Where is evangelicalism headed?
The Washington, D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Center brought 25 Christian scholars together last month to debate the rather bleak outlook offered by University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter in his book Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation (University of Chicago Press, 1987). Based on a three-year study of evangelical students and faculty in nine Christian colleges and seven seminaries, Hunter’s book concludes that the coming generation may be moving away from the key beliefs that once defined evangelicals.
Pessimists at the colloquium agreed with Hunter. They say future evangelicals are accommodating “the world” and, in a spirit of pleasant civility, are backing away from “intolerant-sounding” evangelical orthodoxy. But the optimists said the younger evangelicals are not discarding their heritage but rather reinterpreting traditional wisdom.
Hunter agrees that young evangelicals remain conservative on most issues. Nevertheless, he reports that future evangelicals are less likely to abide by the social mores of their ancestors. And, he writes, many younger believers are uncertain about difficult doctrinal questions, such as biblical inerrancy and the exclusivity of Christ as the only path to salvation.
Hunter’s book had the conference participants wondering whether evangelical colleges and seminaries are doing enough to instruct students in the theological tradition to enable them to stand firm against the pressures of today’s culture.
Theologian Carl F. H. Henry charged that Hunter’s research “points to noteworthy concessions” by the evangelical movement to the secular culture. He worries that “even on some of the best evangelical college campuses,” some professors “have taught that Jesus Christ is not the sole ground of human acceptance by God.” Henry said in some instances, “neo-orthodox” attitudes toward Scripture, “which accept the Bible’s fallibility at the expense of its comprehensive authority,” are becoming more acceptable.
Henry insisted evangelical institutions must boldy interact with contemporary intellectual theory while instilling prospective alumni “with an articulate Christian world view.” If they fail in this, Henry said, “then they have not identified or taken seriously their academic priorities.”
Under Siege
But David Winter, president of Westmont College in California, asserted that “Christian colleges are under siege,” while desperately trying to realize these objectives. Carl Lundquist, president of the Christian College Consortium, raised concerns that the academic environment remain open so that students can grapple with contending ideas in order to strengthen their own beliefs. “We need to find room between rigid indoctrination and a wholly open campus atmosphere,” he said.
Other participants claimed that Hunter’s study was too melancholy in its assessment of the younger generation. Grant Wacker, religion professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said Hunter’s concerns were “overdrawn.” Wacker believes evangelical attitudes about sin and virtue change because of changes in cultural context. At one time, he noted, evangelicals believed wearing neckties and jewelry was an accommodation to the world. That this is no longer the case does not necessarily reflect moral compromise, Wacker said.
George Marsden of Duke University Divinity School asserted that the things Hunter identifies as “slippages” in the evangelical tradition may simply be restatements of earlier evangelical ideas. Some of the changes may be for the better, he suggested. “The good old days of evangelicalism weren’t perhaps as good as we think,” he said.
All the participants agreed that the new generation of evangelicals will continue to confront significant cultural pressures. Recognizing the need for civility in a pluralistic world, they nonetheless concluded that evangelical orthodoxy must refuse to compromise its fundamentals in an attempt to be accepted by the culture.
By Amy L. Sherman, in Washington, D.C.
