Three Things You Need to Know About Evangelicals

There is a developing movement within literature to chronicle an outsider’s perspective on the strange land of Evangelical Christianity.  It seems that the world sees all Evangelical Christians as fervent, ignorant, and misguided by a holy book.  Being an Evangelical myself, I can see how the outside world can group all Evangelicals into this stereotype.  The media tends to pick up on the extremes of any group, ideology, or religion and usually tries gives us the most radical angle.   You would think that I would NOT recommend books about non-Christians views on Christianity, but there are two books that are worthy of your consideration about strangers in a strange land that yield some surprising insights.

In the first book,  A Jew Among the Evangelicals, by Mark Pinsky, he provides a brief introduction: a religion reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, uses his unique position as a Jew covering evangelical Christianity to help nonevangelicals understand the hopes, fears, and motivations of this growing subculture and breaks down some of the stereotypes that nonevangelicals have of evangelicals.  “I hope you’ll find laughter, perhaps puzzlement, and heartfelt interest in how people just like you wrestle with feelings, values, and beliefs that touch the core of their beings. And I hope you’ll catch a glimpse of someone learning to understand and get along with folks whose convictions differ from his own,” Pinsky writes in the introduction.

The second book, The Unlikely Disciple is by Kevin Roose.  Roose leaves his Ivy League setting to spend a semester at Liberty University, a conservative Christian college. The book gives this description: “His journey takes him from an evangelical hip-hop concert to choir practice at Falwell’s legendary Thomas Road Baptist Church.  He experiments with prayer, participates in a spring break mission trip to Daytona Beach (where he learns to preach the gospel to partying coeds)… He meets pastors’ kids, closet doubters, Christian rebels, and conducts what would be the last print interview of Rev. Falwell’s life.”

Both of these books provide 3 things you should consider before judging Evangelical Christianity:

1. You cannot knock Christianity until you have studied, immersed, and lived with Christians for a significant amount of time. Both these authors admit some of their preconceptions about Christians were misguided (I think because of  the media’s take on Christianity).  These two authors took the time to live and learn with Christians.  You cannot judge a person until you walk a mile in their shoes.
2. We are not a bunch of hypocritical nuts. As with any religion, there are going to be people who do not live up to the standard.  Often, the most public Christians, such as television preachers, have given Christians a bad name.   Their motives of power, money, and fame have given Christianity a black eye.   Both these authors, mentioned above, see Christians as well intentioned people, even if they disagree with their faith perspective.
3. There are diverse opinions on issues of faith within Christianity. Grouping “all Evangelicals” into one category would be like grouping all Muslims into one theological category.  Within Islam, there are many different schools of thought on the Islamic faith.  Some of the experiences in these two books discuss the varying beliefs of Christians that involve science, culture, and religious life.

I hope you will tell your friends about these two books not as a evangelistic tool, but as a tool to show others that there are misconceptions about Christianity.  And, not to be biased about a group of people based on misinformation.  If more people spent quality time with other cultures and faiths, then this world might be place where there is less violence, murder, and hate and more love, peace, and community.