Interesting post by S. M. Hutchens on Touchstone’s Mere Comments (here) asserting that the evangelical movement as a whole needs to pull up its socks …

Evangelicalism’s original basis of corporate identity was coherent only as long as it was fundamentalism–a conservative Protestant alliance based on a common confession of the “fundamentals of the faith,” against Protestant liberalism.

… and go back to the old school …

There needs to be a general movement away from self-assertion and self-definition towards shutting up and listening to older authorities, a re-entry into the life and mind of the Church as it was before Evangelicalism came along, and will exist when the movement is only a footnote to its history.[emphasis mine]

Well, in the Ortho-blogosphere, what can we say but “amen and amen?” Though the different branches of Christianity maintain a (healthy) distance from each other, it has occurred to me that the tremendous religious freedom that American Orthodox enjoy and the fact that there is any kind of Christian fundamentalism in America may both be owed to Evangelicals past and present. And so I want to see them healthy and stable, if possible. I don’t know much about the state of affairs out there, but judging from the comments that Hutchens got with this post, he struck a nerve.
I found the comment discussion fascinating, and you have to love a follow-up comment by Hutchens:

I am extremely careful about making specific prescriptions for Evangelicalism, and have in fact made very few of them. They amount to two: stop mishandling scripture — clear your consciences on this — and restore the Lord’s Supper, no longer denying the Words of Institution, to its proper place in the service of worship. It seems to me that all the necessary reforms will flow from these in the course of time, when their meaning is given proper weight.

But apparently, some of the readers were very displeased at what they thought was “evangelical-bashing.” His post calling for a return to church history and accountability caused one commenter to note:

I’m sorry, but you guys are ridiculous … This site is becoming more and more of a pro-Orthodox, anti-everything-else site; if that is your intention, I would ask that you would change your mission statement to reflect that.

I know that there are some who dislike Touchstone for being feisty and opinionated sometimes, but you have to hand it to them: they’re one of the few places where Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox get together even if it’s just to agree to disagree.