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The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience (Why Are Christians Living Just Like The Rest Of The World
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140 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
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About the author
Ronald J. Sider
82 books63 followersRonald J. Sider (PhD, Yale University) is the founder and president emeritus of Evangelicals for Social Action and distinguished professor of theology, holistic ministry, and public policy at Palmer Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. He is the author of numerous books, including The Early Church on Killing, the bestselling Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, and The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
January 22, 2013
The author wants Evangelical Christians to return to the original model: smaller close-knit groups striving to grow more like Christ and so bring in the kingdom of God. Clear, lucid, developed with keenly appropriate scriptural references. Two objections: 1) The subtitle is not answered so much as simply countered. Christians --by which he seems to mean American Evangelicals--must stop living the autonomous, isolated materialistic life of acquisition and promiscuity. 2) Included in the remedy is a demand for group confession and correction which reminds--and I apologize for the analogy--of a Maoist /Communist cell meeting. Where, I would like to ask Ronald Sider, where is the place in your congregations for John Stuart Mill's lone man standing on principle ? Isn't it possible for an entire church to be wrong while one member is in the right and feels it in his heart ? Still, for this Roman Catholic reader, Sider's manifesto gives a cogent and caring overview of the Evangelical conscience at its best and most consistently reasoned and felt.
March 17, 2018
I put this aside Year’s ago, and just now decided to finish it in order to move it out of the house. What strikes me as particularly interesting is that Sider lays down the same complaints as Dreher would over a decade later, and proposes a solution that is very similar to the “Benedict Option”. Unfortunately the book is quite dated, and the optimism of 2005 about the reminder and possible change evangelicals have, melt like a chocolate rabbit in the sun of their political choices and moral bankruptcy in our current era. Also, I must take Sider to point, that while the enlightenment may have changed the views of the West, throwing shade at Darwin and science in a drive by fashion is petty. If you want to speak about how societies views changed fine, but evangelicals are responsible for throwing bleach into their own colored laundry.
January 25, 2020
More timely today than when it was written fifteen years ago. How can evangelicals who espouse the authority of Scripture live in ways so contrary to that Scripture? We hide behind grace, using it as a get out of jail free card. We dismiss our need for sanctification as a one-time set apart for God, negating any need for our lifestyle to be conformed to Jesus. Statistics show evangelicals are more likely to divorce than other groups, are more racist than other groups, and only slightly more generous. Evangelicals, claims the author, have spawned churches that are materialistic, individualistic and consumer driven. There is little allegiance to the church from those consumers, and an increasing trend to not attend. In concert, churches demand little from their members and refuse to practice church discipline.
This explains in my mind the radical polarization that politics has had on the Evangelical church body that can coronate President Obama as the anti-Christ and coo that Trump is the best friend evangelicals have ever had.
Sider spends the last chapter offering "rays of hope." Fifteen years later the rays seem too diffuse to give me hope. I believe we are in a Babylonian Captivity, in dire need of a new reformation.
This explains in my mind the radical polarization that politics has had on the Evangelical church body that can coronate President Obama as the anti-Christ and coo that Trump is the best friend evangelicals have ever had.
Sider spends the last chapter offering "rays of hope." Fifteen years later the rays seem too diffuse to give me hope. I believe we are in a Babylonian Captivity, in dire need of a new reformation.
February 20, 2026
This book is valuable for its overview of the 'depth of the scandal' of American Evangelicalism. Statistics are a bit outdated, but still valuable. His theological output was generally good, although I would have liked to see a strong Pneumatology. For a book so focused on ethics, the role of the Spirit seems crucial. While he does mention the Spirit at least a few times, it is not nearly as present as it should be. I find it hard to believe that we could see a new social order based on the Kingdom of God without the active work of the Holy Spirit.
August 29, 2010
Sider rightly points out the fact that American evangelicals generally live their lives no differently than other Americans and have no higher moral attributes or lifestyles than the dreaded ‘liberal’ Christians, or even unbelievers. Sider cites a unique and extraordinarily limited set of moral criteria for his evaluation. He accurately points out that the divorce rate among evangelicals is the same as the general population, and indeed is higher in evangelicals in the south than any other American demographic. Then he smoothly segues without apparent intellectual embarrassment to point out that evangelicals beat their spouses as much (or more depending upon which set of data) than the general population. One if left to assume that he blithely accepts literally the teaching of Jesus that the only ‘legitimate’ grounds for divorce is sexual immorality (Matt 19:9). The astonished reader is left to assume that Sider condones the living situation of more than 10 percent of those in ‘traditional’ male-dominant marriages are to accept their beatings (in Godly submission) rather than escape.
