The Pull to Pietism, Confessionism, and Partisanship

In the church today, there exists three tendencies among evangelicals that pull in different unhealthy directions. One is pietism, which is a “completely inward” Christianity oriented toward “Jesus just wants you to be happy” prosperity. “Pietism says my Christianity is fully inward and has nothing to do with the way I live in the world,”. It tends to retreat into the self and make no difference in the world. But the other extreme, partisanship, errs by politicizing Christianity according to rigid partisan categories that demand “package” deal alignment: you cannot be a true Christian conservative or progressive unless you tow the party line on every issue. This partisanship tends to shoehorn Scripture and Christian practice into one or the other political boxes. The third, confessionalism, leans heavily into doctrine and creeds and places one's efforts on knowing just the right words, and phrases to say, to fit into the church lingo and as much a reliance on works for salvation, or the approval of God as in pietistic or revivalist traditions. “It’s not easy because if you resist the one, you are interpreted to have leaned into one of the others; when in fact, the truth is somewhere in between.