Evangelicals seem to be great squabblers. They divide over all sorts of issues: from creationism to the millennium and all the bits in between, it seems. The word “evangelical” itself seems particularly rubbery, implying “fundamentalism” to some, “charismatic” to others, referring to a liturgical style at one point or to a right-wing social programme at another. It can appear that to be an evangelical is to live in a lonely world. What I mean is: there just aren’t that many amillennial paedobaptist four-point Calvinist theistic-evolutionist episcopalian congregationalist non-charismatic complementarians out there...[and if you are out there, could you please give me a call?]
The thesis of One Faith-the Evangelical Consensus by J.I. Packer and Thomas C. Oden is that a comparison of statements of faith from across the evangelical world in fact reveals a remarkable consensus of belief. The evangelical movement, much derided in some quarters as an aberration or a dinosaur, is in fact a growing cohesive global entity. The creeds compared show that this unity is founded on an orthodox doctrine of God in three persons, and on the evangelical distinctives of the authority of scripture, the necessity of the atoning blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, justification by grace through faith alone, the work of the holy spirit in conversion and the hope of Christ’s return.
After an interesting introduction, the bulk of the book is a list of creeds garnered from evangelical organizations world-wide and compared on various topics. It isn’t exactly a scintillating read, I have to say, and never quite rises to the dizzying heights its editors promise. The worth of the book is more as a reference with an essay attached. Disappointingly, while doctrinal statements from Canada, Belgium, Japan and South America are used, not one Australian statement made it into the lists. Left off again!
The listing of the extracts from the statements offers, however, heart-warming evidence that evangelicalism is a vibrant world-wide movement with a remarkable consensus of belief shared by its adherents - despite denominational, national, linguistic and other differences. Our theological views cannot be dismissed as eccentric, novel or aberrant; in fact, they are biblically and historically grounded and intellectually robust.
The section on “the People of God” reveals very little on church order and sacraments – it is characteristic of evangelicalism that matters ecclesiological are held to be second-order. The evidence presented in this book proves that evangelicals have always sought to work across denominational boundaries and are still seeking to do so without waiting for merely bureaucratic solutions. Here is indeed a true ecumenism. I was encouraged to remember that true agreement on the great truths of the faith is widespread.
However, I wonder whether the book concealed some of the deep differences among evangelicals, too. While the section on scripture contained some very strong affirmations of the authority and inerrancy of the Bible it is clear that this is worked out in vastly different ways among people who would own the name “evangelical”. Evangelical scholars need to continue to work hard at clarifying their doctrine of scripture. The section on “the Last Things”, also papered over some very wide cracks...
4 comments:
Part of the problem is not in what people affirm, so much as what they DO with what they affirm. I have met many evangelicals who when pressed affirm the central truths of evangelicalism, but you'd never really know it from their priorities or ministries. The traditional doctrinal statements are too easily signed and then stuck in a mental drawer, having no real bearing on what is practiced. Some of the more recent ministries to emerge adopt the standard EA doctrinal basis out of convention, but you'd never know it to look at them. I think of one modern house-church movement where the authority of Scripture is affirmed in all the box-ticking ways we've come to expect, and yet the Bible is marginalised in favour of "listening to God" in every way possible that doesn't involve opening it.
"Show me your faith..." says the apostle James.
Michael, I have a copy of One Faith sitting on my shelf. Like you, I didn't find it very stimulating. I barely got through the introductory material. One of these days I will have to get back to it. However, I find their thesis -- that there is a basic consensus among evangelicals -- to be both obvious and much more difficult to pinpoint than they admit. I am working on a Ph.D. on evangelical-Roman Catholic dialogue from a Catholic perspective. While there is not much difficulty identifying Catholic faith and practice, it is far more difficult to do this for evangelicals simply because there does not seem to be any commonly accepted definition of evangelicalism. Who is an evangelical? What is or isn't an evangelical belief? I hoped that Packer and Oden would have solved the problem for me, but not yet.
My problem with a number of schemas, Packer and Oden's included, is that after pointing to all of the common elements of evangelicalism, the schemas conclude with "so that is what defines an evangelical." The problem with this approach is that many or most of these elements are also shared with other Christians of diverse traditions. In most cases, we would not presume that this makes these other Christians evangelical as well. Yet, when we attempt to specify particular ways of understanding one or more of these elements (scripture for example) we immediately begin to exclude groups that self-describe as evangelical, and which most people would presume to be within the evangelical family.
I am not prepared to toss out the term "evangelical" as a descriptor of a specific group of churches and Christians. At the same time, my ecumenical convictions do not encourage me to draw strict lines of distinctiveness. "Sorry, you can't believe that, it's evangelical!" Or, "you should believe this, it's evangelical!" It seems to me that the problems of denominationalism (parochialism, proselytism, and polemicism to name a few) arise from the desire to differentiate oneself from others. What if evangelicalism's pan-denominationalism is the core distinctive?
Well, i think the pan-denominationalism, ie, its 'low' ecclesiology, IS quite distinctive. People have often said it is a weak ecclesiology and tried to fill it in with a 'strong' one, but they can't without becoming unevangelical in the process...
Thanks for the thoughtful comment: I will think on't and say some more when I don't have wild children clamouring for breakfast...
I think that pan-denominationalism is a more helpful way of characterising the boundary-crossing than "Here indeed is a true ecumenism". If Ev. Anglicans do something in common with the local Baptists or Pressies, to the frustration of the local Anglo-Catholics, this would be entirely understandable from an Ev. point of view but it would be a bit much to call it "ecumenical".
One could make a comparison with people from various countries who are used to (and have a taste for) living and working internationally: there are things they have in common with each other, which they don't share with their various countrymen. But one common way of describing this, "being open to dealing with people who are different from you", picks out one sort of difference (nationality) in preference to another (way of relating), and is prejudicial to that extent.
A similar point could be made about elites of various kinds, or scientists, or members of human rights movements, or ...
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