Sider then castigates the body of Christ for their materialism, greed and nonchalant unawareness of the poor, and the intellectual rejection of the causes of poverty. He says not nearly enough, but on this subject he is accurate as far as he goes. This is a breath of intellectual honesty otherwise absent in his tiny tome. (131 small pages of large print available at all fine booksellers for only $14 should you wish to explore the topic of Christian greed and materialism).
Like all religious folk everywhere, Sider retains and advances the biblical obsession with sex and sexuality. Suffice to say that the behavior of American evangelicals reflects the national attitudes and practices as a whole. The author fails to reveal the data that show that the highest rate of unmarried teen pregnancy in the nation is in southern evangelicals. Perhaps he doesn’t want to fall into the trap and reveal the fatuous absurdity and actual ineffectiveness of the ‘abstinence only’ position. Could a more clear illustration of this absurdity be the reaction of the evangelical community to Sarah Palin’s (dare I say ‘bastard’?) grandchild in the midst of a presidential election?
I greatly admire Sider’s seemingly courageous attack on the body of Christ as related to on-going racism in the society, although he seems to forget that it is effectively centered in the Christian church. But here Sider reveals the absurdity of his bible-believing fundamentalism as he points to justifying scriptures like “in Christ there is no male or female… free or slave.” He boldly walks into the trap of moral relativity which he repeatedly despises in his book. He seems to have forgotten the nineteen and a half centuries where the Christian church condoned, supported and assisted in the maintenance of the institutions of slavery and racial segregation. Those pernicious positions being liberally supported by countless dozens of scriptures in both Testaments in support of slavery and racial separation. Indeed, the world (and especially the church) seems to have forgotten that the very founding fundamental dogma of the largest evangelical denomination was the cause of slavery which forced the split of the American Baptists and founded the Southern Baptist Convention a decade or so before the Civil War. No American Christian, no matter how conservative or fundamentalist, today supports institutional slavery. Institutional slavery is clearly condoned by Jesus and Paul and all writers of the NT, not to mention the Old. On what basis did society (including the church, eventually) reject slavery as pernicious and immoral when slavery is clearly Scriptural? You don’t need me to answer that question. Morality, like everything else, evolves, acknowledged or not. Indeed, Sider speaks volumes concerning the moral evolution of the church without using the despicable word.
And that’s it. Five meager totally inadequate supposed ‘standards’ to judge the moral decay of the church: divorce, materialism and the poor, sexual disobedience, racism and physical abuse in marriage. He does not say so but perhaps he uses these merely as indicators. (I am reminded of the completely morally inadequate set of standards known as the Ten Commandments). Tangentially, he backs into the malicious historical Jewish-Christian position on the gay and lesbian community. After all, we know what Jesus said about homosexuals? Oh yea, that would be… nothing. (We will omit a discussion of the Apostle Paul’s homophobia in response to his own latent homosexuality and save that for another day. J. S. Spong covers this topic brilliantly in Rescuing the Gospels from Fundamentalism.) Sider is completely and stunningly silent on the issue of women’s rights in and outside the church, which many believe, including me, to be the supreme moral issue of the 21st century. The issue of the 19th century was slavery, the 20th century was totalitarianism, almost certainly this century will be the century of women. (and those who live will see the Roman church tear itself to pieces rather than change). The duplicity of the church, and Sider, on the issue of women is astonishing. Fundamentalist evangelicals trumpet their commitment to the scriptures as the literal, inspired Word of God. Supposedly this would include the vapid spouting of the misogynist Paul who commanded women to be silent in church and forbid a woman to hold any position of authority over a man. (Entirely reminiscent of Chief Justice Taney’s majority opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott opinion where the Chief Justice said ‘a black man has no rights that a white man is bound to observe.” But then we note the orgasmic, ecstatic reaction last year of the ‘religious right’ over the nomination of the immensely unqualified redneck, Sarah Palin. The intellectual arrogance and duplicity of this group is simply stunning.
