The strength and weakness of Evangelicalism

The strength of evangelicalism is its minimalism. … [This] has afforded not only a wide berth for cooperation but also a laser focus on contested points. The weakness of evangelicalism is also its minimalism. Doctrinal minimalism in one generation can be a way of focusing the fight; in another, the path to doctrinal indifference. [Michael Horton, “Prologue: What are We Celebrating?,” in Matthew Barrett, ed., Reformation Theology: A Systematic Summary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 15-6]

On Reformed Piety

Earlier this year I started a series on Reformed piety, in contrast to Evangelical piety. I had then decided to take the project offline and finish it first, so here is the completed document. Two excerpts, one from the introduction:

What is Reformed piety? Or is there such a thing as Reformed piety, as distinct from Evangelical piety? For those of us who do not identify as "Evangelicals," and that even before the term has become politicized during and after the election of US President Donald Trump, we do see a difference between Reformed piety and Evangelical piety. We do this, not out of a blind following of tradition, but because of what we see as being taught in Scripture and in light of the implications of Scripture.

And another from the conclusion:

Reformed piety stems from Reformed theology, while Evangelical piety stems from the social settings of Evangelicalism. The distinctives of being Reformed is to be confessional, orthodox, reverent and orderly, while the distinctives of being Evangelical is to be conversionist, activist, Biblicist, and crucicentrist. ...

You can access the entire document here.

On Reformed Piety: Defining Evangelicalism (Part 2)

Defining Evangelicalism [cont'd]

The second pillar of the Bebbington Quadrilateral, Activism, seems to be something that does not actually distinguish Evangelicalism as a separate movement, but rather it is meant to emphasize one major focus of Evangelicalism. In that sense, it seems that Evangelicals of any kind are merely obeying the command of Scripture, which calls us to do good works (Eph. 2:10), at it states that "faith without works is dead" (c.f. Jas. 2:20). Also, Evangelicals note the Great Commission given for sharing of the Gospel in Acts 1:8, where we are all called to be a witness for Christ wherever we are, spreading the message of salvation to all and sundry. Thus, this pillar of the Bebbington Quadrilateral does not seem to be a particular distinctive of Evangelicalism, or does it?

We would all certainly agree that the Scriptures teach that good works are necessary for Christian living (not for salvation), and that a "faith" that works wickedness is not really faith. But in the translation of good intentions to its application to society, to what extent should the church be actively taking a stand on various social ills? Here we see how activism has shifted every so slightly the focus concerning good works. Historically, the teaching of good works and its application to society has always been rather specific. No doubt the largely agrarian nature of much of medieval and early modern European societies aided the direct application of Israel's civil laws to the context of their times. With the advent of the Industrial Age however, the rapid changes in society have made Israel's civil laws less applicable. As Evangelicalism began with the First Great Awakening, along with the revival came a renewed interest in dealing with the problems of society. Unfortunately, there is no obvious blueprint in Scripture for how that is to be done in a modern context. Christians were left with a text that seemed dated, and many did not really wrestle with how to derive sound general principles that are both biblical and applicable to their times. Instead, Christianity intellectual thought became focused on the "spiritual," while Enlightenment philosophy permeates all other fields.

Evangelical Activism thus become tied with expressing the biblical command to do good and to witness for the Gospel. (We will discuss the Gospel witness as we discuss the fourth pillar). And in this command to do good, the failure to adequately wrestle with all that is to be translated to the modern context has resulted in an Activism that is very much informed by the world and her ideas (Zeitgeist). Therefore, in the modern era, Evangelical Activism has been typically split into left-wing and right-wing movements, depending on which movement is currently in vogue among Evangelicals. In a politicized era like 21st century America, that means that Evangelical Activism becomes highly political, either on the right or on the left, as opposed to a faith that will only speak where the Scriptures speak and keep silent where the Scriptures are silent. Therefore, we have both the "Moral Majority" in late 20th century America (right), and the "Evangelical Left" of which Jim Wallies of Sojourners was one such prominent figures, both of them Evangelicals. And in the early 21st century, we have the nationalist Trump supporters on the "right" and the Social Justice Warriors and Critical Race Theorists on the Left.

