Dry July is a brilliant charity idea to raise money for cancer research by abstaining from alcohol for a month and getting sponsorships. Adam Spencer, who is doing Dry July, explained it to his breakfast audience like this:
…it’s not an evangelical/teatotaller / ‘I’m better than you’ kind of campaign
There was no malice in this. It was a throwaway line. It was part of a much longer conversation.
But what struck me was the easy shorthand description that equated evangelicals with ‘I’m better than you’. From time to time there are long and protracted theological debates about what it means to be evangelical and whether a better label is needed. I love the word ‘evangelical’ but I need to remember that some people hear that word and think ‘I’m better than you’.
Why would they think that? Maybe because too often we are like the Pharisaic older brother, not seeing the need for our own repentance and forgiveness. Maybe we’re like the Pharisee in the temple thanking God that we’re not like other men.
June 30, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Maybe, Michael. Or maybe Adam Spencer just doesn’t know what evangelical means. The fact that he equated it with moral superiority doesn’t mean anyone else does.
June 30, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Or maybe it’s because we’re good at pointing out what’s wrong with the world, and why we know what’s better, without showing people why it’s better, or acknowledging with them what’s good in the world…
July 1, 2009 at 9:59 am
Of course I’m proving your point by saying this, but in my experience evangelicals I know are extremely conscious and acknowledging of their own failings–far more so than the average 702 listener.
Maybe people just don’t like us because we have “the smell of death” about us (2 Cor 2), and they insult us because of Jesus (Matt 5:11).
Maybe they just don’t get it that we’re saying we are sinners too. And maybe they won’t get it until the Holy Spirit switches the lights on.
July 1, 2009 at 11:38 am
maybe…
July 2, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Hi Michael,
It’s also possible that Adam meant “evangelistic” instead of “evangelical”. My SMH-reading, 702-listening, non-Christian, pinko-intelligentsia friends often use “evangelical” in this way, not realising that the two mean different things (Elizabeth Farrelly often uses it this way in her books/articles, too).
Perhaps Adam just meant that this is not a campaign designed to convert everyone to teetotalism?
Perhaps someone should ask him?
July 3, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Nick
thanks
yes the evangelical/evangelist confusion is something I get a bit too