Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Yes, Evangelicalism Can Be Irenic

Yes, Evangelicalism Can Be Irenic

Last updated on: June 4, 2019 at 8:20 am by Chris Gehrz

Yes, Evangelicalism Can Be Irenic 2019-06-04T08:20:39-04:00 Chris Gehrz

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In my last post, I considered historian Adam Laats’ analogy between evangelicalism and NHL hockey. Just as the latter retains a role for fighting, Adam suggested that evangelicals like me faced a “very difficult, slippery, obstacle-filled uphill climb to change” evangelicalism’s propensity for combativeness. In response, I pointed out that other forms of hockey have long since eliminated fighting, and that the NHL itself is seeing a significant decline in on-ice fisticuffs. I was hopeful that evangelicalism could evolve in a similar direction, perhaps as its institutions and networks cultivate a new generation of leaders that were more “skilled” than the “enforcers” who sometimes draw the most attention.

Here at Patheos, D.G. Hart thought that I should “consider that the kinder, gentler version of evangelicalism [Gehrz] favors was precisely what George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism was supposed to provide. Look how that turned out.” By contrast, he extended the hockey analogy to fold in the story of an NHL enforcer named John Scott, who was elected to the NHL All-Star Game the same year that evangelicals helped send Donald Trump to the White House.

I’m sure Hart will be unsurprised to learn that an evangelical as milquetoast as me would happily exchange the current administration for that of either Bush. But then I’m also a Christian who doesn’t dismiss civility and decency as “secondary values.”

(Have I mentioned that my favorite thing about the NHL is that it gives out a trophy called the Lady Byng, “to the player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability”? Yeah, I’m that kind of evangelical/hockey fan.)

For my part, I was unsurprised to hear from readers who thought that a less-combative evangelicalism was no evangelicalism at all. Following my logic, suggested a commenter, would just take evangelicals down the slippery slope to mainline Protestantism. He proposed a different sports analogy:

Evangelical institutions would be better advised to follow the example of John Wooden, the “Wizard of Westwood.” He recruited talented players who were willing to work hard each practice to learn the fundamentals of the game, including how to play tough defense.

Wooden, incidentally, was a devout Christian who didn’t comfortably fit conservative or liberal religious categories – Wikimedia

I doubt Wooden would think much of that analogy. “Fight” might have been one of the character traits that held together his vaunted “Pyramid of Success,” but defined as “determined effort,” not combativeness. And the rest of his pyramid emphasized traits like self-control, poise, moderation, and cooperation — plus the open-mindedness, adaptability, and resourcefulness that I hoped would characterize a new generation of less “physical” evangelical leaders.

Still, I think the commenter’s argument is revealing. In my original post, I suggested that the evangelical analogies to hockey fights were “culture-warring” and “heresy-hunting” — a willingness, even eagerness, to take up cudgels against the twin dangers of worldliness and heterodoxy. Fights, my commenter would argue, that the mainline has long since conceded. Indeed, there’s a case to be made that evangelicalism is best defined by such anxieties, to the point of evangelicals being susceptible to a kind of persecution complex.

(Another commenter argued that evangelicals’ “‘theological hockey fights’ provide the urgency and black-or-white worldview in which their fear-based making of disciples is able to thrive. So, the ‘goon squad’ of the Falwells and Franklin Graham and others aren’t going away anytime soon. And sending them to the penalty box for a time only feeds their persecution/martyr complex.”)

But I’m not willing to accept that playing “tough defense” against such dangers requires evangelicals to use the culture war “playbook” that John Fea convincingly links to their appalling support for America’s current “goon”-in-chief, nor that they need to stand armed guard over higher and higher walls defining what counts as right belief (as Owen Strachan, Al Mohler, and other conservatives in the Southern Baptist Convention have been doing in response to Beth Moore).

Instead, I remained convinced that evangelicalism is most Christ-like when it embraces meekness and humility, not when it strives for the power of caesars or pharisees. It is most Spirit-filled when it is loving, peaceful, patient, kind, gentle, and self-controlled, not angry, quarrelsome, and strife-ridden.