Bebbington's pillar of Activism, in light of the social history of Evangelicalism, therefore needs to be modified. Bebbington had defined it as "a commitment to participate with God in his saving mission in the world." But in light of Evangelicalism's history, activism should be modified to be "a commitment to participate with God in doing good according to the world's current social notions of doing good, and to witness for God in a way that focuses on the spiritual alone." The latter point we will pick up again as we discuss the last 2 pillars of the Bebbington Quadrilateral, which are where the most obvious differences between Evangelicalism and the Reformed Church are.

[to be continued]

On Reformed Piety: Defining Evangelicalism (part 1)

As we move towards comparing and contrasting Reformed piety with Evangelical piety, we must first define these two sides. After all, both the terms "Reformed" and "Evangelical" have been used and understood in many different ways by many different people. Some have used the term "Reformed" to refer to the followers of Karl Barth, but for those who are actually Reformed, such an association with the founder of Neo-Orthdoxy is extremely repugnant, to say the least. And others have used the term "Evangelical" to refer to those who anyone who claim that their faith is very important in their lives. Or, in a very misleading and offensive move, it is used to refer to the subset of white Christian Americans who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 US elections. Suffice is it to show that if these two sides are not clearly defined, comparing and contrasting their respective pieties is next to impossible.

Defining Evangelicalism

What is an "Evangelical," and thus what is "Evangelicalism"? Historically, a claim can be made that "evangelical" refers to all Protestant Christians who believe, like Luther, that justification is by faith alone (Sola Fide), since Lutherans were first called "evangelicals" (German evangelische) as they focus on the Gospel of free grace. However, words and the connotation of words change over time. At least in the English-speaking world, Lutherans are called "Lutherans." The term "evangelical" in English parlance came to denote a trans-denominational movement that begun during the time of the 18th century First Great Awakening. Prior to the First Great Awakening, each denomination and church body does its own thing and they do not generally work together. During and after the First Great Awakening, many Christians who believe in the Gospel had decided that denominational differences were not worth fighting over to the point of non-cooperation in ministry, and therefore there is a need to join together to proclaim the Gospel. We must recognize that, prior to the First Great Awakening, the state of Protestant Christianity lies in its various confessional traditions (e.g. Presbyterian, Anglican, Congregationalist, Dutch Reformed, Swiss Reformed, Lutheran etc.), with each tradition proclaiming itself to be the visible representation of the true church in its particularly locality, and all other local churches are to join her or be guilty of schism.

Evangelicalism therefore must be seen as both a creature and a creation of the First Great Awakening. Evangelicalism must likewise partake of some elements of the trans-denominational perspective of the leaders of the First Great Awakening, and all subsequent evangelical revivals. Evangelicalism therefore cannot be reduced to merely a doctrinal standpoint, but it is rather a social and religious phenomenon. It is not enough to ask what are the doctrines all Evangelicals hold to, but rather to ask what are the practices also of the leaders of historical Evangelicalism.

In this light, British historian David W. Bebbington, in his seminal work Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London, UK: Unwin Hyman, 1989) gave us four points to describe Evangelicalism (both Old and New). Known as the "Bebbington Quadrilateral," these four points are: Conversionism (a focus on the necessity of each person to individually turn to Christ in faith for salvation), Activism (a commitment to participate with God in his saving mission in the world), Biblicism (a devotion to the Bible as the Word of God written for all of faith), and Crucicentrism (a focus on Jesus Christ and the substitutionary atonement of Christ for sins) [Bebbington, 5-17]. Academia by and large has agreed with Bebbington's four pillars of Evangelicalism, even though Bebbington's insights have for the most part yet to filter down to the churches.