In Chapter 3 Sider devotes himself to a disposition of his take on 1st century morality as given in scriptures, subject of course to his careful selections and editing to report what could be described as a 19th century evolutionary moral worldview. (Other than the problem of females as punching bags, he completely ignores women). In chapter 4 he illustrates the adsorption of the church by modern American culture, much of which is certainly to be lamented (the culture, if not the adsorption). He exposes the deeply held but little spoken evangelical disgust for birth control, much less abortion (both topics completely devoid of scriptural support outside some out-of-context poetry verses in the Psalms). And why would this be so if not to perpetuate the misogynistic hysterical fear of women by men (see Freud) and keeping them in place by having them barefoot, pregnant, and if honesty prevailed, uneducated. Sider laments the products of the Enlightenment and despises the most impactful voices of reason in human history, Kant, Darwin, Marx and Freud. He seems to wish that we could all go back and take Neo’s Blue Pill. He loathes modern moral relativism especially as accepted by Christians. Toward the end of Chapter 3, having up to this point safely confined his scriptural references entirely to the New Testament and mostly to the sayings of Jesus, Sider then takes the precarious step of developing morality lessons from the Old Testament, prompting one to ask upon what basis does one select the moral lessons of the OT? Shall we take our children who become unruly to the city gates and have them stoned? Shall we put to death all adulterers? Any rational thinker, including a rational fundamentalist (a contradiction in terms, I know) selects (that nasty evolutionary term again) those portions of the OT, and New, that are relevant to modern society, and in this country and Europe, the standard is liberal humanism. And how do they do that? By applying modern evolved humanistic moral standards. Thus the 19th century rejection of slavery and the ever increasing rejection of societal racism. These advances in compassionate humanism regarding slavery and racism were made in spite of the Scriptures. The Christian church was brought along dragging their heels and vigorously objecting. Any competent historical analysis of modern liberal humanistic advances clearly demonstrate the advances were made in spite of the dogma of the church. What do we call the thousand years when Europe was ruled entirely by Christian thinking?.. That would be The Dark Ages. Who led the political opposition to the equal Rights Amendment… the evangelical heroine, Phyllis Schlafly. Women have claimed the bulk of these rights successfully in spite of the resistance of evangelicals and the teachings of the New Testament. Do we suppose Sider wants us to repent?
Chapter 4 is Sider’s lamentation of the slide into Materialism and a nation of Individualism. One wonders if this man has actually read the Bible. Up until almost the end of the OT, the concept of God’s relationship was with his ‘people’ as a nationalistic entity. The entire concept saw the Hebrews prosper as a people when God was pleased, and be punished and destroyed as a people, when He was not. The New Testament brought the revolution of the individual… individual accountability yielding individual salvation and individual condemnation. A unique religious product brought to us exclusively by Jesus and Paul.
Sider’s quote of Gillquist ‘“churchless born-againism” a new type of apostasy’ is the most profound statement in the book, although his reasoning and explanation completely misses the real point (see Bonhoffer’s “cheap grace.”). The author cites, as examples, the individualistic theology of Tammy Faye Baker and Robert Schuler. Then amazingly totally ignores the fatuous greedy-materialistic me-ism of the “Prosperity Gospel” as practiced by a vast array from con men like Henn, Roberts, Robertson and Swaggert, to seemingly suave and otherwise unrepulsive salesmen like Joel Osteen. How, in the name of sanity, could an exposition of the hedonistic evils of modern evangelicals exclude a discussion of the pernicious and unchristian ‘prosperity gospel’? What happened to go sell all your possessions and give them to the poor and follow me?
Sider’s remedy is an exhortation to holiness. He blithely puts the total blame for the bankrupt moral state of the church on Enlightenment thinking (pesky rationalism), acceptance of Darwinism (what sir, shall we just pretend otherwise?) and the inability of individual Christians and their leaders to resist modernist thinking and morality. He barely touches upon one central issue. Could we not be finally seeing the result of the doctrine of cheap grace? It remained hidden for so very long… Roman Catholics never signed on to cheap grace, and the congregations of the Reformation never had the opportunity in the environment of feudal poverty. Could it be that the advent of capitalistic-imperialistic super-economic prosperity of the mid-20th century had to evolve in order for the fruits of ‘salvation by grace’ to be fully realized? Could it be that only 14 percent of evangelicals say the Bible is their moral compass because they actually realize the morality of the first century is dead and gone, and, thank God, forgotten? Sider calls Jesus statement that ‘whoever does not hate his father and mother…cannot become my disciple” as Hebraic hyperbole. I ask, how does he know? What criteria does he use to select texts for allegorical reading versus literal reading? Could it be that the texts that offend his 21st century moral sensibilities must be allegory and those that do not are for damn sure, the real word of God? And exactly where does Professor Sider get his finely tuned sense of 21st century morality? From the New Testament? Obviously not, he just rejected a direct quotation of Jesus. He used the dreaded modern Enlightenment tool of rationalism in the context of an evolved moral sensibility. And his answer to these dilemmas is a retreat into orthodoxy and holiness. Holiness I do not reject out of hand, but that is a complex topic.
