It feels like a renewed storm, or at least a squall,
has been gathering around the term "evangelical" lately.
More and more self-described evangelicals are realizing
that not everyone believes the same things, even about
the core doctrines. In response, some have begun to write manifestos which
attempt to re-articulate the characteristics of an evangelical
identity. Others are authoring books and
holding conferences which
aim to re-center the movement as a whole. Still others have
decided it's best to pitch the term altogether and call
themselves "post-evangelicals."
But the problem is hardly new. It's never been easy
to determine who the evangelicals are because evangelicalism
has always been a diverse movement. Luther wanted his
followers to be called "evangelicals," meaning
gospel-people (it was his enemies who nicknamed his followers "Lutheran").
The other branch of the Reformation was also happy to
share the evangelical designation (the orthodox Lutherans
coined the term "Calvinists" as a way of distinguishing
Reformed views of the Lord's Supper from their own).
Then, with the advent of the pietism and revivalism,
the label "evangelical" went in all sorts of
directions. Today, it's such an ambiguous moniker that
some historians find the best definition to be George
Marsden's: "anybody who likes Billy Graham."
Yet with just a little bit of historical perspective,
it's not difficult to see why such storms, or squalls,
are perennial: the evangel is forever becoming separated
from the evangelicals, which is exactly why it's so hard
to know who the evangelicals are.
PIETISM AND REVIVALISM
The term "evangelical" moved into common use
during the Reformation in an effort to clarify and proclaim
the gospel. Anglican, Presbyterian, and Continental followers
of Bucer, Calvin, Knox, and Beza also liked the term "Reformed" because
their goal was not to start a new church or denomination,
but to reform the historic church. Still, Lutheran and
Reformed churches, in spite of their important differences,
stood shoulder to shoulder in defending the gospel from
distortions from both Rome and the Anabaptists.
The advent of pietism and revivalism, however, complicated
matters. At first, pietism was a reform movement within
these Lutheran and Reformed churches, encouraging a deeper
connection between doctrine and piety. Eventually, however,
pietism began to look more like Anabaptist spirituality.
Revivalism (British and American) also pushed pietism
further away from its Reformation roots.
A crucial price of admission to the evangelical camp
even in the First Great Awakening was being pro-revival.
Many Lutheran and Reformed ministers were ambivalent
about the very idea of expecting seasons of revival,
suspecting it of harboring a low view of the ordinary
ministry of the church. But by the Second Great Awakening,
there was no question. The focus shifted from an emphasis
on God's saving work in Christ through God's ordained
means to an emphasis on human decisions and efforts through
pragmatic methods and "excitements."
The major personality behind the second awakening, Charles
G. Finney (1792-1875), even rejected the doctrines of
original sin, substitutionary atonement, justification
through faith alone, and the supernatural character of
the new birth.
The Second Great Awakening, represented by Finney, created
a system of faith and practice tailor made for a self-reliant
nation. Evangelicalism—which is to say, late eighteenth-century
American Protestantism—was an engine for innovations.
In doctrine, it served modernity's preference for faith
in human nature and progress. In worship, it transformed
Word-and-Sacrament ministry into entertainment and social
reform and created the first star system in the culture
of celebrity. In public life, it confused the kingdom
of Christ with the kingdoms of this world and imagined
that Christ's reign could be made visible by the moral,
social, and political activity of the saints. There was
little room for anything weighty to tie the movement
down, to discipline its entrepreneurial celebrities,
or to question its "revivals" apart from their
often short-lived publicity.
Somewhere along the way the evangel became separated
from evangelism; the message became subservient to the
methods. American religion was becoming worthy of Dietrich
Bonhoeffer's eventual characterization: "Protestantism
without the Reformation."[1]
"Extremes meet," noted Princeton's B. B. Warfield
toward the end of the nineteenth-century about the conservative
pietists and liberal rationalists. "Pietist and
Rationalist have ever hunted in couples and dragged down
their quarry together. They may differ as to why they
deem theology mere lumber, and would not have the prospective
minister waste his time in acquiring it. The one loves
God so much, the other loves him so little, that he does
not care to know him."[2]
Warfield's Dutch colleague Herman Bavinck observed, "Powerful
movements, like those that Pietism had called forth in
Germany and Methodism had unleashed in England and America,
all had in common that they shifted the center of gravity
from the object of religion to the subject. Theology
followed this track in the systems produced by Kant,
Schleiermacher, and their schools."[3] The educated
wing of pietistic Protestantism in America tended to
become assimilated to modernism, while its fundamentalist
wing provided an ever-fresh crop of cynical and disillusioned
young people to find the former a more attractive option.
