Evangelicalism: Did it start with Luther/Reformation or Wesley/Methodism?

[Casey]

Okay, so I read today in a book the claim that evangelicalism started in the 1730s with Wesley. Yet Luther's cause and church was called the "evangelical church." I've been under the assumption that "evangelical" can simply mean "Protestant" (historically speaking). So, what's going on here?

 

[JohnOwen007]

Okay, so I read today in a book the claim that evangelicalism started in the 1730s with Wesley. Yet Luther's cause and church was called the "evangelical church." I've been under the assumption that "evangelical" can simply mean "Protestant" (historically speaking). So, what's going on here?

Dear Casey, you are right to question the thesis that historic evangelicalism began in the 18th century. To be sure the word "evangelicalism" began to be used then. However, the first to use the word "evangelical" was Luther, and this became a ubiquitous designation for Protestants both before and after the word "Protestant" came into usage.

To be sure, the 18th century did see a new style of evangelicalism, not least a greater desire to take the gospel to unreached people. This was not wholly absent in earlier forms of evangelicalism, however, the 18th century saw this earnestly.

Again, the 18th century also saw the seeds of revivalist practices that would fully flower under Charles Finney, and not for the good I would argue.

Blessings.

 

[Casey]

Thanks -- this is basically what I was thinking regarding the origin of the term. I find it awkward that folk would put forward that it started in the 18th-century. In a chapter of a book I picked up, it starts with this: "Evangelicalism is a Christian movement that began in the 1730s. A strong argument could be made that John Wesley is the founder of the evangelical tradition," etc. Now this particular book in general argues for an egalitarian view of women in ministry. The chapter in question is a historical survey that attempts to demonstrate that a tradition of women in ministry has been with "evangelicalism" from the beginning (with Wesley ordaining women), and that where the gospel was, and where people were unwilling to "conform" to the "conventions in polite society" (aka, not allowing women to preach), then women were allowed to preach. So, the argument seems to be, if you're going to really be an evangelical, if you're going to conform to Scripture and not the culture, then you best allow women to be ministers. Of course I don't buy the author's agenda, but I thought it was strange regarding his claim of when evangelicalism started. And throughout the chapter he then traced the Methodist movement changing its view, no longer allowing women preachers, then a split and a new denomination starting that "carried the torch" of the gospel-and-women-in-ministry, as if the two go hand-in-hand. Okay, so I agree that "evangelical" historically means the same thing as Protestant (not Methodist, as this guy seems to assume, though I understand the importance of Methodism) -- but my next question is, and I ask it regarding the theological landscape beyond the egalitarian issue: Is there an agenda in pointing to Wesley as the originator of "evangelicalism" instead of to Luther? What's the pay-off for those who do this?

 

[Pergamum]

Evangelical=Protestant.

 

[Mushroom]

This is what the word used to mean (and still means when a Presbyterian Pastor fences the table): evangelical (relating to or being a Christian church believing in personal conversion and the inerrancy of the Bible)

This is what it is usually defined as now: evangelical, evangelistic (marked by ardent or zealous enthusiasm for a cause) specifically conversion of unbelievers.

 

[Jimmy the Greek]

For more, see Defining Evangelicalism from The Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals.

 

[DMcFadden]

Evangelical = gospelizer = Protestant (European nuance, historically determined)

Evangelical = gospelizer = Protestant = the non-liberal wing of the church that is [Activist, Conversionist, Crucicentrist, and Biblicist] and was shaped by American revivalism (esp. Wesley and Finney), especially those denominations affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals (20th century American version).

Evangelical = gospelizer = Protestant = 20th century conservative Christian = any generally Protestant church/organization/individual not Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or (generally) part of the Protestant mainline movement (21st century usage). In current usage, one may claim to be an "evangelical" in a mainline church, but the evangelical denominations per se are those historically identified with the National Association of Evangelicals. The latitude of allowable belief and practice has moved beyond the historic characteristics identified by Bebbington (Activist + Conversionist + Crucicentrist + Biblicist) to include the Emergent Church universalists (e.g., McLaren), most varieties of Pentecostalism and charismatic expression, and (by some definitions) much of the old fundamentalist movement.

