The New Evangelicals
New Evangelicals
"I was cheering, 'Go for it, Rich,'" said LaTondresse, who twice voted for Bush, but supported Obama. "He's one of the guys who speak for the current generation of evangelicals, most of them my friends."
"My generation cares more about the fact that 30,000 kids died today of hunger, poverty, preventable disease than about gay marriage amendments in California," he told ABCNews.com. "We are pro life, but for us that definition is far broader than abortion. It includes poverty, AIDS, human trafficking and the war in Iraq."
But after that controversial Dec. 2 interview with Terry Gross on "Fresh Air," Cizik was asked to resign -- a "huge disappointment" and a "sad commentary on the current state of evangelicalism in America," according to LaTondresse.
The resignation illustrates a growing dissent among evangelicals and their political priorities. Some religious leaders say that a new generation of Christians is emerging that has a broader agenda than "wedge" issues such as abortion and gay marriage.
The article is actually 4 pages, and shows that the New Evangelicals are more concerned with Matthew 25 than with Leviticus. Don't get me wrong - they/we (I'd have to count myself alongside them) still believe that homosexual behavior is a sin. We also believe that divorce is a sin, pedophilia is a sin, forced slavery is a sin, wife-beating is a sin, lying is a sin, and so on and so forth. But, you know, it's just sin. Everybody sins. While the Christian is concerned about sin, the Christian is more worried about his own sin that another's. (something about the log in my own eye)
page 2
"The Christian right has hijacked the term 'family values' and used it as an anti-gay weapon," said Jacki Waring, a 25-year-old evangelical who lives in Washington, D.C. "I find this repugnant."
page 3
Many of these Christians also believe in equal protection under the law - for gay Americans and everyone else.
And they place a greater emphasis on heeding the actual words of Jesus - the ones once written in red letters in the Bible. They point to the parable in the Bible's Matthew 25, the obligation to care for "the least of these."
They use the Internet, rather than Christian radio, to spread their message. And their leaders have appeared on television's "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report." "The only description Jesus gives on Judgment Day is how people respond to the poor: 'Did you feed me?' and the sick: 'Did you take care of me?'" said Tony Campolo, author of "Red Letter Christians." "It's a non-judgmental approach: 'I have not come to condemn the world.'"
Like I said, I count myself alongside them. That's been one of my points to my fellow Christians for several years. What will Jesus ask on Judgement Day? Will he ask about our support or non-support of laws to restrict our fellows? Or will he ask whether we fed his sheep?
page 4
"What's happened is that many of us have gotten to the point where we don't want to call ourselves evangelicals anymore if it means anti-women, anti gay, anti-environment and pro-war," Campolo told ABCNews.com. "That's not who we are."
Amen, Hallelujah, someone gets it.
I call myself Christian because the word literally means "follower of Christ." I'm not a Lutheran, Mennonite, Methodist, or Evangelical. I'm a Christian. I help the poor. I help the hungry. I help the thirsty and the sick.
I do my utmost not to condemn, though sometimes it's quite difficult.
At any rate - I think the point is finally boiling through, because I think God is pot-boiling mad at these Pharisees who have dared to take his name for their hatred.
In the Psalms, there's a scripture: "why do you take my name to justify your lies?" And I think that's what God's going to be asking these people once they've failed to answer the "feeding the hungry" bit adequately.
"I was cheering, 'Go for it, Rich,'" said LaTondresse, who twice voted for Bush, but supported Obama. "He's one of the guys who speak for the current generation of evangelicals, most of them my friends."
"My generation cares more about the fact that 30,000 kids died today of hunger, poverty, preventable disease than about gay marriage amendments in California," he told ABCNews.com. "We are pro life, but for us that definition is far broader than abortion. It includes poverty, AIDS, human trafficking and the war in Iraq."
But after that controversial Dec. 2 interview with Terry Gross on "Fresh Air," Cizik was asked to resign -- a "huge disappointment" and a "sad commentary on the current state of evangelicalism in America," according to LaTondresse.
The resignation illustrates a growing dissent among evangelicals and their political priorities. Some religious leaders say that a new generation of Christians is emerging that has a broader agenda than "wedge" issues such as abortion and gay marriage.
The article is actually 4 pages, and shows that the New Evangelicals are more concerned with Matthew 25 than with Leviticus. Don't get me wrong - they/we (I'd have to count myself alongside them) still believe that homosexual behavior is a sin. We also believe that divorce is a sin, pedophilia is a sin, forced slavery is a sin, wife-beating is a sin, lying is a sin, and so on and so forth. But, you know, it's just sin. Everybody sins. While the Christian is concerned about sin, the Christian is more worried about his own sin that another's. (something about the log in my own eye)
page 2
"The Christian right has hijacked the term 'family values' and used it as an anti-gay weapon," said Jacki Waring, a 25-year-old evangelical who lives in Washington, D.C. "I find this repugnant."
page 3
Many of these Christians also believe in equal protection under the law - for gay Americans and everyone else.
And they place a greater emphasis on heeding the actual words of Jesus - the ones once written in red letters in the Bible. They point to the parable in the Bible's Matthew 25, the obligation to care for "the least of these."
They use the Internet, rather than Christian radio, to spread their message. And their leaders have appeared on television's "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report." "The only description Jesus gives on Judgment Day is how people respond to the poor: 'Did you feed me?' and the sick: 'Did you take care of me?'" said Tony Campolo, author of "Red Letter Christians." "It's a non-judgmental approach: 'I have not come to condemn the world.'"
Like I said, I count myself alongside them. That's been one of my points to my fellow Christians for several years. What will Jesus ask on Judgement Day? Will he ask about our support or non-support of laws to restrict our fellows? Or will he ask whether we fed his sheep?
page 4
"What's happened is that many of us have gotten to the point where we don't want to call ourselves evangelicals anymore if it means anti-women, anti gay, anti-environment and pro-war," Campolo told ABCNews.com. "That's not who we are."
Amen, Hallelujah, someone gets it.
I call myself Christian because the word literally means "follower of Christ." I'm not a Lutheran, Mennonite, Methodist, or Evangelical. I'm a Christian. I help the poor. I help the hungry. I help the thirsty and the sick.
I do my utmost not to condemn, though sometimes it's quite difficult.
At any rate - I think the point is finally boiling through, because I think God is pot-boiling mad at these Pharisees who have dared to take his name for their hatred.
In the Psalms, there's a scripture: "why do you take my name to justify your lies?" And I think that's what God's going to be asking these people once they've failed to answer the "feeding the hungry" bit adequately.