Yet modernists like Harry Emerson Fosdick and fundamentalists
like Bob Jones, Sr. could recall Finney and his legacy
with fondness.
THE REFORMATION STREAM
However, the Reformation stream in American evangelicalism
hadn't dried up completely. Old Princeton was an especially
fecund source for renewing and defending the legacy of
true evangelicalsm. Lutherans like C. F. W. Walther,
Presbyterians like Archibald Alexander, Congregationalists
like Timothy Dwight, Episcopalians like Bishop William
White, and Baptists like Isaac Backus could recognize
a core of Reformation convictions that they shared in
common, over against the rising tide of infidelity. Much
good came (and still comes) out of evangelical cooperation
on the mission field, in common diaconal ministries,
and in faithful scholarship.
Churchmen like Warfield and Hodge regarded themselves
as evangelicals in the distinctively Reformation sense
and struggled to bring American Protestantism into line
with this definition. They were also staunchly committed
to and personally involved with the vast missionary endeavors
of their denomination at home and abroad, bringing them
into constant fellowship and cooperation with other evangelicals.
Nevertheless, Warfield was already beginning to see
that the tension between competing visions of evangelical
identity was making it more difficult to remain an unqualified
supporter of the evangelical cause. In 1920, a number
of evangelicals put forward a "plan of union for
evangelical churches." Warfield evaluated the "creed" of
this plan, as it was being studied by Presbyterians,
and observed that the new confession being proposed "contains
nothing which is not believed by Evangelicals," and
yet "…nothing which is not believed …by the adherents
of the Church of Rome, for example." He wrote,
There is nothing about justification by faith in this
creed. And that means that all the gains obtained in
that great religious movement which we call the Reformation
are cast out of with window…There is nothing about the
atonement in the blood of Christ in this creed. And that
means that the whole gain of the long mediaeval search
after truth is thrown summarily aside…There is nothing
about sin and grace in this creed…We need not confess
our sins anymore; we need not recognize the existence
of such a thing. We need believe in the Holy Spirit only
‘as guide and comforter'—do not the Rationalists do the
same? And this means that all the gain the whole world
has reaped from the great Augustinian conflict goes out
of the window with the rest…It is just as true that the
gains of the still earlier debates which occupied the
first age of the Church's life, through which we attained
to the understanding of the fundamental truths of the
Trinity and the Deity of Christ are discarded by this
creed also. There is no Trinity in this creed; no Deity
of Christ—or of the Holy Spirit.[4]
If justification through faith is the heart of the
evangel, Warfield wondered, how can "evangelicals" omit
it from their common confession? He asked, "Is this
the kind of creed which twentieth-century Presbyterianism
will find sufficient as a basis for co-operation in evangelistic
activities? Then it can get along in its evangelistic
activities without the gospel. For it is precisely the
gospel that this creed neglects altogether." Again,
the evangel had become separated from the evangelicals. "‘Fellowship'
is a good word," Warfield concluded,
"and a great duty. But our fellowship, according
to Paul, must be in ‘the furtherance of the gospel.'"[5]
The diagnosis of American Christianity offered by Dietrich
Bonhoeffer ("Protestantism without the Reformation")
after his lecture tour in the United States seems justified.
He wrote,
God has granted American Christianity no Reformation.
He has given it strong revivalist preachers, churchmen
and theologians, but no Reformation of the church of
Jesus Christ by the Word of God….American theology and
the American church as a whole have never been able to
understand the meaning of ‘criticism' by the Word of
God and all that signifies. Right to the last they do
not understand that God's ‘criticism' touches even religion,
the Christianity of the church and the sanctification
of Christians, and that God has founded his church beyond
religion and beyond ethics….In American theology, Christianity
is still essentially religion and ethics…Because of this
the person and work of Christ must, for theology, sink
into the background and in the long run remain misunderstood,
because it is not recognized as the sole ground of radical
judgment and radical forgiveness.[6]
WHERE IS EVANGELICALISM TODAY?
