Related articles and links |  1 of 6

"All God's People: A Theology of the Church," by David L. Smith (BridgePoint Books, 487 pp., $22.99, hardcover); "The Church," by Edmund P. Clowney (InterVarsity, 336 pp., $14.99, paper); "What on Earth Is the Church? An Exploration in New Testament Theology," by Kevin Giles (InterVarsity, 319 pp., $16.99, paper). Reviewed by Robert W. Patterson, a frequent contributor to CHRISTIANITY TODAY, who formerly served on the staff of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Four years ago, Nathan Hatch, now provost of the University of Notre Dame, likened the legacy of modern evangelicalism to the altered landscape he had observed on a recent visit to Columbia, South Carolina, his hometown. In the 1950s, Columbia lacked fast-food restaurants and shopping malls; it also lacked the wildly proliferating parachurch organizations that evangelicals have pioneered and now take for granted.

As Hatch recalled, the religious landscape of Columbia "B.E." (before evangelicalism) was dominated by Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian steeples that graced almost every corner, reflecting the dominance of the organized church in Christian witness and nurture. Conceding that the institutional churches did not always exercise their market control responsibly, Hatch suggested that in breaking that ecclesiastical monopoly and replacing it with a consumer-driven ministry marketplace, evangelicals have inadvertently created a new set of problems. If evangelicalism has performed wonders in creating a thriving subculture of Christian this and Christian that, its legacy vis-a-vis "the church" is an altogether different story.

However the story is told, evangelicals are confused over the meaning of what the Apostles' Creed calls "the holy catholic church." The consequences of their reluctance to embrace the church as anything more than an invisible fellowship of believers are many. Hand in hand with a personal faith cut off from the past and unaccountable to anyone in the present, that ecclesiastical ambivalence has contributed to "defections" of favorite sons of prominent evangelical families, like Thomas Howard and Frank Schaeffer, to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. It has also contributed to the politicizing of the cause of Christ, as evangelicals, failing to differentiate the roles of the institutional church and individual believers, have entered the public arena not as individuals seeking common grace with other citizens, but in cohort with each other under the banner of Christ. Perhaps most serious, the neglect of the corporate dimension of the Christian faith has done little to reverse the declining status and health of churches in the United States, many already crippled by theological decay, at the dawn of a new century.

Sensitive to these shortcomings, three pastor-scholars, each representing a different denomination and each from a different country in the English-speaking world, have recently written books that seek to lead evangelicals to a healthier and more responsible understanding of the church. David L. Smith, a Canadian Baptist minister and academic dean of Providence Theological Seminary (formerly Winnipeg Bible College and Theological Seminary) in Manitoba, provides a general introduction to ecclesiology along historical, biblical, and theological lines in "All God's People." South of the border, Edmund P. Clowney, a Presbyterian minister in the United States, charter CHRISTIANITY TODAY columnist, and president emeritus of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, has written "The Church," a primer with a greater theological focus and often a more thorough examination of contested matters than Smith's. And Kevin Giles, an Anglican priest in Australia and consultant theologian for World Vision Australia, directly tackles a host of what he considers misguided evangelical notions about the church by appealing to a careful analysis of New Testament text and theology in "What on Earth Is the Church?"

next page... |  1 of 6

share this page

July 15 1996, Vol. 40, No. 8