September 2, 2012 | 4:00 p.m.

Post-Evangelical

John W. Vest
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

John 3:1–21

This summer we have been preaching a sermon series on well-known passages of the Bible. Our goal has been to explore these texts with fresh eyes. Our hope has been to reignite our engagement with these texts such that they once again come to life and inspire us with God’s vision for the world we live in.

With Labor Day upon us, summer has essentially come to an end. And though this series will continue for a few more weeks, today we will approach perhaps the most famous and well-known of all biblical texts, John 3:16.

Some of you may remember the ubiquitous John 3:16 signs that used to be seen in sports arenas around the country. Some of you may remember how professional wrestler Steve Austin mocked the phrase and created a sensation with Austin 3:16. I won’t repeat what he said, though it was a classic moment in the history of American professional wrestling.

More of you may be familiar with Tim Tebow, the Heisman-winning quarterback who played for my favorite college football team, the Florida Gators. As a pro, he had a brief stint with the Denver Broncos and now plays for the New York Jets. Tebow has publically embraced and showcased his evangelical Christian faith, often in ways that I’m not comfortable with. He’s famous for thanking God after big plays; his characteristic pose on one knee is known as Tebowing. Back in his college days he would wear black tape under his eyes with Bible verses written on them. Perhaps his most iconic tape was emblazoned with John 3:16. It was as if the old John 3:16 signs came to life and walked down onto the field. And every time Tebow thanked God for a touchdown, one had to wonder if he was getting help from above. (Or maybe not.)

John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.”

For many, this verse is synonymous with the gospel. For many, this verse is synonymous with Christianity itself, or at least a particular kind of Christianity: evangelical Christianity.

In case you were wondering, I wouldn’t call this an evangelical church. The kind of Christianity we practice here is theologically progressive, rooted in the Reformed branch of mainline Protestantism. At one point, this congregation was in fact evangelical in the classic sense. But for at least the past quarter of a century, we’ve identified as liberals and progressives.

So what do we do with this well-known verse, a verse primarily associated with a kind of Christianity that we generally distance ourselves from?

Let’s begin by hearing it in its full context, John 3:1–21.

● ● ●

In my sermons, teaching, and writing, I often refer to a variety of “posts”: postmodernism, post-denominationalism, post-Christendom. The idea is to get a historical sense of where we are as a culture, an understanding of where we fit in the progression of human thought. Today I want to talk about one more “post”: post-evangelical.

As someone who grew up in an evangelical church but migrated as an adult to the more progressive Presbyterian Church (USA), I am quite literally post-evangelical. Evangelicalism—even fundamentalism—are parts of my past that shape who I am as a Christian today. Like all aspects of our individual effective histories, I position myself in relation to these chapters of my past in both negative and positive ways.

The negative stance is probably the most obvious. Though I try not to engage in the religious equivalent of negative campaigning in the political realm, I know that it’s easy for me to preach my understanding of progressive Christianity as an alternative or counternarrative to the conservative evangelicalism I grew up with. Given the effectiveness of evangelicals when it comes to popularizing and disseminating their understanding of Christianity, it’s tempting to take their bait in our society’s culture wars or even go on the offensive myself.

In this I’m not alone. There are many who wear the post-evangelical label and have articulated why they have left evangelicalism. There are even pastors and writers within evangelicalism who realize they have a problem. David Kinnaman of the Barna research group has written two books on the topic: unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity . . . and Why It Matters and You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving the Church . . . and Rethinking Faith. In unChristian he outlines six broad themes that people find problematic about evangelical Christianity: hypocrisy, too much focus on converting others, an anti-homosexual agenda, being sheltered and out of touch, being too political, and being too judgmental. Similar notions are conveyed by pastor Dan Kimball in his book They Like Jesus But Not the Church. Here’s what he suggests emerging generations think: the church is an organized religion with a political agenda; the church is judgmental and negative; the church is dominated by males and oppresses females; the church is homophobic; the church arrogantly claims all other religions are wrong; the church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally.

In response, evangelicals and post-evangelicals are making shifts within their churches. People like Jim Wallis are arguing that a right-wing political agenda is not the only way for Christians to engage in civic discourse, suggesting that it is possible for evangelicals to advocate for progressive social and political policies. Emergent theologians like Tony Jones are advocates of LGBT rights and reject biblical literalism and fundamentalist hermeneutics. More and more evangelicals and post-evangelicals are interested in robust visions of social justice. Women are assuming leadership roles. There is more openness to ecumenical partnerships and even interreligious dialogue.

