Comments on: The global evangelical http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2008/07/28/the-global-evangelical/ Secularism, religion, and the public sphere Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:29:19 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Dr. Paula Skreslet http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2008/07/28/the-global-evangelical/comment-page-1/#comment-4467 Dr. Paula Skreslet Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:59:36 +0000 http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/?p=306#comment-4467 There is another element to this that I would mention. One thing my husband and I learned from our ten years of mission work in Egypt was a sense of freedom from the typical American red-state-blue-state political and cultural categories that dominate discussion here (especially in an election year). Our Egyptian Christian colleagues were definitely evangelical in faith commitment, yet without any of the other baggage---they were ecumenical and cosmopolitan in outlook, deeply devoted to the poor and powerless, engaged in traditional evangelistic and mercy ministries, radically justice-oriented and socially conservative all at the same time. Their example taught us to discard all of the platforms and address issues afresh, one at a time. I now see in Obama some of that desire to transcend or overcome the usual constricting categories and try to do the right thing in a variety of contexts. There is another element to this that I would mention. One thing my husband and I learned from our ten years of mission work in Egypt was a sense of freedom from the typical American red-state-blue-state political and cultural categories that dominate discussion here (especially in an election year). Our Egyptian Christian colleagues were definitely evangelical in faith commitment, yet without any of the other baggage—they were ecumenical and cosmopolitan in outlook, deeply devoted to the poor and powerless, engaged in traditional evangelistic and mercy ministries, radically justice-oriented and socially conservative all at the same time.

Their example taught us to discard all of the platforms and address issues afresh, one at a time. I now see in Obama some of that desire to transcend or overcome the usual constricting categories and try to do the right thing in a variety of contexts.

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