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The evangelical movement has been evaluated recently in a very pessimistic manner in books such as No Place for Truth, by David F. Wells, and The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, by Mark A. Noll. Both authors are distinguished members of the evangelical community. But while they call attention to the defects and limitations of evangelicalism, they show an inadequate appreciation for positive factors and achievements that reflect God's blessing on this movement.

As one who last year celebrated 50 years of seminary teaching, I may be in a position to add something on the positive side of the ledger: the gains of evangelicals in the United States since 1945.

Seminaries. In 1945, only a handful of seminaries that were accredited members of the American Association of Theological Schools could clearly rate as evangelical. In 1995, there were 125 accredited Protestant seminaries in the United States. Of these, 55, or 44 percent of the total, are clearly evangelical. This figure shows a spectacular shift in the center of gravity of theological education in this country.
Students. In 1945, a large majority of seminary graduates were from liberal seminaries; this was often interpreted as a sign that evangelicalism was dying and that the future lay with the progressive mainline churches. In 1995, full-time equivalency enrollment records show that students in evangelical seminaries almost equaled those in other seminaries (19,116 compared to 21,679). Add to this the fact that many evangelical students are studying in mainline seminaries (sometimes because of denominational pressure), and that the majority of conservative doctoral students are choosing liberal schools because of their superior libraries and international prestige. Since many students enrolled in more liberal institutions eventually choose not to become pastors, it is likely that before too long the number of evangelicals occupying pulpits in the U.S. will increase substantially.
Seminary professors. In 1945, many smaller churches were served by ministers who did not have a seminary degree. Many were graduates only of Bible institutes; the Bible institute professors often did not hold a respectable academic doctorate. Many evangelical seminary professors also did not have a doctorate; those who did often had obtained it from the very school in which they were teaching. Further, their teaching load was excessive (sometimes 15 to 18 credit-hours a week), their salary was often so inadequate they needed to supplement it by preaching or doing other time-consuming activities, and no sabbatical program was in place to give professors a substantial amount of time for research and reflection. Thus, the academic stature of evangelical schools was unimpressive.
In 1995, the situation is dramatically different. All accredited institutions have a majority of professors with earned doctorates from a variety of schools. In the Orlando branch of the seminary where I teach, there are 16 resident faculty members (including the president). They hold earned doctorates from Oxford, Cambridge, Duke, Princeton, Edinburgh, Baylor, Syracuse, Gordon Divinity School, Harvard (2), University of Central Florida, Georgia State, and Vanderbilt; and they have other graduate degrees from Westminster (6), Fuller, Trinity, Covenant, Union (Richmond), the Sorbonne, Brown, Simmons, and Boston University. This is one of the most richly diversified faculties I know, and all its members are resolute upholders of the inerrancy of Scripture.

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September 16 1996, Vol. 40, No. 10