Book Review: A Generous Orthodoxy Part 9 of ??

evangelical

Note the small e. Time Magazine recently (after this book was written) named McLaren as one of the top 25 influential American Evangelicals. Some Evangelicals, who didn't consider some on the list to be Evangelicals, of course ripped this list to shreds. McLaren recognizes that he probably does not fit in too well with Evangelicals - a term he feels is becoming more closely aligned with the Religious Right and conservative politics.

More positively McLaren sees Evangelicals as people who: have a high respect for the Bible, emphasize personal conversion, believe we can have a personal relationship with God, and want to share their faith with others. He says he defends these values in this book, but it seems doubtful to me that he emphasizes personal conversion to nearly the extent that most Evangelicals do.

McLaren associates evangelical (small e) with people having an attitude about their faith that he characterizes as passionate. It is primarily this definition of evangelical that he wants to be part of his faith. McLaren then mentions that a friend of his uses the term "post-evangelical." He doesn't claim this label himself, although it would seem to fit. The prefix post- doesn't mean anti-, it means "coming from" or "emerging from" and emphasizes both continuity and discontinuity with what it is placed before.