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Because the survey emphasizes commonality and consensus, it generally avoids those areas in which the evangelical "states" or "provinces" have agreed to disagree (speaking in tongues, for example, or precisely what happens in the Lord's Supper). Nevertheless, there is the occasional phrase that alerts the reader to diversity and difference. For example, in chapter 9 (The Meaning of Salvation: God Saves Sinners), a brief citation from Daystar Ministries' statement of faith hints at that organization's commitment to the classical Pentecostal belief that there is "healing in the atonement." And in another citation, baptism is represented as something by which believers declare their new birth rather than as something by which God sets his people apart and cleanses them. The former opinion is, of course, held by the majority of evangelicals, but it does not represent the magisterial Reformation.

Oden and Packer are describing transdenominational evangelicalism—and for that reason they ruled out denominational statements of faith (though, inexplicably, they cite the International Pentecostal Church of Christ's faith statement several times). Nevertheless, the church is not missing from this survey. A full nine pages of the manuscript (more in the finished book) are devoted to the church and related topics. While the citations give a tip of the hat to the importance of church order, they rightly present the church in noninstitutional, nonhierarchical terms. The church is the people of God, the body of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. These are communitarian, organic, and relational concepts. Significantly, the authors set up the discussion of the church with a section on "Unity in the Truth of the Gospel." This telegraphs the characteristic evangelical belief that what binds the church is not an institutional framework, but truth. And not just truth as a series of facts, but truth understood in a dynamic, relational, and personal fashion.

Celebrating our commitments
Not everybody who teaches in an evangelical seminary or preaches in an evangelical church will agree with every statement in this book. But nothing here is meant to exclude. Evangelical faith statements are sometimes used to define people out of organizations. The skirmishes in the Evangelical Theological Society over Open Theism illustrate this potential. In that ETS debate, the question of whether the writings of two Open Theists conflicted with the society's commitment to biblical inerrancy was plumbed in depth. Broad discussion, formal papers, and prayerful pastoral interaction enriched the process and kept it from becoming the mere application of a shibboleth or password to participation.

The United Methodist Oden and the Canadian Anglican Packer are both players in the ongoing struggle to renew and reform the mainline churches. Both expend a lot of energy trying to reintroduce some sense of direction in denominations adrift. When they celebrate an evangelical theological consensus, it is in contrast to the laxity and latitudinarianism of their own communions. Spend some time with the theologies emanating from many mainline seminaries and you will, like Oden and Packer, find these evangelical statements as refreshing. When they celebrate these beliefs as markers of identity, it is not to exclude those who disagree but to rejoice in the common (and sometimes costly) commitments of those who belong to the evangelical family.

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January (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48