Tag Archive for: theology

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 20^th 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.