Up From Evangelicalism

Being evangelical without the the "ism." And why.

This is one of those topics that has been hard for me to keep succinct. It could very easily turn into an Apologia pro Vita Sua; except I’m a nobody and I’m not actually defecting from anything in real life. I realized during another draft being prepared under this title (which was already 5,000 words without structure) that I was making it too hard on myself.

I realized that what I was sensing about Evangelicalism was that it had become the abuse or parody of David Bebbington’s famous quad-fold definition of what it meant to be an evangelical. Bebbington laid out (and this has been echoed by people like Truman, Packer, and Kidd) these as the essence of evangelicalism:

(1) conversionism (Christianity as primarily about the conversion of individuals),
(2) biblicism (the Bible as the sole authority),
(3) crucicentrism (everything centers on the work of Christ on the cross), and
(4) activism (or mission-orientedness; the emphasis on spreading the true propositions of the gospel message).

It dawned on me when writing the initial reflection that what was really going on was that the above four distinctions had become for Evangelicalism the full extent of the Christian religion. And it was this that had been tormenting me.

Thesis

My interpretation of Evangelical-ISM is that it is the product of carving out the evangelical side of certain historical-theological debates within the metaphysical-sociological paradigm of Christian Europe and making the evangelical position into the whole of the Christian religion while casting away the metaphysical-sociological paradigm and letting it crash by the wayside. That is to say, I may be willing to take the evangelical side of some or several (but I sense I am developing here) historical debates, but I am no longer willing to make the evangelical position into my “ism;” that is, to make it the extent of my understanding of the Christian religion.

That is to say:

1: There is more to Christianity as just “getting into heaven.” If one takes a Christian metaphysic and has an approach to the nature of the cosmos that reflects the Godhead of the classical Christian Tradition, then Christianity becomes a way of life with implications for culture-building, the arts, objectiveness in beauty, the development of the classical virtues. All of which cry out in protest against the modernist, materialist, spirit of the contemporary evangelical way of life.

2: There is authority in many places besides the Bible. The Bible is unique in that it contains innerant true propositions, but Evangelical-ISM operates to make the Bible the only source of sanction for our earthly living. Contrary to the present Evangelical instinct, I am confident leaning on Tradition, custom, cultural convention, familial authority, authoritative historical thinkers, and so on. By resting on what came before, I can be consistent with certain streams of evangelicals in the past (i.e. Luther), but avoid the above expressed nature of the -ISM. I also think this Biblicism has not only suffocated their full understanding of the world and our place in it, but it has bogged them down into detailed controversies over delicate matters of exegesis, syntax, and grammar in a way that sets their eyes on the microscopic, rather than the cosmic, the heavenly. I do not think it coincidental that the Evangelical spirit has lost its interest in the grand philosophies of Augustine and Aquinas and Anselm.

3: This is a tricky one because there are many ways we could say that everything centers on the Cross of Christ. However, it is a characteristic of Evangelical-ISM in the current West to make everything into a “gospel issue.” I believe many (probably all) things are religious issues, but the gospel is a piece—a core piece, sure— of the Christian religion. I do believe that “Gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit;” Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it. For the spirit of Evangelical-ISM, the coming of grace (earned by the Cross) conquers nature, thereby obliging mankind to reject considerations of any sort of Natural Order. Modernist Evangelical-ISM is therein revolutionary, perhaps even Jacobin in its perceived relation to embodiments of Order over history.

4: When I think of the activism category as applied to Evangelical-ISM I think of the approach to Christianity’s spread that restricts itself to the spreading of the propositional gospel message. I do believe that obtaining eternal life comes by believing in the propositional gospel (faith comes by hearing); however, I do not conceive of mankind as primarily constituted by rational faculties. I believe that the man wholly developed is an agglomeration of sentiment, intuitions, and demeanor; all of which need to be honed and cured, together with reason. What this means is that it is the periphery of a man’s vision that molds him; that more children have been taught the faith by watching their fathers and leaders pray than by being taught the technicalities of the gospel; that there is a considerable amount of soul-shaping that occurs in the absorption of beauty, literature, beautiful music, architecture, and art. Christianity is, throughout the history of Christian Europe, spread via these sentiment-builders more richly and long-lasting than the mere propagation of gospel propositions.

Critics will here say that these things alone won’t save a man. This change of subject is a key motivation for this post.

Conclusion

Rather than providing a full list of all the examples of my grievances against the Evangelical Spirit as it exists in the present age, I have listed categories above that I can refer to in future instances.

And of course, there’s much more to say, and to flush out. This is only the beginning of such topics, I suspect.

I think it’s fair to say I have an evangelical faith—in the same way that Luther or Calvin did— but am not an Evangelical; I resolutely repudiate the modern, post-nineteenth century, act of rejecting the importance of liturgical, cultural, customary, pre-modern European Christianity. The evangelicals have done well, as a whole, in refusing to walk the dark paths of liberalism that have been well-trodded by the Protestant Mainstream. The High Church traditions have crumbled into Leftism without the evangelical distinctions; but the evangelicals without tradition and Metaphysical Christianity have lost their centuries-long roots and have seen the culture that once provided a buffer for the public display of the Christian religion finally turn against them.

The evangelicals haven’t (yet) become outposts for revolutionary momentum (despite their cultural leadership having been corrupted). They have largely stood firm on the stripped-down basics. But the basics are not enough; I applaud many of their efforts, but no longer see myself as being of them.

I think this is why, as someone becoming disillusioned with “thin Christianity” I find myself much more satisfied with the reflections, musings, and meditations of non-evangelicals like CS Lewis, Hillaire Belloc, GK Chesterton, TS Eliot, Russell Kirk, and various other traditionalist Anglican and Roman writers. They have done well in absorbing the Metaphysical Faith of Christian Europe in a way completely foreign of the Evangelicals with their various modernist instincts.

There is a modern Evangelical Zeitgeist of sorts—one that dominates conservative Christianity—yet my mind is elsewhere.