{"id":21322,"date":"2011-10-17T00:03:04","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T05:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/?p=21322"},"modified":"2011-10-17T05:46:44","modified_gmt":"2011-10-17T10:46:44","slug":"evangelicalism-what-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/10\/17\/evangelicalism-what-is-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Evangelicalism: What is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

There is a cottage industry in trying to define who is and who is not an evangelical. The editors of\u00a0Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology)<\/a><\/em><\/strong> contend, in their conclusion, that evangelicalism can be defined \u201csociologically\u201d \u2013 or descriptively \u2013 or \u201ctheologically\u201d \u2013 or prescriptively. The editors, Andy Naselli and Collin Hansen, no doubt have in mind David Bebbington and Mark Noll with \u201csociologically\u201d and they surely have in mind folks like D.A. Carson, David Wells, John Woodbridge, and Al Mohler Jr. with \u201ctheologically.\u201d This was the whole point of The Cambridge Declaration and The Evangelical Celebration, not to ignore the book Evangelical Affirmations. Each of these was an attempt to define evangelical and impose that definition on the whole of evangelicalism, at least call evangelicalism to its true meaning.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Before I get to the four views in the spectrum of evangelicalism in the Naselli-Hansen book, let me say that the theological-oriented definers are those who hearken back to the Reformers and to the solas. So I ask right back, if I may, who is defining the term sociologically? Is it not the case that the \u201ctheological\u201d group is defining the term \u201cevangelical\u201d according to the Reformers and those who are consistent with them? So, who is defining the term \u201csociologically\u201d? The answer, if I may, is both \u2013 and at the same time neither totally.<\/p>\n

Question for today: What is an evangelical? Are fundamentalists part of evangelicalism? Is the term worth preserving?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why I say both are defining the term sociologically. It is accurate to say that Bebbington examines the evangelical movement (a socially definable group) to find the central theological themes of that movement; one can call that sociological if one wants but it is more than that. But it is no more sociological than those who are hearkening back to the Reformers (a socially definable group), because this so-called theological approach is examining a set of theologians (Calvin, Luther, et al) and a movement and discerning their central themes (the solas), and saying \u201cthat is evangelicalism.\u201d Conclusion: they are both sociological. This set of alternatives is not helpful for the discussion.<\/p>\n

A more tangible unity could be obtained if we spent more time studying what the gospel means in the New Testament (but this is not a post on The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited<\/a><\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s be more modest in our epistemological claims here: both of these groups, those examining the Reformers and those examining the broader evangelical movement, know fully well that the principal group and its leaders believe they are adhering to what the Bible says<\/em>. It would be far more accurate to say that all definitions of \u201cwhat is an evangelical?\u201d derive such definitions in the dialectic of Bible and group, that is, they are a combination of sociology and theology (not to mention history).<\/p>\n

My intent in this post is not to get after that question, but to sketch the four views in the Naselli-Hansen volume, which I think is a useful and helpful volume. Yes, we may have chosen other authors (why not Noll, or Bebbington, or Carson, or Mouw, or even Horton \u2013 wouldn\u2019t that have been interesting?) but these are four solid thinkers and four solid presentations, and no book could satisfy everyone. This book satisfies enough, and the authors are to be commended for their measured conclusions of recognizing that this discussion is uncontainable and uncontrollable but it is still important to have.<\/p>\n

The authors: Kevin Bauder (fundamentalism \u2013 this piece satisfies Andy Naselli\u2019s interests in fundamentalism), Al Mohler (confessional evangelicalism), John Stackhouse (generic evangelicalism), and Roger Olson (postconservative evangelicalism). Interesting choices, and they make for an interesting volume.<\/p>\n

Briefly: this is a white man\u2019s, a 50 yr old plus white man\u2019s set of concerns.\u00a0 There is insufficient attention to the undercurrents of contemporary evangelicalism and postconservative evangelicalism, to the emerging generation, to the African American church or to the Latin American church, to the increasing role of women in American evangelicalism, to the Wesleyans like Ben Witherington or to the reality of plenty of evangelicals in the mainline, to the outgoing tides and to the trends of where we are headed \u2026 so we need to see this book for what it is.<\/p>\n

