Evangelicalism vs. the Reformed

py3ak · #1 (**permalink**) 01-17-2008, 01:29 PM

An interesting post by Dr. Clark.
Why was neo-evangelicalism inherently unstable?

Zenas · #2 (**permalink**) 01-17-2008, 01:47 PM

Nice article. Thanks for pointing it out.

I'm not sure what you mean by neo-evangelicalism, or what anyone means. Can you give a brief definition and history of the term?

I think modern evagelicalism is unstable, yet entirely immortal in a sense because of that. This is due to the fact that everyone is an "evangelical". Open Theists, Mormons (?), Arminians, the "Orthodox", the Heterodox, the Heretic, all of them claim to stand under the name of "evangelical". The word means absolutely nothing anymore. There are no commonalities, not the diety or Christ, His sacrifice, or any other core Christian doctrine that once seems to unite those under than banner.

One class of people seems to believe something similar to another class of people, the second of which have managed to eek their way into the label of evangelical. Ergo, if that second class is in, the first one comes in too because they're "similar" and we all need to be "ecumenical". In this way, people who have no business calling themselves such end up doing so.

And there's my two cents.

py3ak · #3 (**permalink**) 01-17-2008, 03:14 PM

Neo-evangelicalism, I suppose, is a somewhat fluid term. We could take the names Dr. Clark mentioned as providing some excellent instances. Harold Ockenga, for instance (best man at Carl McIntire's wedding, so I've heard) deliberately started a movement which was supposed to win intellectual respectability for conservative Christian doctrine. The NAE, Christianity Today and Wheaton, I think, were sort of the flagship institutions.

DMcFadden · #4 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 02:00 AM

Clark's own words explain things pretty clearly:

It was inherently unstable because it is impossible to unite the Reformed soteriology with a non-Reformed ecclesiology. Reformed theology is contiguous, like a body. Lop off a leg and one becomes inherently unstable. Lop off the Reformed ecclesiology Reformed theology becomes unstable. Try to attach an anabaptist or some other ecclesiology to Reformed soteriology and it doesn’t fit and is unstable.

As Dr. Clark sees it, people like me are part of an instrinsically unstable coalition. Those of us with a Reformed soteriology will never succeed in marrying it to a Baptist ecclesiology, he reasons, because of the intrinsic contiguity of Reformed theology. More than a belief, it is a belief system and a way of life. Unless we learn "to embrace the Reformed theology, piety, and practice," we will never be able to find a stable homeostasis.

Interesting. I found the PB last year in part because of my growing frustration with the fraying and fragmenting of the evangelical consensus. By the time I got to E.J. Carnell's place in Pasadena in the mid 70s, he was a already a distant memory, rejected for his "brittle rationalism" and old fashioned orthodoxy. In place of the legacy of the Westminster tradition training, we had students of Berkouwer who went further than their mentor in writing books "proving" that the Bible was wrong, that Turretin ruined Calvinism, and the Warfield was spectacularly in error in his notions of inerrancy.

Now three decades later, the ideas being flirted with in SoCal back then are bearing bitter fruit in seminaries all across the evangelical landscape right now. What we "learned" in '75 as only a statistical outlier in the evangelical world has become the disturbingly typical middle of a Gaussian distribution, proof that the Central Limit Theorem describes theology as well as polling numbers. Clark is correct in observing that "evangelical" has lost its meaning. When everything from Joel Osteen to Ted Hagard, to those folks standing beside I-35 (finding it to be a fulfillment of Isaiah 35), can be called evangelical, the word has lost all value.

Clark's observations sound jarringly harsh to this Baptist boy. Afterall, in the 18th century, when the Presbys gave up Calvinism, the Baptists were the ones conserving the doctrines of grace almost alone. But, at this point, I have no good counter-argumentation against Clark's thesis. Indeed, I rather suspect he is right.

