Evangelical Futures: Gospel unity in the face of evangelical tribalism

When asked to write about ‘some of the issues we currently face as a constituency’ I could have picked a number of issues, like evangelism (we could do better) or discipleship (we could do much better), or the pressures from contemporary culture (massive).

But actually, my initial thought was: who is our constituency? What kind of churches, organisations and people are in it? Am I in it? Where are the boundary lines? If en readers are a constituency, then what unites them? It’s the gospel, right? Isn’t that what unites all Christians?

Perhaps we are simply ‘evangelicals’? Well, we are, but I fear ‘evangelical’ doesn’t really narrow down the constituency enough. What about ‘conservative evangelical’? Sounds too political. ‘Confessional evangelicals’. Maybe a bit dated. How about ‘reformed, confessional, culturally-connected, mostly-complementarian practical cessationist evangelicals with kind hearts’. Sounds good.

Or maybe we surrender to reality and accept that we’re just middle-class Christians trying to be cool who read John Piper and Tim Keller (wait, where do we stand on Tim Keller currently?) and who always find something to disagree about!

These questions lead to a realisation that perhaps the issue facing my constituency is working out who we are and does it even matter? This has been a live issue for us at Affinity recently, as we are a growing network with churches and organisations that have not historically been part of our constituency seeking to join. Shall we let them in, or keep them out? On what basis do we make these kinds of decisions? We want to be open but discerning, but what does that look like?

There’s definitely something about what we believe that unites us. A great amount of time has been devoted to trying to define the bare essentials of what an evangelical is: someone with a high view of the Bible as God’s inspired inerrant word containing all essential spiritual truth, belief in the atoning work of Christ on the cross and His return, the need for conversion and the life of repentance, the reality of eternal judgment, and so on.

My constituency probably unites around a smaller set of distinctives which we’d like to think are purely theological, but I am wondering if they are more cultural, even tribal, than we account for. Tribes created by overlapping doctrinal, historical, socio-economical, cultural and geographical factors.

Evangelical tribes eye each other suspiciously, wondering if we’re all on the same team. As an example, which could be repeated in many other networks, we see many different evangelical Anglican constituencies. What exactly unites them or divides them? Is it really central gospel issues, or actually cultural tradition? Maybe it’s just who you know or went to college with?

So the great challenge I see is: how do we express and promote gospel unity? How do we stop being a constituency and start being the body of Jesus Christ, united but diverse? Not compromised, but not compartmentalised either. My assumption is that it’s something we all want. My fear is that we are more prone to tribal unity. 

• Gospel unity is based on the gospel. Tribal unity is based on the gospel plus tribal traditions.
• Gospel unity works for the honour of Christ. Tribal unity works for the honour of the tribe.
• Gospel unity fights for truth. Tribal unity fights for territory.
• Gospel unity gives the benefit of the doubt. Tribal unity is suspicious.
• Gospel unity cares about God’s revelation. Tribal unity cares about being right.
• Gospel unity promotes Christ. Tribal unity promotes tribal leaders.
• Gospel unity values fellowship. Tribal unity values networking.
• Gospel unity tries to get people in. Tribal unity tries to keep people out.

My hope at Affinity is not to build another tribe but to facilitate gospel unity between churches and fellowships of believers who love Jesus and are devoted to each other and, where we are united, to present a loving united front to the world.