“Steve Chalke says he is an evangelical and that he shares that aim, but that evangelicalism has lost its way and needs to be redefined. He has been saying this for sometime and reinforced it with his latest article on Christian Today. I write this response because I love the Good News and I think that his continued attacks on evangelicalism are actually bad news for the Good News. He is embarrassed that some non-Christians think evangelicals are ‘awful’.”

I love getting good news. A friend becomes pregnant, a cheque arrives in the post, an illness is cured, an exam is passed. My life is thankfully filled with so many things to be thankful for, for others and myself. But this good news is given against the backdrop of a world that is a broken, dark and hurting place. There is always death, disease, violence, ignorance and ugliness. We don’t live in Disneyland. We live in a world polluted by sin and ravaged by its consequences. We live in a world where the prince of this world is the father of lies, the enemy of God, and the one who seeks to oppress all of God’s creation, especially that part which is made in God’s image. So the news that into this dark world has come the light of the world is Good News indeed. That there is one who has defeated the enemies of death, disease and the devil, is, as we say in Dundee, “pure dead brilliant”! And I run out of superlatives when I think that ugliness is replaced by beauty, fear by hope, and lies by truth. I think of a lady in one of our housing schemes who cried as she told me of her broken life – a dead husband, a brain tumour and three teenage daughters to look after. When I suggested to her that in this world of ugliness there could come great beauty she wept all the more…not daring to believe that it could be true. The Good News of Jesus is so good that I want to shout it from the rooftops. I want to stop the bus and say to all the sad-eyed, worn out, tired and weary people, “there is Good News for you”. That’s what an evangelical is – someone who believes, lives and shares the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God coming into this world to save sinners – of which I am the chief!

Steve Chalke says he is an evangelical and that he shares that aim, but that evangelicalism has lost its way and needs to be redefined. He has been saying this for sometime and reinforced it with his latest article on Christian Today. I write this response because I love the Good News and I think that his continued attacks on evangelicalism are actually bad news for the Good News. He is embarrassed that some non-Christians think evangelicals are ‘awful’. He thinks that the Goods News is being misrepresented by today’s evangelicals and that, in the light of advances in modern scholarship, we are increasingly outdated. So what would his redefinition be? “I would like it to be a smile. I’d like people outside the church to hear the world evangelical and think ‘they’re good guys’. I always define evangelical as good news bringing – it’s what the word actually means. When people hear that an evangelical is standing as a local counsellor, for example, they should smile. This must be good news. We’re far from that at the moment.”

It’s difficult to know where to begin with this. But let me offer two observations. First, it shows a deeply unrealistic view of human nature and the world we are living in. In Steve’s world people are basically good and looking for good things. When they hear of a good person standing as a local politician they will smile, because we are all shiny, happy people, looking for the best and the good. The trouble is that such a world is a fantasy. It does not exist. If it did it would not need a Saviour. It means that Christ died in vain because in this world there really are no people dead in sins and trespasses to die for. Second, it shows a profound ignorance, or ignoring, of the Bible and of what Jesus actually taught. Did people smile when Jesus came, or did they crucify him? Did Jesus not actually warn his disciples that if the world has hated me it would hate us also? “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved”. (Matthew 10:22) Did he not say that we were to take up our cross and follow him? Maybe in the pick ‘n’ mix world of the Gospel according to Chalke, Jesus really didn’t say those things? Or maybe ‘modern scholarship’ has now shown us that when he said them he was being ironic and he really meant, if you follow me they will love you because you make them smile!

Steve makes another observation that sounds sweet: “Any encounter with evangelicalism, therefore, should always be to experience the kind of good news that stirs your soul and pours the oil of joy into the grind of everyday life.” Of course we sometimes tell the Good News and there are those who react instantly with joy because we are like the perfume of life in the midst of death. But to others we are the stench of death. They loathe and hate the Good News because to them it is bad news.

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