Semper Fidelis · #5 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 03:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by R. Scott Clark

Our future is in our confession of the faith, in the positive, winsome and forward-looking proclamation of the Word, in planting confessional churches, and training pastors to embrace the Reformed theology, piety, and practice. First, however, we have to decide that, in fact, there is a Reformed identity to embrace. We must decide that we’re not a mere subset of contemporary evangelicalism, (and retrospectively considered, we never were). So long as we continue to see ourselves as just another branch of the larger evangelical movement we shall never realize our potential. So long as it is the case that our worship is indistinguishable from broad evangelicalism, so long as we continue to parrot the latest evangelical trend, we will continue to provide no clear alternative to broad evangelicalism. When the latest evangelical fad becomes too much, let our evangelical friends find in us a genuine representation of Reformed theology, piety, and practice and not a poor imitation of contemporary evangelicalism.

This board is not the "real world" or a Church but I can tell you that, from experience, I sense the instability in folks even here. It takes not a small amount of effort to keep a general consensus in a place where people click "I Agree" to the Reformed Confessions.

I know NAPARC congregations like to take some pride that they won't go the same direction as CT and others have gone but I'm not so convinced. Many might not abandon the Gospel in the same way but the default theological approach of many who call themselves Reformed is essentially the same kind of attitude and leads to different errors.

I have almost felt the need to apologize to people here and explain, repeatedly, why I subscribe to a Confession as opposed to the idea that I have a set of beliefs that I've fully developed on my own theological steam. In our culture, you're really not respectable unless you've dissected the Trinity for yourself and done all the exegetical work to prove to yourself that those in your Church aren't lying to you. It's almost as if there is an addendum to the idea that Christ has promised that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church - and, by the way, that means that I am charged with checking all her homework for Christ.

Thus, on the one extreme of the problem you have folks like Doug Wilson, Jim Jordan, and the like. They don't need the Church. They have their books and their brains to guide them into all Truth. They don't need the Confessions. They know Latin and Greek and they'll listen to their favorite Reformed individuals from the past and patch them together into a quilt of their own liking. The reason why the Federal Vision movement will never exist as anything other than a Confederation is because "every man believes what is right in his own eyes". Lusk isn't like Wilkins who isn't like Wilson. FV is so loose that you can't even systematize it because you have to piece together the bits that everybody decided they would glom on to. Of course they get upset when anyone decides to describe the group as a whole because the "I just gotta be me" attitude of each man's Reformed expression grates against any description that isn't exactly how they've arranged the universe to revolve around them.

A second trend that concerns me is another form of individualism. The individualism described above is in the leaders of the movements and they typically attract followers around them through the cult of their personality. The individualism I am concerned about here though are those that find themselves ien Churches but are really there on their schedule and at their convenience. They've had a busy week so they're going to take Sunday off because they need a break from worship on Sunday.

A number of months ago my friend's wife didn't show for Church and I asked him why. He stated that she'd had a rough week and was going to spend some time alone with the Lord today. I don't know how to describe the larger trend but people who are at least eager to please the Lord don't really see that relationship as existing outside of their personal relationship with Him. There is certainly really no corporate sense of how their solidarity with other local Saints is instrumental to their sanctification.

Thirdly, I am concerned about NAPARC congregations whose Officers and Churches don't really even care about the Confessions. There is such a pragmatic "need to tell the world about Jesus..." that they don't really worry about the catechism of adults and children. The doctrines are presumed upon so they're not passed on and they're generally lost. Hence the Church slowly declines. The worship leader of a Church I attended has a grown daughter dating a Mormon boy. Inconceivable but doctrine was never their concern - just making sure that the music was excellent. If you asked the Pastor if he subscribed to the WCF he did - he was even a strict Sabbatarian - but instruction was really not a priority for the Church even though they had a real heart for the lost and, especially, the poor.

I really wish that some of these congregations would take some time to look at the consequences that the Southern Baptist Churches are now reaping in terms of a large loss of the Gospel since they left their doctrinal roots decades ago. It's fascinating that the Founder's Movement is seeking to put Calvinism back in to SBC Churches while many PCA and OPC Churches are neglecting it and it is dying out from that neglect.

In conclusion, I know this is a bit scatter brained and I wish I had figured out a way to organize my thoughts better. I even have some other things I want to say but I'll save them for another time. I've seen many sides of the evangelical tracks and I can say that there is not much difference between the man in the pew in an SBC or a PCA congregation. I've also seen an incredible hunger for real meat when someone takes the time to serve it to them but many Churches are so convinced that the Great Commission only means getting more and more lost into the doors that they forget the part about discipleship, which takes the most work and dedication. In that regard, the Churches act just like the para-Church where they can do all the proclamation with none of the responsibility of caring and feeding. Until the latter is done properly we're going to see continued deterioration. I think much of the Reformed growth over the past couple of decades hasn't been terribly deep growth and men have largely been left to themselves to stay interested. I think the interest in good theology is going to wane in the coming years and the only remedy is for the Church to start acting like the Church.

