I have a confession to make. I am an evangelical. In fact, not only am I an evangelical, I head an organisation called the Evangelical Alliance. I’m an evangelical with a capital E.
I hesitate to make such a confession for I am painfully aware of the baggage the label carries. Without wanting to blame Americans for all the problems of the world, it is, well, largely their fault. When Keith Allen makes a TV programme on a “Christian” family in America whose main message of the love of Christ appears to be ”“ and I quote ”“ “God hates fags”, then we are, of course, seeing “evangelical Christianity”. Or when a leading US evangelical leader’s “solution” to the fact that President Chávez of Venezuela is somewhat, shall we say, left of centre is to call for his assassination, we all know it is those loony evangelicals at it again.
Worryingly, some elements of this behaviour have crossed the Atlantic. When we were talking with the Government about the Sexual Orientation Regulations, civil servants told me they had received letters from “Christians” containing as much venom and bile as those from more militant and aggressive sections of the gay lobby. I would hazard a guess that such letter writers would refer to themselves as “evangelical”.
Read it all.
Joel Edwards: 'Ever heard the one about Jesus and the good news
I have a confession to make. I am an evangelical. In fact, not only am I an evangelical, I head an organisation called the Evangelical Alliance. I’m an evangelical with a capital E.
I hesitate to make such a confession for I am painfully aware of the baggage the label carries. Without wanting to blame Americans for all the problems of the world, it is, well, largely their fault. When Keith Allen makes a TV programme on a “Christian” family in America whose main message of the love of Christ appears to be ”“ and I quote ”“ “God hates fags”, then we are, of course, seeing “evangelical Christianity”. Or when a leading US evangelical leader’s “solution” to the fact that President Chávez of Venezuela is somewhat, shall we say, left of centre is to call for his assassination, we all know it is those loony evangelicals at it again.
Worryingly, some elements of this behaviour have crossed the Atlantic. When we were talking with the Government about the Sexual Orientation Regulations, civil servants told me they had received letters from “Christians” containing as much venom and bile as those from more militant and aggressive sections of the gay lobby. I would hazard a guess that such letter writers would refer to themselves as “evangelical”.
Read it all.