Both sides agreed the “civil war” between evangelicals and progressives needs to end and common ground pursued in order for the nation to make significant progress on divisive issues.
“I think the way we have been dealing with differences in this country simply doesn’t work,” said the Rev. Dr. Joel C. Hunter, senior pastor of the 10,000-member Northland Church in Florida.
The evangelical leader contends arguments between some evangelical leaders and liberals have not only blocked progress but also isolated a lot of evangelicals who are looking for “reasonable” leadership that allows for development while maintaining values.
“I think it has almost taken until now for us to realize that this isn’t working,” responded Hunter when asked why it has taken evangelicals so long to work with progressives.
The pastor told a story about a recent conversation he had with one of his church member on abortion. The female congregant was a former dancer and had five abortions. She said that although she was not sure she wanted to have an abortion walking into the clinic, the anti-abortionists yelling and holding placards outside the clinic “absolutely” confirmed her decision to have the abortions.
“To me it is a picture of how it ain’t working,” emphasized Hunter, who is on the board of directors for the National Association of Evangelicals and the World Evangelical Alliance. “The thing we think is curing the problem isn’t curing the problem. I think we (evangelicals) are maybe slow learners, but we’re ready,” he said drawing laughter from the audience.
Evangelical and liberal leaders together held up their joint new paper, “Come Let Us Reason Together: A Fresh Look at Shared Cultural Values Between Progressives and Evangelicals,” as a model of how the two sides could cooperate and find a shared vision on divisive cultural issues.
“When we started this process, the progressive and Evangelical communities had begun to come together on issues like Darfur and the environment. We believed we could go further and talk with each other, and not at each other, even about the toughest cultural issues,” said Rachel Laser, director of the progressive think tank Third Way Culture Program and co-author of the paper. Laser was formerly the director of Planned Parenthood in the Washington, D.C.-area.
The paper is the first of its kind to outline a way for evangelicals and progressives to bridge the cultural divide.
