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I’ve recently been reading ‘Evangelical Experiences’ by Ian Randall on the spirituality of Evangelicalism in the inter-war years. This is fascinating, eye-opening and thought-provoking. But it’s not so much this book that I want to comment on. This book – and the series – adheres to David Bebbington’s four-dimensional model of evangelicalism – biblicist, crucicentric, conversionist and activist. It is some time since I read Bebbington’s book (and a book raising questions about his thesis that evangelicalism as we know it really emerged in the 1730’s has more recently been published) but I find myself wondering whether this model is really adequate. Or perhaps it is just that I want to highlight other features of what I believe is true about evangelicalism.
For example, I find it odd that this model has nothing to say about the Trinity. It may be that that is taken for granted as a part of the common Christian heritage, but it is surely a fact that evangelicals, whether you date them from 1730 or Wycliffe or whenever, have always asserted and defended the deity of Christ and the deity and personality of the Holy Spirit. It is also true that Socinians and liberals have tended to question these very points. Surely evangelicalism – to widen the point – is not just Biblicist (Jehovah’s Witnesses would claim the same, and with some reason), it has a biblical theology which is seen even in the somewhat attenuated statements of faith of the past nearly 200 years. It not only believes that theology, but also sees those who depart from it as departing from the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Evangelicals have a concept of heresy which surely distinguishes them from much liberal thinking.
But, on quite a different tack, evangelicals have always had a vivid sense of eternity. They preach heaven and hell (and isn’t preaching a distinguishing mark of evangelicalism also?), they affirm the return of the Lord Jesus Christ and they look at life in this world from the perspective of the life to come. It might be possible to make the case that some evangelicals have taken this too far, but the emphasis itself is often completely missing from the moralism that is found in non-evangelical churches. So much ‘Christianity’ that comes across in the media tends to be distinctly ‘this-worldly’ and frequently mimicking the secular liberal agenda.
This book inevitably concentrates on various movements in the period concerned. The one thing it says little about is the personal devotional life of believers and their families. I was surprised to find that the term ‘quiet time’ seems to have come from the Oxford Movement, and in any case I wish some short alternative might be found in its place. It is, however, surely one of the defining features of evangelical spirituality that it places a very high priority on the individual believer reading the Bible and praying regularly each day. New converts are taught this straight away and Bible reading notes are generally recommended. This is of quite a different order from prayers by rote or some of the devotional practices of other forms of Christianity. I remember, early on in my National Service in the RAF, someone – not a Chaplain, I think, but in a discussion amongst a group of Christians – dismissing the Cambridge CU with the scathing remark that they worshipped something called ‘the quiet time’.
It might be argued that this illustrates the individualism of much evangelicalism, but I don’t think this argument sticks. In actual fact it operates the other way. The unity of evangelical belief and of evangelicals themselves arises in large measure simply because they are all praying, Bible people. Behind Keswick, Holiness movements, Pentecostalism and so on lies the fact that all of them have much the same personal devotional life. It is this that also helps unite them in spite of their denominational differences. But this does raise a question: are today’s evangelicals as diligent and faithful in their personal worship and communion with the Triune God as was the case in the past? Is one of the sources of present evangelical weakness to be found here?
For example, I find it odd that this model has nothing to say about the Trinity. It may be that that is taken for granted as a part of the common Christian heritage, but it is surely a fact that evangelicals, whether you date them from 1730 or Wycliffe or whenever, have always asserted and defended the deity of Christ and the deity and personality of the Holy Spirit. It is also true that Socinians and liberals have tended to question these very points. Surely evangelicalism – to widen the point – is not just Biblicist (Jehovah’s Witnesses would claim the same, and with some reason), it has a biblical theology which is seen even in the somewhat attenuated statements of faith of the past nearly 200 years. It not only believes that theology, but also sees those who depart from it as departing from the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Evangelicals have a concept of heresy which surely distinguishes them from much liberal thinking.
But, on quite a different tack, evangelicals have always had a vivid sense of eternity. They preach heaven and hell (and isn’t preaching a distinguishing mark of evangelicalism also?), they affirm the return of the Lord Jesus Christ and they look at life in this world from the perspective of the life to come. It might be possible to make the case that some evangelicals have taken this too far, but the emphasis itself is often completely missing from the moralism that is found in non-evangelical churches. So much ‘Christianity’ that comes across in the media tends to be distinctly ‘this-worldly’ and frequently mimicking the secular liberal agenda.
This book inevitably concentrates on various movements in the period concerned. The one thing it says little about is the personal devotional life of believers and their families. I was surprised to find that the term ‘quiet time’ seems to have come from the Oxford Movement, and in any case I wish some short alternative might be found in its place. It is, however, surely one of the defining features of evangelical spirituality that it places a very high priority on the individual believer reading the Bible and praying regularly each day. New converts are taught this straight away and Bible reading notes are generally recommended. This is of quite a different order from prayers by rote or some of the devotional practices of other forms of Christianity. I remember, early on in my National Service in the RAF, someone – not a Chaplain, I think, but in a discussion amongst a group of Christians – dismissing the Cambridge CU with the scathing remark that they worshipped something called ‘the quiet time’.
It might be argued that this illustrates the individualism of much evangelicalism, but I don’t think this argument sticks. In actual fact it operates the other way. The unity of evangelical belief and of evangelicals themselves arises in large measure simply because they are all praying, Bible people. Behind Keswick, Holiness movements, Pentecostalism and so on lies the fact that all of them have much the same personal devotional life. It is this that also helps unite them in spite of their denominational differences. But this does raise a question: are today’s evangelicals as diligent and faithful in their personal worship and communion with the Triune God as was the case in the past? Is one of the sources of present evangelical weakness to be found here?
