Labels and beliefs

The blogosphere (or at least the Christian bit of it) has lit up this week in response to Steve Chalke's latest pronouncement, this time on his view that the Bible contains mistakes and that sometimes when God is recorded as speaking, he in fact was being misheard.

This blog ends up with the serious matter of Steve Chalke and what the Bible actually is, but begins with the considerable hilarity around the office as several of us have taken an online test to see whether our actual beliefs match up to the policies of any particular political party.The results have been interesting.

• Someone who self identified as Liberal Democrat discovered that she was more in tune with Labour's policies than her chosen party
• Someone who self identified as being more Labour found that his actual take on policies chimed more with the Lib Dem's and Conservatives (cue hilarity and mockery all round).
• And those who self identified as Conservative found they were much more aligned with UKIP on a wide range of policies than they were with the Tory party.

It raises the interesting questions of labels and beliefs. We may "own" a label for ourselves, but when we match it against what we actually think - it may be that we experience "identity dissonance". The question then is - has the party changed? Or is the essence of my attachment to the label - be it a political label like "Green" or a Christian label like "Reformed" or "Evangelical" - something deeper and more fundamental than my take on particular policies or doctrines?

Which brings us back to Steve Chalke and the difficulty with labels. We call ourselves evangelicals, and so does he. But is it a meaningful label when it becomes a tent large enough for someone who does not believe the Bible is infallible or sufficient, who is unsure about penal substitution (the view that on the cross, God the Son was punished by God the Father for the sins of others), and who is not prepared to state that homosexual sexual activity is sinful to share with someone else who does hold to infallibility, penal substitution and the traditional understanding of Biblical sexual morality?

Who draws the dividing lines?

Some of us are too quick to draw dividing lines. We can appear to want to live in a one-man tent. Others are too slow, and seek to pitch a tent so large that it covers virtually everyone. And the name on the front of the tent becomes meaningless when you do either of those.

So what to learn?

1. Just because a self-identifying evangelical says something, doesn't mean you as another self-identifying evangelical need to say they're right, or avoid saying they're wrong.
2. Just because you identify as an evangelical, doesn't make you right either. What matters is what you believe, not what label you wear. No one gets into heaven by calling themselves an evangelical.
3. All of truth matters. What's been interesting in the Isidewith test is that you appear to be able to be 80% UKIP, 80% Conservative and 80% Lib Dem - all at the same time! Of course, the other 20% is what differentiates the parties, and its supporters' views. Likewise with faith. Steve Chalke and us may agree on 80% of things, but we disagree on what the Bible is, what Jesus was doing on the cross, and what the Bible says about sexual ethics. That 20% matters deeply.
4. Ultimately, as Dan Strange points out in his extremely helpful blog on Steve Chalke, if something looks, sounds and walks like a duck, it's a duck, whether or not it thinks it's a cow. If you agree with 100% of Labour's policies, you are a Labour supporter, even if you've thought of yourself as a Tory for your whole life. And if you look, sound, and think like a liberal when it comes to Christainity, you're a liberal, not an evangelical, whether or not you like to call yourself an evangelical.

In listening to his debate with Andrew Wilson (who does brilliantly at being humble yet firm, polite yet clear) you can make your own mind up. It's worth asking the question: is Steve Chalke's approach any different from classic liberal approaches to Scripture? If not, perhaps it's time he moved to a new tent, instead of trying to move his old one, and everyone else in it.