Evangelicalism is most evangel-ical when it is most irenic. (“Evangelicals had core convictions,” wrote Fea over the weekend of his professors at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, “but what made them evangelicals was their irenic spirit and acceptance of those with whom they differed.”) If I didn’t think an irenic evangelicalism possible, I wouldn’t be an evangelical.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that what keeps me an evangelical also makes me an ineffective observer of evangelicalism. I might be blind to truths about evangelicalism in general because my particular experience of it comes by way of the Evangelical Covenant Church and Bethel University, which happen to be the two evangelical institutions most deeply shaped by the “irenic spirit” of Pietism.

Maybe a fighting-averse Pietist simply isn’t much of an evangelical.

But if that’s true, then Carl H. Lundquist wasn’t much of an evangelical. And that would mean you’d have to believe that a Baptist pastor who participated in global evangelism efforts and served as president of an evangelical college and seminary, the Christian College Consortium, and the National Association of Evangelicals itself wasn’t much of an evangelical.

On the contrary, Lundquist serves as a historical prototype for the kind of irenicism that I hope will mark the future of evangelicalism, if not its past or present.

Carl Lundquist with Bethel College (MN) students early in his tenure as president (1954-1982) – Bethel Digital Library

Lundquist’s own definition of “evangelical” was rather conventional: “…someone who has heard the good news, Christ died, was buried and rose again for his sins, has accepted by personal faith that good news, and received Christ as his Savior, and now is actively sharing that good news with someone else… I’ve heard of the saving death of Christ on the cross, I’ve responded to it in personal faith, and now I’m sharing it actively with others. That is an evangelical” (from a 1980 sermon). And if it seems like biblicism is missing from that otherwise Bebbingtonian definition, consider one of Lundquist’s first chapel talks as president of Bethel College and Seminary (ca. 1954-55), on the Bible as God’s revelation to humanity:

Some of that which our world proudly calls tolerance actually may be indifference. That is no virtue. The scriptures indicate that Paul was a man of wide appreciations as any educated Christian ought to be. College training should deepen our appreciation of the peoples of the earth and their ways of religious life. But that education ought not to dull our own sense of convictions. If it substitutes any other point of view for the gospel revealed in the Bible then we are the poorer indeed.

In short, Lundquist found nothing admirable about “having an open mind toward that which God has closed.”

However, he also warned against evangelicals becoming “intolerant bigots who can see no further than the circle of our own experience…. There is no virtue in being orthodox simply because we know no other point of view.” So even as he regularly exhorted Bethel students to remain theologically conservative and set apart by personal holiness, he also told them not to “be afraid of facing new ideas and new challenges to our thinking” — even if those ideas and challenges came from the other side of a cultural divide.

Fifteen years later, in the middle of the Vietnam War, Lundquist tried to convince fellow conservatives to listen carefully to the anti-war youth movement, which he thought could reawaken Christians to

the insistence that every human being is a person of importance and worth, that material security ought not have the highest priority in life, that love ought to characterize all of our interpersonal relationships, that right ideals are worth suffering for, that honesty should characterize our actions, that unconventional methods may open exciting new doors into the future, and that whatever ought to be done ought to be done now.

Local fundamentalists would soon accuse Bethel’s president of being soft on Communism, as they had when he invited Martin Luther King, Jr. to campus a decade before. But for the sake of evangelizing a new generation and reviving the church, Lundquist warned that “[t]his is no time to deplore the new American revolution. This is a time to identify with its valid emphases and to witness about the greatest revolutionist of all—Jesus Christ.”

Lundquist, with his wife Nancy, arriving for work later in his time at Bethel – Bethel Digital Library

Lundquist often spoke of Bethel training a “task force” for the “penetration of society”… which admittedly does make it sound like he hoped to graduate the culture war equivalent of the Navy Seals or Dirty Dozen. But what he actually meant was that Bethel existed to prepare new generations of evangelicals who would seek both God’s glory and their neighbors’ good. He wanted students to come to “a pained awareness of a world in which more than one-half of the people can neither read nor write, in which half of the people go to bed hungry every night, and in which one-third of the people are sick and without medical aid” and then to “seek vocations which will involve significant human relationships in order that their influence for Christ may have maximum impact.”