Zenas · #6 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 09:07 AM

I can attest to the neglect in Presbyterianism Rich. There is an Elder who sits on our session who does not know what Calvinism is, nor does he care to. There are others as well, but he is the most vocal about it. Of course, the church existed without a pastor for 7 years too, something that never helps as I understand. It is a constant battle for my pastor, who is always trying to steer them in the right direction. It's like turning an aircraft carrier though, you have to start turning miles before you need to. Thankfully we've got some younger people in our congregation who are willing to learn.

I am somewhat envious of the tenacity with which the Founder's movement embraces and teaches the doctrines of Grace. It matters to them, whereas it seems in the Presbyterian setting it is merely assumed that we're all happy Calvinists, even if half of the people don't know that that means. We are because we're Presbyterian, and no one studies stuff like that anyway unless they're some sort of nerd that hangs out on a Reformed message board.

py3ak · #7 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 11:12 AM

If there are examples of confessional Baptist churches that have not gone into neo-evangelicalism, then I think that Dr. Clark's listing of the causes may prove to be inadequate. The truth is that it is not a simple Presbyterian/Baptist divide. Presbyterians were drawn into neo-evangelicalism as well.

From the perspective of the fundamentalists, neo-evangelicalism was unstable, because they refused to practice ecclesiastical separation from error.

DMcFadden · #8 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 01:02 PM

Rich,

That was one of the most disturbingly truthful and hauntingly accurate analyses I have read in a long time. Thank you!

I'm not sure about the confessional Baptists question Ruben raises, but that would be interesting to discuss if some of you know the answer.

As one trained at Westmont (the "Wheaton" of the West), and Fuller (an early flagship of neo-evangelicalism), I saw the "downgrade" even during my time at those institutions in the 70's. Westmont was an amazing academic experience. Some of us had pieces in CT before we graduated, enjoyed sitting around with profs discussing their papers and books prior to publication, etc. But, my four years were full of struggle over the acceptable limits of theology and biblical criticism. By the time of graduation, my primary prof (32 untis of NT and Greek + he officiated at my wedding and the single most intelligent human being I have ever met) had moved from his GARB roots to arguing that Matthew was midrash, the star of Bethlehem was merely the gentilization of the shepherd motif, and there were no magi. When he went into print with that one, it got him ejected from the ETS. Now he rejects imputation as well (NPP).

The dream of Charles Fuller (his son, Daniel, is one of my residents in my retirement community ministry), Ockenga, and C.F.H. Henry was (to quote Wikipedia):

The seminary was initially conceived of as the evangelical Caltech, where excellence in scholarship would dovetail with faithfulness to orthodox Protestant beliefs, and yield a renovation of western culture from secular unbelief. The seminary would become a launching pad for a new generation of zealous evangelicals who would rigorously engage in critical dialogue with Liberal theology and modern secular thought, as well as cultivating skills in those who would propel mass evangelism and worldwide missions. The principal founding figures of Fuller Seminary included Charles E. Fuller (radio evangelist), Ockenga, Carl Henry, and Harold Lindsell.

By the time I got there in '75, Henry was excoriated as a foolish rationalist by Presbyterian Jack Rogers. Francis Schaeffer was regarded as a neo-fundamentalist separatist who understood neither Jn 17 nor philosophy. Smedes (a Christian Reformed man) explained to us the virtues of a more "realistic" ethic and the virtues of covenantal homosexual unions as a "lesser of two evils" ethic. Paul didn't write Ephesians, only God knows who wrote 2 Peter and Revelation, and Jesus' material was "shaped" by redactors to such an extent that . . . you know. Only Bromiley made much of a pitch for traditional interpretations and he was busy translating Barth or Kittel or something else most of the time. My sys theo prof considered the Torrance brothers au courant if you wanted to be "Reformed." Another prof taught me annihilationism as the answer to eternal wrath.