The Bebbington Quadrilateral however has to be modified in light of the differences between the churches before and after the First Great Awakening. The first pillar, Conversionism, has to be modified to "a focus on the necessity of each person to individually turn to Christ in faith for salvation, with the necessity of a recollection of a personal conscious experience in doing so." The reason for this modification is that Evangelicalism has always rejected the notion of regenerate covenant children being raised in the faith, but who have not felt a single day apart from Christ, and whose lives are not filled with great spiritual experiences. That was why the congregationalists in Puritan New England had trouble with the spiritual lives of the second and third generation puritans to the extent that Solomon Stoddard (Jonathan Edwards' grandfather) instituted the Halfway Covenant. The New England Puritans had developed an imbalanced experimental Christianity whereby believers are to recount some spiritual experience whereby they have trusted Christ for their salvation. Now, this was not yet the emotional decisionism of Charles Finney and his part in the Second Great Awakening, for believers were not asked to produce a specific conversion experience. However, evidence of spiritual life was to be sought in having some form of crisis resulting in spiritual conversion to God. The half-way covenant came about because so many second and third generation Puritans did not possess that crisis-faith experience and therefore were not admitted into church membership and the Lord's Supper, despite how orthodox they were in their profession of faith. What happens when these non-communicant members desire to present their children for baptism? The half-way covenant was Stoddard's way of promoting a "half-way" whereby these second and third generation Puritans could be admitted to the Lord's Supper and have their children baptized if they were orthodox in doctrine and not scandalous in behavior, even though they were not considered full members of the church (officially non-communicant members who partake of Holy Communion!)

Jonathan Edwards, as one of the major leaders of the First Great Awakening, ultimately chose to reject the Halfway covenant which his grandfather had instituted. Edwards rejected the Halfway Covenant not by accepting that covenant children might not have a radical faith experience, but rather by biting the bullet and insisting that covenant children without a faith experience should be regarded as unbelievers. Thus, one can be orthodox in doctrine and godly in life, but if a conversion experience cannot be shown, he is to be regarded as a heathen! It is only a matter of time before the conversion experience become a conversion decision experience, which Charles Finney popularized in his anxious bench, and Billy Graham with his altar call.

The first pillar of Evangelicalism, Conversionism, is thus to be modified to a necessity of a conversion experience. The Old Evangelicalism, the Evangelicalism of the First Great Awakening, only insisted on some intense spiritual experience sometime in one's life, and is therefore more orthodox than the experience called for in Finney's anxious bench and Graham's alter call. Yet for both Old and New Evangelicalism, conversion experience, and spiritual experiences in general are considered vital for a genuine Christian life, apart from which a person no matter how orthodox and godly is considered dead.

[to be continued]

On Reformed Piety

What is Reformed piety? Or is there such a thing as Reformed piety, as distinct from Evangelical piety? For those of us who do not identify as "Evangelicals," and that even before the term has become politicized during and after the election of US President Donald Trump, we do see a difference between Reformed piety and Evangelical piety. We do this, not out of a blind following of tradition, but because of what we see as being taught in Scripture and in light of the implications of Scripture.

It might be charged that such a statement in itself is schismatic in nature. In response, it must be said that we do not seek to break fellowship, but rather we seek to be truthful, and not pretend that there is fellowship and unity where none actually exist. Is it truthful to claim unity when in reality unity of praxis does not exist? Are we to be like the crowd marveling at the Emperor's (non-existent) new clothes? So likewise, the charge of division and schism presupposes what I explicitly deny, and thus the charge is vacuous.

Where then do I see Reformed piety as being distinct from Evangelical piety? I see Reformed piety as distinct from Evangelical piety in the following areas:

1. The priority aspects in Christianity
2. Views on Bible and Tradition
3. Views on the Means of Grace
4. Views on the Church
5. Views on the Moral Law and especially the Fourth Commandment
6. Views on worship

In subsequent posts, as I have the free time to do so, I will elaborate on these points and compare and contrast Reformed piety to Evangelical piety on these matters.

