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Evangelical Orthodoxy and Catholicity

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The introductory reflection included a basic orientation around these three terms and that they comprise, especially in the 21st century, the main branches of Christianity. When I think of orthodox Christianity in terms of confession and community I think of something like Paul’s “declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Ac 20:27) and the guarding of wholesome doctrine that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ as we have it in the NT. Based upon the “deposit of faith” (the “once for all revealed” Jude 3), we come to discover that Christianity has become so immense and diverse geographically and ethnically that none of these three broad communities is insufficient to encompass it. Fortunately, scripture and the Patristic tradition in confession and theology have become the common property of the world; anyone can avail themselves to it and benefit salvificly thereby.

Catholicity is not the same thing as the Roman Church or even “Catholicism”, but is the human and geographical extent of the faith as embodied in those who possess the common outlines of doctrine with such family resemblances that they can be recognized according to a “generous orthodoxy” to be “of the same” if not identical. Indeed, although it has become well recognized that ecumenical efforts have little or no effect upon institutional unions among existing denominations, serious dialogue does often result in formal theological and ethical statements of mutual recognition and cooperation. Although offices and governing bodies of the historic Orthodox and Catholic communities were long in recognizing the Evangelical, they now occupy together many public spaces and cultural milieu throughout the world. There is nothing like the diversity of languages into which the Bible has been translated; much of the positive contribution to the qualitative improvements in scholarship in this area has been that of Evangelical scholars. Each translation represents multiple Christian communities both inside and outside of the denominational boundaries of the three, since many of the new churches were initiated or motivated by missionaries from parachurch organizations over the last century. The transcending of any official language of the Bible for the common purposes of the peoples of the world, also lends itself to a requirement of understanding the “broader church” as something that cannot be institutionally defined according to a single entity apart from which all else is schismatic or apostate. Both orthodoxy and catholicity are identifiable and applicable to one’s own Christian community because of the common property of their knowledge and practice through scripture, tradition and, as believed, the contemporaneous work of the Holy Spirit in the world: Christ’s “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”.

At this point the reader is perhaps aware that I am not really conceding much of a distinction between the various confessions and churches of historic evangelical Protestantism and the world of American and now global “Evangelicalism”. This is because so much of the latter has penetrated the former. Throughout the world, even in Europe, what once might have been characterized as pietism, revivalist, missionary, Biblicism, even separatist, even fundamentalist Christian, is now overwhelmingly characteristic of what the person in the street experiences as Protestant Evangelical. Observers and practitioners are very aware that “fundamentalists” are a big part of the all the communities and who view themselves a more “conservative orthodox” than the worn-out pejorative label. If one of the characteristics of robust faith is the protection of identity and boundaries, conservative orthodoxy is an equal opportunity employer across the three broad communities. The title of this reflection, implies that there are ways that “Evangelical” is actually the primary Christian term, modified by orthodox and catholic – connoting the centrality of doctrine and the recognizable commonality amidst the dizzying diversity of the global Christian community.

A long time ago, I became fascinated with the phenomena of the translated scriptures, how they embodied local cultures and fostered new traditions in as many languages as translations could be accomplished. I also became enamored with the work of Lamin Saneh on this subject since he had done a great deal of research and reflection on how the phenomena manifest themselves; their implications for the Christian faith globally. Although mission is common to all three, the Evangelical has been conspicuously identified by the “modern missionary movement” out of which grew whole new theological understandings of what “ecumenical” means, along with constructive theologies of religions and even of human rights and the dignity of the human being. One cannot read about the impact of the likes of William Carey in India or Hudson Taylor in China without becoming immensely impressed about the Evangelical dimension within world Christianity. This will likely continue to be the case as identifiable evangelical Christianity continues to expand, diversify and cross-fertilize with the orthodox and catholic. 

If the question of the broader church is one of identity and contribution of a fundamental sort to actual tradition, the evangelical dimension if demonstratively massive and dynamic. If the question of evangelicals and the broader church is one of separation and innovation, certainly each of the three has grievances along these lines against the other. One might say that the evangelical can hide behind the catholic or the orthodox, depending upon “who hit first” that led to the over millennium-long division between East and West (along with a number of lesser known but ancient, unhealed divisions). That the evangelical movement emerged just five centuries ago in no way mitigates the damage to Christianity unity incurred in the Great Schism of . As it turns out, even the moniker “protestant” is detectible in the other traditions – as the great Orthodox theologian, George Florovsky was want to apply to the pope of the schism as “the first Protestant”. All said, it is extremely difficult to imagine the various systems of church courts fashioning a model of unity that all would agree to, let alone actually implement. If, as with the first reflection, one considers Christian diversity as a good; something which is profoundly human and affirming of the creature, then the evangelical movement takes is place next to the other two. Of course at this stage, what the two ancient branches do to reconcile will certainly affect the more modern branch all within the vitally diverse patristic stream the continues in the present age.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Separating Frames of Evangelicalism

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The different criteria presented by my colleagues themselves represent frames for considering the broader scope of evangelicalism. The frames not only demonstrate the different ways we can consider evangelicalism but also provide some hints as to where changes may be coming.

The first frame I see is present in Peter Enns’ description of evangelicalism as being situated in the wake of the modernist/fundamentalist controversies of the early 20th century. He suggests that evangelicals represented a third way between the extremes. (Back in the 70s, Richard Quebedeaux said that evangelicals were “polite fundamentalists” which struck closer to home that I wished.) As James Davison Hunter suggested in American Evangelicals (1984), evangelicals were dealing with “the quandary of modernity”. How much to engage and how much to maintain distance? Inherent in that quandary is maintaining one’s position relative to the other groups. It raises the possibility that evangelicals wind up defined as “not being the other guys”. But as the other groups move, so too must evangelicalism. Alternatively, there is a vested interest in keeping cultural antagonisms alive that plays identity roles within the evangelical subculture (which is why persecution stories are so important). I’m thinking along the lines that Corwin Schmidt uses when he considers evangelicalism as a categorical group. 

But as Peter observes, the cultural battles of the past are not significant to young evangelicals. They are increasingly savvy culturally, maintain diverse social networks, and find Christian meaning in popular culture. They aren’t afraid of modernists (maybe epistemologically) and are bothered by the Westboro Baptist form of angry fundamentalism. They aren’t defining themselves by evaluating where the others are. They’re looking for an authentic stance. Thus, there is a significant fracture between evangelicals under 30 and those over 50. How that plays out over the next 15 years will be interesting to watch.

The second theme I want to unpack shows up in a couple of the essays. I’ll call this the institutional frame. John Wilson, not surprisingly, sees connections between evangelicals and specific structural forms like Christianity Today. I’d add other institutional structures like the National Association of Evangelicals and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, and numerous publishing houses. These become “voices of evangelicalism” in a nearly self-referential way.

The media also shapes how the culture thinks of evangelicals. They do so with little understanding and frequent caricature. When NPR wants to question “evangelical voters” before the Iowa primary, there are no considerations of theological presuppositions (not one of the folks interviewed talked about Bebbington!). Just social issues and anti-Obama rhetoric. Were these folks really evangelical voters or just Republicans who went to church a lot?

A third type of the institutional frame comes out in celebrity infrastructure. Ask the person on the street who the leaders of evangelicalism are, and you’ll get Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Rick Warren, Mark Driscoll, John Piper, Tim Keller, and so on. Evangelicals are those guys who write the books and have the media empires.

But these institutional frames are weaker today than they were a generation ago. Many of the power brokers of bygone years are in or near retirement. Succession issues become real. Just as we moved from a handful of television stations to hundreds of cable channels, the internet has diversified the voices available and increased the critiques of the celebrity leaders. As the social positions of evangelicals (again, especially among the young) begin to shift, so does the media narrative. In an era where it is safe to assume evangelical/Christian voice without assuming dominance of viewpoint, a less institutional and more organic type of evangelicalism is likely to emerge.

A third frame present in the work of my colleagues is theology. I didn’t start here because I’m messing around in someone else’s sandbox. But I really like what Amos Young, John Franke, and Vincent Bacotte attempt to do. There is something valuable about Bebbington’s definitions. But those positions contain the seeds of their own challenges. As Vincent observes, the Biblicism of evangelicalism can become a distortion of sola scriptura that puts a view of scripture above the work of the Spirit. It can lead to a piecemeal battle plan of favorite biblical texts instead of the long story of God as embodied in Christ and attested by the Spirit. I could raise some issues on substitutionary atonement and conversionism, but I’ll hold that for another day.

As John Franke observes, the diversity of theological voices can be the source of Christian unity if it is allowed to be. On the contrary, when it becomes about litmus tests, who should read such and such a book, or whose writing seems a little too contemplative, the voices become a modern Tower of Babel. In an age where being non-religious has less social stigma than any time since early colonial days, such conflict is potentially damaging to the witness of the evangelical church.

So I can look at placing evangelicals in social-historical, institutional, and theological frames with subcategories under each. These differing frames and subframes contain the sources of disquiet that make the future of evangelicalism such an intriguing topic.

Two final thoughts give me hope for that future. First, there is something deeply poignant in John Wilson’s story of his daughter’s religious journey. Evangelicals able to handle diversity in love speak to the best of the movement. Second, in a recent Patheos interview Mark Labberton, the new president of Fuller Theological Seminary (itself an iconic evangelical institution), said “The best of evangelicalism has been centered in Jesus Christ and Trinitarian orthodoxy, not in evangelicalism itself as a movement or a theology.” If evangelicalism maintains its compassion and its humility, it will find ways of significantly engaging the contemporary culture in Kingdom building ways.