Be Thou my Vision

This weekend has been a whirlwind that has once again left my head spinning as I think about the state of evangelicalism today.

At the time of writing this paragraph, the most read and most e-mailled story on news.bbc.co.uk is about a high-profile American evangelical. To my left sits a book by a leading Canadian evangelical, signed by the author with the message "God Bless, 'Cousin'" written on the inside cover. To my right sits a ticket stub from an event with a leading Canadian evangelical musician and British Christian writer.

First, let me say that I have always believed that part of the success, dynamism, and appeal of evangelicals lies in the fact that we are a very self-reflective bunch. We are constantly re-assessing our doctrines, attitudes, and actions in light of solo scriptura (and soli deo gloria, and all those other cool Latin slogans). And headlines on the BBC like "Sex-row US pastor 'bought-drugs'" definitely cause us to reflect.

This was not the first time that Ted Haggard made headlines though. In November 2005 the cover story of Christianity Today was a great deal more positive. In fact it was down-right inspiring. The story "Good Morning, Evangelicals!" urged readers to "Meet Ted Haggard, the NAE's optimistic champion of ecumenical evangelism and free-market faith." The church was being re-invigorated by a leader who preached a simple and re-vitalised evangelicalism; who spoke to the White House every week; and who was seemingly unflappable.

I don't know about you, but I was ready for an optimistic champion of ecumenical evangelism and free-market faith. It was a breath of fresh air in the midst of many equally unattractive options. Whether it was the schmarmy, off-putting prosperity gospel of Osteen and Schuller; the nay-saying, anti-traditionalist negativity of Wallis, McLaren, and Bell; the impossible-to-acheive, type-A, executive style evangelism of Jakes and Hybels; or Falwell and Dobson, unable to get their worthy messages past unfair stereotypes that dogged them. Even the evangelical population at large was starting to tire of these leaders, leaders all suffering from some kind of malaise. The general feeling was that they all had some of the Truth, but each had their own handicap that stopped it from being truly compelling. That is where Haggard, I think, was able to shine. I think he came to the forefront because he had the ability to relate to people comfortably and naturally. Harper's magazine decided arbitrarily, in February 2005, that Haggard and Dobson were the two most influental evangelicals in the USA. Haggard made the TIME magazine list of 25 most influental evangelicals. And the ChurchReport.com list of 50 most influental. And any list made since the 2004 election. I know that when there was a difficult issue that I did not have time to research and think through, I would just take my opinion from whatever the NAE put out. After all, they shared my values so why wouldn't I want to share their opinions? Under Haggard's leadership the NAE became a valuable opinion-leader in the marketplace of ideas.

The situation with Haggard has come at a time when it looks like evangelicalism has peaked and fallen from its throne in America. The 2000 and 2004 elections, with all their talk of "values voters" really made a lot of people believe that it was the Bible-thumpers country now, thank you very much. Of course in hindsight we should have realised that this was a lot of media hype. Certainly evangelicals had a lot of momentum in 2004, but their conquest was far from complete. They had momentum in 2004, but now in 2006 Christianity Today is referring to evangelical voters as "dispirited". What happened in just two years?

Well three things happened. The evangelical community supported a war they were never entirely comfortable with, in hopes that the President would reciprocate and support pro-family measures that Washington would never be entirely comfortable with. Needless to say, the Godsquad was disappointed: the unjust war became even more unpopular, and as thanks for their support President Bush nominated two Supreme Court justices who were iffy on life ethics and family values, while all the while never really put any effort into promoting abstinence-only sex ed, real protections for marriage, or serious pro-life reforms in areas like private stem-cell research. Also, environment became the hot topic of the day and evangelicals were slow to get behind creation care.

One: our support for the war really hurt us. Two: the President did not go to bat for us like we hoped he would. Three: we were viewed as irresponsible on the environment. With this as the backdrop, the Haggard situation is really not more than a diversion. Nonetheless, it is hard to think of American evangelicalism as anything but 'in trouble.'

* * *

But how would we describe Canadian evangelicalism today? Well a Torontonian would hardly believe that it existed. But interestingly, in a far less Christian country a quieter, less triumphalist evangelicalism is really doing quite well. On Friday morning I went a Prayer Breakfast in Surrey where the speaker was none other than the truly unflappable Deborah Grey. Two evangelical pastors gave the opening and closing prayers, evangelical songs were song, and the choir from the local Christian private school sang. And it was one of the songs of that choir that really struck me from the morning: "Be Thou My Vision oh Lord of my Heart. Not be all else to me, save that Thou art."

The name of Jesus was repeated used that morning in front of an audience that was made up of a lot of non-Christians. When she delivered the keynote address Deb Grey unapologetically credited her life to Jesus Christ, and she closed her speech by reading her testimony of how she came to faith in Christ. When she finished speaking Deborah Grey, the first ever Member of Parliament for the no-holds-barred Reform Party, sang a song called "The Lighthouse", a bold, blatant, and unapologetic call to accept Jesus Christ. The intended audience of the Prayer Breakfast was leaders in the community, and the message was that good leaders need someone even better to lead them; someone to whom they can say "Be Thou My Vision".

* * *

I finished my weekend with a concert at Johnston Heights Evangelical Free Church. Adrian Plass and Steve Bell were putting on a tour called the Story & Song tour, and it wasn't really a concert because Plass is an author and humourist, and Bell spent half of his set speaking. It was great to see a British author that (largely due to my mother's influence) I had come to be quite a fan of. I had even lived just 10 miles away from his house for a year while I lived in England, but I never actually met him until this weekend. I had met Steve Bell 5 years ago, but I didn't get to see all of his concert in Three Hills in 2001. I watched his set this weekend, and his performance blew me out of the water. What really stuck out for me was Steve Bell's comment: "It's nice that you are here. With the . . . Women of Faith conference this weekend I thought no one would be here. So it's nice to see you here." Steve Bell is a funny guy and meant it to be tongue-in-cheek, but I just thought it interesting that on one particular weekend in a Canadian city two seperate faith events would compete for a "captive Christian audience", and both would, incidently, end up doing quite well.

While CTV Newsnet did their best to exaggerate the Haggard story far beyond its natural life the Body of Christ continued on, largely unbothered. I don't buy the argument that marrying faith with politics has been the achilles heel in America. Deb Grey proved that principled and committed faith can be a positive influence on government. But Steve Bell and Adrian Plass reminded us that whatever you marry your faith to--be it your career, your community, or your politics--should never become the ultimate goal. "Be Thou My Wisdom and Thou my True Word." The Lord is the centre of what we do, and that is what makes it worth doing. And that is why we can continue on unabated in the shadow of a supposedly catastrophic meltdown south of the 49th.

Has politics been built up as an idol in the US evangelical community? Oh, no doubt. That is what has allowed David Kuo to write books such as his latest one. Whenever we lose sight of "Be Thou my Vision" we run the risk of choosing another guide. That is why we don't sign "Be Ted Haggard my Vision" or "Be World Vision my Vision" or "Be (popular Christian personality or ideal) my Vision".

If there is one thing that this Haggard scenario has told us it is that neither Christ nor Christianity are going anywhere.
Let's just hope we keep our eyes trained on our Vision.


"Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all."