Some students and readers have asked me why I expend energy and waste time trying to define evangelicalism; why not just give up the term \u201cevangelical\u201d and let the conservatives, fundamentalists and Religious Right people own it?\u00a0 After all, so I\u2019m told, it\u2019s too late to rescue it.\u00a0 \u201cEvangelical\u201d and \u201cevangelicalism\u201d are now so identified in the popular mind with right-wing conservativism in both theology and politics that they can\u2019t be salvaged.\u00a0 I\u2019m urged to just let them go.<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s my response to that?\u00a0 Why do I bother trying to correct the wide spread misconceptions about evangelicalism?\u00a0 Why don\u2019t I just give up these terms and, as one of my students suggested, just call myself \u201cChristian\u201d and leave it at that?<\/p>\n
My initial response is that \u201cChristian\u201d is just as essentially contested as \u201cevangelical.\u201d\u00a0 Saying \u201cI\u2019m a Christian\u201d doesn\u2019t say very much in our pluralistic Christianity.\u00a0 The inevitable question will be \u201cWhat kind of Christian are you?\u201d\u00a0 For most of my life (certainly all of my adult life) my first answer to that question is \u201cI\u2019m an evangelical Christian.\u201d\u00a0 That is so much a part of my identity that I can\u2019t simply give it up.\u00a0 What else would I say?<\/p>\n
Okay, I could and sometimes do say \u201cI\u2019m a Baptist Christian.\u201d\u00a0 The problem there, of course, is that there are about 57 varieties of Baptists in the U.S. alone!\u00a0 And \u201cBaptist\u201d is also an essentially contested concept.\u00a0 And in some parts of the U.S., anyway, it is a label that immediately raises images of extreme fundamentalism, divisiveness, legalism and, of course, the Religious Right.<\/p>\n
I find the label \u201cevangelical\u201d impossible to shed.\u00a0 And I\u2019m not alone.\u00a0 Millions of people in America and around the world use this term to describe their particular brand of Christianity.\u00a0 Numerous Christian organizations identify with it.\u00a0 In my opinion, much of the debate about the \u201cboundaries of evangelicalism\u201d or \u201cevangelical boundaries\u201d has to do with exercising influence over those institutions.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not content simply to allow ultra-conservatives to take control of a label that is so important to college administrators and publishers and leaders of multi-denominational and trans-denominational organizations.\u00a0 They need to know that evangelicalism has historically been much broader and more inclusive than some of the louder voices claiming to speak for all evangelicals would allow.<\/p>\n
Call me Don Quixote, if you will, but I\u2019m not prepared to give up the fight for these terms that are so much a part of my Christian heritage and identity.\u00a0 If I were going to do that, I might as well also give up on \u201cBaptist\u201d and even \u201cChristian.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having said all that, I have to admit that these days (and for the past three decades or so\u2013at least since the 1976 publication of The Battle for the Bible) there seem to be two evangelicalisms in North America.\u00a0 One emphasizes woodenly\u00a0literal biblical interpretation, conservative social and political agendas, rigid dogmatism and retrieval of some \u201cGolden Age\u201d of evangelicalism to the exclusion of all new ways of thinking.\u00a0 The other emphasizes a more open hermeneutic that recognizes cultural conditioning in Scripture, a more progressive approach to social and political issues, a more flexible approach to doctrine and an openness to new ways of thinking in theology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Adherents of the first type of evangelicalism accuse representatives of the second of \u201cunfettered theological experimentation\u201d and worshiping the \u201cgoddess of novelty.\u201d\u00a0 From where I sit those are pretty ridiculous claims when made against progressives within evangelical ranks.\u00a0 Adherents of the second type of evangelicalism accuse representatives of the first of dead traditionalism and even separatistic fundamentalism.\u00a0 While I think there\u2019s some truth to those claims (when made about some, not all, conservative evangelicals) most conservative evangelical theologians and leaders have not fallen back that far.<\/p>\n
Both sides need to be charitable toward the other.\u00a0 But I worry that this division may be irreparable.\u00a0 We may need to start talking about \u201cEvangelicalism 1\u201d and \u201cEvangelicalism 2.\u201d\u00a0 I have myself labeled them \u201ctraditionalists\u201d and \u201creformists\u201d and used the label \u201cpostconservative evangelical\u201d for myself and some other representatives of the \u201c2\u201d camp within American evangelicalism.<\/p>\n
So what is the practical importance of this debate over evangelicalism?\u00a0 As I said before, it is a battle for the hearts and minds of administrators who have the power to exclude people: presidents of colleges, universities and seminaries, publishers and editors of periodicals and publishing houses, leaders of trans-denominational mission and fellowship organizations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I am not interested in excluding anyone from the evangelical movement, but I am interested in and committed to keeping it a dynamic movement open to diverse opinions and viewpoints.\u00a0 How diverse? is, of course, the pressing question.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not a question with which I am particularly obsessed.\u00a0 Others seem to be.\u00a0 There\u2019s a sense in which I say (paraphrasing the Supreme Court justice talking about pornography): \u201cI know an evangelical when I meet one.\u201d\u00a0 All authentic evangelicals are God-fearing, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christians.\u00a0 All are committed to the four hallmarks or themes proposed by Noll and Bebbington (referred to in an earlier post) and to my fifth one: basic respect for the Great Tradition of Christian orthodoxy carved out in the early church and during the Reformation.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some students and readers have asked me why I expend energy and waste time trying to define evangelicalism; why not just give up the term \u201cevangelical\u201d and let the conservatives, fundamentalists and Religious Right people own it?\u00a0 After all, so I\u2019m told, it\u2019s too late to rescue it.\u00a0 \u201cEvangelical\u201d and \u201cevangelicalism\u201d are now so identified […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n