Discovering Unity
Two theologians are bullish on evangelical futures.
By David Neff | posted 1/01/2004 12:00AM
Once a year, I take copies of the Christianity Today International statement of faith to the CT editors and ask them to sign it anew. I too sign a copy as a testimony to my own continuing commitment to the theological and biblical values on which this magazine was founded. (Our statement of faith was borrowed from Gordon Divinity School when the magazine was founded in 1956. Its language has been updated since then, but its content remains the same.)
The CT-Gordon statement of faith is one of hundreds of such declarations adopted by evangelical organizations to help them keep their commitments clear. The global evangelical movement also generates statements designed to frame and focus our efforts in spreading the gospel and living out its implications. One of the most significant of these broadly consensual statements was the Lausanne Covenant (1975). But major statements like this seem to be issued every few years, and the place names by which they are known reflect the global nature of evangelicalism: Amsterdam, Iguassu, Manila, Berlin, Chicago, Willowbank, Seoul.
I've just finished reading the unedited manuscript for a new book that surveys these many statements in an attempt to show the unity and theological coherence of global evangelicalism. In their introduction to One Faith: Charting the Evangelical Consensus, authors J. I. Packer and Thomas C. Oden argue that despite all the variation that marks the landscape of vital, evangelistic, Jesus-centered religion, there is a clear consensus.
Some scholars emphasize the diversity of evangelicalism. I recall an Evangelical Theological Society meeting some years back where one scholar asked rhetorically what the Anglican John R. W. Stott had in common with Brazilian Pentecostals. And yet, the remarkable fact is that when an Anglican stalwart like Stott encounters a Latin American Pentecostal leader, they intuitively recognize each other as brothers in the Lord—and brothers in very specific ways that relate to the importance of a vital personal faith, biblical authority, the scandal of the cross, and the importance of helping others to come to the similar experiences of renewal and commitment.
Oden and Packer are observing a real theological consensus. But they are also helping to create it. This is not to side with scholars who would call evangelicalism an "artificial construct." Oden and Packer are not making something out of nothing. Rather, they are reinforcing a sense of unity and connection by emphasizing those beliefs that evangelicals already share to a great degree. This is "construction" in the Pauline sense of "edification."
Think of the evangelical movement as a nation with states or regions named Reformed, Methodist, Lutheran, Charismatic, old-line Pentecostal, Independent Bible Church, and so forth. Each is as different from the other as California is from South Dakota, but each is as much a part of the evangelical movement as California and South Dakota are of the American experiment. Oden and Packer are focusing on the federal identity these "states" share.
Connecting the dots
The bulk of Oden and Packer's book is a topically organized presentation of brief representative citations from transdenominational faith statements. It is a pointillist painting. The picture gets clearer when you stand back from it. But like a pointillist masterpiece, each dot of paint counts. It must be exactly right and must contribute to the whole.
January (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48
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