{"id":5364,"date":"2009-07-13T00:05:18","date_gmt":"2009-07-13T00:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/07\/how-old-is-evangelicalism-will.html"},"modified":"2009-07-13T00:05:18","modified_gmt":"2009-07-13T00:05:18","slug":"how-old-is-evangelicalism-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/07\/how-old-is-evangelicalism-will.html","title":{"rendered":"How Old is Evangelicalism? William Andrew Tooley"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/i>How Old Is Evangelicalism?  <\/span>
\nAndrew Tooley<\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

There is a dustup these days about the origins
\nof evangelicalism: is it to be traced to the Reformation or to the 18th
\nCentury? (Never mind that many just say it goes back to the New
\nTestament itself!) 
\n<\/span>Andy Tooley, a friend of ours and this blog, is a student of
\nDavid Bebbington, who is Britain’s leading light on the history of
\nevangelicalism, and currently works for the Institute for the Study of
\nAmerican Evangelicals at Wheaton College. He wrote a niece piece on evangelicalism and emerging (link here<\/b><\/a>). Bebbington anchors
\nevangelicalism (as we now know it) in the 18th Century where some major
\ninfluences reshaped Protestantism. Recently some scholars put
\nBebbington’s theories to the test. Thanks to Andy for this post.<\/i>
\n <\/span>
\nIn a recent review of Michael Haykin and Ken Stewart’s edited volume
\nentitled The Advent of Evangelicalism, editor at large Collin Hansen at Christianity Today<\/i><\/a> rightly observes that some sixteen authors
\ndiscuss several problems with David Bebbington’s<\/a> descriptive framework in the
\nbook. <\/span> <\/span>What Hansen does not point out,
\nhowever, is that nearly all of the contributors end their examinations
\nby confirming the relative soundness of the quadrilateral and, most
\nimportantly, affirming Bebbington’s thesis that evangelicalism was a
\nnew movement that emerged in the eighteenth-century.  <\/span><\/i>
\n[The now well-known Bebbington quadrilateral is that evangelicalism is
\ncharacterized by Bible, cross, conversion, and active Christian living.]
\n <\/span>
\n<\/span>Interestingly, and revealingly, Hansen also chooses to grant authority
\nto a contributor who is not widely recognized to be an expert on the
\ntopic on which he has chosen to write.<\/p>\n

He then incorrectly suggests
\nthat this contributor makes the strongest argument as to why evangelicalism is
\nnot an eighteenth-century innovation<\/font>.<\/span>
\n 
\n<\/span><\/font>Hansen emphasizes this, I believe, because both he and this
\ncontributor are interested in shoring up Reformed theology and a
\nparticular type of Reformed Evangelicalism, a trait they share with the
\neditors of the book.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span>In the penultimate
\nparagraph of Hansen’s review he lists a series of “ifs” with which I
\ndisagree. Why is Evangelicalism less credible if it <\/i>is not completely
\nrooted in the Reformation? 
\n<\/span>Why also is it less credible if it <\/i>happens to be more deeply
\nrooted in the various Enlightenment movements of the 18th century than
\none would like or have thought? 
\n<\/span>Perhaps my failure to agree with Hansen on these “what if”
\nscenarios stems from my belief that the mixing of culture, in this case
\nthe English and Scottish enlightenments, with Christian belief and
\npractice is not only inevitable, but it possesses the potential to
\nbring vitality to Christianity.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

And I believe this mixture that characterized the emergence of Evangelicalism during the Great Awakenings of the 18th<\/sup> century did indeed bring a new vitality to Protestant Christianity as it became much more focused on activism through
\na devotion to missions.<\/p>\n

There is, of course, much more to be said, but Hansen’s review presents its readers with an incorrect picture of Evangelicalism and the dangers facing it if it is indeed an 18th Century innovation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 How Old Is Evangelicalism?  Andrew Tooley There is a dustup these days about the origins of evangelicalism: is it to be traced to the Reformation or to the 18th Century? (Never mind that many just say it goes back to the New Testament itself!)  Andy Tooley, a friend of ours and this blog, is a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Old is Evangelicalism? 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