Professor Sider ignores the most glaring failure of evangelicals. That is, as Jesus said, “The truth is not in them.” Fundamentalists, evangelicals and the religious right have lost all respect for the truth, much less intellectual moral character. This portion of the American church is indistinguishable in fact and theory from the right wing of the Republican Party. History, when compared to religious or political dogma, is just another opinion. Science and reality, when compared to religious and political dogma is just another opinion. Fact, truth, honesty and integrity are just opinion when these realities confront cherished religious and political beliefs. I call them ‘Liars for Jesus.’ They exult in their selection, their specialness, their arrogant self-righteousness, and they live and act as if hell is a fantasy. (The Pharisees, after all, at least were actually trying to live by and obey the Law of Moses). Are they simply intellectually bankrupt, or do they, down deep in their innermost convictions, know that this life is all there is? Certainly, the fruit of their lives appears to flow from the tree of this conviction.
Sider then castigates the body of Christ for their materialism, greed and nonchalant unawareness of the poor, and the intellectual rejection of the causes of poverty. He says not nearly enough, but on this subject he is accurate as far as he goes. This is a breath of intellectual honesty otherwise absent in his tiny tome. (131 small pages of large print available at all fine booksellers for only $14 should you wish to explore the topic of Christian greed and materialism).
Like all religious folk everywhere, Sider retains and advances the biblical obsession with sex and sexuality. Suffice to say that the behavior of American evangelicals reflects the national attitudes and practices as a whole. The author fails to reveal the data that show that the highest rate of unmarried teen pregnancy in the nation is in southern evangelicals. Perhaps he doesn’t want to fall into the trap and reveal the fatuous absurdity and actual ineffectiveness of the ‘abstinence only’ position. Could a more clear illustration of this absurdity be the reaction of the evangelical community to Sarah Palin’s (dare I say ‘bastard’?) grandchild in the midst of a presidential election?
I greatly admire Sider’s seemingly courageous attack on the body of Christ as related to on-going racism in the society, although he seems to forget that it is effectively centered in the Christian church. But here Sider reveals the absurdity of his bible-believing fundamentalism as he points to justifying scriptures like “in Christ there is no male or female… free or slave.” He boldly walks into the trap of moral relativity which he repeatedly despises in his book. He seems to have forgotten the nineteen and a half centuries where the Christian church condoned, supported and assisted in the maintenance of the institutions of slavery and racial segregation. Those pernicious positions being liberally supported by countless dozens of scriptures in both Testaments in support of slavery and racial separation. Indeed, the world (and especially the church) seems to have forgotten that the very founding fundamental dogma of the largest evangelical denomination was the cause of slavery which forced the split of the American Baptists and founded the Southern Baptist Convention a decade or so before the Civil War. No American Christian, no matter how conservative or fundamentalist, today supports institutional slavery. Institutional slavery is clearly condoned by Jesus and Paul and all writers of the NT, not to mention the Old. On what basis did society (including the church, eventually) reject slavery as pernicious and immoral when slavery is clearly Scriptural? You don’t need me to answer that question. Morality, like everything else, evolves, acknowledged or not. Indeed, Sider speaks volumes concerning the moral evolution of the church without using the despicable word.
