)

Sider further argues that the evangelical community has two options, either live like the culture around them or live like the church. He argues for an ecclesial hope and offers affirmation that his research has also discovered that there are 2 or 3 % of evangelicals that are super saints that embody a kingdom ethic. He concludes by calling all evangelicals to mourn, repent, obey and trust in the God who transforms.

Specifics, Arguments, Answers, and Conclusions:

What does Sider mean when he says that evangelicals' are scandalous?

* The percentage of "born again Christians" who have divorced is higher than that of non-Christians. (26% vs. 22%)

* Though average incomes of Christians have increased, giving has decreased over the past several decades.

* Sexual disobedience is not as much of a concern today as it was in the past among evangelicals

* On issues of racism, evangelicals are lacking and do not express the importance of addressing racial injustices on a systemic level.

* There is a greater chance of domestic abuse in evangelical marriages

Though Sider does not say this explicity, it is ironic that evangelicals, who affirm the authority of the Bible, do not necessarily live biblically Christian lives. To make this point Sider works through various books of the New Testament showing the discrepancies between evangelical and biblical practices.

A few are as follows:

* The gospels show us how Jesus calls us to radical, costly discipleship.

* Acts presents an economic vision where there were no needy persons among the early church.

* Romans is very explicit about the importance of righteous lives and how faith in Christ engenders righteousness

* The letters to the Corinthians warn us about mixing sinners in the Body of Christ and caring for the poor.

* Sider notes that Tertullian acknowledged the contrast (in his day) between the Christian community and its enemies. Christians cared and loved believers, unbelievers, enemies and the marginalized.

To answer why there is this discrepancy, Sider says that evangelical Christians have ascribed to "cheap grace" rather than the whole Gospel.

* Cheap grace is the reduction of the gospel to mere forgiveness of sins.

* Cheap grace says salvation is escape from Hell.

* Cheap grace reduces persons to mere souls.

* Cheap grace reduces the severity of sin.

* Cheap grace embraces individualism, materialism, and relativism.

* Cheap grace lacks a biblical worldview.

In order to answer to these problems Sider says that there needs to be better understandings of the gospel and salvation.

* The gospel is about the kingdom of God

* Forgiveness is just one part of the kingdom of God

* The Kingdom requires both words and deeds (i.e. confessing Christ and submitting to him as Lord).

* Salvation calls for a lifetime of costly discipleship.

Sider also argues that evangelical Christians have conformed to popular culture. The influences of modern and postmodern paradigms have greatly reduced the appearance of the necessity of God.

In response, he calls for the church to re-orient around six crucial points.

* Jesus is the source and center.

* The church is holy.

* The church is a community rather than an aggregate of individuals.

* The church is counter-cultural in lifestyle.

* Mutual accountability and responsibility are essential to sustainability of the church as a counter-cultural kingdom community.

In his closing arguments, Sider mentions that there is hope for evangelicals.

* Prayer can move evangelicals in the right direction.

* Re-establishment of unison between orthodoxy and orthopraxis.

* The Lord Jesus Christ is open and willing to transform his church.

Source Analysis: Sider's target audience and the choice of sources

* Audience: Possibly this book is intended to target less-educated people who may have or currently identify with evangelicalism in one way or another.

* Possibly the purpose for interchangeably using the terms `Evangelical' and `Christian' is to acknowledge that the scandal is much broader than the world of Evangelicalism, that perhaps the issue involves all Christians in at least the United States of America in some degree. Though the cohort that identifies as `Christian' is much too large to grasp any hold on, why he chooses specifically the Evangelical cohort above others in uncertain. His major categories under `Christian' are Evangelical, Protestant, Catholic, and non-denominational.

* Further, Sider notes that Barna (one of his major statistical sources) has a relatively narrow category for the `Evangelical' cohort (only 8% of all Christians in the U.S.). Yet, Sider is not clear of whether those who took their surveys were given specific questions that would qualify or disqualify their claim of identification with the Christian cohort. Therefore, it is unclear that Sider wrote specifically to Evangelicals, yet is clearer later when he implies with his regular reference to the `Christian' cohort that anyone identifying with this group might be a potential target for a book of this nature.