Perhaps Lundquist’s most enduring statement was his 1965 denominational report, “The Christian Idea of Bethel.” Among other things, Lundquist’s ideal for Bethel was “Conservative in Theology,” convinced by the authority of Scripture of the Virgin Birth and Christ’s literal Resurrection. But like most Pietists, he was wary of right belief devolving into an “encrusted orthodoxy which is deadening and impotent in our world.” Christian knowledge was most meaningful not as a means of demarcating the faithful from the faithless, but as an offering “laid at the feet of the Saviour as an act of devotion and love and applied meaningfully to the purposes of God in His world according to the teaching of His Word.”

Moreover, Bethel was “Irenic in Spirit,” living peaceably across theological and other differences. For Lundquist, whose evangelicalism was a big tent, such irenicism had implications for how evangelicals related to each other. For example, in the same year he issued his “What is Bethel?” report, Lundquist argued successfully against Harold Lindsell’s attempt to add inerrancy language to the affirmation of faith signed by Bethel faculty. He persuaded pastors in the school’s denomination that the language that already existed was sufficient to allow for both faithful consensus and healthy diversity.

Portrait painted late in Lundquist’s life; it hangs outside the seminary library that bears his name – Bethel Digital Library

Lundquist also urged that a peaceable spirit prevail as evangelicals encountered religious others. “Offering ready acceptance to others in our pluralistic religious culture while maintaining a warm evangelistic concern for them has not always been an easy effort for evangelicals to exert,” Lundquist acknowledged. “Yet it is the ability to accept another person as he is that alone makes possible continued personal relationships and the opportunity for the impact of a committed life to be felt.”

I never met Carl Lundquist, who died during the presidency of George H.W. Bush. But having spent much of the last fifteen years studying him, I think he’d have gladly acknowledged that his version of evangelicalism was “kinder and gentler”: theologically conservative but irenic in spirit, offering both ready acceptance and warm evangelistic concern to a world that was to be loved and healed, not feared and battled. I see no reason why that can’t remain a prototype for evangelicals during the presidency of Donald Trump.

Previous Post

June 3, 2019

Memories of "Eastern Europe"

Next Post

June 5, 2019 God's Internationalists: An Interview with David King about the History of World Vision

