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The Rise of Evangelicalism The Rise of Evangelicalism by Mark A. Noll Intervarsity Press, 2004 330 pp. $23

Declaring himself to be "an evangelical historian of evangelical history," Mark Noll has contributed a distinguished opening volume to InterVarsity Press's five-volume history of evangelicalism— which, when complete, will cover the period from the 1730s to the 1990s. Designed for the general reader, the series aims to treat evangelicalism as a transnational movement, and to present thoughtful interpretive frameworks based upon a wide command of primary and secondary literature. captionhough intended primarily as a work of synthesis, Noll's volume is distinguished by the scope of its knowledge, the lucidity of its prose, the cleverness of its organizing principles, and the integrity of its judgments.

The working definition of evangelicalism employed by Noll is taken from David Bebbington's influential quadrilateral of conversionism, biblicism, activism, and crucicentrism, a useful definitional paradigm which leaves sufficient room for the classical evangelical emphases on individualism and religious experience. captionhough Noll's volume concludes with some ringing endorsements of the centrality of evangelical religious experience in the lives of ordinary men and women, the central concern of his book is with the rise of a transnational religious movement rather than an exploration of how evangelical religion was lived and practiced by its adherents.

After supplying some helpful information about the social, political, and ecclesiastical landscape of the 18th century, the first major question addressed by the book is where evangelicalism came from. As anyone who has ever thought about it will testify, this deceptively simple question is uncommonly difficult to answer. Noll looks for the roots of evangelicalism among international networks of serious-minded Calvinists, continental European Pietists unhappy with Lutheran scholasticism, and English High Churchmen concerned about the spiritual mediocrity of their own established church. He shows how representatives of each tradition were brought into cathartic contact with one another, either personally or through print, in unlikely places in both the Old and the New World.

	Noll's description of Whitefield as embodying a curious mixture of egocentricity and pious diffidence is worthy of wider application among the early evangelical leaders.

captionhough this explanatory framework is helpful, the nagging question remains why the "religion of the heart" should have attracted such a diverse range of people from the Jansenists of Port Royal to the Old Believers in Russia, from Hasidic Jews to English-speaking evangelicals. How much of this can be explained by an appeal to the Zeitgeist, however that is to be formulated, and how much depends upon historical contingencies and demonstrable personal influences? One of the most intriguing suggestions made both by Mark Noll and Reg Ward in his earlier treatment of The Protestant Evangelical Awakening is the contribution made by children and young people to the rise of evangelicalism. captionhough influenced by an older generation, it was the young who spread evangelicalism.

Whatever may be said about the roots of evangelicalism, Noll supplies a masterly chronological narrative of the crucial years from 1734 to 1738, from the revivals in Northampton, Massachusetts associated with Jonathan Edwards to John Wesley's heart-warming experience at Aldersgate Street in London. It is in this chapter that the dramatis personae of the Great Awakening are introduced—not only Edwards and Wesley, but George Whitefield, who spoke to more American colonists than any other person; the Moravian leaders, Peter Böhler and August Gottlieb Spangenberg; and the Welsh revivalists, Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland. Important to the story is the catalytic role of the Moravians, the centrality of London (an imperial capital) as the city of religious exchange, and the beginnings of a formidable evangelical publishing machine, which remains one of the most identifiable characteristics of the movement. No sooner was the evangelical movement launched than its main protagonists fought with one another over theology, strategy, and, one suspects, preeminence. Noll's description of Whitefield as embodying a curious mixture of egocentricity and pious diffidence is worthy of wider application among the early evangelical leaders, many of whom were still in their early twenties or thirties, and his delineation of the theological issues at stake in the manifold controversies between Calvinists and Arminians, Methodists and Moravians, and Churchmen and Dissenters is particularly insightful.

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