Perhaps this is another example of reification. I know many self-named ‘Evangelicals’ who are suspicious of Christians who want to talk about and do something about social issues such as disarmament and environmental care. Some would go as far as saying that such activists are not genuine Evangelicals, and maybe not even genuine Christians. The reality is that some of these people are Builders, some are Boomers, and some are Xers. But over time the dichotomy between personal salvation and community transformation has become less of an issue in Evangelical circles.

What’s happened? Some years ago I was researching the history of SCM in Dunedin, New Zealand. I was saddened as I read through the records of the 1920s, seeing the worldwide polarisation that developed in Evangelical circles. Personal evangelism and social responsibility were severed as people went their separate ways. The formation of the InterVarsity movement came out of this divide. At the same time leaders such as Gresham Machem were responding to the ‘modernist threat’ by driving the Evangelical movement into a fundamentalism.

You refer to the work of Robert Fowler on Evangelical Political thought 1966 to 1976. Those years were certainly pivotal in the reformation of Evangelicalism. Not without pain of course. In that time we rediscovered some of the heritage of evangelicalism, looking again at the work of the Clapham group and their peers. You mention the work of Jim Wallis, whose magazine “Post-American” came out in 1971, and morphed into “Sojourner” in 1975. The Lausanne conference of Evangelicals in 1974 publicly declared an end to the dichotomy between evangelism and social action. That was a significant statement that must have reflected the groundswell already present, even before the work of the Sojourners community.

“We therefore should share his (Jesus) concern for justice and reconciliation throughout human society and for the liberation of men and women from every kind of oppression. Because men and women are made in the image of God, every person, regardless of race, religion, colour, culture, class, sex or age, has an intrinsic dignity because of which he or she should be respected and served, not exploited. Here too we express penitence both for our neglect and for having sometimes regarded evangelism and social concern as mutually exclusive. Although reconciliation with other people is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political liberation salvation, nevertheless we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty.”

As you point out, this movement towards left and central political ideology was the work of generations before Generation X. But I think the authors are reflecting on the cultural clashes that happen as people who have grown up with that dichotomy (older mission agency leaders) interact with leaders who have grown up assuming that evangelism and social action go together.

There are a lot of commentaries we could draw on here:

Richard Quebedeaux, The Young Evangelicals, 1974, and the Worldly Evangelicals, 1980, Harper Collins.

Robert Webber, The Younger Evangelicals, Baker Books, 2002

Rowland Croucher, Recent Trends Among Evangelicals, 1986, 1995

I enjoyed reading Jim Wallis’ commentary on the development of an Evangelical activist movement, in his books, “The Rise of Christian Conscience”, 1987, and “The New Radical”, 1983. Wallis provided us with a model of not only theology in action, but also community in action.

Another factor at work here is the ghettoization of Evangelical movements in the United States. Down under we don’t have that luxury. I know that in New Zealand all the streams of Evangelicals were present at key gatherings such as Vision NZ, including Catholic bishops and Pentecostal leaders.

This topics deserves a few more posts I’m sure. I’m hoping to do a review of The Younger Evangelicals soon.

The perspective that evangelicals have been fixated on personal individual issues (especially sexual mores) is partly true but also runs the risk of misreading and distorting history in evangelicalism. This is, by the way, a criticism of the text (not your summarisation).

The heritage of evangelicalism, if one marks it from the Great Awakening of the 18th century, blended both personal and social morality. Thus it is often said that one reason why the British Communist Party never amounted to much is precisely because of the influence of Methodists among the miners, working class in factories, and in the slums. Some of the earliest suffragetes owe their inspiration to the Wesleys.

The Clapham sect (Wilberforce et al) combined a genuine piety and passion for worldwide missions and bible translation alongside their efforts to ameliorate animal cruelty, child labour and slavery.

Charles Finney, who is remembered for his formulaic rally-evangelism, also was active in opposing slavery in America. Indeed he used his altar cals to repentance as a means of recruiting people into the anti-slavery cause.

The establishment of Sojourners came from the ranks of baby boomer evangelicals (starting with Jim Wallis, Jim Moore and a few others who were students at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School), which was just before Gen X children began to be conceived. Similarly the broad social agenda of Ron Sider, likewise comes from a baby boomer.

Robert Booth Fowler, a political scientist at the Uni of Wisconsin,wrote “A New Engagement: Evangelical Political Thought, 1966-76″ (Eerdmans 1982) charts the emergence of US evangelicals into the public arena in that particular decade before the moral Majority came into being. Fowler identifies various clusters of views from right-wing reactionaries, to conservative moderates, progressives, and left-wing evangelicals on a wide range of issues.

The social consciousness of the era 1966-76 belies the simplistic idea that evangelicals in the US can be regarded as a monolithic subculture. He sauys: “The age of monolithic unity (perhaps always exaggerated) is now as dead as the idea that evangelicals are an obscure group of religious fanatics to whom no serious observer of Amerian life need pay any attention.”

Evangelical discussion and activism on nuclear disarmament was underway among the Sojourners group in the 1970s; one of the earliest advocates for dealing with environmental issues was John Klotz, a scientist in the “young-earth” camp; and Francis Schaeffer likewise put ecology on the agenda in 1970 with his book Pollution and the Death of Man.

The pietism and quietism that these writers point to (and say Gen Xers do not identify with) is not a product of the Boomers. Trajecories for inner piety and corresponding “signs” of sanctification, can be found scattered among the Brethren (Watchman Nee’s writings), among some in the Holiness tradition, and in early Pentecostalism. The retreat from social engagement by evangelicals occurs with the advent of Rauschenbusch’s social gospel, the advent of sceptical biblical criticism and liberal theologies at the turn of the 20th century. The real retreat of evangelicals can be tracked in the emergence of Fundamentalism in the 1920s-40s; but cracks begin to emerge with the neo-evangelical movement (Carl Henry, Harold Lindsell etc) after 1945 with what to us probably sounded very conservative and tame theological reflections about the “naked public square”.

I wonder then if the writers who contrast Gen Xers from other evangelicals are doing so in a context that is divorced from any historical consciousness?

Robert Booth Fowler