Fitch, The End of Evangelicalism?

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David Fitch, The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission: Towards an Evangelical Political Theology. Cascade Books, 2011.

Referenced in: Christian Political Theory, Church and State Relations

LifeandLeadership.com Summary

Since a major tenet of evangelicalism is the formation and maintenance of a Christian nation, it is by its own admission a form of political theology. In this volume, David Fitch, a missional evangelical who wrote one of most balanced missional ecclesiologies in The Great Giveaway, here addresses political theology as it relates to the current shape of evangelicalism in the United States.

This is especially important because many evangelicals are skeptical of how some expressions of the missional movement minimize the church, weaken the distinctiveness of the gospel, disdain conversionist evangelism, diminish orthodoxy and Scripture, play down preaching, and contextualize mission to the point of syncretism. He says:

The political theology I am proposing…starts with these three beliefs – Scripture, conversionist salvation, and an active evangelistic church in the world. – and asks how they shape a people concretely for participation in the missio Dei. It thereby avoids taking the concept of the missio Dei and extracting it from its concrete life in the church from which it then gets applied as an intellectual principle over all things. Instead, it hones in on how our evangelical commitments shape us (or do not shape us) for participating in the mission Dei. It makes explicit the concrete political implications of these central evangelical doctrines for mission.

On the other hand, this kind of political theology also addresses the evangelical tendencies to turn everything “missional” into another pragmatic tool. The complaint of many missional authors is that megachurches use “missional” as another technique to drive numerical success and make evangelicalism more appealing to its already existing constituents. As “social justice” has become more attractive and consumerism less so, megachurches have turned towards marketing “missional.” Meanwhile, they accommodate and ongoing separation of church from an actual way of being as a people in the world. It forces the church to assess the way its belief and practice shape a way of life together in the world for God’s mission. It makes it possible to avoid the realities of the ways our belief and practice can be used to foster complicity in the world. It forces us to ask how our everyday way of life, our disposition as a people (i.e. our politic), engages the world as the embodiment of Christ and his mission in the world.

In essence, then, this book is doing missional theology in its purest form. It is a reshaping of evangelicalism’s belief and practice for “political” participation in God’s mission in the world. We are examining the entire evangelical project from the point of view of political formation and God’s mission. The result is an evangelical missional political theology. (xx-xxi)

Fitch begins by assessing the current state of evangelicalism, concluding it is not at its end, but is indeed in a crisis. He proposes a way of diagnosing the crisis through the political theories of Slavoj Zizek. This is not light reading, but it is not as daunting as one might think at first. Zizek originally set forth his framework to critique capitalism, and Fitch uses it to critique evangelicalism. Even Fitch admits that one does not have to read his summary of Zizek in chapter 2, but may jump to chapters 3, 4, and 5, which are the meat of the book. In these chapters, Fitch comments on how each of three main beliefs of evangelicalism have both hurt and helped its cause: the inerrant Bible, the decision for Christ, and the Christian nation. The way these three emphases have expressed themselves have actually “shaped us more often than not into a way of life that is antagonistic to the gospel we seek to share in the world.” He shows how each of these beliefs and practices can be rearticulated and reoriented so as to draw us into a participation in Christ himself and the life with the triune God and his mission. (xxiv)

This is an important contribution to the political dimensions of the missional church.

From the Publisher

In The End of Evangelicalism? David Fitch examines the political presence of evangelicalism as a church in North America. Amidst the negative image of evangelicalism in the national media and its purported decline as a church, Fitch asks how evangelicalism’s belief and practice has formed it as a political presence in North America. Why are evangelicals perceived as arrogant, exclusivist, duplicitous, and dispassionate by the wider culture?

Diagnosing its political cultural presence via the ideological theory of Slavoj Zizek, Fitch argues that evangelicalism appears to have lost the core of its politic: Jesus Christ. In so doing its politic has become “empty.” Its witness has been rendered moot. The way back to a vibrant political presence is through the corporate participation in the triune God’s ongoing work in the world as founded in the incarnation. Herein lies the way towards an evangelical missional political theology. Fitch ends his study by examining the possibilities for a new faithfulness in the current day emerging and missional church movements springing forth from evangelicalism in North America.

Reviews

“In your hands is one of the sharpest and informed evaluations of the state of evangelicalism. Read it slowly. Ponder it. Plot a better evangelicalism.”

— Scot McKnight, Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies, North Park University

“In compelling fashion, Fitch digs deep to examine how key U.S. evangelical beliefs actually function as an ideology rather than gospel. He calls us from a Christianity that acts as ‘ideology’ to one that authentically incarnates Jesus’ life and mission. What a book! This one will knock you back on your heels.”

— Howard A. Snyder, Professor of Wesley Studies, Tyndale Seminary, Ontario, Canada

“This is a significant book for those wrestling with the theological and cultural integrity of the Evangelical movement in a post-Christian setting.”

— John R. Franke, Clemens Professor of Missional Theology Biblical Seminary, Hatfield, Pennsylvania

“David Fitch explores three key issues that symbolize the evangelical conundrum-the inerrant Bible, the decision for Christ, and the Christian nation-by reframing them through missional theology. This is a timely and crucial read for those concerned about the evangelical movement.”

— Craig Van Gelder, Professor of Congregational Mission, Luther Seminary, St. Paul

About the Author

David E. Fitch is B. R. Lindner Professor of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary, Lombard IL. He is also a pastor at Life on the Vine Christian Community in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago. He is the author of The Great Giveaway (2005).

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