Below is part three of an exclusive CHOG Blog interview with Dr. Jerry Hickson, author of Are You Sure You're Right? (Click HERE for more information on the book, including my review and critiques).
Q. You say that the Church of God is losing its identity. Do you think that our fragile self-identity is the reason we have latched on to the much more visible Evangelicals, or has our close affinity with Evangelicalism simply eroded our own movement awareness and distinctives?
Or does our passion for inclusion overwhelm our doctrinal commitments? I don't really know. The truth probably contains some of each.
For decades, we have evolved through a process of disowning things we used to believe. Since 1930, our confidence about church-historical interpretation has eroded. We no longer hold as tightly to the old way of thinking about divine healing. We have modified our definitions of holiness. It is not hard to understand that some of us wonder what we believe any more. Our self-identity is further battered by the revelations of failures and misconduct among some of our leaders. Then there is our size itself: we have never been of great number and many of us worship in small congregations.
At the same time, evangelicalism has experienced rapid growth in numbers and social power. Movements like Promise Keepers preach the Church of God message with more impact than we ever dreamed. So much of what evangelicals are doing is good. So why not hitch our wagon with success? Never mind Jerry's nit-picking about fine points of doctrine!
The third option has merit, IMHO. The pillars of the Church of God have always been holiness and unity. "We reach out hands in fellowship to every bloodwashed one." Discussion of doctrinal distinctives (like holiness?) make some uneasy for fear we will make some uncomfortable. But our forefathers never hestitated to preach the truth as they understood it even while practicing unity.
I would also restate the semantic issue. I say that the Church of God is not evangelical. But that statement can only be defended using a restricted definition. With at least two broader definitions, the Church of God is most certainly among the evangelicals. We wrestled with this issue, wondering if we should use another word in place of "evangelical." I came to the conclusion that no other word would speak to the issues I am addressing. "Fundamentalists" was so lacking we nearly eliminated it from the discussion. The best way out as I could tell was to use "evangelical" while repeatedly underlining the specific connotation intended. Last Sunday, I was leading a discussion of whether "evangelical" is a positive or negative word. Many church people have no idea what loathsome connotations are attached to that word by a lot of people within and without the Church.
The bottom line is that people of the Church of God are increasingly looking everywhere but to the Church of God to define their faith. This is evidenced in our preference for any curicula but Warner Press, in our lack of support for CBH, in our support of any missionaries but our own, in our enrollment in any college but our own, in our attending spiritual renewal conferences from all quarters while attendance at national and state campmeetings and conventions dwindles, shall I go on? I am exaggerating, but not much.
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