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Evangelical
Is there one evangelicalism?

Is there one evangelicalism?

Last updated on: August 18, 2011 at 7:32 pm by Roger E. Olson

Is there one evangelicalism? 2011-08-18T19:32:18-05:00 Roger E. Olson

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Recently I heard that author Anne Rice is “quitting Christianity.” According to reports I have heard and read, she believes the term “Christian” is too fraught with connotations of extreme right-wing politics. She prefers simply to be called a “Jesus-follower.”

I don’t have that problem with the label “Christian.” I don’t give up on good labels easily; I prefer to try to invest them with positive meaning rather than simply discard them because of misconceptions in the popular mind.

Many of my friends, students and acquaintances have already given up on “evangelical.” I can somewhat better understand that. What they have trouble understanding is why I don’t give up on it with them. They say it is simply too late to rescue the label from the popular associations with the Religious Right.

I can’t do it. I’ve been an evangelical all my life and I can’t think of any better label to describe my particular “brand” of Christianity. I do grieve, however, over the many misconceptions of it spread by the media. Occasionally I see a “spokesman” for evangelicals on a talk show like Larry King. Often the person does not speak for me at all.

Just to illustrate the problem: Some years ago I was listening to a broadcast on National Public Radio about two demonstrations taking place simultaneously in Washington, D.C. One was led by Jerry Falwell and the other by Jim Wallis of Sojourners. The reporter asked Falwell for a comment about Jim Wallis. Here’s what I recall Falwell saying (and I’m confident I remember it well because I felt he would say the same about me!): “Jim Wallis is to evangelicalism what Hitler was to Roman Catholicism.”

When I was growing up in the thick of the evangelical movement and even when I was in seminary in the 1970s Jerry Falwell was widely considered by most evangelicals a fundamentalist. At that time there was a huge rift between us who the fundamentalists called “neo-evangelicals” and them. Mainstream evangelicals did not consider Falwell or his like part of “us” even though, theologically (in terms of basic beliefs) we shared much common ground.

The issues, so I was taught in a mainstream evangelical seminary (point of trivia: James Montgomery Boice was one of my professors), were extreme biblical literalism (e.g., young earth creationism), extreme preoccuption with the “rapture” (to the point of believing those who did not agree were not evangelicals and possibly not even Christians!), and “biblical separation” (opposing even Billy Graham because he allowed Catholics and mainline Protestants to cooperate with his crusades). Associated with all that was a split between fundamentalists and mainstream evangelicals (who they called neo-evangelicals) over the status of doctrines. We thought they elevated secondary matters of belief such as premillennialism to the status of dogmas and they thought we were weak on doctrine because we didn’t insist that one be a premillennialist to be authentically evangelical.

The general attitude of most post-fundamentalist evangelicals throughout the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and much of the 1980s was “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity” (a motto touted by the National Association of Evangelicals).

Then something changed. I experienced it first hand. While I was in seminary Harold Lindsell’s horrible book The Battle for the Bible fell like a bombshell on American evangelicalism. The editor of Christianity Today declared quite unequivocally that a person could not be authentically evangelical while rejecting biblical inerrancy (as he defined it). He named names and implied that evangelical institutions should purge themselves of non-inerrantists.

My seminary never had a doctrinal statement that included inerracy. Neither did or does the National Association of Evangelicals. We were satisfied with “inspiration” and “authority.” But Lindsell scared the grassroots of evangelicals and opened the door to an influx of fundamentalists who now wanted to be called “evangelical.” (Sometime during the 1980s Jerry Falwell, among other self-proclaimed fundamentalists, began to call himself an evangelical and somehow managed to get the media to regard his as a leading spokesman for evangelicals.)

Gradually a heresy-hunting mentality grew within evangelical ranks. My seminary, under pressure from pastors, required all faculty to sign an inerrancy statement or leave. I saw professors who had openly criticized belief in biblical inerrancy meekly sign the statement. One courageous one did not and left.

Over the years since 1976 (the year The Battle for the Bible was published) I have seen my evangelical world rocked by controversy after controversy–often over relatively minor points of doctrine. Of course, the issue became “What is a relatively minor point of doctrine?” Gradually what would have been considered minor differences of opinion have become issues of division. Professors at evangelical schools have been fired for having opinions that would have caused raised eyebrows but not expulsion before 1976.

