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I wish more Christians would be influenced by Jacques Ellul's writings on Christianity rather than Billy Graham's ideas about it. Then they would be less trying to control other people's bodies and actions and thought

PolyComrade 6 Aug 10
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I'm not familiar with Ellul, but almost anyone would be an improvement on Graham or his son Franklin.

In a sense, given that on a worldwide basis only 17% of self-identified Christians are evangelicals, though, already 83% of Christians would not really agree with the Grahams. It's just that people like the Grahams have an outsize influence ideologically and politically.

I don't know about that, I think people like Graham are more influencial than their specific sect. My partner grew up pentacost and has said that the big Christan writers and speakers are well renound even if they are of a different denomination.

Ellul's was a Christian anarchist and history professor. he was a self described Evangelical, but not as we would understand that. His philosophy was inherantly anti-authoritarianism and rejected the idea of trying to convert or force beliefs on anyone. He was also a major critic of technology, and authored the influencial book The Technological Society.
Ellul's theorized that the way that anarchist Christians should organize was to form intentional communities on the fringes of society where they can build shared spaces that allow them to practice their faith away from secular society. He didn't have any interest in trying to force others to adopt his beliefs

@PolyComrade I'm guessing Ellul meant "evangelical" in the sense of "spreading the evangel" without the specific authoritarian, reconstructionist, theocratic ambitions it has come to have. Evangelicalism actually was more like that in the 1960s, and ironically, Billy Graham founded Christianity Today, which was actually the liberal voice of evangelicalism in the beginning, until everything went off the rails.

Today it's hard to remember that prior to the 1970s there was no concept among evangelicals that life begins at conception for example, many of the tenets of evangelicalism and it becoming more or less synonymous with fundamentalism are all very recent developments in the evolution (some might say, devolution) of evangelical thought.

Your partner is correct that different protestant sects crib from writers and thinkers outside their own sub-groups. They kind of have to, as no one has made the investment in intellectual capital at that level. So all segments of evangelicals and some outside that group for example, hail the apologetics of CS Lewis, and overlook that he was in fact an Anglican and, by evangelical standards, had an unconventional marriage.

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I will vote with you on that! And, I believe they would be emotionally better off...to stay far away from Franklin Graham! He is only riding the ‘fame train,’ of his daddy! And his personal ideas are even more fundamentalist!

2 comments to that.

as much as I don't believe in a good or soul or afterlife, I find the writings and podcasts of the folks involved with the Jesus Radicals website often quite interesting. That group is heavily inspired by the works of Ellul's. I also have 3 books by Ellul's on my shelf, despite being a atheistic Satanist. Simply put, despite his religion, Ellul's was incredibly interesting and thought provoking. I wish more of everyone would read him.

Second, Franklin Graham toured here once, Victoria BC, and put on a huge free Christian rock concert with kids activities and shit. The very same day as that event, the ledgendary Satanic bands Celtic Frost and 1349 played here on tour, citing that they chose to play Victoria rather than Vancouver cause it is more known for Satanism. The black metal show was sold out way in advance, it was a great show, but the funniest part is a bunch of my friends went to both...

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