If you’ve been referring to yourself as an Evangelical, now may be the time to consider a new moniker. First there was the headlong rush to embrace environmentalism’s religious fervor by the National Association of Evangelicals’ Richard Cizik which has resulted in churches becoming recycling centers, and designating Sunday worship services to praise the earth. Recently, Rich Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, teamed up with other Evangelical luminaries and authored an “An Evangelical Manifesto” that differs from the Communist and Humanist manifestos on only a few points, and shares much of their call to secular ecumenism, in a religious sort of way.
Now it is being reported that the academic wing of evangelicals are garnering respect due to their intelligence; which is evidenced by there embrace of “evolution guided by God.”1 The only thing still holding these evangelicals back from realizing their secular apotheosis? “Many equate evangelicals with fundamentalists,” according to an Associated Press article, “an evangelical subset that interprets the Bible literally — as in the six calendar days of creation — and is home to ardent evolution opponents.”2 It would seem that if these evangelicals could jettison the stigma of being associated with a less-evolved subspecies that believes the biblical account of creation they would be home free.
That is what is being put on the agenda by Peter Berger, a Boston University sociologist. Berger, a liberal Lutheran, is concerned over Evangelicals not making enough progress in those “elite circles of society” where the important recognition takes place.3 He has teamed up with Timothy Shah, an evangelical political scientist at Pew Forum, to study this growing “evangelical intelligentsia”4 to see if they can’t help it evolve into a more acceptable evangelicalman. Perhaps an evolutionary Evangelical Manifesto II is already in the wings.
Notes:
1-4. Jay Lindsay, “`Evangelical intelligentsia’ explored,” Boston.com, May 15, 2008.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles
/2008/05/15/evangelical_intelligentsia_explored/