Evangelical in the modern sense was coined (actually it was "neo evangelical") in the 1940s by Ockenga and Henry who wanted to strip the legalism and anti-intellectualism from fundamentalism and restore a Reformational Christianity. Fuller Seminary was the flagship school of the movement and Christianity Today was the organ of public communication.

Within two decades, the formal principle of the Reformation, sola fide, was suffering at the hands of revisionists seeking to make the message more palatable to Christianity's opponents and cultured despisers. By the early 70s Fuller had moved from inerrancy to a kind of infallability where errors in the Bible were tolerated (and even celebrated) as a badge of honor proving that we had no fundamentalist (the ultimate curse word) docetistic view of the Bible.

Grudem has argued that when evangelicals began aping the scholars in the mainlines on the issue of feminism (e.g., ordination of women), we began our downgrade into liberalism. He suggests that any denomination that began ordaining women did not take more than a couple of decades before they also began making compromises on human sexuality (e.g., homosexuality and ordination of openly gay persons).

My contention, argued ad nauseum in a number of PB threads is simple: When evangelicals formed without a firm confessional boundary, they set their heirs up for an inevitable slide into liberalism. However, unlike other slides (e.g., following the First Great Awakening), this one does not begin in the area of Christology or Theology Proper (e.g., via Unitarian and Socinian notions), but Bibliology. Once we put ourselves on a course of revising our doctrine of Scripture to "fit" in with the notions of the liberal academy, we set in motion a series of consequences the end thereof which lead to liberalism just as surely as any other misdirected movement in church history.

 

[Jimmy the Greek]

Later 20th century conservative efforts to prevent the slide of evangelicalism into liberalism and post-modern theology gave rise to things like:

- Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

- Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics

- The Cambridge Declaration - Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Inc

Sadly, groups like the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals are a subset of the larger morphing evangelicalism.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

Dennis,

I think this is a simple but profound statement:

When evangelicals formed without a firm confessional boundary, they set their heirs up for an inevitable slide into liberalism.​

We are seeing this everywhere today. Not only into liberalism, but into the charismatic pandora's box, and other aberrations.

Thanks,

Steve

 

[Pergamum]

Isn't the PCUSA confesssional too?


It's not a silver bullet.

The Chicago Statement and the Cambridge Declaration are pretty good "confessions" are they not?

 

[Seb]

Isn't the PCUSA confesssional too?

It's not a silver bullet.

Didn't they "slip" past their confessional boundary? If they would have stayed on the other side of the "ropes" they wouldn't be where they are today.

 

[Archlute]

Isn't the PCUSA confessional too?


It's not a silver bullet.

In reality, "no", the PCUSA is not confessional.

My wife's sister and her husband both were ordained in the PCUSA after graduating from Fuller last year, and the only thing to which they had to "subscribe" was upholding women's ordination, and "being nice people" in the church (i.e. never making waves about the gay issues in their presbytery).

As far as I know, my brother-in-law and his wife have never even laid eyes on the WCF.

Silver bullets are no good if they haven't even found their way into the chamber.

 

[Pergamum]

But to slip with the Confession or with "only the Bible" or a newer declaration such as the Cambridge Declaration is still to slip.

Every errant church slips past their boundaries - the Scripture.


Confessions are useful, but again, not the magic bullet Every church must be vigilant.

 

[Pergamum]

Isn't the PCUSA confessional too?


It's not a silver bullet.

In reality, "no", the PCUSA is not confessional.

My wife's sister and her husband both were ordained in the PCUSA after graduating from Fuller last year, and the only thing to which they had to "subscribe" was upholding women's ordination, and "being nice people" in the church (i.e. never making waves about the gay issues in their presbytery).

As far as I know, my brother-in-law and his wife have never even laid eyes on the WCF.

Silver bullets are no good if they haven't even found their way into the chamber.

EXCELLENT points Adam!

 

[cih1355]

I found an evangelical Christian confession of faith. Here is the link: ThisWeBelieve.com

I believe that evangelicalism started with the Protestant Reformation because the Protestant Reformers taught that the Bible is the sole infallible authority and that we are saved by God's grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. They taught that there is no goodness in man and that man does not contribute anything to his justification.