Clark rightly points to confessionalism as a strength. Rich, you are also correct (IMO) that what keeps all of us off balance is the rabid individualism that seeps into all of our traditions, but especially evangelicalism. The broader evangelical community has no firefall to protect it from the latest fad or foolish innovation (e.g., Osteen, et. al.). The ETS still flirts with Open Theism and cannot find it emotionally possible to separate Cark Pinnock (a longtime ETS member) from their body. With so many evangelicals taking their terminal degrees in the most liberal venues, they seem to have great sympathy for the acceptability of such scholarly explorations, even if they make a mockery of the "confessional" boundaries of their foundational charter (i.e., inerrancy). If Westmont and Fuller are any indication, it is extremely difficult to maintain the stability and balance of the evangelical experiment in this post-modern era.

But, the Reformed community has its own dangers. The extreme intellectualism of most Reformed folks make them delicious targets for hubris and the nonsensical belief that I can cobble together my OWN theology from bits and pieces of tradition as my autonomous mind evaluates the weight of evidence. How well and how long Reformed confessionalism will hold up is a matter of some doubt. Look at the direction of Presbyterianism in America over the last century.

timmopussycat · #9 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DMcFadden

Rich,

That was one of the most disturbingly truthful and hauntingly accurate analyses I have read in a long time. Thank you!

I'm not sure about the confessional Baptists question Ruben raises, but that would be interesting to discuss if some of you know the answer.

As one trained at Westmont (the "Wheaton" of the West), and Fuller (an early flagship of neo-evangelicalism), I saw the "downgrade" even during my time at those institutions in the 70's. ...

But, the Reformed community has its own dangers. The extreme intellectualism of most Reformed folks make them delicious targets for hubris and the nonsensical belief that I can cobble together my OWN theology from bits and pieces of tradition as my autonomous mind evaluates the weight of evidence. How well and how long Reformed confessionalism will hold up is a matter of some doubt. Look at the direction of Presbyterianism in America over the last century.

To which Samuel J. Stone replies, cogently and biblically.

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died.

She is from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

The Church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish,
Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against both foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!

’Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
With all her sons and daughters
Who, by the Master’s hand
Led through the deathly waters,
Repose in Eden land.

O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee:
There, past the border mountains,
Where in sweet vales the Bride
With Thee by living fountains
Forever shall abide!

MrMerlin777 · #10 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 02:04 PM

etexas · #11 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMerlin777

I will join my friend Donald for some popcorn on this one.

But I do somewhat agree with an early post that the whole term "Evangelical" has lost meaning in this culture, I tend to refer to myself as Reformed, not to be aloof or because I think a general sense of Evangelical is "bad", it just lacks clarity.

py3ak · #12 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 04:06 PM

Quote:

By the time I got there in '75, Henry was excoriated as a foolish rationalist by Presbyterian Jack Rogers. Francis Schaeffer was regarded as a neo-fundamentalist separatist who understood neither Jn 17 nor philosophy. Smedes (a Christian Reformed man) explained to us the virtues of a more "realistic" ethic and the virtues of covenantal homosexual unions as a "lesser of two evils" ethic. Paul didn't write Ephesians, only God knows who wrote 2 Peter and Revelation, and Jesus' material was "shaped" by redactors to such an extent that . . . you know. Only Bromiley made much of a pitch for traditional interpretations and he was busy translating Barth or Kittel or something else most of the time. My sys theo prof considered the Torrance brothers au courant if you wanted to be "Reformed." Another prof taught me annihilationism as the answer to eternal wrath.

That's quite a slide. I think we've pinned down individualism and anti-confessionalism as part of the problem. To what extent did the desire for intellectual respectability play into the downgrade?

DMcFadden · #13 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 04:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by py3ak

That's quite a slide. I think we've pinned down individualism and anti-confessionalism as part of the problem. To what extent did the desire for intellectual respectability play into the downgrade?

IMO, the desire to play with the big boys and girls in the liberal sandbox is a major factor in the downgrade of evangelical theology during the time between the founding of Fuller/CT/etc. and today.