* Main Cautions when considering Sider's citations

o p. 28: Sider cites that non-Christians have a negative view of Christians. This claim, while necessarily valid, it serves as a point to imply to the reader that Christians needs to modify how they display their Christianity. Yet, as per the Christianity that Jesus talked about: hence in light of an upside-down kingdom (Kraybill) where what is normal in the heavenly order is likely abnormal hence radical in the earthly order. Has Sider ever heard of martyrdom?

o Sider uses Emerson and Smith's Divided by Faith as a main source for his thesis. Yet, it us unclear why he repeats only one point of Promise Keepers-that the P.K. movement is a demonstrator that most Evangelicals see the racial divide in the Unites States as an individualistic issue of relationship. But, Sider could have drawn more than just the P.K. movement from this source because it has so much more to show than this (regardless) major critique. Yet, I commend Sider's practice of checking other sources to validify Emerson and Smith. Most references to Emerson and Smith are surrounded by one or to references to other writings on the perspectives on the Promise Keeper movement.

o p. 81: Sider cites the Pope, apparently assuming that his own opinion regarding this citation is sufficient validification.

o p. 114-15 (ff. 16-17) Secondary source is used. The problem with this is that Sider depends on this secondary source to give him a valid identification of the words and point that the original source is making. In short, he quotes another person's quotation of John Calvin without showing in any extent the point that the purpose that the secondary source had for writing such quote. It is dangerously possible that if I were to look at this source myself that I would find a different point than then Sider tends to be convinced of.

o p. 126 (ff 7. 139): Sider needs to define what he means when he uses the term `a lot' as a figure of measurement.

o Regarding specific citations of Barna: Barna is not always clear as to how he defines his cohorts.

o A strangely interesting statistic that might disrupt only a small portion of Sider's argument on tithing and affluence of Christians is that a cohort of households with an annual income of 60,000 or more (in the United States?) is tied for third as a group with the largest percentage of its population that tithes (7%).

o Another strangely interesting statistic is that Barna has a cohort of `non-born-again Christians.' Would this be a category that would overlap into the cohort of Catholics?

* He only uses Barna research and not Gallup research to report on Evangelical and Christian practices. Barna is known for a negative emphasis (which could be argued to perpetuate evangleical dysfuntion by encouraging a reaction from evangelical Christians) instead of Gallup which normally has a positive emphasis on Christian reports. A use of both could have been used to balance his research out a bit.

Critique:

The main point of my critique is that this book is not a prophetic word to the evangelical community. A person who is not involved in immorality and tithes regularly would read this book and pat themselves on the back for being "a cut above the rest." Yet, in my opinion, they would have in no way escaped the scandal that is evangelicalism (but they could still be the "super saints" he refers to at the end).

The scandal of the evangelical community is not the fragmented pieces of immorality, greed, consumerism, and bad theology that Sider brings to light. These are the symptoms of the real problem: Evangelicalism abandoned the poor and when it did so, it ceased to be Christian. Why, then, should we be surprised that statistics reveal it to be a failed project?

The Great Reversal : This is a huge point and Sider does not even touch on it. In the introduction he indirectly references it when he quotes Barna, "American Christianity has largely failed since the middle of the twentieth century." The fact is, with the social gospel came the evangelical desertion of the poor and of social justice in general. The Great Reversal corrupted their theology and their behavior. Without the accountability of living and ministering among the poor, it is no wonder that evangelicals began to give less and began to become increasingly influenced by culture. Self-sacrifice and incarnational ministry are safeguards against getting polluted by the world (See James 1:27).

Nationalism: How could there be a book about the scandal of the evangelical conscience that does not mention the word "nationalism" even once? This is untenable. Cavanaugh's book is a good corrective to this phenomenon. How can it possibly be that by and large evangelicals would gladly give their lives "defending their country" even if it meant taking the life of another Christian? This is a confusion of allegiance, it is itself a brand of racism, and it is positively un-Christian. The problem of nationalism should not have escaped the scope of this study.

Power: Along the same lines as nationalism, the heart of the problem requires a discussion of power. Sider really does not get into the issue of power at all. He talks a lot about racism, and even social sin, but never about the burden of power. He never talks about re-distribution (except for a removed discussion of Jubilee) or privilege that is only given so that it can be used for the sake of others. The scandal of evangelicalism is largely an ignorance of their power. Ignored power allows for continued urban and Third World poverty.

Wealth: Sider does give a good deal of time and a good discussion to Christians with wealth in a world of poverty. On the other hand, he is very "soft" with readers. He talks about how it is wrong to serve Mammon; but he never goes so far as to equate having riches, in general, with serving Mammon. It would have been a stronger point had he done so.

Sider's conclusion: If indeed evangelicalism is no longer particularly Christian, then the conclusion of the book cannot just be "renewal" or "revival", it must be a call for a brand new movement. The grandchildren of evangelicalism must discover anew the distinctives of Christianity and, amid repentance for past failures, they must humbly embrace the ancient faith in a new post-Christian sort of world.

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