Afterword
Where Do We Go From Here?
Kenneth S. Kantzer
Where in the world is evangelicalism going today? When we gather together on a Sunday morning for worship, we sing lustily, "Like a mighty army moves the church of God." But in dark moments of the soul as we contemplate the events of our denomination's annual conference, or as we read our morning newspaper, we cry out in anguish, "Nowhere! Absolutely nowhere!"
There are those who are convinced that this latter answer is clearly the right one. Sydney Ahlstrom, widely acknowledged to be the leading historian of the American church in recent years, warned evangelicals that America has come to the end of a 400 year cycle dominated by evangelical Puritanism. And Richard Halverson, chaplain to the Senate and a convinced evangelical, laments, "The [evangelical] church has succeeded in pulling Christians out of the world, out of society, out of community and civic affairs. So often it is a little island of irrelevant piety surrounded by an ocean of need."
The future of evangelicalism, we can safely leave in the hands of God. Our concern at the "Convocation on Evangelical Affirmations" was of a different order. We sought first to determine what we mean by "evangelical." What are its boundaries? Who are in and who are out? Is there any consensus as to what constitutes an evangelical?
Page 514
From a sociological point of view, of course, evangelicalism is no single movement. It is, in fact, a mixture of many movements. Within the broad framework of evangelicalism, each movement wanders along more or less independent of the others.
This is not new. At a crucial point in the rise of Protestantism, Luther and Zwingli failed to agree, and each went his own way. Moreover, both distanced themselves from the Anabaptist movements. Since Reformation times, interfaith battles have led the various Protestant denominations to look upon themselves more as threatening rivals than as allies working together to accomplish common goals. Among those who generally are recognized today as evangelicals, we have the Missouri Lutherans, Southern Baptists, dozens of small denominations splintered off from Lutheran, Reformed, or Baptist roots, independents, Fundamentalists, hyper-Fundamentalists, Pentecostals, Pacifists, Puritans within all the mainline liberal churches and "Sojourners" who will not identify with any of the above. Each pursues a more or less independent path, and each in its own right is a "movement."
From his quite different perspective, Carl F.H. Henry defines evangelicalism in theological terms. He seeks to base his definition on biblical teaching and finds the essence of what it means to be evangelical first in the biblical doctrine of salvation by God's grace through faith in the God-man, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. This is the "material" or content principle of evangelicalism as set forth in the Bible. Then he adds a second principle — the "formal" or formative principle of the Bible as the divinely authoritative and completely trustworthy guide for Christian thought and life.
Page 515
Carl Henry sees the Christ set forth in the Bible in terms of the ancient creeds, Nicene and Chalcedonian. Without according final authority or infallibility to the ancient church or to its credal formulations he, along with all evangelicals, believes these statements correctly define what we mean as to the true humanity and deity of Jesus Christ and protect the church from sub-biblical and sub-evangelical views of Christology. He understands the biblical gospel in terms of salvation secured for sinners by this divine-human Christ and received through faith. This is the good news set forth in the great confessions of the Reformation Period. It forms the very heart of evangelical faith — its content principle.
The second or formative principle of biblical authority he holds to be necessarily tied to its content principle or the good news of the gospel. Biblical authority alone gives the gospel its recognizable shape and consistent form. Believable, defensible and enduring Christianity focuses not on just any gospel, but on the good news according to the Bible. And it is this view of biblical authority that is taught by the Bible about itself and by the divine human Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It represents the common doctrine of the church down through the centuries.
Since each of these principles is essential to the other, any attempt to separate them or to deny them or even to weaken their force is just to that extent a departure from genuine evangelical faith. In short, only this particular content principle, structured by this particular formative principle, both joined together inseparably, give us a truly biblical and evangelical faith.
It is evident that we need a term to describe those who adhere to this basic structure of biblical Christianity. However much those who fall within its boundaries may disagree on many other
Page 516
matters of faith and practice, including matters that they consider very important, there has existed, and still exists today, a vast host of those who share "the good news according to the Scriptures." They seek to shape their common core of religious convictions according to the teaching of the New Testament; they adhere to the central truths of Reformation theology in all its major branches; and they continue today in every major denomination as well as in newer bodies that have broken off from them, and in scattered independent groups everywhere, some of which refuse the hand of fellowship, even to other evangelicals who fall outside their own special ingroup.
In order to spell out this common core of evangelical convictions and what it implies for Christian commitment in the light of the issues facing the church today, the National Association of Evangelicals and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School united to call a convocation on evangelical affirmations. They invited a representative group of nearly seven hundred leaders to join them. It seems specially appropriate that this convocation should be sponsored by a group of Christians that call themselves evangelical (the National Association of Evangelicals) and by a seminary that includes the word evangelical as part of its title (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School).
