Personal Crusade or Balanced Action

Since when do Evangelicals hang out with Bono, spout warnings about the legitimacy of global warming and defend their flock in the face of liberal culture? They don’t do that, right? Or do they? The Reverend Richard Cizik, Vice President of Government Policy for the National Association of Evangelicals, isn’t seen on Fox, he doesn’t show up on Crossfire, yet he is transforming common perceptions about Evangelicals around the world. At about 6’5, with a gaunt, slender stature, dressed in an Armani suit, Cizik doesn’t hesitate to invoke what God thinks about the state of the world. Combining the idiom of a Gospel preacher with the verbosity of a college professor, Cizik’s charisma has been winning him fanfare from all corners. With that fanfare, one must wonder how his soapbox hasn’t melted from conservative elements inside the Evangelical movement.

The reasons for his ability to remain as the insider talking head of the largest adjudicatory Evangelical organization in this country, popping up in high power conferences at the Vatican, throughout the Middle East, once bringing him face to face with the Ayatollahs, is in part because he has mastered the middle road. I have seen him twice address an interfaith crowd, where he denied a larger war of Judeo-Christian civilization vs. Islam, championed environmental awareness and interfaith dialogue.

His maneuvering in and out of the halls of power, addressing largely liberal audiences has enabled him to portray a nuanced image of Evangelicals. Here are paraphrased comments that Cizik has spoke of, “now most Evangelicals don’t have a problem telling you they know what God thinks, and as a Preacher, I can tell you that God is blessing us right now for coming together as people of many faiths.� At a conference in Seattle about community service, he proclaimed, “my goal is to change your perception of Evangelicals in this country.�

Yet my real amazement with Cizik is in how un-evangelical he really is. He doesn’t evoke Jesus, and even goes so far as to calling himself one of the “intellectual-founders� of the “third great awakening� of Christian thought and social action!!

While we on the left side of the divide are often taken aback at the Evangelical entrance into the public light, bringing with it the pain of tipping the 2004 election, and some say even the 2000 election, including a whole host of butcheries of the Bible, mainly that it is an inerrant document. My assumption is that Cizik is either on a personal crusade preaching clearly antithetical views about Evangelism, or tactfully approaching issues from a more positive perspective, where liberals are perhaps wrongly foisting him up as a revolutionary Christian leader. Whatever the answer, Cizik is eager for change, and the change he is envisioning, I can get behind.

Cizik’s written extensively on Evangelical’s and Christian leadership, his most famous piece, “An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility,� http://www.nae.net/images/civic_responsibility.pdf rattles the insulated, pastoral mindset of Evangelicals to a larger social duty of service, community and compassion. While the last time I saw Cizik speak, some in the audience were instrumental architects of the White House off of faith Based and Community Initiatives; he called on them as fellow, “Intellectual founders of a movement.� Again, since when do Evangelicals use the word intellectual with comfort?

Cizik did not hesitate to inform us that it was the Southern Baptist’s who out performed FEMA in Hurricane Katrina, and that secular fear of prosyltezation in community service should be curbed by promoting greater “transparency.� Does this kind of placement of Evangelicals, as angelic saviors to the common good miss some of the darker sides of their ascension to prominence in lat twentieth century America? Yes indeed. But with their ubiquity in mind, I sense a slow wind of change blowing towards recognition of purposeful values taking more importance.

If the Evangelical call to civic duty can foster a greater sense of interdependence, compassion and duty to one another, we might have the source of an unsuspected transformation of the manipulable aspects that often accompany modern Evangelism.

The rise of Evangelicals in this country is impossible to miss and it is a serious global movement as well. The ship is cast, and it won’t be coming back to harbor, so it needs sensible leadership. Leadership able to identify a “productive� middle ground is something that can be like pulling teeth for those of us so scarred by the darker sides of the Evangelical movement, but with leaders like Cizik, I sigh, amen.