Bauder reads the history of American evangelicalism well. Too many younger evangelicals don\u2019t even know this history as the context for all of these debates about what is an evangelical. Bauder rightly sees the rise of NeoEvangelicalism as a coalition of compromise, and he doesn\u2019t like it.\u00a0 I like the compromising coalition, which is noticeable in folks from Whitefield on, and I think that coalition is what made (neo)evangelicalism what it was \u2014 led by Billy Graham and John Stott and Christianity Today<\/em> and there\u2019s a worldwide movement as well. And when Stackhouse comes around to tell us that transdenominationalism is to be added to the Bebbington quadrilateral (crucicentrism, Biblicism, conversionism, activism), he is affirming as a characteristic what Bauder sees as the problem. That compromising coalition is what distinguishes evangelicalism from fundamentalism. And this is why I don\u2019t think it is at all useful to call fundamentalism a kind of evangelicalism, and that is why some of us have our eyes on \u2026 read on:<\/p>\n

Al Mohler, because he overtly admits he\u2019s with Bauder mostly, which confirms for many of us what we\u2019ve been saying: Mohler advocates a new kind of fundamentalism. That\u2019s not an insult; it\u2019s historical description. Mohler\u2019s classed in this book as \u201cconfessional evangelicalism\u201d but his confessionalism sits uneasy with me a bit, and I\u2019ll tell you why: Mohler doesn\u2019t quote one \u201cconfession\u201d in this piece so I\u2019m really left guessing what confession he means. From reading it I would suspect he means the Reformation solas, perhaps The Cambridge Declaration, or some kind of mix of those sorts of statements. He\u2019s Baptist, which means The Abstract of Principles, but he doesn\u2019t really get into that, and he could mean local church statements of faith. But, frankly, confessionalism refers to either the Lutheran confessions or the Reformed confessions, and I can\u2019t see that term applying to statements of faith among the Baptists. The Westminster folks are confessional; Baptists are not. But Mohler\u2019s orientation is clear: he\u2019s a theological conservative, he\u2019s committed rigorously to the major ideas of the Reformation, and he thinks too many evangelicals are drifting.<\/p>\n

Stackhouse and Olson are closer to where I am, and I have thought for a long time that Bebbington\u2019s quadrilateral, adding to it the Marsden coalition idea, helps immeasurably in mapping what evangelicalism really is. In other words, it just isn\u2019t as \u201cconfessional\u201d as a lot of bounded-set folks would like. (I wonder if \u201cconfessional\u201d and \u201cevangelical\u201d actually disqualify one another.) Evangelicalism, and this is what we find in Stackhouse and Olson, is a centered-set movement and all such people are \u201cmore or less\u201d evangelical. That is why Olson\u2019s emphasis on evangelicalism as a \u201cmovement\u201d is so blooming accurate. He\u2019s also right, and I suspect this is why I think Horton would have been fun had he been in the mix, that evangelicalism mixes the more or less Reformed orthodoxy with pietism and revivalism. So, to Bebbington\u2019s four and a fifth with Marsden\u2019s coalitionism, Olson adds \u201crespect for historic orthodoxy,\u201d and Olson\u2019s right again \u2013 this has always been a feature of evangelicalism. It is classically orthodox.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a sketch of what\u2019s going on: evangelicalism is a coalition of classic orthodox Christians who are committed to the four features of Bebbington. Evangelicalism describes the meeting place, the village green. Fundamentalism thinks the coalition gathering on the village green compromises the gospel. Confessionalism is what happens in the churches around the village green, and can\u2019t be imposed on the coalition without pushing people off the green.<\/p>\n

This book shows the tensions at work in evangelicalism but the most faithful examples of what evangelicalism is can be found in Stackhouse and Olson.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a cottage industry in trying to define who is and who is not an evangelical. The editors of\u00a0Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology) contend, in their conclusion, that evangelicalism can be defined \u201csociologically\u201d \u2013 or descriptively \u2013 or \u201ctheologically\u201d \u2013 or prescriptively. The editors, Andy Naselli and Collin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism"],"yoast_head":"\nEvangelicalism: What is it?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There is a cottage industry in trying to define who is and who is not an evangelical. 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