evangelical

Around 60% of Americans identify as Christian. At least, that’s according to this statistic. Similar statistics will tell you that the same Christians don’t regularly read their Bible or go to church. So, what makes them Christian?

Obviously, you don’t have to go to church to be Christian, and perhaps you don’t have to read the Bible much, but that’s a discussion for another time. While American Christians don’t gather in the traditional sense anymore, we can still be very active in our way. How? Increasingly, Christians are finding their particular community of ‘believers’ at rallies, conferences, or on social media. We now tend to gather together over political issues. “Church” can be listening to someone we support on stage preach about the evils of the ‘other side.’ Small groups are our closed circle of friends who share the same opinions, and we will excommunicate, embrace, and evangelize as we see fit, mainly on political topics. It is less about Jesus and more about the political influence of Christianity.

Some might disagree with this characterization, but it raises an important question. Who is your savior? Is it Jesus? Or is it someone whose opinions finally match yours? Where is your hope? In Jesus? or in our country to reflect more of the 1950s. Whose glory do you want to be lifted up? The glory of our country. Where is the promised land? America. How do we make disciples of the Earth? By making them more like America. And who are God’s chosen people? American evangelicals.

There is a subtle perversion of scripture in political evangelicalism, but a perversion nonetheless. In another article, we will dig deeper into what scripture says and some common rebuttals. Until then, dwell on this: what does it look like (in your opinion) to be more like Jesus in this climate?