Most of us just do not do so well with cognitive dissonance. We want to like AND agree with our friends and dislike AND disagree with our enemies. When Evangelical Eddy (or Edna) goes off to obtain his/her PhD from the University of Prestige, he/she often discovers that Professor Left of Lucifer loves his wife, is a wonderful dad, and does many philanthropic things in the community. Additionally, Prof. L.L. typically began as an evangelical himself and saw the shift left as part of his "coming of age" pilgrimage. Mentored in such an environment, it is VERY difficult to maintain the fast and easy distinctions between truth and error. The understandable human desire to be liked and respected by one's chosen peer group exerts (IMO) a TREMENDOUS power over many evangelical scholars. Plus, in an environment saturated with individualism and cut off from confessional boundaries, caffeteria selections of positions and ideas are much more possible.

Here I will probably look like a hillbilly knuckle dragger on such an erudite board. However, the too-easy adoption of critical methodologies will inevitably draw evangelicals out of evangelicalism and into any number of pernicious theological trajectories (IMO). Fuller was started as a place where cutting edge methodolgies were wedded to orthodoxy and piety. Instead, what you have is a bunch of contemporary "evangelicals" who believe any fool thing they want to. Methods are not presuppositionless. They carry intrinsic implications and directions that will, given enough time, be evident to all.

In college my former GARB NT prof began to explore redactional methodologies for his Matthew commentary. By the time he was finished, Boice had removed him from the Expositor's project and replaced him with D.A. Carson. And, when his full scale commentary was unveiled it got him in hot water with the Evangelical Theological Society. But, notice, the first hearing of his case found him acceptable in ETS. There were enough evangelical NT types who did not want to judge Bob lest they themselves be judged for their own electic embrace of "scholarship" outside the bounds of confessional boundaries. It wasn't until Geisler went on a crusade to oust him that the position was reconsidered and reversed and he was removed from ETS.

So, IMO, as long as we think we can "use" naturalistically laden critical methodologies without becoming corrupted by them, as long as we want to play in the liberal sandbox and be one of the gang, and as long as we live in an utterly individualistic (and non confessional) environment, there will be continual erosion of belief and drifting into error.

Maybe I'm just like the former alcoholic who becomes a crusader for abstinence, but that is part of the reason for my attraction to the PB. After more than a half century in the "evangelical" chaos, perhaps I'm looking for a little too much confessional order among the ranks of those who pride themselves on doing things decently and in order. That is why Dr. Clark's writings resonate with me so much, I guess.

DMcFadden · #14 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 05:56 PM

In addition to the idea advanced by Ruben, another thought came to me. Last night ER did an interesting subplot on a dying physician who was consumed with guilt over the men he had given lethal injections to as a prison doc performing capital punishment. He cried out for someone who believed something, who knew God, who could show him how to get forgiven.

The hospital chaplain, a female who had studied Buddhism and lived in an Ashram as part of her (liberal Protestant???) theological education felt that all roads enrich our inclusive spirituality. Having studied everything, she was certain about nothing.

When she tried to offer liberal bromides about acceptance and uncertainty, the dying doc shouted at her to get her New Age clap-trap away from him and send him somebody who knows something.

Unfortunately, in our post-modern world of uncertainty, knowing something about everything is sometimes an innoculation against believing anything about Anyone for sure. Add to this the fractors that we have been identifying in this thread and you have a recipie for evangelical drift.

MrMerlin777 · #15 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by etexas

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMerlin777

I will join my friend Donald for some popcorn on this one.

But I do somewhat agree with an early post that the whole term "Evangelical" has lost meaning in this culture, I tend to refer to myself as Reformed, not to be aloof or because I think a general sense of Evangelical is "bad", it just lacks clarity.

Can I refer to myself as a Reformed Evangelical?

py3ak · #16 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 06:42 PM

I think people like Machen who can meet liberals on their own ground and confute them are probably the exception rather than the rule. And I wonder if we must not be willing to be counted fool's for Christ's sake before we come to the point of being able to withstand the pressure of the academic world. That is not meant to promote obscurantism or ignorance. The problem with unbelieving scholarship isn't only that it's unbelieving: in many cases the problem is also that it's bad scholarship. But if we long for intellectual respectability from secular academia, have we not surrendered to a prevailing cultural idolatry? Is it not always true that the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness?

Semper Fidelis · #17 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by py3ak

If there are examples of confessional Baptist churches that have not gone into neo-evangelicalism, then I think that Dr. Clark's l