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‘A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church’ by Warren Cole Smith
Authentic Books, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 2009, 280 pages
The evangelical church has taken its fair share of criticism in the past decade. From people concerned with the movement’s cozy relationship with Washington politics to those upset over various theological issues, the movement has experienced a turbulent 10 years.
Much of this criticism, however, has come from those outside Evangelicalism. But with “A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church,” Warren Cole Smith offers a critique by someone wholly immersed in the movement. Smith is currently a writer and editor—and also the publisher of the Evangelical Press News Services, a service to which this newspaper subscribes. He is also the former publisher of this newspaper, from 2002 through 2005. This insider status gives him a slightly different perspective than many others who have called out Evangelicalism.
Smith’s criticisms highlight many of the familiar ones uttered for some time—selling the soul of the movement for a seat at the table of political influence, the seeming abandonment of sound theology by some national pastors and the way the Christian music industry operates, to name a few.
Regarding politics, Smith writes, “But too often we have spent the moral capital our history and theology have accumulated in our behalf just to buy a seat at the table of power. And once there, as Ralph Reed [former head of the Christian Coalition] among many others has demonstrated, we have no power left to resist the temptations of that table.”
But while Smith is poignant on most of this criticism, he makes a crucial error in laying the framework for much of what he believes has gone wrong with Evangelicalism.
Smith spends a good deal of time juxtaposing the First Great Awakening in this country with the Second Great Awakening, drawing positive results from the First and negative results from the Second. He writes, “…the First Great Awakening resulted in churches that have remained faithful to gospel truth for nearly three centuries…”
Then, regarding the Second Great Awakening, he writes, “The Second Great Awakening, on the other hand, created an environment in which cults such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons could easily take root…”
These are expansive and important claims—yet Smith fails to follow up these claims with solid historical examples. Plus, being that both Awakenings in American history are more than 160 years in the past, it’s difficult to draw any present-day conclusions about their effects.
Nevertheless, Smith is at his best when he writes about megachurches and the Christian music industry—both of which he does with insight and force.
Overall, this is an important book for those interested in reading about the difficulties Evangelicalism currently faces. Smith doesn’t come across as angry or mean-spirited—just as an evangelical concerned with certain problems that he believes have negatively impacted the movement.
Smith concludes: “The evangelical church may yet have to pass through the refiner’s fire. My lover’s quarrel with the evangelical church leaves me melancholy regarding our chances of avoiding that trial. But, as Dante teaches us, the journey through the inferno is the first part of the story, not the last.”
To view or order the book go to loversquarrel.net
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