The first two installments of this book idea, A Great Time for the Wesleyan-Evangelical Tradition, were:
1.1 Changes Afoot
1.2 Identifying Wesleyan-Evangelicalism
1.3 Surfing the Waves
With the exception of the "new perspectives" on Judaism and Paul, the other three developments we mentioned at the beginning of the chapter seem to be riding a similar wave of contemporary culture. Theological interpretation, the missional emphasis, and the ancient-future trend all relate in one way or another to the unraveling of modernism that has taken place over the last few decades. As we already warned, it is questionable to characterize an age by a set of ideas. At a particular point in time we have at best a group of people who profess certain ideas, and often it is not ideas that most characterize an age. Ideas are often epiphenomenon, symptoms of more underlying, concrete factors. We should thus sit very loosely to those who reduce a period to a label like "modernism" or "postmodernism" with some simple list of ideological characteristics.
Nevertheless, the three trends we have just mentioned fit certain cultural shifts that seem to have taken place in recent years, shifts in the ideas that people profess. Prior to these last decades, those individuals in power within Protestantism and evangelicalism had argued or assumed that the meaning of Scripture in which we should most be interested is something called the "literal" or "plain" meaning of the words. Indeed, one of the founding emphases of early Protestantism was an aversion to the non-literal interpretations of the Middle Ages and early church, principally, allegorical interpretation.
Also in keeping with some of the fundamental dynamics of the Protestant Reformation, Protestants and evangelicals tended to have little interest in the period between the New Testament church and the 1500's. The very origins of the Reformation entailed a reaction to developments that had taken place after the New Testament. The assumption of all Protestants was that developments needed to be peeled off. The only question was how many. Anglicanism peeled off the least. The Anabaptists and the Radical Reformation peeeled off the most.
What happened to mainstream Protestantism in the late 1800's and early 1900's is well known, namely, the rise of theological liberalism. Here we refer to a dominant group of Protestant scholars who did not believe in miracles or the authority of the biblical texts. They read the books of the Bible as they would have read and analyzed any other collection of texts and derived their meanings entirely in the light of what they knew from the history and literature of the time when these books were written.
To some extent, the shifts that we see happening at the turn of the twenty-first century, including the so called new perspectives, are caused in part by some of the same forces that initially drove theological liberalism. The difference is that, in the case of evangelicalism, the drive to read the biblical texts in their historical and literary context has come from the presumption of traditional faith, while nineteenth century liberalism did not. It has been as evangelicals have pursued the original meaning of Scripture that they have found themselves confronted with the same phenomenon that Lessing proclaimed in his categories the "ugly ditch" between the Bible and theology. [1] The rise of theological interpretation, with its greater openness to figural readings of the text, relates to the perceived distance of the original meaning from the very purposes of Scripture as a word from God for today.
At the same time, philosophy in the twentieth century was heavily preoccupied with language and meaning. The idea that words point to fixed meanings, for example, was undermined by Ludwig Wittengenstein, who argued that meaning was a function of the way words were used not a matter of set meanings to which words refer. [2] J. L. Austin and others then extended his insight to show that words "do" things, indeed far more than simply "declare" meanings. [3] Meanwhile, Ferdinand de Saussure argued that the relationship between the symbols or signifiers of words and the meaning they signify is almost completely arbitrary. [4]
The long and short was a general tendency in the late twentieth century by a number of thinkers to argue that texts did not have fixed or stable meanings. [5] So as the drive of evangelical scholarship to read the books of the Bible in context was distancing the meaning of the text from today, developments in hermeneutics questioned even what a literal reading of the text might be. Indeed, some hermeuticians suggest today that almost all meaning is ultimately metaphorical. [6] This climate once again has loosened the Protestant sense that a text has only one meaning, and that the one meaning is inextricably bound to the original meaning.
François Lyotard described postmodernism as an "incredulity toward metanarratives." [7] What he referred to thereby was a rising number of thinkers who found it difficult to accept overarching philosophical frameworks that claimed to encompass the whole of reality. Nicholas Wolterstorff and James K. A. Smith have ably shown that the rejection of rationally based ideological superstructures need not signal the death of faith-based ideological structures. [8] As for our part, we need not buy into any of these thinkers lock stock and barrel to recognize that the wave they are riding has at least some substance to it.
For one thing, the flattening of the globe has put us into unprecedented contact with others who think and behave differently from us. [9] The age where a group can isolate itself from the ideas of the rest of the world is, for the most part, done. The relativist and pluralistic tendencies of late modernism were not simply the deterioration of faith as part of some demonic conspiracy theory. They were one predictable response to a world where we are thrust into contact with the other.
Similarly, the work of thinkers like Thomas Kuhn and Michel Foucault have accounted too well for historical changes in scientific paradigm and social paradigm too well at certain points for us to chalk all their ideas up to Satanic influence. [10] To be sure, we do not have to accept every aspect of their thought to agree that interpretive groups have paradigms with which they approach the biblical text and that those in power tend to decide which paradigms are correct. We cannot absolutize their ideas and have this discussion, but we can recognize that there is at least some substance to the wave of culture they represent.
The result is to recognize that the fundamental principles of Protestantism, as well as those of twentieth century evangelicalism, are deeply ensconced in cultural paradigms just as any other set of ideas. That is not to negate entirely their truth value. It is merely to point out that they are as human as they are truthful, and they are subject to critique. Thus one of the ironic twists of the "evangelical" (or perhaps better, "fundamentalist") response to elements of the new perspectives on Judaism and Paul has been a tendency to treat particular Protestant traditions--Calvinism in particular--as absolute paradigms. N. T. Wright, for example, has critiqued John Piper's reaction to his ideas as an ironic placing of tradition over Scripture. [11]
Postmodernism has thus brought an appropriate humility with regard to overarching ideological systems. In consequence, we have seen a revival of interest in symbols and sacraments, in mystery--thus the ancient-future movement. We find a reappraisal of the importance of "works" in the Christian life, which fits not only with the new perspectives on the biblical world, but also with a missional Christianity that is interested in the whole person and the whole world.
These are some of the developments that make the beginning of the twenty-first century potentially a great time for the Wesleyan tradition. We are a tradition that has always taken the deeds of the body as seriously--if not more seriously--than the thoughts of the mind. Suddenly we find original meaning scholarship telling us that whether we are Pelagian or not is a question of later Christian tradition. We had correctly apprehended a key element of Paul's thought.
And as a tradition that has always been more open to Spirit-led interpretation and typology, we suddenly find ourselves not the ugly step-child of the evangelical tradition, but a group that intuitively practiced what is only now becoming philosophically acceptable in theological interpretation. And our sense that experience is as key to Christian life as reason makes us easily appreciate the revival of interest in the symbolic and sacramental dimensions of the ancient church.