Ten leading evangelical scholars were asked to present papers on issues disturbing the church today, and ten responders were asked to evaluate these papers. At its four day convocation the group of leaders drawn from pastors, administrators representing all major and many minor Protestant denominations, para-church organizations, and some independents met together in roundtable groups for discussion of the papers. They sought to
Page 517
come to some consensus as to what it means to be an evangelical at the end of the twentieth century. They were asked to answer first the question, "What do we mean by the term evangelical?" and second, "What do contemporary evangelicals stand for?"
It was not easy to gain a consensus regarding these questions. Essentially we were trying to do what Luther and Zwingli had failed to do. The conference consisted of representatives of traditional Lutheran theology, Calvinists loyal to the faith of Calvin and the Reformed churches, representatives of independent churches and parachurch organizations; Baptists, including Independent Baptists, Fundamentalist Baptists, Southern Baptists; and Charismatics. It was like seeking to guide a team of powerful Arabian steeds not to dash off each in its own direction, but to get them to race on the same track.
The result was the evangelical affirmations you see printed in this book. Each roundtable discussion group was led by a chairman with one or more professional theologians as resource persons, and a recorder, who summarized the results of his group and reported them, together with recommendations from every group, to the plenary sessions. Discussion and debate were sharp, sometimes very sharp, and always serious, for the group was discussing matters very dear to their hearts and minds. The original draft presented to the conference at its beginning was completely rewritten. In turn, the rewritten draft went through hundreds of revisions. In one sense, the final draft presented in this book should be considered a rough draft. Yet in the final plenary session these evangelical affirmations were voted on by the participants of the six to seven hundred who had attended the
Page 518
consultation. Only a very small handful refused to approve of the document. Carl Henry counted the negative votes as two.
Obviously, these evangelical affirmations do not represent a full confession of faith. Most of the delegates would never have approved it for that purpose. Some do not believe in any short statement of faith. Most of the rest would have disagreed with the statement as inadequate to express what is needed for ordination to the ministry or to serve as a standard for any organized body of believers. That was not the intention of the participants or of the sponsors who called for the consultation. Rather the purpose was to state what doctrinal and ethical convictions mark one off as an evangelical. What are the boundaries of evangelical faith? And what do evangelicals have to say about crucial issues troubling the church today? Evangelical Affirmations seeks to be a statement of evangelical identity.
Evangelicals have been divided in the past and they continue to be divided today. Present and entering fully into the discussion at this convocation were dispensationalists and covenant theologians; immersionists, adult immersionists, and paedobaptists; Calvinists and Arminians; perfectionists and Pentecostals; those who supported ordination of women and those who did not; proponents of Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Congregational forms of church government with every variation in between; and many others. But the statement was not approved as a confession of faith adequate to serve a church or a denomination. It was rather intended to say: "What, on biblical grounds, do we recognize to be evangelical? What are those commitments in today's world that we as evangelicals agree we are or ought to be committed to?"
Page 519
In recent years especially, evangelicals have received a bad image that we should very much like to overcome. Sometimes this has been a caricature to label evangelicalism as a ridiculous viewpoint. More often, consciously or unconsciously, we have created these impressions by our own actions. We have set forth our convictions sometimes far too stridently and often without carefully nuancing our positions so as to safeguard ourselves against misunderstanding. Because we are opposed to a woman's right to abort her child when she chooses, it has been inferred that we are against women's rights and we are opposed to the personal rights of individuals. Because we are opposed to pornography, we are said to be opposed to free speech and freedom of the press. Because some of us wanted prayers in the public schools and most of us argued that it is right for a town to set up a creche at Christmas time in recognition of the significance of Christ in our culture, and because we want equal rights for Christian students to hold Bible studies and prayer groups as well as photography clubs in public schools, it was assumed that we really want to cram our evangelicalism, by law, down the throats of all Americans. Because we really want Americans to become Christians, some inferred that we really don't believe in separation of church and state and freedom of religion, but would like to return to a New England Puritan theocracy and reinstitute the Salem witch trials. Because some radio evangelists have proclaimed a gospel of "easy-believism," it was assumed that evangelicals think a right theology is all that matters and Christian faith is not concerned about personal ethics or social ethics.
None of these conclusions, of course, is valid as a description of evangelical convictions. Evangelicals seek to represent
Page 520
Jesus Christ as servants — first of all as servants of God and then of the church and of their fellow human beings. It is their earnest desire to promote the gospel according to the Scriptures, for they believe it to be the only hope of a confused world and confused church. But they are committed to winning converts only by persuasion, not by coercion. They support the separation of church and state on the basis of principle, not expediency. They don't want Muslim prayers forced on their children in public schools, and they are equally opposed to forcing Christian prayers on non-Christians who don't want them. They want freedom to worship God according to their own lights, and they are opposed to any attempt to enforce distinctively Christian faith and Christian practices on non-Christians. They want freedom to preach the gospel to others, and they insist that freedom of press, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion should be guaranteed to all.
