SPECTRUM OF CHRISTIANITY J. R ICHARD CHASE
In a college text on persuasion, Thomas Scheidel notes that if we were to be shown all possible degrees of color brightness, hue, and saturation we could distinguish seven million separate colors. We could not name them; we could just say this green is different from that green. Our language breaks down long before our ability to distinguish the shades of color ends. To bring order out of all these details, we lump groups of colors together into dark green, light green, kelly green, olive green, or even chartreuse. The more discriminating, knowledgeable, and perceptive, the more categories we have for green. Is it wrong to use categories to label people and things? No, it is a necessary process in a complex society. Man adjusts his complexworld to fit himself: he orders his environment so he can relate to it and discuss it. This is true in Christian circles as well. The word conservative may be a serviceable label for a category of Christians who earnestly believe that Christ is the Son of God and the Bible the very Word of God. To another, that category is too broad. We may label a conservative a mem ber of our church who uses our hymnal and supports our programs. Everybody else is then a liberal— or worse. A new believer in Christ who has become a child of God, a joint-heir with Christ soon learns that he must also choose within a spectrum of Evangelicalism or Fundamentalism, scores of independent and denomina tional churches, and such bewildering terms as new-evangelicallsm and Page 4
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