Do Evangelicals REALLY have a place within TEC?

While the argument rages about if units of the church below the level of province can sign on to the covenant, I want to again ask the question of if Evangelicals have a place within TEC.

Of late, Evangelical has come to have strong political overtones. Several figures have given strength to this view, individuals like James Dobson, Jerry Folwell, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, Phyllis Schlafly, and Gary Bauer (this list would also have to include politicians such as George W. Bush). With well organized ministries, these and other high profile Evangelical leaders have given the appearance that Evangelicals are most interested in regaining political power.

To counter this impression, a group of Evangelicals recently published an Evangelical Manifesto. Here is the center of the work:

Our first task is to reaffirm who we are. Evangelicals are Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth.(Evangelical comes from the Greek word for good news, or gospel.) Believing that theGospel of Jesus is God’s good news for the whole world, we affirm with the Apostle Paulthat we are “not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God untosalvation.” Contrary to widespread misunderstanding today, we Evangelicals should be defined theologically, and not politically, socially, or culturally.

The whole thing can be found here.

I say all this to lay the foundation that I want to speak of Evangelical as a theological label within the context of The Episcopal Church. It might be impossible for some to remove the political image from their mind, but my intent is not political.

There are a number of definitions for Evangelical. A history lesson could follow here, which might be edifying, but I haven’t the time for it. It should be noted that modern Evangelicalism arose as a counter to a more insular fundamentalism in the middle of the 20th century, but has deep connections with Evangelicals reaching back to founders of the Reformation (Billy Graham has often been credited with a major role in the modern movement, but other should also be noted. Among them are Carl Henry, Francis Schaeffer, and Harold Ockenga. The Institute for Advanced Christian Studies (IFACS) should also be mentioned.) The work of Robert Webber, Alister McGrath, Roger Olson, and Thomas Oden has taken modern Evangelicalism back even to the Church Fathers.

A history lesson tells us what Evangelicalism is in a narrative fashion. As the editors of Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals (IVP, 2003) put it, it is the story “from John Wyclif to John Wimber…via John Wesley” (interestingly, Hooker is not in this volume, nor any of the Anglican Divines, except Cranmer). Another interesting historical look at Evangelicals is Mark Noll’s Between Faith and Criticism (Baker, 1986). Noll describes the evolving attitude of Evangelicals to Biblical Scholarship. This provides a useful perspective to make a historical definition of Evangelicals.

However, a historical descriptive approach will not work well, especially for those whose knowledge and/or experience of Evangelicalism and its history is limited. A more taxonomic approach will also better serve my apologetic ends. And for such an approach, almost every one turns to David Bebbington. He uses a definition that has four key critical components (and is therefore labeled the Bebbington Quadrilateral): conversionism, activism, Biblicism, and crucicentrism.

From Wikipedia:
• biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible (e.g. all spiritual truth is to be found in its pages)
• crucicentrism, a focus on the atoning work of Christ on the cross
• conversionism, the belief that human beings need to be converted
• activism, the belief that the gospel needs to be expressed in effort

With the exception of activism, each of the components seem to be an unwelcomed guest in TEC.

As I have argued elsewhere, a perspective that entails “all roads lead to God” is in conflict with crucicentrism (if you argue that “all roads lead to the Cross and therefore to God,” you are on the road to a Christian Universalism, that has a long pedigree, and I (although not even most Evangelicals) can live with that. And I especially like this quote, “All the roads on which are found truth, goodness, and beauty come from God, but only roads that go through the cross lead to God.”

The role of the Bible in discussions of human sexuality has laid bare the place of scripture in the various positions. I have yet to see an argument for a progressive view of human sexuality that contains scripture as a foundation. The basic appeal comes down to science and experience, and while these should be taken into consideration, from an Evangelical point of view, they cannot be the basis for a theology of human sexuality.

Conversionism may provide the grittiest point of conflict. It conjures up images of tent meetings and ecstatic worship. It gets dismissed as “mere emotion,” or, the kiss of death, pietistic. But drawing from strong images in Scripture and from the experience of people down the ages, Evangelicals insist that God can reach down into hearts and minds, the very core of our being, and make us into new people. Sometimes this seems to happen in an instant, and other times it may take years. Gordon Smith has shown how conversion is a highly complex phenomenon, bringing together many factors, human and divine.

But what seems to be most in dispute is the scope of who needs conversion. Evangelicals believe everyone needs conversion. While through history, some have required a “conversion experience,” the need for conversion, slow or fast, remains for all people. This is because of a foundational belief of Evangelicals: people are broken. I am not arguing for “Original Sin.” I don’t think that is necessary. When I hear, “For as in Adam, all die,” being the lowly bad grammarian that I am, I hear metaphor using a rhetorical figures of speech. We were created good, but now the Imago Dei is marred.

What Evangelicals argue is that the Cross is necessary precisely because it is the only remedy for our brokenness. But we also believe in the Resurrection. The Cross and Resurrection go together to make New Creation possible, first in people, but ultimately in the whole of Creation. The only way to get involved in New Creation, however, is to be made new! Hence the need for conversion.

An Evangelical views TEC’s position with respect to conversionism, Biblicism, and crucicentrism as one of at best benign neglect, or at worse, open hostility. I don’t think it would be realistic for us to believe that TEC will suddenly turn to these areas with gusto, but we would hope that at the very least, TEC would show that they understand what each means to us. Perhaps most realistically, we could hope that TEC would see that our activism (something that TEC seems to major in) is driven because of our commitment to the other three. To take away conversionism, Biblicism, and crucicentrism is to rip out the heart of our activism.

And it remains a point of sharp bitterness that evangelism, a core part of Evangelical activism, seems left in the cold by TEC. This is no doubt related to the issues raised by conversionism and crucicentrism. If people are not broken, then there is no need to hear the good news that they can be made new. Or if the good news is simply that they need to understood that God loves them “just as they are,” there is no need for the Cross (maybe only as some kind of example). Neibuhr’s is still the best answer to this:

A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.

A post script here should include a mention of Pentecostalism. Evangelical pnematology has been nearly as anemic as Evangelical ecclesiology. I am profoundly grateful for the rise of a new understanding of the Holy Spirit among Evangelicals, in large measure due to Pentecostals and Charismatics (I think a strong case can be made that this was something originally integral to Evangelicalism that was lost in the conflict with Existentialism and Modernism. But that is for another time). I am also glad to see a reproachment between Evangelicals and Catholics, especially seen in the work of the late Richard John Newhaus and Charles Colson.

I hope this is useful for people whose understanding of Evangelicals is limited. And I hope it begins to open doors of empathy to the Evangelical perspective, and how we grieve the current state (from our perspective) of TEC.