These moves give me hope that the Christianity emerging from the past several centuries will be more moderate, as those on the left and the right come together and rediscover that neither side has been completely right about Jesus and the gospel. You see, there’s also such a thing as post-liberalism, and I’m humble enough to admit that there is wisdom in that movement. We all need to spend less time talking past each other and more time actually listening to what the other has to say as we seek to understand the will of God for the twenty-first century.

There are actually several things about evangelicalism that I miss, things that I think are lacking in progressive Christianity. In particular, I wish that progressive Christians acted as if there is some real urgency to the gospel. Evangelicals, operating on the assumption that everyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus as they understand him are going to hell, have some real motivation to get their message out there. By and large, I find that kind of zeal and urgency lacking in progressive churches.

Like anything, of course, there are multiple flavors of progressive churches. There’s the kind that offers generic feel-good spirituality that doesn’t expect much from followers. There is such an emphasis on grace that everything goes and nobody is ever held accountable. Then there’s the kind of progressive Christianity so focused on social justice that you wonder where Jesus fits in, whether or not Jesus really adds much to the equation.

But the gospel Jesus lived and died for is good news. It’s something that has the power to change the world. It has the power to transform lives. It has the power to save lives. It has the power to radically transform everything we know.

Good news. This is, after all, what the Greek root of the word evangelical means. It drives me nuts that a particular form of American Christianity—really just a minor blip in the big picture of Christian history—has hijacked and co-opted the words evangelical and evangelism. Everything we do ought to be evangelism: it ought to be about proclaiming, in word and deed, the good news of God’s emerging kingdom. But in our culture, evangelical and evangelism carry particular connotations, so progressive Christians have dumped them altogether. I get that. I guess. There’s a lot of baggage there. It seems unlikely that progressive Christians could ever reclaim these terms.

But friends, if that only leads to complacency, if that strips us of our sense of urgency, if we are no longer evangelical in the sense that we have some good news to share with a hurting and broken world, then we’ve made a big mistake.

Post-evangelical. The thing about “posts” is that you aren’t completely cut off from the phase you have moved through. Postmodernism is still informed and shaped by modernism. Post-Christendom Christianity is built on the foundations of the Christendom church. And post-evangelicalism maintains a connection to its evangelical roots even as it moves forward into a new kind of Christianity.

In today’s reading, Jesus tells Nicodemus that someone must be born anew in order to see God’s kingdom. Here in this place we would never call ourselves “born again Christians”—another label that has taken on a particular meaning in our culture. But what a shame it has been to lose this rich image. Who among us doesn’t need a fresh start? Who among us doesn’t need a “do over” from time to time?

I’m not ashamed to admit it: I need to be born again, born afresh, born anew. Not just once, but many times, because I continue to fail. I continue to deny the vision God has set before us. I continue to stray from the path God has called us to follow.

The gospel confronts us with this powerful truth: we need to change. God’s kingdom is emerging, and we need to change our hearts and lives. We need to make some radical changes in ourselves and in our world. God expects something from us. God invites us to be born anew.

This is what it means to enter God’s kingdom. This is what it means to leave behind our old ways that lead only to death and forge forward on a new path that leads to life. And not just any life—eternal life.

When we hear those words we most often think of life after death. We think of heaven as a place we go to be with God for eternity when we die. But throughout the gospels, Jesus is much more concerned with the life we live now. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus calls this the kingdom of God. It’s not a future reality; it’s something that’s happening right here, right now, all around us. “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

In the Gospel of John, Jesus talks about this present reality as “eternal life.” In the other gospels, this does indeed seem to mean something in the future. But in John, it is also a present reality that we can experience now.

“God so loved the world.” This good news, this kingdom of God, this eternal life—it’s for everyone. The whole world.

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” Jesus is God’s gift to the world. Jesus reveals something urgently profound about what God wants for the world. How can we afford to ignore that?

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish.” Believing in Jesus doesn’t mean checking off a list of doctrines that the church tells you to believe. Rather, this kind of belief is more like trust. Everyone who trusts in Jesus and follows his way will find life instead of death.

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.” Eternal life isn’t just life after death that lasts forever. It is fullness of life right now. It is the kind of rich life that transcends the limitations of existence as we know it. It is an intense kind of experience in which God and humanity are finally in harmony with each other. It is what Jesus called the kingdom of God. And it is here, ready for us to embrace.

Friends, this is good news. It is the best news we have to share. It has the potential to change the world.

What are we waiting for?

Amen.