Pietism and Confessionalism

The sort of religion heralded by the revivals of the First Great Awakening is chiefly responsible for the triumph of a utilitarian view of faith. The itinerant evangelists of these revivals, as well as their successors, transformed Christianity from a churchly and routine affair into one that was intense and personal. The conversion experiences marked the beginning of this new form of Christian faith. But it was only the start. True converts were expected to prove the authenticity of their faith through lives that were visibly different from nonbelievers. Indeed, the demand for a clear distinction between the ways of the faithful and those of the world not only propelled many of the social reforms associated with evangelicalism but also provided the foundation for viewing Christianity in practical categories. If faith was supposed to make a difference in all areas of life, not just on Sunday but on every day of the week, it is no wonder that the emphasis in Protestant circles shifted from churchly forms of devotion to ones that should be seen in personal affairs, community life, and national purpose. In other words, the cycle of revivals throughout American religious history, inaugurated by the First Great Awakening, secured the victory of pietism within American Protestantism. Like it European antecedents, American pietism dismissed church creeds, structures, and ceremonies as merely formal or external manifestations of religion that went only skin deep. In contrast, pietists have insisted that genuine faith was one that transformed individuals, starting with their heart and seeping into all walks of life. (D.G. Hart, The Lost Soul of American Protestantism (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), pp. xvii-xviii)

Unlike pietist Protestantism, which attaches great religious significance to public life and everyday affairs, confessionalism situates the things of greatest religious meaning in the sacred sphere of the church and its ministry. (p. xviii)

Confessional Protestants resisted revivals in large part because the methods of evangelists and the piety expected of converts were generically Christian—sincerity, zeal, and a moral life. As a result, revivalism did not respect but in fact undermined the importance of creedal subscription, ordination, and liturgical order. In a word, confessionalists opposed revivalism because it spoke a different religious idiom, one that was individualistic, experiential, and perfectionistic, as opposed to the corporate, doctrinal, and liturgical idiom of historic Protestantism. (p. xxiv)

Sinners and sin

The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence (Ps. 11:5)

"Love the sinner, hate the sin" (One Evangelical cliche)

It is typically said within Evangelical Christianity that we should love the sinner, but hate the sin. On the surface, it sounds right, for Christ loved the world to save it, so should we love people who are made in the Image of God. From this Evangelical piety we have the Evangelical praxis of interaction with fellow believers, and those outside the Church. While certain more wicked sins do provoke natural revulsion, Evangelicals in general try and struggle to love people and share with them the Gospel of Christ that they might believe and be saved. And to a certain extent, all such actions are laudable manifestations of godliness, if they have indeed arose from true faith in Christ.

The problem with Evangelical piety is not that it is totally wrong, but at certain critical places there is a slight but significant shift away from what is taught in Scriptures. The downside of such bite-sized cliches is that it truncates biblical truth concerning the matter. With regards to this particular cliche, it affects one's view of God and His relation with mankind, and this in turn effect a difference in the worship of believers, and how they deal with sin within and without the congregation.

The problem with this particular way of understanding is that it makes no sense of the biblical data in places like the Psalms, particularly the imprecatory psalms. For God only hates sin, but not the sinner, right? Thus, God only hate this "thing" out there called sin. This way of understanding God is congruent with a God without any real wrath, with the Old Testament being relegated to second-class status. Understandably, Evangelicals have no idea what to do when faced with passages in Scripture about God's wrath against sinners. One doesn't have to read very long in the Old Testament to see the fury of God breaking out against those who violated even a small part of the law, as the issue with the Sabbath-breaker proved (Num. 15:32-6). It is no wonder therefore that many Evangelicals feel the need to apologize for God in the Old Testament, and of course they don't sing the Psalms.

