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 PrintableVersion Letter from AmericaElite evangelicals?‘Evangelical Elite’ Ð can those two words really go together? Apparently they can, and increasingly they do, according to Michael Lindsay’s new book, Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. You can read a full and fascinating interview with Lindsay about his new book in Christianity Today at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/november/33.35.html. Lindsay has conducted an astonishingly wide-ranging and penetrating research into the ‘elite evangelicals’ who function in small cabals at the top of the greasy pole of such institutions as Harvard, Hollywood, Fortune 500 companies, and Washington DC. He finds that they are consistently orthodox in their faith, by his definitions, despite being exposed to such a high level of the power that corrupts. Frequently they encourage one another in invitation-only small groups that meet once a month, like the Boston First Tuesday group convened by Tom Philips, former CEO of Raytheon. They seem to have a high degree of awareness of each other, sometimes networking through membership of the boards of national evangelical parachurch organisations like World Vision. They apparently tend to have a low commitment to the local church, finding them inefficient, and not conducive to fellowship with like-minded souls. He says that such evangelical elites may have a rather high degree of conflict with their pastor. And, while there are those who live on a lower lifestyle than their success could accord, many still enjoy the traditional avenues of power, staying at the Ritz Carlton and having conferences at fancy resorts. What to make of it?Call me diffident, but I just don’t know whether to jump up and down or kneel and weep. Is this good or bad? Good, yes, of course, all this wonderful opportunity for influence, for change, with evangelicals (how defined??) with their hands on the lever of power. We certainly need more Countesses of Huntingdon, and their connections can make a wonderful difference for the progress of the gospel, as has been proved time and again in church history. Yet, the other schizophrenic half of me wants to weep at the very possibility, and apparent self-consciousness, of an ‘Evangelical elite’. Doesn’t James have something to say about not giving the man with the gold ring a special seat? Is this why some find it hard to find their place in the local church — preferring the mega-church success of similarly minded business leaders? Cambridge and YaleOf course Paul said there are ‘not many wise’, not that there are not any wise among us, and I for one, who have first spent a good ten years doing evangelism and discipleship among Cam-bridge University students, and now a nearly similar amount of time leading a church next to Yale, am rejoicing that some of these elite have apparently begun turning to Christ. I think I’d just like to see, or hear, a little more counter-culture and a little less baptising of the spirit of the age and calling that success. Humble enough for churchThat doesn’t mean that the sophisticated among us have to like bad Christian rock (one of the pet bugbears of these elite, apparently), nor that we have to grimace, grin and bear it when Christians organise things poorly. But, I think, it does, it simply does, mean being humble enough to be a committed part of a local evangelical, Bible-teaching church. Why? Apart from that obviously being biblical (if in doubt, go to www.9marks.org), such submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, establishes our submission to Jesus in the first place, and guards us against the pride that must be endemic to holding such positions of authority and power in our celebrity-obsessed world. Local church is goodSomeone once told me that the staff of the president of one of these national parachurch organisations would joke, when seeing their president drive off in his chauffeur-driven limo, that they should get him a bumper sticker saying ‘poverty has been good to me’. I’d hate the world to be able to point to self-confessed evangelicals in positions of influence and feel something similar — and I have a feeling that a humble participation in a local church (however frustrating, and, believe me, I get that) would be one way to promote integrity even at the top of the ladder. Where else are we going to hear: ‘The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower’ (James 1.9-10)? But maybe I’m just jealous — hey, where’s my chauffeur-driven limo?! Josh Moody,
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