Am I A Post-Evangelical??

It seems like everything today is post- something else. Post-modern, post-Christian, post-hardcore, post-American, and on and on. In my theological "Word of the Day" today, I came across another "post" something.

Post-Evangelical: A modern movement among Evangelicals who are dissatisfied with the current trends in Evangelicalism toward compromise in practice, thinking, and methodology. The evangelical church, according to Post-Evangelicals, has become a circus which integrates its method of “doing church” with the corporate world of business and marketing. Voices of Post-Evangelicalism call for a reform, pleading with the church to re-establish its traditions in the roots laid by two thousand years of church history, not a reinventing of church based upon current cultural trends. Post-Evangelicals are “post” because they believe the name “Evangelical” is beyond recovery.

This definition of post-evangelical may have one or two omissions based on other objections that I've heard. How about this one: "The Evangelical church is just a front for the Republican party." Or this

However, based solely on the above description, I find myself fitting into the post-evangelical category more comfortably than I would have previously thought:

• I am dissatisfied with many of the current trends in the American Evangelical church, particularly in the "dumbing down" of the gospel, doctrine and theology.
• I am not particularly stoked on the way the church often gets marketed and treated like a business
• I do deeply desire to recapture a church that has roots in history. I feel like someone who has just started learning about my family tree and I love it!

I would not adopt the term for myself, however, because of one important disagreement with the definition: I do not believe that the term "Evangelical" is beyond saving. Within the last decade there have been those who have advocated that followers of Jesus should no longer use the term "Christian" because it comes with so much baggage. I feel like that kind of defeatism doesn't really serve it's intended purpose. Call me crazy, but I'd like to part of the rebranding of my particular strain of Christian faith. I am not Catholic. I am not Orthodox. I'm not an Anglican. I am not a Mainliner. While I do value and appreciate aspects of each of those veins of the Christian faith, I am an evangelical and I'm not ashamed of it.

Maybe we need a reformation. Maybe we need a refocusing. Maybe we need a renewed appreciation for our roots as a 2,000 year old church. I'm just not personally ready to throw out the term because I believe it still serves as a good definition for those who are committed to sharing this good news (evangelion) with the world around us.