As a movement, evangelicalism is on different parts of the ecumenical continuum depending on . . . well . . . .

To mention just one variable: the subjectivity of the person marking evangelical's place on the scale. My fundy friends definitively put it on the 'going-to-hell' end. My UCC pastor says it's several miles on the other end.

I'm an evangelical. I think. (I don't know where to send my membership dues.) But when I participate in our metropolitan ecumenical council, I'm the only evangelical there. I think. Doesn't that mean we're not that ecumenical after all?

Perhaps my participation in ecumenical councils helps slide our position on the scale a bit. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

At the same time what religious group that takes its religious identity seriously, is more ecumenical than evangelicals?

Off the top of my head and without giving it a lot of extended thought, I would suggest that mainline protestants and non-evangelical emergents (if the latter really qualify as a discernible category yet) fall into the "more ecumenical than evangelicals" category.

So which religious groups fall into the category of being less ecumenical than evangelicals? On the whole Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, fundamentalist protestant Christianity, Mormonism, Islam, all seem to be less ecumenically minded and open than evangelicalism as a whole.

It seems to me that to the extent there's a scale for how ecumenical a religious group that takes its identity seriously is, Scot is correct that evangelicalism is on the "more ecumenical than most" end of the scale, even if there's still room for a whole lot of improvement.

I think Monte Asbury is onto something when he says, "I also suspect that theological "separation” is code-talk for what is really a cultural difference, rather than a theological one." I had a theologian friend inform me once that there is a difference between ecumenical and interfaith. I agree that Evangelicals are not, but should be, far more ecumenical than they truly are. I think that Scot may be driven more by his desire for the term Evangelical to be redeemed than by a willingness to acknowledge the dark underside of the movement.

Blessings,

Shlomo

I think we are ecumenical in the sense of slowly learning we don't have to put everybody down who doesn't march lock-step with our own views. But

I suspect we are not ecumenical enough to be OK with being led by people who aren't of our own evang/social/cultural/economic outlook.

I also suspect that theological "separation" is code-talk for what is really a cultural difference, rather than a theological one.

Having grown up attending a fundamentalist Baptist school (14 years – preschool through high school graduation) I'm familiar with what you're talking about. Our school was in Jerry Falwell's hometown but Falwell wasn't conservative enough for the leadership of our school, who were almost all Bob Jones grads. I was already suspect because my family attended a Presbyterian (USA) church, and when I decided to go to Wheaton College (that bastion of liberalism) they pretty much gave up on me.

I don't see anything in your post that contradicts my original one – there are undoubtedly separatist and uber-separatist attitudes within fundamentalism, and within evangelicalism too. But I think Scot McKnight is also correct that (at least some of) evangelicalism does a better job than lots of other branches of the Christian family tree, at being open to ecumenical work and dialogue. YMMV depending on where you're located and who you're dealing with. Sadly we do still have a long ways to go.

Karl

Don't be so hard on evangelicals for their lack of ecumenical openess to Catholics and Orthodox. Catholics in general have become more open, thanks to the reforms of Vatican II, but they used to return the favor of stride exclusivism.

The Orthodox? Really, the insularity of the smug fundamentlaist Protestant is only matched by the insularity of the smug Eastern Orthodox. The latter (usually with a veneer of elitism picked from having a read a tract or book or two on the historicity of the E.O. Church) sneers at anything evangelical, and are sure they are the true church. Again, there are exceptions, but in the U.S., if anything, the opposition to ecumenicism seems to be growing in Eastern Orthodox ranks.;

In my fundy days I was in the "secondary separation" crowd. We separated from those who refused to separate from those we separated from. The Bob Jones crowd was really big on this. Even a couple of books written on the subject.

It is the same old "guilt by association" game. One that, quite frankly, wore me out trying to play it.

Bruce

"I agree that there are levels among evangelicals. (and that I used extreme, but amusing, examples) Scot himself is part of one of the more ecumenical groups there at North Park."

All the examples that Julie and others have given are true, and familiar. The line between fundamentalism and evangelicalism isn't always clear, and much of evangelicalism still carries fundamentalist, separatist tendencies. Or is still fighting the battles of the reformation.

At the same time you have things like the Lausanne Covenant, interdenominational institutions like Wheaton College, efforts like "Evangelicals and Catholics Together", publications like Christianity Today, the ecumenical approach that Billy Graham's crusades took, and many other such examples – all of which spring from solidly mainstream evangelicalism. If you go to a self-avowed "fundamentalist" church or website, you'll find that one of the fundamentalists' primary condemnations of evangelicalism, is for evangelicalism's ecumenism.

So I think there's definitely something to what Scott is saying, even if ecumenism is to an extent in the eye of the beholder, and even if not all of evangelicalism is characterized by a generous ecumenism.

I agree with you completely about evangelicals NOT being ecumenical. I've lived in a number of places across the country, and in places they don't even join with others in the community for a Thanksgiving service or in social work type of outreach. Even certain Jewish congregations joined the Thanksgiving service, (and we Christians chose OT scriptures for the service.)

"I would like to challenge (NOT criticize, but just push back a bit) you, however, over the point that evangelicals re "good at being properly ecumenical." I'd agree if ecumenicism is understood as being oriented only within protestant circles. Evangelicals have a long way to go toward being fully ecumenical with respect to Catholic and Orthodox Christian communities. I'd even say that in every church in which I've served in ministry (all of which have been evangelical congregations), there still exists a strong orientation toward anti-Catholicism that borders on exclusivism. Evangelicals are, indeed, good at being ecumenical with other evangelical protestants but could use a lot of work toward existing ecumenically toward protestant groups who are theologically different and especially toward Catholics and the Orthodox."

Evangelicals, of course, have a long way to go…but how LONG is it going to take??