Religion
Related: About this forumTHE EVANGELICAL CHURCH IS BREAKING APART
The election of the elders of an evangelical church is usually an uncontroversial, even unifying event. But this summer, at an influential megachurch in Northern Virginia, something went badly wrong. A trio of elders didnt receive 75 percent of the vote, the threshold necessary to be installed.
"A small group of people, inside and outside this church, coordinated a divisive effort to use disinformation in order to persuade others to vote these men down as part of a broader effort to take control of this church, David Platt, a 43-year-old minister at McLean Bible Church and a best-selling author, charged in a July 4 sermon.
Platt said church members had been misled, having been told, among other things, that the three individuals nominated to be elders would advocate selling the church building to Muslims, who would convert it into a mosque. In a second vote on July 18, all three nominees cleared the threshold. But that hardly resolved the conflict. Members of the church filed a lawsuit, claiming that the conduct of the election violated the churchs constitution.
Platt, who is theologically conservative, had been accused in the months before the vote by a small but zealous group within his church of wokeness and being left of center, of pushing a social justice agenda and promoting critical race theory, and of attempting to purge conservative members. A Facebook page and a right-wing website have targeted Platt and his leadership. For his part, Platt, speaking to his congregation, described an email that was circulated claiming, MBC is no longer McLean Bible Church, that its now Melanin Bible Church.
What happened at McLean Bible Church is happening all over the evangelical world. Influential figures such as the theologian Russell Moore and the Bible teacher Beth Moore felt compelled to leave the Southern Baptist Convention; both were targeted by right-wing elements within the SBC. The Christian Post, an online evangelical newspaper, published an op-ed by one of its contributors criticizing religious conservatives like Platt, Russell Moore, Beth Moore, and Ed Stetzer, the executive director of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center, as progressive Christian figures who commonly champion leftist ideology. In a matter of months, four pastors resigned from Bethlehem Baptist Church, a flagship church in Minneapolis. One of those pastors, Bryan Pickering, cited mistreatment by elders, domineering leadership, bullying, and spiritual abuse and a toxic culture. Political conflicts are hardly the whole reason for the turmoil, but according to news accounts, they played a significant role, particularly on matters having to do with race.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/evangelical-trump-christians-politics/620469/
As the author explains, evangelicals have adopted a form of political Christianity, where the Jesus of the Bible has been replaced by a rugged, masculine xenophobic Jesus, this has been going on for a long time, but has greatly accelerated due to trumpism. Its ironic that the very people who complain about cultural creep, have constructed a version of Christianity based on politics and white, southern culture.
CentralMass
(15,538 posts)Response to Mosby (Original post)
bamagal62 This message was self-deleted by its author.
dchill
(40,470 posts)Apparently not everyone's cup of tea.
diverdownjt
(712 posts)Karma comes in strange way's.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)Not before.
bottomofthehill
(8,822 posts)Baitball Blogger
(48,034 posts)Who knew that misinformation would be the weapon used to bring down an Evangelical Church? It's blowing my mind. If I could condense it down to two words, I would call it an oxymoron.
calimary
(84,319 posts)Catholic here - and thats a load of issues too.
AwakeAtLast
(14,255 posts)And not just Evangelical churches. My lifelong United Methodist Church is leaving the UMC. They don't want any gays in their church (their words, not mine). Once the separation is complete I have to transfer my membership to a church in another town. It has been a major upheaval for myself and my family who have been attending for a few generations!
BadGimp
(4,063 posts)Buckeye_Democrat
(15,042 posts)... eventually, like the Puritans in early America and their witch trials.
Demanding "purity" means that everyone will be deemed impure eventually. Of course, they might commit genocide against a large number of innocent "others" in the meantime, and that can't be allowed.
Mosby
(17,462 posts)Mosby
(17,462 posts)Permanut
(6,636 posts)that perfect example of Christian Love and tolerance,
who informed us on behalf of God, that hurricane Katrina was in retribution for tolerance of gays in New Orleans
BlueIdaho
(13,582 posts)The world will be a much better place without these sanctimonious SOBs.
Permanut
(6,636 posts)Could be all that CO2.
Major Nikon
(36,900 posts)All sorts of misinformation, batshit crazy conspiracy theories, and political propaganda thrive among evangelicals. When the churches sit back on the sidelines and either cheer it on or at the very least fail to call bullshit when it circulates in their congregations, they can only blame themselves when it starts backfiring.
You reap what you sow.