We never went to the ideological excesses of certain other evangelical traditions. The missional focus on the whole person, social and economic in addition to spiritual, is nothing but a cultural affirmation of who we have been even when it was not evangelically popular. In short, it is a great time to be in the Wesleyan evangelical tradition. It is a day when, ironically, we are well situated, for perhaps the first time, to lead evangelicalism with our ideas and not simply with our piety.
[1] Lessing
[2] Philosophical Investigations.
[3] How to Do Things with Words. Searle, speech act theory...
[4] Structure of Linguistics.
[5] The more extreme form of this trajectory was of course Jacques Derrida and deconstruction.
[6] Lakoff and Johnson.
[7] Lyotard
[8] W *, and S, Radical Orthodoxy
[9] A phenomenon aptly caught in the title of the book The World is Flat.
[10] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and, for example, The Order of Things.
[11] Justification
Showing posts with label GTWT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GTWT. Show all posts
Monday, March 09, 2009
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Great Time for Wesleyan Tradition 2
Unless and until this series of thoughts might become something different, I thought I might continue to piddle with the initial idea. The first installment was here.
1.2 Identifying Wesleyan Evangelicalism
A movement is never really a set of ideas. At best, it may be a collection of people professing certain ideas. On the other hand, many movements are not best defined by their ideas at all. They might be better defined by their practices or some other defining feature.
Similarly, reaching back into the history of a movement often provides perspective, but it may or may not actually tell you anything definitive about the current identity of the movement. If a group continues to self-identify with those who came before, it is reasonable to think some significant degree of continuity exists. But ultimately, the identity of a movement is a function of the collective identity of its members at a given point in time.
The first question we must ask, therefore, when we seek to define "Wesleyan evangelicalism" is to identify which individuals in particular we have in mind. The adjective Wesleyan implies some connection with the Methodist tradition started in the 1700's by John Wesley. This would potentially include not only the United Methodist Church but also smaller groups that started in the late 1800's and early 1900's, groups such as Nazarenes, Free Methodists, and Wesleyans.
The term evangelicalism points to a certain subset of this group of "Wesleyans" and is significantly more difficult to define. For one thing, the Wesleyan tradition in general has always sat somewhat more loosely to this label than certain other groups. The well known series, The History of Evangelicalism, would identify the English speaking evangelical tradition most closely with English speaking Calvinism, with Wesleyan movements somewhat more tangential. [1]
It was in fact the work of Donald Dayton in the late 1980's more than anything that won Wesleyans a place at the evangelical table, if they wanted one. His book, Discovering and Evangelical Heritage, pointed out that the Wesleyan tradition, particularly in its non-United Methodist forms, might easily fit the core characteristics of what an evangelical is. [2] The types of characteristics he had in mind were not dissimilar from those later set out by Mark Noll in the series mentioned above, namely, 1) conversion, 2) the Bible, 3) missionary activity, and 4) centrality of cross in atonement. [3]
In the second half of the twentieth century, the term evangelical largely related to a movement known as neo-evangelicalism that started in the late 1940's and was associated with names like Billy Graham, Charles Fuller, and Harold Ockenga. Once again, while thinkers of the Wesleyan tradition participated in this movement, the key members of the movement have generally come from the Calvinist tradition. Wesleyans founded the Wesleyan Theological Society in the 1960's seeking an outlet for their interests, an outlet that the Evangelical Theological Society did not so much afford at the time. It seems safe enough to say that the sociological and ideological relationship between the Wesleyan tradition and American evangelicalism has not always been clear, either from the standpoint of Wesleyans themselves or of those whose evangelical credentials have never been questioned.
A second issue that comes into play here is the relationship between the Wesleyan tradition of which we speak and fundamentalism. George Marsden and Mark Noll in particular have tended to identify fundamentalists as "revivalists, Pentecostals, and dispensationalists." [4] In his book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Noll depicts fundamentalists as conservative groups who chose to retreat from the intellectual debates of their age rather than engage them as his ideal evangelicals of an earlier age had. [5]
This seems a possible illustration of Foucaultian analysis on Noll's part. For one, he sets his standard with the great Puritan Calvinists of the 1600's, with those that follow measured against them. This valuation is interesting for it sets the standard for ideal evangelicalism within Noll's own tradition. Secondly, in the twentieth century, his own Reformed tradition not surprisingly comes out the least in deviation from the ideal.
Then in what seems an amazing slight of hand, those who most engaged modernism head on--individuals like J. Gresham Machen--turn out not to fit within his definition of fundamentalism at all. Fundamentalism, a term that originally seems to have been used by those directly engaging modernism, comes to be used of groups that largely retreated from such engagement. Meanwhile, those who most directly engaged modernism turn out to be those in the age who most retained the spirit of earlier evangelicalism!
In the end, what is important for defining "Wesleyan evangelicals" today is not so much the particulars of who was or was not a fundamentalist in the early and mid-twentieth century. What is important is to correctly recognize contemporary paradigms and to gain any relevant insights we might from the crucibles in which they were forged.
Thus we might speak of two distinct paradigms in play in the forebears of the Wesleyan evangelicals of which we speak. The one are those intellectual leaders such as those who founded the Wesleyan Theological Society and who taught at educational institutions in this basic tradition. They tended to identify paradigmatically with the broader currents of neo-evangelicalism, particularly when it comes to the nature of Scripture.
On the other hand, the Wesleyan tradition, particularly in its revivalist strands, has generally emphasized personal experience and piety above the cognitive domain. This fact remains a principal distinction between Wesleyan evangelicalism and the more dominant strands of evangelicalism. While those in the Wesleyan tradition who most engaged the ideas of modernism might be called anti-modern (which we think is a better way to define fundamentalism), the bulk of Wesleyans--those who more retreated--would be better called pre-modern.
The late Robert Webber did us a great service in his book The Young Evangelicals. [6] In this book he presents a more balanced sense of evangelicalism than Noll, particularly in the last part of the twentieth century. While Noll, in keeping with his own tradition, tends to focus on ideological elements as key criteria, Webber notes that late twentieth century evangelicalism was as much focused on church growth as on ideas. Indeed, some of what individuals like Greg Beale consider to be evangelical drift were enabled by an evangelicalism more preoccupied for decades with non-ideological matters than with the finer points of evangelical thinking. [7]
How then are we to define this group of which we speak, this group for which the currents at the dawn of the twenty-first century are a great boon? Perhaps we can slightly modify the four key criteria of Noll and Bebbington in the following way:
1. the centrality of Scripture
2. the necessity of personal faith within a community of faith
3. the importance of mission and transformation of the whole person and the whole world
4. the centrality of Christ as the only way to God
You can immediately see several key modifications I have made not only to give the criteria a Wesleyan flavor, but also to reflect important emphases of our day. For example, the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition has never been quite so adamant about penal substitution as the primary model of atonement. If broader evangelicalism insist that we have a rigid view here, then we are content to consider ourselves a slightly different entry in the dictionary.
Further, the Wesleyan tradition has always been interested in far more than narrow evangelism. The importance of santification to its furthest possible limits in this world has always been a key feature of our way of being in the world. Further, the best of the Wesleyan tradition has always been interested in far more than simply saving people's souls. It is no surprise that the Salvation Army sprang up from Wesleyan roots.
Third, it simply will not do to focus on some merely individual relationship with Jesus Christ. We recognize at the turn of the millennium that we are members of communities of faith. None of us have our faith in God on our own. Although a good deal of Wesleyan revivalist history has focused on individual experiences, we have in the fountainhead of our tradition, John Wesley, a reminder of the importance of accountability and growth in community.
So what do we mean in this book by "Wesleyan evangelicalism"? For one, we mean those descendants of John Wesley--United Methodist, Nazarene, Wesleyan, Free Methodist, and so forth--who work out their beliefs and practices on the playing field of Scripture. We mean those who, like their forebears, read that Scripture with the eyes of common orthodox faith and with the eyes of their Wesleyan-Arminian particulars.
These particulars include, not least, the belief that anyone can potentially be saved, and that God has made it possible for a person to break fellowship with Him after being in true fellowship with him. It thus includes the sense that how we live in this world has an impact on God's final verdict about us, even after we have enjoyed His gracious forgiveness. We affirm the best strand of our tradition and fully affirm women as co-participants in every aspect of the life of the church and home.
We continue to affirm the centrality of Christ for the reconciliation of humanity to God and as the central revelation of God to humanity, even more central than Scripture. We refuse to restrict atonement to one paradigm such as penal substitution, although we recognize that the notion of Christ becoming a curse for us is found in Scripture. But we would not impoverish atonement by lifting this image above other images such as Christ's victory over evil powers and Sin, Christ's restoration of the deep order of the cosmos, and Christ's example set for us.
We continue to affirm the need for an individual to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, a decision that those capable must make eventually on their own. But we believe this affirmation of faith must be placed within the context of a believing community, or else the plant is sure to wither quickly. Finally, it is perfectly in keeping with our Arminian roots that we strongly believe in the mission of the church to reach to the world. And it is in keeping with our Wesleyan roots that we see that mission in terms of whole people and whole communities, body and soul.
A key thing to realize about "Wesleyan evangelicalism" as we define it here is to recognize that it is not at all clear that the cognitive element is the dominant element in the identity equation. From a descriptive standpoint, the most important priority for the Wesleyan evangelical tradition has more been the necessity of personal faith resulting in a transformed life. We would affirm the primacy of Christ theologically, but since our tradition is not primarily oriented around ideas, the primacy of Christ can be seen more the way it impacts our living rather than our ideological rhetoric or formulations.
The role of Scripture in many Wesleyan evangelical communities has become somewhat ambiguous at the turn of the millennium. The church growth movement paid largely lip service to the Bible both in its preaching and emphasis, at the same time that it lifted evangelism--one aspect of the church's mission--to center stage. To be sure, the Bible has retained a primary role in the grass roots of the Wesleyan evangelical tradition, although largely still from within a pre-modern paradigm. The older anti-modern evangelical paradigm of Scripture, which the founders of the Wesleyan Theological Society held in common with broader evangelicalism, has remained a strong element in many educational institutions of the Wesleyan evangelical tradition.
[1] Volume 1: Mark Noll, The Rise of the Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004). Volume 2: David Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005); Volume 3: John Wolffe, The Expansion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Wilberforce, More, Chalmers, and Finney (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2007).
[2] Discovering
[3] page
[4] See n.* above.
[5] Scandal
[6] Young Evangelicals
[7] Inerrancy
1.3 Surfing the Waves
1.2 Identifying Wesleyan Evangelicalism
A movement is never really a set of ideas. At best, it may be a collection of people professing certain ideas. On the other hand, many movements are not best defined by their ideas at all. They might be better defined by their practices or some other defining feature.
Similarly, reaching back into the history of a movement often provides perspective, but it may or may not actually tell you anything definitive about the current identity of the movement. If a group continues to self-identify with those who came before, it is reasonable to think some significant degree of continuity exists. But ultimately, the identity of a movement is a function of the collective identity of its members at a given point in time.
The first question we must ask, therefore, when we seek to define "Wesleyan evangelicalism" is to identify which individuals in particular we have in mind. The adjective Wesleyan implies some connection with the Methodist tradition started in the 1700's by John Wesley. This would potentially include not only the United Methodist Church but also smaller groups that started in the late 1800's and early 1900's, groups such as Nazarenes, Free Methodists, and Wesleyans.
The term evangelicalism points to a certain subset of this group of "Wesleyans" and is significantly more difficult to define. For one thing, the Wesleyan tradition in general has always sat somewhat more loosely to this label than certain other groups. The well known series, The History of Evangelicalism, would identify the English speaking evangelical tradition most closely with English speaking Calvinism, with Wesleyan movements somewhat more tangential. [1]
It was in fact the work of Donald Dayton in the late 1980's more than anything that won Wesleyans a place at the evangelical table, if they wanted one. His book, Discovering and Evangelical Heritage, pointed out that the Wesleyan tradition, particularly in its non-United Methodist forms, might easily fit the core characteristics of what an evangelical is. [2] The types of characteristics he had in mind were not dissimilar from those later set out by Mark Noll in the series mentioned above, namely, 1) conversion, 2) the Bible, 3) missionary activity, and 4) centrality of cross in atonement. [3]
In the second half of the twentieth century, the term evangelical largely related to a movement known as neo-evangelicalism that started in the late 1940's and was associated with names like Billy Graham, Charles Fuller, and Harold Ockenga. Once again, while thinkers of the Wesleyan tradition participated in this movement, the key members of the movement have generally come from the Calvinist tradition. Wesleyans founded the Wesleyan Theological Society in the 1960's seeking an outlet for their interests, an outlet that the Evangelical Theological Society did not so much afford at the time. It seems safe enough to say that the sociological and ideological relationship between the Wesleyan tradition and American evangelicalism has not always been clear, either from the standpoint of Wesleyans themselves or of those whose evangelical credentials have never been questioned.
A second issue that comes into play here is the relationship between the Wesleyan tradition of which we speak and fundamentalism. George Marsden and Mark Noll in particular have tended to identify fundamentalists as "revivalists, Pentecostals, and dispensationalists." [4] In his book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Noll depicts fundamentalists as conservative groups who chose to retreat from the intellectual debates of their age rather than engage them as his ideal evangelicals of an earlier age had. [5]
This seems a possible illustration of Foucaultian analysis on Noll's part. For one, he sets his standard with the great Puritan Calvinists of the 1600's, with those that follow measured against them. This valuation is interesting for it sets the standard for ideal evangelicalism within Noll's own tradition. Secondly, in the twentieth century, his own Reformed tradition not surprisingly comes out the least in deviation from the ideal.
Then in what seems an amazing slight of hand, those who most engaged modernism head on--individuals like J. Gresham Machen--turn out not to fit within his definition of fundamentalism at all. Fundamentalism, a term that originally seems to have been used by those directly engaging modernism, comes to be used of groups that largely retreated from such engagement. Meanwhile, those who most directly engaged modernism turn out to be those in the age who most retained the spirit of earlier evangelicalism!
In the end, what is important for defining "Wesleyan evangelicals" today is not so much the particulars of who was or was not a fundamentalist in the early and mid-twentieth century. What is important is to correctly recognize contemporary paradigms and to gain any relevant insights we might from the crucibles in which they were forged.
Thus we might speak of two distinct paradigms in play in the forebears of the Wesleyan evangelicals of which we speak. The one are those intellectual leaders such as those who founded the Wesleyan Theological Society and who taught at educational institutions in this basic tradition. They tended to identify paradigmatically with the broader currents of neo-evangelicalism, particularly when it comes to the nature of Scripture.
On the other hand, the Wesleyan tradition, particularly in its revivalist strands, has generally emphasized personal experience and piety above the cognitive domain. This fact remains a principal distinction between Wesleyan evangelicalism and the more dominant strands of evangelicalism. While those in the Wesleyan tradition who most engaged the ideas of modernism might be called anti-modern (which we think is a better way to define fundamentalism), the bulk of Wesleyans--those who more retreated--would be better called pre-modern.
The late Robert Webber did us a great service in his book The Young Evangelicals. [6] In this book he presents a more balanced sense of evangelicalism than Noll, particularly in the last part of the twentieth century. While Noll, in keeping with his own tradition, tends to focus on ideological elements as key criteria, Webber notes that late twentieth century evangelicalism was as much focused on church growth as on ideas. Indeed, some of what individuals like Greg Beale consider to be evangelical drift were enabled by an evangelicalism more preoccupied for decades with non-ideological matters than with the finer points of evangelical thinking. [7]
How then are we to define this group of which we speak, this group for which the currents at the dawn of the twenty-first century are a great boon? Perhaps we can slightly modify the four key criteria of Noll and Bebbington in the following way:
1. the centrality of Scripture
2. the necessity of personal faith within a community of faith
3. the importance of mission and transformation of the whole person and the whole world
4. the centrality of Christ as the only way to God
You can immediately see several key modifications I have made not only to give the criteria a Wesleyan flavor, but also to reflect important emphases of our day. For example, the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition has never been quite so adamant about penal substitution as the primary model of atonement. If broader evangelicalism insist that we have a rigid view here, then we are content to consider ourselves a slightly different entry in the dictionary.
Further, the Wesleyan tradition has always been interested in far more than narrow evangelism. The importance of santification to its furthest possible limits in this world has always been a key feature of our way of being in the world. Further, the best of the Wesleyan tradition has always been interested in far more than simply saving people's souls. It is no surprise that the Salvation Army sprang up from Wesleyan roots.
Third, it simply will not do to focus on some merely individual relationship with Jesus Christ. We recognize at the turn of the millennium that we are members of communities of faith. None of us have our faith in God on our own. Although a good deal of Wesleyan revivalist history has focused on individual experiences, we have in the fountainhead of our tradition, John Wesley, a reminder of the importance of accountability and growth in community.
So what do we mean in this book by "Wesleyan evangelicalism"? For one, we mean those descendants of John Wesley--United Methodist, Nazarene, Wesleyan, Free Methodist, and so forth--who work out their beliefs and practices on the playing field of Scripture. We mean those who, like their forebears, read that Scripture with the eyes of common orthodox faith and with the eyes of their Wesleyan-Arminian particulars.
These particulars include, not least, the belief that anyone can potentially be saved, and that God has made it possible for a person to break fellowship with Him after being in true fellowship with him. It thus includes the sense that how we live in this world has an impact on God's final verdict about us, even after we have enjoyed His gracious forgiveness. We affirm the best strand of our tradition and fully affirm women as co-participants in every aspect of the life of the church and home.
We continue to affirm the centrality of Christ for the reconciliation of humanity to God and as the central revelation of God to humanity, even more central than Scripture. We refuse to restrict atonement to one paradigm such as penal substitution, although we recognize that the notion of Christ becoming a curse for us is found in Scripture. But we would not impoverish atonement by lifting this image above other images such as Christ's victory over evil powers and Sin, Christ's restoration of the deep order of the cosmos, and Christ's example set for us.
We continue to affirm the need for an individual to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, a decision that those capable must make eventually on their own. But we believe this affirmation of faith must be placed within the context of a believing community, or else the plant is sure to wither quickly. Finally, it is perfectly in keeping with our Arminian roots that we strongly believe in the mission of the church to reach to the world. And it is in keeping with our Wesleyan roots that we see that mission in terms of whole people and whole communities, body and soul.
A key thing to realize about "Wesleyan evangelicalism" as we define it here is to recognize that it is not at all clear that the cognitive element is the dominant element in the identity equation. From a descriptive standpoint, the most important priority for the Wesleyan evangelical tradition has more been the necessity of personal faith resulting in a transformed life. We would affirm the primacy of Christ theologically, but since our tradition is not primarily oriented around ideas, the primacy of Christ can be seen more the way it impacts our living rather than our ideological rhetoric or formulations.
The role of Scripture in many Wesleyan evangelical communities has become somewhat ambiguous at the turn of the millennium. The church growth movement paid largely lip service to the Bible both in its preaching and emphasis, at the same time that it lifted evangelism--one aspect of the church's mission--to center stage. To be sure, the Bible has retained a primary role in the grass roots of the Wesleyan evangelical tradition, although largely still from within a pre-modern paradigm. The older anti-modern evangelical paradigm of Scripture, which the founders of the Wesleyan Theological Society held in common with broader evangelicalism, has remained a strong element in many educational institutions of the Wesleyan evangelical tradition.
[1] Volume 1: Mark Noll, The Rise of the Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004). Volume 2: David Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005); Volume 3: John Wolffe, The Expansion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Wilberforce, More, Chalmers, and Finney (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2007).
[2] Discovering
[3] page
[4] See n.* above.
[5] Scandal
[6] Young Evangelicals
[7] Inerrancy
1.3 Surfing the Waves
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Great Time for Wesleyan Evangelical Tradition 1
I've blogged here several times before on what a good time it is in the flow of ideas for the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition. I've emailed several book outlines to my colleagues here at IWU of books we could write to that end (usually with the response, not another book outline!). We're on Spring Break as of today here at IWU. Have I accumulated enough thoughts to put these thoughts together?
________
A Great Time for the Wesleyan Evangelical Tradition
Chapter 1: Somethings in the Water
1.1 Changes Afoot
Segments of the evangelical church in America are majorly in defensive mode at the beginning of the twenty-first century. A number of developments in the biblical, theological, and philosophical world have brought some cherished Protestant traditions into question. Evangelical groups that once enjoyed pride of place within American, conservative Christendom have found themselves scrambling on the defensive.
However, not all Protestant evangelical traditions are equally threatened by some of the new ideological and social challenges in play. Indeed, unlike the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the early twentieth century, it seems impossible--at least if you are being honest--to paint the new challengers to the status quo in terms of "those without faith" versus "those with faith." One could hardly accuse N. T. Wright, for example, of not having faith--at least not with any degree of sanity. Nor is James K. A. Smith a force of unorthodoxy with which to reckon. And surely no one who actually knows Shaine Claiborne or Brian McLaren would accuse them of being faithless.
These are some of the new faces of evangelical Christianity, broadly defined. We should make it clear from the very start that they are each quite distinct new forces. I do not mention them together because they represent the same things, but because they represent some of the distinct fires that a certain "old guard" within American evangelicalism is scrambling to put out. You may disagree with the ideas of these new faces in evangelical Christianity. But, if so, you probably will have to accuse them of being more messed up in their heads than their hearts.
This last comment gets at the very heart of those Protestant evangelical traditions that feel most challenged by these changes and those that might actually be in a good position to thrive in the days to come. Those evangelical traditions that have primarily oriented themselves rigidly around ideas--and often very specifically laid out ideas--are those most in crisis mode. In other words, it is those who have liked to think of themselves as the "thinkers" of the evangelical tradition, who have put most of their eggs in a particular ideological basket, that are most offended. Those who are best situated to thrive in this present age are the pietists, the revivalists, the charismatics, the missionally minded--those that the Reformed historians George Marsden and Mark Noll (questionably) put as the ground zero of early twentieth century "fundamentalism." [1]
This is our time to thrive, and in a new way. We have always thrived numerically. It was the revivalists that took the West by storm. It is the charismatics who are leading the way currently in the furthest reaches of the planet today. Meanwhile, Calvinist evangelicals have been known more for their intellectual prowess than their numeric growth. It is no coincidence that places like Wheaton and Calvin College are the "Ivy League" of evangelical colleges--and they are predominantly Calvinist in orientation.
However, in an ironic turn of events, we find at the beginning of the twenty-first century that the traditions that were not bothered to engage the ideological challenges of the early twentieth century are in a great position to lead the way in the thought of the twenty-first. I do not intend in this book to speak for charismatics or Anabaptists, although they will no doubt find supporting arguments for their traditions here that overlap with my own.
My intention here is rather to highlight a few ways in which some contemporary currents provide great opportunities for the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition to take a leading role within twenty-first century evangelicalism. I have four trends in mind in particular that at least potentially present exciting opportunities for synergies with the Wesleyan evangelical tradition:
1. new perspectives on Paul and Judaism
2. theological hermeneutics
3. missional Christianity
4. ancient-future movement
The chapters that follow will explore these "waves" in the evangelical church in greater detail, so we only need mention them only briefly here.
1.The "new perspective on Paul" has been a particular irritant to those in conservative Calvinist and Lutheran contexts. [2] To be sure, the "newness" has now worn off to some extent [3] and it might be better to speak of new perspectives than a singular new perspective. [4] Nevertheless, trends in the second half of the twentieth century have left an indelible impact on Pauline studies, whether you are sympathetic or hostile to the "new perspective." And Pauline studies are ground zero of the conservative Lutheran and Calvinist traditions.
At its root, the new perspective on Paul is about having a more accurate understanding of ancient Judaism than the stereotypical views that have prevailed among Christians for over a millennium. Once one has this understanding, we discover that Paul and the early church were far more in continuity with the Judaism of their context than we have often thought. Since Augustine and the Reformers built their fundamental theologies on a slightly skewed understanding of Paul, their heirs within Protestant evangelicalism suddenly find some of their most fundamental assumptions in question. It is thus no surprise to find these groups suddenly scrambling to address blind spots that were exposed almost overnight.
Yet as far as the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition is concerned, we suddenly find elements of Paul that we have long emphasized, now featured in a place of prominence. For example, Arminians have often been accused of being Pelagians, of affording too high a place for "works" in the Christian life. And our emphasis on "free will" of a sort also has been a point of attack as a deviation from Paul's teaching on total depravity and predestination.
To be sure, many of these attacks already have represented a skewing of the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition's actual positions, as Roger Olson has pointed out. [5] Yet it is interesting that our accusers now suddenly find themselves on the defence against powerful interpretations of Paul himself. Did Paul actually teach ultimate justification at least in part on the basis of works? Did Paul really actually teach total depravity? And of course the vast majority of Pauline scholars--even prominent Calvinist ones--no longer see Romans 7 as Paul's ongoing struggle with sin. Arminian positions--even misrepresented ones--suddenly find themselves in the forefront of interpretive possibilities.
2. Theological hermeneutics is, again, a somewhat diverse movement that has in common its concern to read the biblical texts not only (or not at all) for what they meant originally, but also in relation to the meaning and significance these texts might have for us as Christians today. This may sound like what evangelicals have been doing all along, but to pursue theological hermeneutics is to profess this goal in the light of two other developments. The first is the immense deepening in evangelical awareness of what it might mean to read the biblical texts in context--and the corresponding distance this understanding often creates between us and the text. The second is the rise of postmodern hermeneutics that recognizes the immense flexibility language can have.
The effect of these developments is to undermine some of the key concerns of the first generation of neo-evangelicals in the 40's (and what I will call their fundamentalist forebears). [6] For one, it has called into serious question the notion that the original meaning of the biblical text is the be all and end all of interpretation. The children and grandchildren of these founding evangelicals took seriously the charge to submit to the authority of the biblical text and to listen to its meaning in context wherever it led... and they found the biblical text leading, not least, away from the all importance of the original meaning.
Again, we have found some of the stalwart intellectuals of evangelicalism turning their backs on first principles--for example, following the Bible's lead--and instead applying their intellect to defend now traditional evangelical positions. A large commentary volume, for example, aims to deny the obvious creativity in the way the New Testament authors interpreted the Old. [7] And standing on the sidelines, somewhat bemused, are those traditions who used to be the butt of criticism for their typological and "Holy Ghost" exegesis: pietists, revivalists, charismatics. It turns out that, although they may have done it without sophistication or self-awareness, they were in many instances following the Bible's lead in terms of hermeneutics far more than the pillars of neo-evangelicalism ever did.
Another effect of these sorts of developments is a certain kind of complexity that accrues to the issue of the Bible's authority and "inerrancy." The more the evangelical community has grappled with the contexts of the Bible, the more complex the idea of biblical inerrancy has become. Surely an error must be judged according to the parameters of the texts themselves rather than according to some contemporary standard that is as much a product of our current context as anything else. For example, it has seemed more and more bizarre to use modern criteria for historical and scientific writing when the biblical texts were originally written in ancient contexts for ancient audiences.
And what of the sense of development and dialog that we seem to find in Scripture. Should we not then define error in terms of where a particular biblical writing was in that flow of revelation? And what then of the allowance for meaning in the biblical text beyond the literal? What particular meaning of the biblical text are we to consider without error? By the time one has addressed these issues, it becomes difficult even to know what the word inerrant means, leaving some simply to say ambiguously that the Bible is "inerrant in all it affirms." [8]
This situation is far more of a crisis for the more cognitively oriented evangelical traditions than it is for their more experiential cousins. [9] In evangelical groups of the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, for example, many have always had a more intuitive sense of the Bible's meaning, in contrast to following a highly methodical, quasi-scientific method to arrive at it. To be sure, the proper meaning of the Bible has always held absolute authority in such circles. But because that meaning has not been limited to the original, historical meaning, the very word inerrancy, even where it has been used, has not usually taken on the more rigid sense it has in conservative Calvinist circles.
3. A third trend is the move toward what, for lack of a better word, we might call "missional" Christianity. [10] To be sure, one of the key concerns of American evangelicalism in the late twentieth century was evangelism, particularly among the less cognitively oriented parts of that fellowship. Indeed, some have argued that the church growth movement dominated cultural evangelicalism in the late twentieth century. [11]
What we are seeing at the dawn of the twenty-first century is a more holistic and robust sense of mission than was true of the church growth movement. Part of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy was a battle with what was then called a "social gospel." The intellectual world of American Christianity in the late 1800's had abandoned belief in miracles or the divinity of Christ, with the result that Christianity for them had become about following Jesus' example as a model human and helping the needy. The gospel had largely become limited to social concerns.
In keeping with human nature, the corresponding reaction in evangelicalism often came to associate helping the needy with liberalism. Ironically, one of the core concerns of the Gospels became a sign that one was not a good Christian. The current generation of younger evangelicals largely has not retained the memory of these earlier feuds. Responding to the clear message of the Bible, they recognize that the mission of Christianity must address the whole person, body, wallet, and social status included.
And it is with some pride that I point out that the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition has been where many younger evangelicals are only now arriving. John Wesley himself is a primary footnote in the history of England coming to establish child labor laws and abolish slavery. In America, Quakers and the Wesleyan Methodist connection were strong voices in the abolitionist movement. [12] Long before the feminist movement made it popular, these groups were championing the right of women to vote and preach. [13] The Salvation Army is itself a church in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition. We are delighted to find that the rest of evangelicalism is finally coming to its senses!
Meanwhile, we not surprisingly find many in the conservative Calvinist tradition dragging their heals on issues like the ordination of women. [14] Forced to modify positions that even their followers would now recognize as blatantly unChristian, the modern complementarian movement is a dying attempt to maintain the primacy of the male in the home and church in the face of the obvious trajectory of the kingdom. To be sure, many complementarians are godly people whose problem is more with their heads than their hearts. And those of us in more pietist traditions, because we value the heart more than the head, are generously willing to wait for them to come around and see God's will here more clearly. We are convinced they will, as well as our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters.
4. A final trend we see taking place is what we are calling the "ancient-future" movement. [15] Younger evangelicals by and large have not inherited the strong feelings their grandparents had against Roman Catholics, probably in part because the Roman Catholicism of the last fifty years has itself become far less rigid since Vatican II. Where much of pop American evangelicalism used to react very aversely to anything that smacked of "empty ritual" or formalism, we are currently seeing a resurgence in interest in things like liturgy and sacramentalism.
Some of this resurgence corresponds to a revaluing of symbolism after the overemphasis on literalism that has so plagued modernism. We now find low church Protestants giving up things for Lent and holding Ash Wednesday services. We find evangelical fellowships where they take communion every Sunday and say the Apostle's Creed. We find evangelical colleges offering courses in the church fathers and the Ancient Commentary on the Bible series. [16]
In heremeneutics we find a dovetailing of this ancient-future trend with theological hermeneutics. There is an increased sense in some evangelical circles of the importance of the church beyond the New Testament in fleshing out the trajectory of the New Testament in doctrine. [17] Once again, the Wesleyan tradition is known for its more balanced hermeneutic, sometimes called the "Wesleyan Quadrilateral." [18] In this Wesleyan hermeneutic, reason, experience, and tradition are given an important role to play in figuring out God's will in addition to the primary element, Scripture.
The Wesleyan tradition is thus better situated to recognize the importance of the common faith of Christendom than other traditions for whom sola scriptura, "Scripture alone," has been a highly well defined priority. [19] Not only are we situated to flow with the new reappraisal of tradition, but we are well situated to engage the new reappraisal of experience. In our postmodern context, attention has been drawn to the inevitable perspective we as individuals bring to our understanding. Pietist, Wesleyan, and charismatic traditions have always had a significant place for experience in their hermeneutic, and we are better prepared to engage these realities than those evangelical traditions whose two points of reference have been Scripture and reason.
On Monday, d.v.... 1.2 The Wesleyan Evangelical Tradition
[1] Marsden and Noll.
[2] E.g., John Piper, The Future of Justification, one of the more polite responses.
[3] Francis Watson
[4] Wright, Justification
[5] Arminian Theology
[6] As I will mention below, it is not puzzling to me that two Reformed historians, George Marsden and Mark Noll, have chosen to define the more pre-modern elements of the early twentieth century as "fundamentalist," while excepting from that label those who actually took the "fundamentalist" side of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy.
I will subsequently refer to the revivalists and Pentecostals of the early twentieth century as more experientially oriented evangelicals, pre-moderns, and reserve the word fundamentalist for its more proper referrent--anti-moderns like J. Gresham Machen and the founders of Westminster Theological Seminary.
[7] Beale and Carson, Commentary on the Old Testament in the New.
[8] Asbury Theological Seminary
[9] Thus Greg Beale's new book
[10] Much of this concern is driven by the "emerging" and "emergent" movements, but the trend is much broader--and much more fundamentally Christian--than any label of this sort or any particular group today.
[11] Robert Webber, The Younger Evangelicals
[12] Quakers and Wesleyans both have a similar pietist and Arminian orientation.
[13] The woman's rights movement of the late 1800's was launched in a Wesleyan Methodist Church and one of the founders of the Wesleyan Methodist connection preached the sermon at the ordination of the first woman in America.
[14] Here we might mention Wayne Grudem and John Piper in particular.
[15] Again, this movement is also often associated with the emerging or emergent church. Whatever squabbles one might have with these groups, it would be foolish to dismiss all their ideas simply because we object to some of them. That is, in fact, fallacious reasoning.
[16] InterVarsity.
[17] I believe we have yet to see the real groundswell of this element in the equation. Theological hermeneutics in its current form has not yet fully let go of the original meaning as a guiding goal.
[18] John Wesley himself did not use or coin this term. It was rather coined by the Methodist historian Albert Outler as a description of Wesley's hermeneutic in practice.
[19] To be sure, John Wesley affirmed sola scriptura.
________
A Great Time for the Wesleyan Evangelical Tradition
Chapter 1: Somethings in the Water
1.1 Changes Afoot
Segments of the evangelical church in America are majorly in defensive mode at the beginning of the twenty-first century. A number of developments in the biblical, theological, and philosophical world have brought some cherished Protestant traditions into question. Evangelical groups that once enjoyed pride of place within American, conservative Christendom have found themselves scrambling on the defensive.
However, not all Protestant evangelical traditions are equally threatened by some of the new ideological and social challenges in play. Indeed, unlike the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the early twentieth century, it seems impossible--at least if you are being honest--to paint the new challengers to the status quo in terms of "those without faith" versus "those with faith." One could hardly accuse N. T. Wright, for example, of not having faith--at least not with any degree of sanity. Nor is James K. A. Smith a force of unorthodoxy with which to reckon. And surely no one who actually knows Shaine Claiborne or Brian McLaren would accuse them of being faithless.
These are some of the new faces of evangelical Christianity, broadly defined. We should make it clear from the very start that they are each quite distinct new forces. I do not mention them together because they represent the same things, but because they represent some of the distinct fires that a certain "old guard" within American evangelicalism is scrambling to put out. You may disagree with the ideas of these new faces in evangelical Christianity. But, if so, you probably will have to accuse them of being more messed up in their heads than their hearts.
This last comment gets at the very heart of those Protestant evangelical traditions that feel most challenged by these changes and those that might actually be in a good position to thrive in the days to come. Those evangelical traditions that have primarily oriented themselves rigidly around ideas--and often very specifically laid out ideas--are those most in crisis mode. In other words, it is those who have liked to think of themselves as the "thinkers" of the evangelical tradition, who have put most of their eggs in a particular ideological basket, that are most offended. Those who are best situated to thrive in this present age are the pietists, the revivalists, the charismatics, the missionally minded--those that the Reformed historians George Marsden and Mark Noll (questionably) put as the ground zero of early twentieth century "fundamentalism." [1]
This is our time to thrive, and in a new way. We have always thrived numerically. It was the revivalists that took the West by storm. It is the charismatics who are leading the way currently in the furthest reaches of the planet today. Meanwhile, Calvinist evangelicals have been known more for their intellectual prowess than their numeric growth. It is no coincidence that places like Wheaton and Calvin College are the "Ivy League" of evangelical colleges--and they are predominantly Calvinist in orientation.
However, in an ironic turn of events, we find at the beginning of the twenty-first century that the traditions that were not bothered to engage the ideological challenges of the early twentieth century are in a great position to lead the way in the thought of the twenty-first. I do not intend in this book to speak for charismatics or Anabaptists, although they will no doubt find supporting arguments for their traditions here that overlap with my own.
My intention here is rather to highlight a few ways in which some contemporary currents provide great opportunities for the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition to take a leading role within twenty-first century evangelicalism. I have four trends in mind in particular that at least potentially present exciting opportunities for synergies with the Wesleyan evangelical tradition:
1. new perspectives on Paul and Judaism
2. theological hermeneutics
3. missional Christianity
4. ancient-future movement
The chapters that follow will explore these "waves" in the evangelical church in greater detail, so we only need mention them only briefly here.
1.The "new perspective on Paul" has been a particular irritant to those in conservative Calvinist and Lutheran contexts. [2] To be sure, the "newness" has now worn off to some extent [3] and it might be better to speak of new perspectives than a singular new perspective. [4] Nevertheless, trends in the second half of the twentieth century have left an indelible impact on Pauline studies, whether you are sympathetic or hostile to the "new perspective." And Pauline studies are ground zero of the conservative Lutheran and Calvinist traditions.
At its root, the new perspective on Paul is about having a more accurate understanding of ancient Judaism than the stereotypical views that have prevailed among Christians for over a millennium. Once one has this understanding, we discover that Paul and the early church were far more in continuity with the Judaism of their context than we have often thought. Since Augustine and the Reformers built their fundamental theologies on a slightly skewed understanding of Paul, their heirs within Protestant evangelicalism suddenly find some of their most fundamental assumptions in question. It is thus no surprise to find these groups suddenly scrambling to address blind spots that were exposed almost overnight.
Yet as far as the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition is concerned, we suddenly find elements of Paul that we have long emphasized, now featured in a place of prominence. For example, Arminians have often been accused of being Pelagians, of affording too high a place for "works" in the Christian life. And our emphasis on "free will" of a sort also has been a point of attack as a deviation from Paul's teaching on total depravity and predestination.
To be sure, many of these attacks already have represented a skewing of the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition's actual positions, as Roger Olson has pointed out. [5] Yet it is interesting that our accusers now suddenly find themselves on the defence against powerful interpretations of Paul himself. Did Paul actually teach ultimate justification at least in part on the basis of works? Did Paul really actually teach total depravity? And of course the vast majority of Pauline scholars--even prominent Calvinist ones--no longer see Romans 7 as Paul's ongoing struggle with sin. Arminian positions--even misrepresented ones--suddenly find themselves in the forefront of interpretive possibilities.
2. Theological hermeneutics is, again, a somewhat diverse movement that has in common its concern to read the biblical texts not only (or not at all) for what they meant originally, but also in relation to the meaning and significance these texts might have for us as Christians today. This may sound like what evangelicals have been doing all along, but to pursue theological hermeneutics is to profess this goal in the light of two other developments. The first is the immense deepening in evangelical awareness of what it might mean to read the biblical texts in context--and the corresponding distance this understanding often creates between us and the text. The second is the rise of postmodern hermeneutics that recognizes the immense flexibility language can have.
The effect of these developments is to undermine some of the key concerns of the first generation of neo-evangelicals in the 40's (and what I will call their fundamentalist forebears). [6] For one, it has called into serious question the notion that the original meaning of the biblical text is the be all and end all of interpretation. The children and grandchildren of these founding evangelicals took seriously the charge to submit to the authority of the biblical text and to listen to its meaning in context wherever it led... and they found the biblical text leading, not least, away from the all importance of the original meaning.
Again, we have found some of the stalwart intellectuals of evangelicalism turning their backs on first principles--for example, following the Bible's lead--and instead applying their intellect to defend now traditional evangelical positions. A large commentary volume, for example, aims to deny the obvious creativity in the way the New Testament authors interpreted the Old. [7] And standing on the sidelines, somewhat bemused, are those traditions who used to be the butt of criticism for their typological and "Holy Ghost" exegesis: pietists, revivalists, charismatics. It turns out that, although they may have done it without sophistication or self-awareness, they were in many instances following the Bible's lead in terms of hermeneutics far more than the pillars of neo-evangelicalism ever did.
Another effect of these sorts of developments is a certain kind of complexity that accrues to the issue of the Bible's authority and "inerrancy." The more the evangelical community has grappled with the contexts of the Bible, the more complex the idea of biblical inerrancy has become. Surely an error must be judged according to the parameters of the texts themselves rather than according to some contemporary standard that is as much a product of our current context as anything else. For example, it has seemed more and more bizarre to use modern criteria for historical and scientific writing when the biblical texts were originally written in ancient contexts for ancient audiences.
And what of the sense of development and dialog that we seem to find in Scripture. Should we not then define error in terms of where a particular biblical writing was in that flow of revelation? And what then of the allowance for meaning in the biblical text beyond the literal? What particular meaning of the biblical text are we to consider without error? By the time one has addressed these issues, it becomes difficult even to know what the word inerrant means, leaving some simply to say ambiguously that the Bible is "inerrant in all it affirms." [8]
This situation is far more of a crisis for the more cognitively oriented evangelical traditions than it is for their more experiential cousins. [9] In evangelical groups of the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, for example, many have always had a more intuitive sense of the Bible's meaning, in contrast to following a highly methodical, quasi-scientific method to arrive at it. To be sure, the proper meaning of the Bible has always held absolute authority in such circles. But because that meaning has not been limited to the original, historical meaning, the very word inerrancy, even where it has been used, has not usually taken on the more rigid sense it has in conservative Calvinist circles.
3. A third trend is the move toward what, for lack of a better word, we might call "missional" Christianity. [10] To be sure, one of the key concerns of American evangelicalism in the late twentieth century was evangelism, particularly among the less cognitively oriented parts of that fellowship. Indeed, some have argued that the church growth movement dominated cultural evangelicalism in the late twentieth century. [11]
What we are seeing at the dawn of the twenty-first century is a more holistic and robust sense of mission than was true of the church growth movement. Part of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy was a battle with what was then called a "social gospel." The intellectual world of American Christianity in the late 1800's had abandoned belief in miracles or the divinity of Christ, with the result that Christianity for them had become about following Jesus' example as a model human and helping the needy. The gospel had largely become limited to social concerns.
In keeping with human nature, the corresponding reaction in evangelicalism often came to associate helping the needy with liberalism. Ironically, one of the core concerns of the Gospels became a sign that one was not a good Christian. The current generation of younger evangelicals largely has not retained the memory of these earlier feuds. Responding to the clear message of the Bible, they recognize that the mission of Christianity must address the whole person, body, wallet, and social status included.
And it is with some pride that I point out that the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition has been where many younger evangelicals are only now arriving. John Wesley himself is a primary footnote in the history of England coming to establish child labor laws and abolish slavery. In America, Quakers and the Wesleyan Methodist connection were strong voices in the abolitionist movement. [12] Long before the feminist movement made it popular, these groups were championing the right of women to vote and preach. [13] The Salvation Army is itself a church in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition. We are delighted to find that the rest of evangelicalism is finally coming to its senses!
Meanwhile, we not surprisingly find many in the conservative Calvinist tradition dragging their heals on issues like the ordination of women. [14] Forced to modify positions that even their followers would now recognize as blatantly unChristian, the modern complementarian movement is a dying attempt to maintain the primacy of the male in the home and church in the face of the obvious trajectory of the kingdom. To be sure, many complementarians are godly people whose problem is more with their heads than their hearts. And those of us in more pietist traditions, because we value the heart more than the head, are generously willing to wait for them to come around and see God's will here more clearly. We are convinced they will, as well as our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters.
4. A final trend we see taking place is what we are calling the "ancient-future" movement. [15] Younger evangelicals by and large have not inherited the strong feelings their grandparents had against Roman Catholics, probably in part because the Roman Catholicism of the last fifty years has itself become far less rigid since Vatican II. Where much of pop American evangelicalism used to react very aversely to anything that smacked of "empty ritual" or formalism, we are currently seeing a resurgence in interest in things like liturgy and sacramentalism.
Some of this resurgence corresponds to a revaluing of symbolism after the overemphasis on literalism that has so plagued modernism. We now find low church Protestants giving up things for Lent and holding Ash Wednesday services. We find evangelical fellowships where they take communion every Sunday and say the Apostle's Creed. We find evangelical colleges offering courses in the church fathers and the Ancient Commentary on the Bible series. [16]
In heremeneutics we find a dovetailing of this ancient-future trend with theological hermeneutics. There is an increased sense in some evangelical circles of the importance of the church beyond the New Testament in fleshing out the trajectory of the New Testament in doctrine. [17] Once again, the Wesleyan tradition is known for its more balanced hermeneutic, sometimes called the "Wesleyan Quadrilateral." [18] In this Wesleyan hermeneutic, reason, experience, and tradition are given an important role to play in figuring out God's will in addition to the primary element, Scripture.
The Wesleyan tradition is thus better situated to recognize the importance of the common faith of Christendom than other traditions for whom sola scriptura, "Scripture alone," has been a highly well defined priority. [19] Not only are we situated to flow with the new reappraisal of tradition, but we are well situated to engage the new reappraisal of experience. In our postmodern context, attention has been drawn to the inevitable perspective we as individuals bring to our understanding. Pietist, Wesleyan, and charismatic traditions have always had a significant place for experience in their hermeneutic, and we are better prepared to engage these realities than those evangelical traditions whose two points of reference have been Scripture and reason.
On Monday, d.v.... 1.2 The Wesleyan Evangelical Tradition
[1] Marsden and Noll.
[2] E.g., John Piper, The Future of Justification, one of the more polite responses.
[3] Francis Watson
[4] Wright, Justification
[5] Arminian Theology
[6] As I will mention below, it is not puzzling to me that two Reformed historians, George Marsden and Mark Noll, have chosen to define the more pre-modern elements of the early twentieth century as "fundamentalist," while excepting from that label those who actually took the "fundamentalist" side of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy.
I will subsequently refer to the revivalists and Pentecostals of the early twentieth century as more experientially oriented evangelicals, pre-moderns, and reserve the word fundamentalist for its more proper referrent--anti-moderns like J. Gresham Machen and the founders of Westminster Theological Seminary.
[7] Beale and Carson, Commentary on the Old Testament in the New.
[8] Asbury Theological Seminary
[9] Thus Greg Beale's new book
[10] Much of this concern is driven by the "emerging" and "emergent" movements, but the trend is much broader--and much more fundamentally Christian--than any label of this sort or any particular group today.
[11] Robert Webber, The Younger Evangelicals
[12] Quakers and Wesleyans both have a similar pietist and Arminian orientation.
[13] The woman's rights movement of the late 1800's was launched in a Wesleyan Methodist Church and one of the founders of the Wesleyan Methodist connection preached the sermon at the ordination of the first woman in America.
[14] Here we might mention Wayne Grudem and John Piper in particular.
[15] Again, this movement is also often associated with the emerging or emergent church. Whatever squabbles one might have with these groups, it would be foolish to dismiss all their ideas simply because we object to some of them. That is, in fact, fallacious reasoning.
[16] InterVarsity.
[17] I believe we have yet to see the real groundswell of this element in the equation. Theological hermeneutics in its current form has not yet fully let go of the original meaning as a guiding goal.
[18] John Wesley himself did not use or coin this term. It was rather coined by the Methodist historian Albert Outler as a description of Wesley's hermeneutic in practice.
[19] To be sure, John Wesley affirmed sola scriptura.
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