Category Archives: Evangelicalism

From Evangelicalism to Orthodoxy

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There has been a steady migration of prominent evangelicals – or, least, those with an evangelical background – into the fold of Eastern orthodoxy.

These include, here in the UK, Kallistos Ware, Michael Harper, and, in the US, Peter Gillquist, Hank Hanegraff and Mark Galli.

Evangelicals Now reports on Hope Church Halifax, which was affiliated to the FIEC and has now become St Hilda’s Orthodox Church.

One of its leaders, Deacon Caedmon Clark (formerly known as Doug Clark) has explained why they made the move:

‘We began to struggle when, as evangelicals, we came across clear statements in the Bible that were contradicted by the teaching of our evangelical tradition.’

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The three worlds of Evangelicalism

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This is based on this article by Mike Judge, which is itself based on an article by Aaron M. Renn.

The original article assumes an American context, so not all of the ideas fit neatly into the situation here in the UK.

Over the past half-century or so, the culture has passed through three phases with regard to how it views evangelical Christianity.

Phase 1 was largely positive.  The church, its ministers and its members were regarded with respect. …

Biblicism: a failed project?

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In the course of a review of Christian Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture, Robert H. Gundry summarises, first, what Smith means by the word ‘biblicism’:

‘Biblicism means an emphasis on the Bible’s “exclusive authority, infallibility [or ‘inerrancy’], perspicuity, self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability,” though not every version of biblicism contains all these ingredients—at least not all in equal measure.’

Then, according to Gundry, Smith notes that this set of emphasis produces ‘pervasive interpretative pluralism’, with the result that:

‘Evangelical Christians differ widely on what they should believe and how they should behave; and their differences include important as well as unimportant matters.

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‘Fundamentalism’ revisited (again)

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Some years ago, I wrote:

‘It occurs to me that theological liberalism reached the height of its influence in the period leading up to 1977.  In fact, Alister McGrath makes a comment to this effect in his biography of J.I. Packer, To Know and Serve God, p212.  In that year two books were published by SCM Press which seemed finally to demonstrate that liberalism was, in the end, an impoverished, negative, destructive influence that was incapable of serving the purpose of Christ in this or any other generation. 

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Tell them about God

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I’ve heard it said that what happens in the USA happens here in the UK, twenty years later.

If that’s so, then we’d better take the following to heart.

William Willimon, Dean of the chapel at Duke University, recently stated, “Today’s conservatives sound like yesterday’s liberals.” In a fascinating article titled “Been there, preached that.” (Leadership, Fall 1995) Willimon sounds a prophetic warning to evangelicals, that they might not be seduced by the sirens of modernity and follow the path of tragic insignificance which mainline denominations have trod.…

What Evangelical Religion is not

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Having set out what he regards as the five leading features of ‘evangelical religion’ (i.e. evangelical faith), J.C. Ryle then goes on to write about what it is not:-

1.  It does not despise learning, although it steadily refuses to place any uninspired writings on a level with revelation.

2.  It does not undervalue the Church, although it refuses to exalt the Church above Christ, or teach people that membership of the Church is identical with membership of Christ.…

Evangelical Religion

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JC. Ryle (1817-1900) was a doughty supporter and proponent of ‘evangelical religion’ (i.e. evangelical faith).

In his celebrated work, Knots Untied, Ryle set out what he regarded as the leading features of such faith:-

“These I consider to be five in number.

a) The first leading feature of Evangelical Religion is the absolute supremacy it assigns to Holy Scripture, as the only rule of faith and practice … Show us anything plainly written in that Book, and, however trying to flesh and blood, we will receive it, believe it, and submit to it.…

Ryle and Ritualism

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Throughout his long ministry, J.C. Ryle (1817-1900) had to defend evangelical (that is to say, gospel) truth on a number of fronts.  One of these concerned the threat posed by the Ritualism of the Anglo-Catholic movement.

Ian Farley reports that in 1877 Ryle identified five key teachings of the Ritualists:

  1. They seek to turn the Communion Table into an ‘Altar’ and the Lord’s Supper into a ‘Sacrifice’ and encourage the idea of a real material presence of Christ’s body and blood, under the forms of the consecrated bread and wine.
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“Aha” moments that challenged beliefs about the Bible

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In 2014, Old Testament scholar Peter Enns began a series of posts in which he invited biblical scholars to share key moments when their inherited conservative view of the Bible was challenged, and subsequently modified.

Here’s the (very) distilled essence of each entry in the series:-

  1. Peter Enns – realised that Paul accepted, apparently without demur, the extra-biblical legend about a ‘moveable rock’ (1 Corinthians 10:4).
  2. John Byron – found that Jesus (or Mark) was mistaken about what 1 Samuel 21:1-9 says about David and his men eating the consecrated bread from the tabernacle.
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An evangelical approach to the Bible

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To be an evangelical is to seek to be true to Scripture because of the conviction that to be true to Scripture is to be true to Christ. A contemporary evangelical approach to Scripture has the possibility of combining appropriate pre-modern, modern and postmodern elements.

1. It will be pre-modern in the sense that it submits to the will of God as revealed in the text and thus puts the human will and its capacity for detached reason or local special pleading under that authority.…