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.
Does the Bible need trigger warnings?
The University of Sheffield recently issued trigger warnings for English Literature students studying Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.It advised …