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Hart spends not a few pages exegeting a 1979 poll taken by George Gallup in cooperation with Christianity Today. "A skeptical interpretation of the poll and its joint sponsorship might plausibly conclude that the design of the questions reflected an agenda," Hart concludes, "one that combined Gallup's mainline Protestant sense of the church's duty to society and Christianity Today's responsibility to promote evangelicalism. In evangelical Protestantism and its chief periodical, one of the nation's oldest authorities on public opinion found a growing faith that could fill in for the declining old-line Protestants."
Of course the poll was designed with an agenda. What poll isn't? Of course CT had a vested interest in seeing evangelicalism as broad and influential. CT is a movement magazine, the likes of the National Review or The Nation. We commission articles, interview people, review books, and initiate polls that, among other things, tell us about the breadth and depth of the movement we champion. The real issue is whether we distort or even falsify our reporting beyond what the evidence shows.
This, I'm afraid, Hart has failed to show. In the end, the Gallup poll in question revealed that something significant was afoot in the culture—something which could, in a loose way, be called "evangelicalism." Many more people identified with the constellation of beliefs and behaviors of this world than we had previously imagined. That seems to have been a simple fact.
That there are inconsistencies in the poll data, that we spent editorial space highlighting some data, that the data itself suggests that "evangelicalism" is pretty tough to define precisely—all well and good. But that our reporting on this poll shows that we are guilty of pumping the breadth and influence of evangelicalism is hardly the case, since a look at the magazine over the years will show that, if anything, we grouse about the inadequacies of the movement more than we exult in its cultural strength. And when we do notice its cultural strength, we're often deeply disturbed!
On the other hand, I find myself resonating with large parts of Hart's second argument. I am, after all, a member of the Anglican communion, which has a rich liturgy and theology. Though I identify with the larger evangelical world, I am an Anglican because I don't believe evangelicalism by itself can sustain a deeper Christian life.
But when Hart suggests in various ways that evangelicalism has "done damage to historic Christianity," and elaborates on the weaknesses of evangelicalism—well, I wonder what "evangelicalism" he is talking about.
Two examples. First, he repeatedly says that in order to come together to work on parachurch projects, evangelicals have had to "affirm a lowest common denominator set of convictions and practices." This is an unfortunate phrase, since he mistakes our willingness to limit our theological conversation to certain key doctrines and ethics for the most generic of beliefs.
Second, Hart argues that the evangelical movement is fragmenting because it "lacks the discipline and rigor of the church." He quotes Nathan Hatch of Notre Dame—"The evangelical world is extremely dynamic, but there are few church structures to which many of its adherents are subject"—and then comments: "The result is an unstable constellation of personalities and organizations that in [Hatch's] estimation is 'problematic for theological integrity,' the very opposite of what the coalition builders had in mind."
Both concerns suffer from the same problem—thinking about evangelicalism as a unified abstraction. One example should suffice to suggest otherwise.
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