Today, some of the ill fruit of pietism and revivalism
live on. Many take it for granted that those who are
most concerned about doctrine are least interested in
reaching the lost (or, as they are now called, the "unchurched").
Evangelicals are frequently challenged to choose between
being traditional or missional, two
camps which are typically described with nothing more
than caricatures. Where the earlier evangelical consensus
coalesced simultaneously around getting the gospel right
and getting it out, increasingly today the coalition
is defined by its style ("contemporary" versus "traditional"),
its politics ("compassionate conservatism" or
the more recent rediscovery of revivalism's progressivist
roots), and its rock star leaders, rather than for its
convictions about God, humanity, sin, salvation, the
purpose of history, and the last judgment.
I realize that not all such "creeds" today
are as minimalistic as the one evaluated by Warfield.
Nor has American Christianity been without its own defenders
of the faith. In its statement of faith the National
Association of Evangelicals affirms the Trinity, the
deity of Christ, "the vicarious and atoning death
through His shed blood," and the necessity of a
supernatural rebirth. However, there is no mention of
justification—the article of a standing or falling church—and
the only conviction concerning the church is belief in "the
spiritual unity of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ." Baptism
and the Supper are not even mentioned.
Ironically, genuinely evangelical faith today is often
found outside of the evangelical movement, and within
evangelicalism it is contested on many fronts. Increasingly,
it has become common for evangelicals to question the
authority (much less the sufficiency) of Scripture and
the basic tenets around which evangelicals of various
stripes were formerly able to unite. According to every
major survey I've seen, most American evangelicals are
ignorant of many of the basic truths of Christianity.
Instead, there is a pervasive "moralistic, therapeutic
deism," as sociologist Christian Smith has documented.
The fact that people growing up in evangelical churches
are as likely—and in some studies, more likely—to
embrace this sort of amorphous spirituality over against
the Christian creed makes you wonder what is "evangelical" about "evangelicalism." Has
the evangel left the evangelicals?
At the same time, one often encounters winsome defenses
of historic Christianity, including the Reformation's
insights, from what might have seemed like the most unlikely
sources.
A VILLAGE GREEN
For all of this, I remain convinced that there is still
a place for being
"evangelical." Why? Quite simply, because we
still have the evangel. In my view, evangelicalism, then,
serves best as a "village green," like the
common parks at the center of old New England towns,
for everyone who affirms this evangel. It's a place where
Christians from different churches meet to discuss what
they share in common, as well as their differences. They
help keep each other honest.
In its present phase, the church is a pilgrim people.
I think that the Reformed confession is the most faithful
summary of the Bible's teachings. Yet my faith is enriched
by encountering Christians from different traditions
who challenge me to think more deeply and fully about
emphases I might have missed.
The village green also provides a common area where
Christians can witness to non-Christians concerning the
hope that they share, and a common space where our neighbors
in a particular community can be served by Christian
love. The danger comes when the village green becomes
dominated by a nearly Pelagian atmosphere and self-confidently
imagines that its Big Tent is the cathedral that reduces
actual churches on the green to mere chapels.
Michael Horton is J. Gresham Machen professor of
Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster
Seminary California in Escondido, co-host of The
White Horse Inn radio show, and editor-in-chief
of Modern
Reformation magazine.
[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Protestantism without
the Reformation," in No Rusty Swords:
Letters, Lectures and Notes, 1928-1936, ed. Edwin
H. Robertson, trans. Edwin H. Robertson and John Bowden
(London: Collins, 1965), 92-118
[2] B. B. Warfield, "Our
Seminary Curriculum,"
in Selected Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield—I,
ed. John E. Meeter (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing Co., 1970), 371
[3] Herman Bavinck, Reformed
Dogmatics: Vol 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ, ed.
John Bolt; trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic,
2006), 556
[4] B. B. Warfield, "In
Behalf of Evangelical Religion," in Selected
Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield—I,
386
[5] Ibid., 387
[6] Bonhoeffer, op. cit.
January/February 2010
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