And that’s it. Five meager totally inadequate supposed ‘standards’ to judge the moral decay of the church: divorce, materialism and the poor, sexual disobedience, racism and physical abuse in marriage. He does not say so but perhaps he uses these merely as indicators. (I am reminded of the completely morally inadequate set of standards known as the Ten Commandments). Tangentially, he backs into the malicious historical Jewish-Christian position on the gay and lesbian community. After all, we know what Jesus said about homosexuals? Oh yea, that would be… nothing. (We will omit a discussion of the Apostle Paul’s homophobia in response to his own latent homosexuality and save that for another day. J. S. Spong covers this topic brilliantly in Rescuing the Gospels from Fundamentalism.) Sider is completely and stunningly silent on the issue of women’s rights in and outside the church, which many believe, including me, to be the supreme moral issue of the 21st century. The issue of the 19th century was slavery, the 20th century was totalitarianism, almost certainly this century will be the century of women. (and those who live will see the Roman church tear itself to pieces rather than change). The duplicity of the church, and Sider, on the issue of women is astonishing. Fundamentalist evangelicals trumpet their commitment to the scriptures as the literal, inspired Word of God. Supposedly this would include the vapid spouting of the misogynist Paul who commanded women to be silent in church and forbid a woman to hold any position of authority over a man. (Entirely reminiscent of Chief Justice Taney’s majority opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott opinion where the Chief Justice said ‘a black man has no rights that a white man is bound to observe.” But then we note the orgasmic, ecstatic reaction last year of the ‘religious right’ over the nomination of the immensely unqualified redneck, Sarah Palin. The intellectual arrogance and duplicity of this group is simply stunning.
In Chapter 3 Sider devotes himself to a disposition of his take on 1st century morality as given in scriptures, subject of course to his careful selections and editing to report what could be described as a 19th century evolutionary moral worldview. (Other than the problem of females as punching bags, he completely ignores women). In chapter 4 he illustrates the adsorption of the church by modern American culture, much of which is certainly to be lamented (the culture, if not the adsorption). He exposes the deeply held but little spoken evangelical disgust for birth control, much less abortion (both topics completely devoid of scriptural support outside some out-of-context poetry verses in the Psalms). And why would this be so if not to perpetuate the misogynistic hysterical fear of women by men (see Freud) and keeping them in place by having them barefoot, pregnant, and if honesty prevailed, uneducated. Sider laments the products of the Enlightenment and despises the most impactful voices of reason in human history, Kant, Darwin, Marx and Freud. He seems to wish that we could all go back and take Neo’s Blue Pill. He loathes modern moral relativism especially as accepted by Christians. Toward the end of Chapter 3, having up to this point safely confined his scriptural references entirely to the New Testament and mostly to the sayings of Jesus, Sider then takes the precarious step of developing morality lessons from the Old Testament, prompting one to ask upon what basis does one select the moral lessons of the OT? Shall we take our children who become unruly to the city gates and have them stoned? Shall we put to death all adulterers? Any rational thinker, including a rational fundamentalist (a contradiction in terms, I know) selects (that nasty evolutionary term again) those portions of the OT, and New, that are relevant to modern society, and in this country and Europe, the standard is liberal humanism. And how do they do that? By applying modern evolved humanistic moral standards. Thus the 19th century rejection of slavery and the ever increasing rejection of societal racism. These advances in compassionate humanism regarding slavery and racism were made in spite of the Scriptures. The Christian church was brought along dragging their heels and vigorously objecting. Any competent historical analysis of modern liberal humanistic advances clearly demonstrate the advances were made in spite of the dogma of the church. What do we call the thousand years when Europe was ruled entirely by Christian thinking?.. That would be The Dark Ages. Who led the political opposition to the equal Rights Amendment… the evangelical heroine, Phyllis Schlafly. Women have claimed the bulk of these rights successfully in spite of the resistance of evangelicals and the teachings of the New Testament. Do we suppose Sider wants us to repent?
Chapter 4 is Sider’s lamentation of the slide into Materialism and a nation of Individualism. One wonders if this man has actually read the Bible. Up until almost the end of the OT, the concept of God’s relationship was with his ‘people’ as a nationalistic entity. The entire concept saw the Hebrews prosper as a people when God was pleased, and be punished and destroyed as a people, when He was not. The New Testament brought the revolution of the individual… individual accountability yielding individual salvation and individual condemnation. A unique religious product brought to us exclusively by Jesus and Paul.
Sider’s quote of Gillquist ‘“churchless born-againism” a new type of apostasy’ is the most profound statement in the book, although his reasoning and explanation completely misses the real point (see Bonhoffer’s “cheap grace.”). The author cites, as examples, the individualistic theology of Tammy Faye Baker and Robert Schuler. Then amazingly totally ignores the fatuous greedy-materialistic me-ism of the “Prosperity Gospel” as practiced by a vast array from con men like Henn, Roberts, Robertson and Swaggert, to seemingly suave and otherwise unrepulsive salesmen like Joel Osteen. How, in the name of sanity, could an exposition of the hedonistic evils of modern evangelicals exclude a discussion of the pernicious and unchristian ‘prosperity gospel’? What happened to go sell all your possessions and give them to the poor and follow me?