Such a view also results in an inability to deal properly with sin both within and without the church. Since sin is this abstract "thing" out there that somehow infects the person, what does one do when one faces sinners? The first alternative is to love them, while somehow convincing oneself that we are not condoning the sin, and hopefully one will someday get around to telling them that what they are doing is sin. This is the path followed by many an evan-jellyfish and is almost the default setting of almost all Christians. The second alternative is the path threaded by Fundamentalists, where sinners become and now ARE sin itself, since one must hate the sin and sins are committed by sinners. In the first path followed by the majority, sin is almost as it were tolerated to some extent. In the second path, let's just say that it is highly unlikely that the Gospel message can be heard in such settings.

The problem with that Evangelical cliche lies at its foundation. On the surface, everything seems rather fine, although one just might perceive something odd about the statement. The root issue is a failure to understand sin as an ethical issue, not an ontological or epistemic issue. Ethical issues means sin is relational, not in the ontological sense of "relations," but in the ethical personal sense. Since sin is ethical, then persons are involved. The sinner sinned against another person. Sin is not some abstract entity out there, but deals with persons. Remove one of the persons, and that ethical relation ceases to be present. One cannot after all sin against for example a car, neither can water sin against anyone. Sin is always personal, and thus one cannot separate sin from the sinner and/or the one sinned against.

The idea of "loving the sinner, but hating the sin" thus makes zero sense in this scheme. How does one hate "sin," since sin doesn't exist as a "thing"? Yes, one can personifies sin, or think of sin along the lines of its effects, but that is not the same as saying that sin has independent ontological existence! Thus, while the concept hints at the truth, it distorts it as much as it clarifies.

Psalms 11:5 states God's hatred of the wicked and those who love violence. Unless one wants to be a Marcionite, one must concede that God in some sense must hate the wicked; there is simply no way to get around that plain teaching short of attacking the divine inspiration of Scripture. When we think of sin in terms of ethical personal relations, then navigating this thorny topic becomes easier. God does hate the sinner, for surely it is sinners who sin! Yet, at the same time, God loves His creatures. The only way forward is to delineate the senses of how love and hate function. God loves sinners by virtue of their creatureliness. God hates sinners by virtue and because of their sin.

In place of the Evangelical cliche, a more biblical manner of expression is to say that we should love people because of their creation by God, and hate sinners in their sins. This of course is not as rememberable, and parodoxically neither is it easier to grasp or to practice. But since when did God promise the Christian Life to be easy? In this formula, love and hate, Creation and the Fall, cut through any and all unregenerate humans. There is no way we can view people as somehow a victim of "Sin," neither can we view people as constitutively little different from the Devil. The same person is simultaneously both loved and hated, in different senses.

In practice, holding to such a view with all its corollaries would solve the practical Marcionism in much of Christianity. In regards to interaction with people, the first benefit it would give is to force people to be less self-righteous. Sin is not something external, some infestation that believers are cured of. The second benefit is in dealings with unbelievers. It forces Christians to be at one time more unloving, and yet more loving. God hates sinners in their sin, so should we. God loves sinners because there are creatures in His image. So should we. We are called to love sinners more, and hate sinners more. The problem with both Evangelical and Fundamentalist approaches is that they love too little, and they hate too little. That which ought to be loved we hate; that we ought to hate we love. We must exhibit a holy hatred for sinners in their sin, yet show them the love of Christ offered in His grace. So in the analogous example of church discipline, there must be real discipline against the offender, yet to those who repent, FULL forgiveness must be offered. We must hate more, and love more.

Love the sinner, hate the sin? Almost right. But rather, we ought to love the person and hate the sinner in his sin. An almost imperceptible difference, but one with real practical ramifications. Just like much of Evangelicalism, this cliche is very close to the biblical truth, yet at a critical joint, a slight divergence in theory results in greater errors in practice.