Mormon Convert David Alexander and the Question Whether the Twelve Tribes Group is "Evangelical"

David Alexander is the latest celebrity convert to Mormonism.  For a time, Alexander was thought of and was describing himself as convert to Mormonism after 47 years in Evangelicalism (See here, min. 20:20: "...my 47 years in evangelical Christianity"). After some pushback about this claim, Alexander has moved toward speaking of his time before his present connection as "Charismatic and Pentecostal Evangelicalism." This is helpful because it describes Alexander's rather remarkable religious background more accurately, especially for the period 1976-2002. Another term he has adopted which is also a positive development is to describe his non-LDS past as a time when he belonged to "non-LDS Christianity."

Still needing clarification, however, is whether the group to which Alexander belonged from 2002 until c. 2021, a communal organization called the Twelve Tribes founded by Elbert Eugene Spriggs in 1972, can rightly be described as "Evangelical." Alexander has been known to become surprisingly hostile and even contemptuous toward those putting the question to him.

The Twelve Tribes, he said in response to a query, "developed out of the evangelical Jesus Movement of the 1970s. It is silly and arrogant...for anyone to sit as judge, that the Twelve Tribes churches are not an evangelical group. Their roots are totally evangelical" (see here, min. 23-24). Alexander argues that the reason no such judgment can be made is that "Evangelicalism" is simply too diverse a movement to really say anything definitive about. While Alexander's Mormon listeners might be inclined to find this assertion satisfactory, given Joseph's story about not knowing "which of all the sects was right," those who actually consider themselves Evangelicals are well aware that the term actually does represent a core set of common beliefs and attitudes. But at this point the question itself might be becoming moot. Alexander gave the above response on 29 July 2023. But on 5 April 2024, he gave reasons as to why he left the Twelve Tribes group, reasons which amount to some of the very same things Evangelicals would point to in objecting to calling the Twelve Tribes Evangelical: "Fundamentally I couldn't remain there [in the Twelve Tribes] because I became convinced that what Gene Spriggs [founder and prophet of the Twelve Tribes] was teaching about the gospel simply wasn't true...I didn't believe any more that it required people to come into a common life economically...But more than that the gospel he was proclaiming called people to come into a life of entire consecration but his definition of that was that it included keeping the laws of Moses and circumcision...." (see here, min 28-29).

He goes on to say that that was not correct and that Paul was continually, “defending the churches he’s established against Judaizers coming in and trying to persuade them that, 'Yeah, It’s wonderful you believe in Jesus, but unless you’re keeping the Laws of Moses and being circumcised you’re really not in the fullness of Salvation yet.'" (See here, min. 31).  Alexander thus describes the group as "a counterfeit" (See here, min, 30) and he even quotes and applies Paul's solemn words in Galatians 1:8 to its teaching: "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be anathema!" (See here, min. 31).

In all this Alexander says just what any Evangelical who has been reading his or her Bible would say, and probably have said, when responding to the Twelve Tribes teaching down the years. 

As to the question why it took Alexander nearly 18 years to figure this out, that is something he himself also addresses: "I should have seen it years earlier, I should have seen it before I even came in.  But it ticked enough of the boxes that I just closed my eyes to that and jumped in with both feet...." (see here, min. 29).  One has to ask why, if Alexander himself confesses that he should have figured this out much earlier, that he should still manifest such hostility toward those who actually had figured it out.  His argument on that point seems to be that he found it out on the basis of a simple love and pursuit of truth, but that those he dismissively rebuffs only found it out because they want to demonize the sincere people in the group. 

Given that Alexander left the group for one of the very same reasons that Evangelicals would be disinclined to recognize it as Evangelical in the first place, it would seem only reasonable for him to respond to queries about its Evangelical, or non-Evangelical, status in a more generous tone and spirit.  His previous defensiveness was, of course, understandable in view of the fact that his conversion to the LDS Church being previously promoted as following 47 years in Evangelicalism. From that perspective the Twelve Tribes would have to be counted as Evangelical for the picture being presented to be true.  But, as already mentioned, he himself has more recently lessened the need for defensiveness by beginning to refer to those years instead more generically as having been spent in "non-LDS Christianity."