Sider’s remedy is an exhortation to holiness. He blithely puts the total blame for the bankrupt moral state of the church on Enlightenment thinking (pesky rationalism), acceptance of Darwinism (what sir, shall we just pretend otherwise?) and the inability of individual Christians and their leaders to resist modernist thinking and morality. He barely touches upon one central issue. Could we not be finally seeing the result of the doctrine of cheap grace? It remained hidden for so very long… Roman Catholics never signed on to cheap grace, and the congregations of the Reformation never had the opportunity in the environment of feudal poverty. Could it be that the advent of capitalistic-imperialistic super-economic prosperity of the mid-20th century had to evolve in order for the fruits of ‘salvation by grace’ to be fully realized? Could it be that only 14 percent of evangelicals say the Bible is their moral compass because they actually realize the morality of the first century is dead and gone, and, thank God, forgotten? Sider calls Jesus statement that ‘whoever does not hate his father and mother…cannot become my disciple” as Hebraic hyperbole. I ask, how does he know? What criteria does he use to select texts for allegorical reading versus literal reading? Could it be that the texts that offend his 21st century moral sensibilities must be allegory and those that do not are for damn sure, the real word of God? And exactly where does Professor Sider get his finely tuned sense of 21st century morality? From the New Testament? Obviously not, he just rejected a direct quotation of Jesus. He used the dreaded modern Enlightenment tool of rationalism in the context of an evolved moral sensibility. And his answer to these dilemmas is a retreat into orthodoxy and holiness. Holiness I do not reject out of hand, but that is a complex topic.
Professor Sider ignores the most glaring failure of evangelicals. That is, as Jesus said, “The truth is not in them.” Fundamentalists, evangelicals and the religious right have lost all respect for the truth, much less intellectual moral character. This portion of the American church is indistinguishable in fact and theory from the right wing of the Republican Party. History, when compared to religious or political dogma, is just another opinion. Science and reality, when compared to religious and political dogma is just another opinion. Fact, truth, honesty and integrity are just opinion when these realities confront cherished religious and political beliefs. I call them ‘Liars for Jesus.’ They exult in their selection, their specialness, their arrogant self-righteousness, and they live and act as if hell is a fantasy. (The Pharisees, after all, at least were actually trying to live by and obey the Law of Moses). Are they simply intellectually bankrupt, or do they, down deep in their innermost convictions, know that this life is all there is? Certainly, the fruit of their lives appears to flow from the tree of this conviction.
December 24, 2023
Ron Sider explores a problem that was prevalent in 2005 when he wrote that has only gotten worse: overall, those who claim Jesus look no different than the rest of the world. After detailing the problem, Sider argues the way to move forward through this issue is by understanding that salvation entails more than just forgiveness of sin but also transformation of life. This involves pushing back against the rampant individualism and materialism that pervades western society, and by joining and submitting to the community of Christ: that is, the church. His solution primarily involves being a part of a larger community pursuing Christ where Christians are held accountable (through small groups and by church discipline). He leaves on a ray of hope, noting that those who don’t only claim Christ but also have a biblical worldview (although he notes that this group is quite small) do look different than the world around them.
Overall this was an easy and provoking read. Sider’s focus on western individualism and the need for accountability in community is not new or complex but seems to be an attempt at calling the church back to its historic roots.
Overall this was an easy and provoking read. Sider’s focus on western individualism and the need for accountability in community is not new or complex but seems to be an attempt at calling the church back to its historic roots.
December 10, 2009
Poorly argued, so if you don't agree with him going in, I doubt he'll change your mind. Still, I think this book's strength is in defining what the church should be and in creating solutions for some of the problems.
April 26, 2009
Awful.
September 9, 2009
Just got this for my birthday ( a download on Kindle) and am anxious to read it. I have way too many books going at once.
February 28, 2012
This book had a lot of polls and surveys. I tend to distrust polls and surveys.
June 2, 2014
There is a lot of good food for thought in this book and pretty much jives with many of the problems I have with "evangelicalism".
October 10, 2024
Sider starts the book with a whole lot of statistics and numbers to expose the sorry state of American evangelicalism—but don’t get bogged down in self-flagellation, and definitely don’t get too discouraged. Keep reading, because the points he makes and remedies he outlines are for the church’s edification, and American Christianity (and Christianity around the world) would definitely benefit from implementing his suggestions, from things like small groups to encourage community and accountability to specifically outlining church doctrine aligned with the Bible. All in all, this book was short, interesting sample of his thoughts.
