Reformer fights failure with fury
Warren Cole Smith has a bone to pick with the love of his life, and he's laid out his complaint in his recent book, A Lover's Quarrel with the Evangelical Church. Adopting a tone of righteous indignation, Smith has written a book for insiders, people who in one way or another care about evangelicalism in North America (mostly in the United States). He aims "to pursue the truth about the evangelical church in as unblinking a manner as possible." The result is a clearly written and fast-paced book unafraid to name names and use real examples.
Smith's key point is that "ideas have consequences" and that evangelicals have latched onto a number of bad ideas with predictable bad results. For example, Smith believes evangelicals are prone to abandon core doctrine in order to be more popular. He says we are quick to use gimmicks to get decisions for Christ rather than focusing on developing long-term disciples. We neglect to learn the lessons of history. (Smith is fond of Jonathan Edwards and excoriates Charles Finney. Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham, he asserts, were cut from the Finney cloth.)
Smith expends chapters lambasting broadcasters and televangelists for using deceptive media rather than sticking to the Word. He accuses believers of developing a marketing-driven "Christian industrial complex." He considers the emergent church conversation to be a treacherous "manifestation of sentimentality." He sees parachurch ministries as parasites sapping the true strength of the Christian Church. And in most instances he has a host of facts and figures to support his case.
All this comes from an evangelical Christian conservative activist who attended college with Ralph Reed, publishes Christian newspapers and the Evangelical Press News Service, writes regularly for World magazine and organizes apologetics seminars. He writes "as one who has intentionally been on the inside for 40 years … [and has] actively participated in many of the activities" he describes so disparagingly.
First love
One of the great strengths of Smith's book is his evident desire to see the Scriptures he believes proclaimed more credibly and the Church he loves serving more faithfully. He wants the Body of Christ to be healthier, to live more closely in accord with its deeper calling. As he sees it, Christ deserves much better than contemporary evangelicalism is currently delivering. So Smith is willing to take on the dysfunction he sees. He's reluctantly eager to initiate a conflict in order to bring about positive change.
This is, as he calls it, a lover's quarrel. It presupposes love and belonging, but engages a serious dispute nonetheless. Does Smith fight fair? Well, he certainly leaves plenty of room for critics to fight back. It's very easy to be in his "amen corner" when the thrust of his argument suits your own experience and biases, and correspondingly frustrating when the facts and arguments he marshals give short shrift to something you value. For example, I resonated well with his critique of mega-churches and television ministry, but bristled through his dismissive discussion of postmodernism. And the appraisal of Billy Graham's "universalism" was exceedingly thin and unconvincing.
For the record, Smith has not lost hope and is more assured than ever that the Church will survive and thrive. But he's acutely aware that the American model of contemporary evangelicalism is not the wave of the future. He's looking for smaller things ahead, more church-based "true religion" that "eschews emotionalism," preaches the Word and practices what it preaches. He's a Presbyterian willing to take lessons from the Old Order Mennonites. But his major insights come from abroad, and he highlights K.P. Yohanan's church-planting movement in India as a shining example of a better way.
It's very encouraging to see people like Warren Smith questioning the methodology of American evangelicalism. A Lover's Quarrel is neither the first nor the last word on the subject; it's neither the harshest nor the most gentle. But Smith certainly raises many of the right questions and provides a lot of helpful information. And despite many an acerbic comment, he manages to maintain a hopeful position.
In this he's in good company. As Malcolm Muggeridge was fond of observing, "the Church clearly must be in God's hands because, seeing the people who run it, it couldn't possibly have gone on existing if there weren't some help from above."
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