A rigid, dogmatic, intolerant attitude toward diversity of opinion and interpretation has set into many sectors of the evangelical movement. It is an attitude reminiscent of old-style fundamentalism. I have seen my evangelicalism gradually taken over by people who would have been considered fundamenatalists when I was in seminary.

This change came to a crisis for me when I was teaching at a well-known evangelical liberal arts college and seminary in the 1980s and 1990s. Certain constituents began to pressure the school to teach against women in ministry (a point about which that particular school and denomination had never taken a position) and against open theism (an admittedly unusual view of God’s foreknowledge but not ruled out by the statement of faith).

The turning point for me was a heresy trial (called by the administration a “Day of Theological Clarification”) over one of my colleagues who was open about his open theism. What especially troubled me was that all of the crucial theological arguments being used by constituent pastors against open theism would, if valid, work just as much against classical Arminianism. Nobody seemed to be noticing that except me. One pastor leading the charge against my colleague told me he would get me fired for not standing with him against my colleague.

It’s one thing to have a civil debate about a theological issue; I’m not against that. But, in my opinion, there was nothing civil about this crusade to purge the institution (and then all evangelicalism) of open theists. Many of those raising their voices against my colleague and against open theism knew little about it. And in some cases the tactics were ethically questionable.

(One pastor asked me to have lunch with him “just to find out what made me tick.” He assured me that it was not an inquisition. But the whole conversation revolved around open theism. At the end of our two hour conversation he said “Roger, what may I tell the pastors who know we had lunch today about your position on open theism.” It was clearly what is colloquially called an attempted “sucker punch.” This same pastor went around calling open theism “Socinianism” as if open theists denied the deity of Christ or the Trinity!)

These were attitudes and approaches to theological issues that resonated more with fundamentalism than with classical, mainstream evangelicalism. I saw my days numbered in that beloved school, not because I was an open theists (I was not and am not) but because I didn’t consider it a heresy and I didn’t “side with” the right people.

This was not just an isolated incident. Across the board among evangelicals a spirit of fear settled in: fear of heresy lurking behind every bush OR fear of heresy hunters who were out in the open seeking heresies where nobody had yet found them.

Most of those leading the charge against open theism were Calvinists and I detected in their rhetoric a decidedly anti-Arminian thrust. As one leading Calvinist opponent of open theism said publicly about Arminians “They are all headed there.” I came to believe it would soon no longer be safe to be publicly Arminian in that environment. (That school and the denomination that controls it has a history of allowing both Calvinists and Arminians without discrimination in its ranks.)

My heart has grieved over what has happened to the evangelical movement. On the one side one finds popularizers peddling a “gospel” of health and wealth through positive thinking. On the other side one finds fundamentalists trying to exclude as non-evangelical everyone who doesn’t think just like them. The middle (which I think of as the historical evangelical position of tolerance of differences of opinion within a general embrace of historic Christian orthodoxy) is hard to inhabit. People there get shot at from both sides.

It seems to me that PERHAPS what held the post-WW2, post-fundamentalist evangelical movement together were two powerful forces: the NAE (founded in 1942 to be inclusive of many different “styles” of being evangelical) and the huge organizational influence of Billy Graham (who was disliked by fundamentalists for his inclusiveness). Now, both are waning in influence. How many contemporary evangelicals listen to the NAE? Many know little about Billy Graham and his influence is minimal (although he is still considered an icon).

In the absence of any central, unifying force(s) evangelicalism is simply fragmenting. So, these days, when asked if I’m an evangelical my answer takes a long time. Most people aren’t willing to listen that long. My answer is “Yes, but….” When asked about my evangelical heroes I have to draw mainly on people of the past: in theology Bernard Ramm, in politics Mark Hatfield, in biblical studies George Eldon Ladd. It’s not that I haven’t kept up; I certainly try to. But where are the giants of evangelical life and thought like those men who, during their lifetimes, influenced two or three generations of evangelicals?

So, I can longer call myself simply “evangelical,” but neither can I give up on the term. So I have to say I’m a “postconservative evangelical” and beg people to listen for just a little while as I explain. I’ve published two entire books and many articles about what I mean. Later, here, I will post more about “postconservative evangelicalism.”

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