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abolitionism Abortion Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Kuyper Abraham Lincoln Academia Activism Adam Renberg Advent Adventist africa African American Religion Agnes Howard Albert Camus American History American Religious History American Revolution American West Anabaptists Ancient History Andrea Turpin Andrei Tarkovsky Anglicanism Annales Ansley Lillian Quiros anti-Catholicism Antisemitism Anxious Bench apologetics Apparitions Arash Azizi Archaeology archives art Artificial Intelligence Asia Asian Americans Augustine Authors Bad Bunny Baptism Baptists Barack Obama Battle of Hastings Benjamin Franklin Bernard-Henri Levy Beth Allison Barr Beth Moore Bethany Mannon Bible Bill Cunningham Billy Graham Black Music Bob Dylan Body Boenhoffer Books Breastfeeding Bruce Springsteen C.S. Lewis Calvinism Cancel Culture Capitalism Carmelites Catholicism Cedric Robinson Cesar Chavez Charismaticism charity Charles Dickens Charles Lindbergh Che Guevara Chicago Children Chinese Christianity Chris Gehrz Christ Christian death Christian Higher Education Christian life Christian Nation Christian Nationalism Christianity Today Christmas Church life Church Practice cinema Civil Religion Civil Rights Movement Civil War civility Classics Climate Change Cold War Colonial Mexico colonialism Comer Communism community complementarianism Conference on Faith and History Congregationalism Conspiracies Conspiracy Conversion Narratives Coronavirus Costa Rica Council of Nicaea Covid-19 Creation Critical Race Theory Crusades Culture culture wars Daniel K. Williams David Barton David Swartz Death Ways death with dignity DEI democracy Democratic Party Devotion Digital Age Diplomacy discipleship diversity Donald Trump Drama Dua Lipa Early Church early modern Early modern Catholicism Easter Eastern Christianity economic exploitation Education elections Elie Wiesel Elizabeth II Elizabeth Taylor emotions Empire Engineering England enslavement Entertainment Episcopal Church Erica Ramirez eschatology Eurocentrism Evangelicalism Evangelicals Exegesis Family Feminism Film Flannery O'Connor folk music Food Foreign Policy founding fathers Franciscans Franciscus Junius fundamentalism Funerals G.K. Chesterton Gender Genocide genre geography George W. Bush George Washington George Whitefield Global Christianity Global church Grief Guadalupe Guest Post guest post gun control gun violence Gustavo Gutierrez Hamid Dabashi Harold John Ockenga Harvest Hate Hawaiian Christianity Healing health care Heather Cox Richardson Hell Heresy Hermeneutics Higher Education Hinduism Hippocratic oath Historical Fiction Historical Methodology Historical Profession Historical Profession Historical Theology Historical Thinking historiography Holidays Holocaust horror movies Human rights Humanitarian Work humanities Hummingbirds Hungary hymns Imago Dei Immigration Injustice Interviews Iran Islam Islamophobia Israel Ivan's Childhood Jacob Randolph James Bratt Janine Giordano Drake Japanese history Japanese Literature Jean Paul Sartre Jesse Miranda Jesus Jesus Christ Jimmy Carter Joan Baez Joan Didion Joanne Freeman João B. Chaves Joao Chaves Joey Cochran John Calvin John Fea John Tillotson John Turner Johnny Cash Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Tran Joseph Smith Josh Howerton Journalism Jr. Judaism Jürgen Moltmann Just War Justice Justin Brierley Karl Barth Katelyn Beaty koi ponds Kris Kristofferson Kristin Kobes Du Mez Latin American Religious History Latino Americans Lectio Divina Leisure Lent Leonard Cohen liberal arts liberalism Liberation Theology Linda Ronstadt Lisa Clark Diller Literature Lou Reed Lynchings Lynneth Miller Renberg Mainline Protestantism Malcolm Foley Marilyn Monroe Maritime history Mark Noll Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masih Alinejad mass shootings material culture medieval Christianity Medieval Ethiopia Melissa Borja memory Mennonites Mental Health Mental Illness Methodism Mexican Americans Mexicans Mike Madrid Miles Mullin Min Jin Lee Miscarriage Missionaries Mister Rogers Mitt Romney modernity Monasticism Mormonism Motherhood Mothers of the Church Moving Music Musicals Nadya Williams Nahua Christianity Native Americans Natsume Sōseki New Contributor New England New Year New York Nico Non-Violent Protest Orthodoxy pacifism Paleo Evangelicals Palestinians Parenting Patti Smith Paul Kingsnorth Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pentecostalism Philip Jenkins Phillis Wheatley physician-assisted suicide pilgrimage Pilgrims pluralism Plutocracy Poetry Politics Pope Francis Pope Leo XIV post-modernism prayer preaching Presbyterians prosperity gospel Protest Public history Publishing Puritans purity culture Quakers race Race Massacres Racial Capitalism racial reconciliation racialization Racism Raha Bahloulipour Re-Enchantment reading Reformation Refugees religion and the university religion and war Religious Freedom Religious Nones Religious Pluralism Religious Symbols religious violence Republican Party Revival Rita Coolidge Ritual Roger Williams Roman Catholic church Royalty Russell Moore same-sex marriage Sarah Irving-Stonebraker Scandinavia Science Science and Technology Scopes trial Scriptural Interpretation secularism Selena Quintanilla seminary Seventh-Day Adventists sexual morality Sexuality Sikhs Silence slaveholders theology Slavery Slavoj Zizek social justice Social Media Southern Baptist Convention Southern Religion Spain Spiritual Autobiography Spiritual but not religious Spiritual Discipline Sports Stanley Hauerwas Suffering Summer Camps Sunday Night Odds and Ends Supernatural Supreme Court Syriac Christianity Tal Howard Taylor Swift Teaching Technology Television Thanksgiving The Beatles The Mission theater TheoBros Theology Thomas Dixon Thomas Jefferson Thomas Kidd Thomas Merton Tim Gloege Tim Walz Tom Holland Tourism tradition Tragedy Translation Transnationalism Travel Trump Ukraine Uncategorized Unitarians United Methodist Church US History Vanessa Chan Velvet Underground Verónica A. Gutiérrez Veronica Gutierrez Vikings Violence Virgin Mary Virtue Virtue ethics Visions Voting War WCTU Wendell Berry Westminster Assembly White Evangelicalism Wildfires Winnie the Pooh Witches women Women in Ministry Women's and Gender Studies Work Worship writing Yasunari Kawabata Zena Hitz

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which New Testament city was known for worshipping Artemis?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Athens Corinth Ephesus Rome