February 19, 2026
The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience is a wonderful little book that offers a critique of mid-1990s Evangelical culture. Now, full disclosure, I am a Roman Catholic and not an Evangelical, so my review is going to be more from a Catholic perspective. The book starts out explaining that Evangelicals, although claiming to be more observant and orthodox Christians than the rest of America, still divorce, give less tithes, engage in premarital sex, and hold racist views of minorities more than Mainline Protestants or Catholics. Dr. Sider believes that Evangelicalism needs a revival based on a more communal outlook.
One of his suggestions made me, a Catholic, very happy, as he seeks to remedy one of the biggest issues in Protestantism, the endless Church split and schisms. He insists that individual congregations belong to structures that are above the local church.
How can an independent "Bible church" claim to be biblical when its very refusal to submit to a larger church structure of accountability defies the very essence of a biblical understanding of being the church? (Sider, 111)
Dr. Sider is spot on! As a Catholic, I do take this to places and conclusions that Dr. Sider would probably be uncomfortable with **cough cough** the Papacy and Vatican I **cough cough**.
Overall, this book is a must-read for all Christians. It gives some good principles that any parish or congregation could benefit from imitating
November 28, 2018
Eye opening
This is an u afraid look at the issues not only within the evangelical churches, but in all modern congregations. It is a call to return to our Christ led roots and faith.
This is an u afraid look at the issues not only within the evangelical churches, but in all modern congregations. It is a call to return to our Christ led roots and faith.
January 25, 2022
Forsure an interesting read but it presents little in the way of practical solutions. There’s a lot of scriptural conjecture but minimal application of what these things mean in the 21st century church.
May 20, 2023
A thoughtful critique of why Evangelical Christians seem little different from the secular world. A valid emphasis that Jesus must be both Savior and Lord. The latter includes working as He commanded for social justice and avoiding the narcissistic, materialistic mindset.
Read
October 14, 2019Read for research for my current WIP.
October 11, 2020
This was a reread. I hope to add it to a rotation of books I revisit regularly. It is both maddening and convicting, and causes reflection and repentance.
April 21, 2023
An important in-your-face assessment of the state of Christianity. While I cannot agree with all his thoughts, I do think those most pertinent to the book are worth your consideration and action.
June 25, 2025
PRO-DENOMINATIONALISM
RAHHHHHH
RAHHHHHH
January 21, 2013
Politics and religion...two subjects you should not talk about at the dinner table, are the two subjects we must talk about.
There has been so much confusion in the last couple of decades about whether Evangelical Christians ought to be engaged in political discussion and how that discussion should be framed.
Ronald Sider's book The Scandal of Evangelical Politics offers a great introduction to thinking about this very difficult subject.
Political discussion in the church often goes one of two ways. Either the church/pastor/Christian parrots what the conservative right has to say about about an issue or they parrot the progressive left on issues. Hence the two biggest groups: the Christian Coalition (a right wing party) and Sojourners (left wing) often dominate the discussion.
Sinder represents a different and balanced viewpoint.
Sinder begins with a discussion of general principles that engage the biblical model, the historic interaction, the political dimension and the practical application of methods. After a fairly lengthy introduction, Sinder then moves to a variety of issue areas.
The Christian who reads this book will engage with a variety of viewpoints within each issue.
What makes Sinder different from the Christian Coalition and Sojourners is that he is willing to attempt to be thoroughly biblical on every issue.
The writing is not overly complicated and should be easily accessible to every Christian.
Overall Grade: B
Recommended for: Pastors, teachers, politically aware Christians
There has been so much confusion in the last couple of decades about whether Evangelical Christians ought to be engaged in political discussion and how that discussion should be framed.
Ronald Sider's book The Scandal of Evangelical Politics offers a great introduction to thinking about this very difficult subject.
Political discussion in the church often goes one of two ways. Either the church/pastor/Christian parrots what the conservative right has to say about about an issue or they parrot the progressive left on issues. Hence the two biggest groups: the Christian Coalition (a right wing party) and Sojourners (left wing) often dominate the discussion.
Sinder represents a different and balanced viewpoint.
Sinder begins with a discussion of general principles that engage the biblical model, the historic interaction, the political dimension and the practical application of methods. After a fairly lengthy introduction, Sinder then moves to a variety of issue areas.
The Christian who reads this book will engage with a variety of viewpoints within each issue.
What makes Sinder different from the Christian Coalition and Sojourners is that he is willing to attempt to be thoroughly biblical on every issue.
The writing is not overly complicated and should be easily accessible to every Christian.
Overall Grade: B
Recommended for: Pastors, teachers, politically aware Christians
December 2, 2010
Excellent book and dialogue on how and why the church looks like the rest of the world. He starts by going through some statistics on sexuality, marriage, wealth/giving, concern for the poor, etc. The stats reveal that the church appears to be no different, or only minimally different, from those who don't go to church. He then reviews each book in the N.T. and reveals how the early church leaders demanded the church be countercultural, on all levels. Sider then goes on to discuss some of the reasons for this "scandal" of the church, including the concept of "cheap grace". He continues on by revealing some of his opinions on how the church can return to be what Jesus intended it to be. I didn't agree with everything Sider had to say, but I appreciated the challenge to understand better what it means to be a Christian and what that might look like today.
July 23, 2014
This book is a few years old and the topic is by now fairly well-worn. Whether there has been any change on the front(s) the author seeks to address is questionable. The author makes an assumption that the behavior of Christians should be different than that of non-Christians in a number of areas including divorce and sexuality, materialism, racism and physical abuse in marriage but, by and large, is not. That this is, in fact, the case should not be all that surprising to anyone that pays attention to what is going on in many evangelical churches. People come to Christ already discipled by the culture in which they have been raised. Transformation means deep-level change but that does not happen by magic or by chance. Purposeful discipleship is the exception and not the rule in many and maybe most churches. The author is right. It's a scandal.
November 20, 2011
Sider doesn't attack people for not being Christian. He assumes that people who identify themselves as Christian are just that. Instead, he attacks self-proclaimed Christians for failing to apply the clear teachings of Christ (especially the part about giving generously to the poor) to their everyday lives. It's an important question that every Christian should ask himself (or herself): am I doing enough? Am I giving generously, and trusting God to provide, or am I hoarding my own wealth for my own usage based on my own understanding?
April 24, 2016
Book deals with data from George Barna and other Christian researchers and makes reference to items in the 2001 to 2005 era. This data is old and inapplicable 11 years later. The questions have changed to another generation.
The solutions offered are dated and failed at this point also.
Was really looking forward to a book that might talk frankly about the fact that the "Church" is really not countercultural and how that is something that needs to be turned around to have the "Church" reflect the life of Christ. This isn't that book...so I'd say skip it.
The solutions offered are dated and failed at this point also.
Was really looking forward to a book that might talk frankly about the fact that the "Church" is really not countercultural and how that is something that needs to be turned around to have the "Church" reflect the life of Christ. This isn't that book...so I'd say skip it.
March 5, 2012
This was a good book which focused in on the problems of relativism (especially when it comes to marriage), materialism, and individualism in the western church. It was written in 2005. i think today it would be good to add a chapter or two on the problem of political infidelity; that is, how we've co-opted the gospel for political power in areas that have little to nothing to do with Christianity.
March 31, 2015
This is a book, written 10 years ago, that is extremely relevant for today. The statistics that Sider cites may be even more depressing for Evangelical Christians in this decade.
I found a lot to relate to although I did not agree with all his conclusions - especially about denominations - but generally his observations are sound and his recommendations worth considering.
This book was worth reading just to have his take on a Biblical world-view.
I found a lot to relate to although I did not agree with all his conclusions - especially about denominations - but generally his observations are sound and his recommendations worth considering.
This book was worth reading just to have his take on a Biblical world-view.
June 28, 2012
North American Evangelicals say they believe in biblical moral standards and the power of God to transform lives but apparently most professing Christians don’t live that way. They live just the same non-Christians or sometimes even worse. This short hard-hitting book reveals the extent of the scandal how it got this way and how to fix it. Are New Zealand Christians any better?
May 30, 2008
A really good book, but I do have just one complaint: His critique of evangelical Christians are a little on the harsh side because he seems to fail to ask one key question: Are these people really evangelical Christians? Still, a good read.
August 21, 2008
I highly recommend "Grand Theft Jesus" and "Jesus for President" instead of this book. They get back to the heart of what Jesus taught about personal responsibility instead of dwelling on how to fix everyone else.
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