Evangelicals certainly are committed to sharing their faith with others in the hope of winning others to Christian faith. Not to do so, on evangelical grounds, would represent the crassest form of selfishness and a callous disregard for the good of others. Moreover, evangelicals firmly believe that Scripture gives them clear instruction on this point. Not to share the gospel would be disobedience to the clear command of God. Their appeal to others must be urgent, but it must also call for a voluntary response and never coercion. God does not desire a compulsory response to his love, but a voluntary turning of a free soul to trust in God and to obedience to his will.
The evangelical Christian believes that the gospel brings to him his greatest good — to know God, to receive deliverance from sin and its consequences, to find purpose and meaning for life and
Page 521
to secure power to live lives of obedience to God, usefulness in his Kingdom and service to all humankind. All of this, the evangelical must share if he is to be faithful to his own evangelicalism. We are facing a world that does not really know where it is going. Liberalism has long since lost its power in the church and out of the church. Society itself is ultimately committed to the securing of physical life and health and material prosperity in this world, but the meaning of life as a whole, it does not know.
We even live in a pluralistic church. In part, this is due to the inability of evangelical churches to communicate effectively their convictions to their own children and to their adherents. It is also in part a by-product of the very success of evangelicalism. It is a kind of Constantinian effect: the more successful evangelicals are in evangelism (i.e., sharing the gospel and winning others to Christ), the more they bring into the church those who are uninstructed in Christian faith. The failure of evangelicals to hold their own children and to instruct adult converts in biblical faith and practice is undoubtedly the greatest single problem facing the church today. It is certain that this will remain the major problem for the evangelical church for the foreseeable future. In a pluralistic society and, even more, in a pluralistic church, it is evident that this problem can not easily be solved.
Where then do we go from here? We proclaim the gospel and the biblical teaching tied to it. Particularly, we wish to clarify those tension points in society and in our churches addressed by these evangelical affirmations. May God give us the love and the courage to move out and win the hearts and minds of people so that they may hold fast to the gospel and to the Bible that gives it its structure.
Page 522
It is our earnest hope and prayer that Evangelical Affirmations may serve as a study guide for evangelicals — to sharpen our understanding of what we ourselves mean by the term "evangelical," to assist those who wish to identify themselves by this biblical term, and to do so with clear knowledge of what it implies, and what contemporary evangelicals stand for in today's world as we face the end of the twentieth century and a new millennium.
It is our hope also, that the publication of these Evangelical Affirmations will enable evangelicals to present their convictions more clearly in the pluralistic culture in which we bear witness to the gospel and, in doing so, to remove some of the most flagrant, and thoroughly misinformed, charges against evangelicalism. If the world rejects biblical and evangelical Christianity, it is important that it reject it knowing what it really is. Tragically, the world often rejects biblical faith not knowing what it is that it is rejecting.
We are not interested in shaping evangelical Christianity, and certainly not biblical Christianity, into a form that will prove palatable to the sinful hearts and minds of all humans. We are not trying to remove "the offense of the cross." That offense is an inherent part of biblical and evangelical identity. It would be an irresponsible denial of our deepest faith to remove it. Yet we are deeply concerned also to remove false obstacles to the gospel. We do not want anyone to reject a perversion or misunderstanding of the evangelical gospel and, thereby, to be turned away from that which we are convinced is the truth and the truth that makes us truly free from sin and meaninglessness and provides for us ultimate hope and peace.
Where then is the church going? God alone knows. We do not really know whether or not Sydney Ahlstrom is right when he
Page 523
says that we are at the end of four centuries during which evangelicalism has provided leadership in our culture. As we look at government, as we look at the public media, as we look at the universities and intellectual and cultural centers of our society, and alas, sometimes even as we look at the church, we are compelled to admit that he has a point. He may well be right!
On the other hand, as we range our sight around the world and observe the movement of the gospel in black Africa south of the Sahara and in South America, and especially in China, we see some evidence that we may be facing a great revival of evangelical faith around the world. But whether we are pessimistic or optimistic about the success of the evangelical church, it is our task, above all else, to be faithful to the good news, the good news that alone is able to deliver men from the powers of darkness, from sin and discouragement, from hatred and despair, from cruelty and revenge, and to bring men and women and children everywhere into the Kingdom of God's dear Son.
Would you like to read another online book at
the:
