Linkathon!

Randy Davis says:

I’m not sure why Evangelicalism is having such a crisis. It is a theological movement and not a social movement. In essence, evangelicalism was, in the forties, the emergence of an intellectual fundamentalism. Here fundamentalism was defined by THE FUNDAMENTALS: A Testimony to the Truth, edited by R A Torrey.

Of course the German Lutherans referred to themselves as evangelicals. Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland Is a federation of Lutheran and reformed churches. Still American evangelicals and and the Evangelische Kirche, for all their differences, would subscribe to the same creeds and confessions.

I remember Baptists (SBC) debating if they were evangelicals. Some said yes because Baptists were second generation Protestants. Others said no and tried to claim connections to the radical reformers.

I think the crisis came when, in 1976, Newsweek magazine, declared The Year of the Evangelical. It became mainstream and many, like the newly popular Charismatic Movement to Oneness Pentecostals to even Mormons wanted to be called evangelicals. The drive to be relevant now that they were popular caused a less rigorous definition to take place.

I have been a member of the Evangelical Theological Society for over 30 years. I think there have been some crises of identity but it had remained fairly stable even though the membership ranges from Methodists, Wesleyan charismatic groups to Calvinist organizations , it has remained first an academic society.

It seems to me that the problem is that a theological movement that had a social conscience has become a social movement with with a theological conscience.

Of course, everything I just wrote could be hogwash.

Happy Thanksgiving y’all.