Resurgent Evangelical Leadership

What the Communist party is in the vanguard of the world revolution, the evangelical movement must be in the world revival.

What is an evangelical? An evangelical is a Christian “holding or conformed to what the majority of Protestants regard as the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, such as the Trinity, the fallen condition of man, Christ’s atonement for sin, salvation by faith, not works, and regeneration by the Holy Ghost.” A subsidiary definition is “in a special sense, spiritually minded and zealous for practical Christian living, distinguished from merely orthodox.” Another secondary definition is “seeking the conversion of sinners, as evangelical labors or preaching.”

The doctrinal position of an evangelical is that of orthodox or creedal Christianity. This doctrinal basis is stated in the incorporation papers of the Church, namely the New Testament, and in the great creeds and confessions of Christendom. It is the Chalcedonian Creed and the later reformed confessions such as those of Heidelberg, Augsburg, and Westminster. Only those who embrace these objective truths have the right to the name evangelical.

Evangelical Christianity should be differentiated from other movements. First, it must be differentiated from Roman Catholicism, or sacerdotal Christianity, which emphasizes a salvation mediated by sacraments and erected on tradition rather than on the Word of God. Second, it must be distinguished from liberal or modernist Christianity. Many modernists appropriate the name evangelical merely because they are non-Roman Catholic, but do not embrace the basic truths of historic orthodoxy. It is a misnomer to call a modernist an evangelical. Third, an evangelical must be distinguished from a fundamentalist in areas of intellectual and ecclesiastical attitude. This distinction was made by Dr. J. Gresham Machen who was often called a fundamentalist. Said he, “The term fundamentalism is distasteful to the present writer and to many persons who hold views similar to his. It seems to suggest that we are adherents of some strange new sect, whereas in point of fact we are conscious simply of maintaining historic Christian faith and moving in the great central current of Christian life” (cf. Valiant for Truth, by Ned B. Stonehouse, pp. 40, 337, 343, 405, 428).

The evangelical depends upon the Bible as the authoritative Word of God and the norm of judgment in faith and practice. This brings him into tension with Romanism which, while giving lip service to the Bible, exalts tradition and papal infallibility above the Bible; with modernism which exalts the autonomy of the human mind; and with neo-orthodoxy which identifies the Word of God with something above and beyond the Bible but witnessed to in the Bible.

ECLIPSE OF EVANGELICALISM

Has evangelicalism fallen into eclipse? The history of the last five decades has been largely under the aegis of a triumphant modernism. Basically, modernism is evolutionary naturalism applied to the Bible and to Christianity. By it the supernatural in the origins and nature of Christianity was sacrificed by the accommodation of Christian theology to the data of the scientific method and the dicta of the scientific mind. Hence, by presupposition, there could be no Virgin Birth, no miracles, and no Resurrection as the Bible taught. Modernism was based on higher criticism’s view of the Bible. The books are redated in accordance with evolutionary naturalism; ethical monotheism is tolerated only later than polytheism, and the writing of the prophetic sections is placed after the events. Modernism developed a new theology concerning Christ, man, sin, salvation, the Church, and the Church’s mission. To say the least, the content of modernism was not the content of biblical theology. The departure from biblical concepts was radical.

Against this came the fundamentalist reaction. The name fundamentalist was derived from a series of treatises written by leading orthodox scholars on various biblical doctrines and published in 1917 by the Bible Institute of Los Angeles with the aid of Lyman Stuart Foundation. The contributors to The Fundamentals were men like Melvin Grove Kyle, James Orr, George Robinson, W. H. Griffith Thomas, F. Bettex, George Frederick Wright and others, all recognized biblical scholars of their day. The resistance to modernist attack upon biblical Christianity precipitated the modernist-fundamentalist controversy which raged for several decades following publication of The Fundamentals. This reached its height in the successful effort of the Presbyterians, led by Clarence Edward Macartney, to oust Harry Emerson Fosdick from the pulpit of a Presbyterian church in New York City. In the controversy there arose the emphasis upon the essentials or fundamentals of the Christian faith, such as, the inspiration of the Scriptures, the Virgin Birth, the miracles of Christ, the vicarious atonement of Christ, and the bodily resurrection of Christ. On the wave of this controversy Dr. Macartney was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1924. Shortly thereafter a group of Presbyterian ministers signed the so-called Auburn Affirmation which denied that these doctrines were essential to the Christian faith. Not all signers of this document disbelieved the doctrines, but they held they were not essential to the Christian faith. What happend in the Presbyterian church repeated itself in almost every other denomination, and the Protestant Church was divided between modernists and fundamentalists.

SOME COSTLY WEAKNESSES

Time revealed certain weaknesses in the fundamentalist cause. First was the diversion of strength from the great offensive work of missions, evangelism, and Christian education to the defense of the faith. The fundamentalists were maneuvered into the position of holding the line against the constant and unremitting attacks of the modernists or liberals. Gradually the liberals took over the control of the denominations and began a series of acts of discrimination, ostracism, and persecution of the evangelicals. Many evangelicals suffered at the hands of ecclesiastical modernism. This reduced fundamentalism to a holding tactic, impotent in denominational machinery and indifferent to societal problems rising in the secular world. The Christian Reformed Church was a notable exception to this trend.

The cause of the fundamentalist defeat in the ecclesiastical scene lay partially in fundamentalism’s erroneous doctrine of the Church which identified the Church with believers who were orthodox in doctrine and separatist in ethics. Purity of the Church was emphasized above the peace of the Church. Second Corinthians 6:14–17 was used to justify the continuous process of fragmentation, contrary to the meaning of the passage itself. Emphasis was upon contention for the faith rather than the commission of missions, evangelism, education, and worship. The number of competent scholars declined in evangelical ranks as the decades passed.

Then came the rise of neo-orthodoxy under the influence of Karl Barth and Emil Brunner in which theology professed a return to biblical concepts without the acceptance of biblical authority. Neo-orthodoxy accepted the Word of God as revelation but differentiated this from the written Word. It spoke about the creation of man but repudiated the historical Adam. It believed in immortality but not in the physical resurrection of Jesus. Due to the aridity of modernism and a nostalgia of people for biblical ideas concerning God, man, sin, and redemption, the influence of neo-orthodoxy grew rapidly. Nevertheless, its attitude toward evangelical Christianity is essentially hostile because of its refusal to accept the biblical authority as the ground of its theology. The watershed of modern theology remains one’s attitude toward the Bible as the ultimate and final authority for faith and action.

THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL

Is evangelicalism reviving? Is it emerging to challenge the theological world today? A new respect for the evangelical position is evidenced by the emergence of scholars whose works must be recognized. Westminster Press recently published a trilogy on The Case for Liberalism, The Case for Neo-Orthodoxy, and The Case for Orthodoxy. Here Protestant orthodoxy was again recognized as a live option. Great publishing houses today are not only willing to publish books by evangelical scholars, but several are actively seeking such books.

This may be due to a change in the intellectual climate of orthodoxy. The younger orthodox scholars are repudiating the separatist position, have repented of the attitude of solipsism, have expressed a willingness to re-examine the problems facing the theological world, have sought a return to the theological dialogue and have recognized the honesty and Christianity of some who hold views different from their own in some particulars.

Simultaneously, all branches of theological thought have felt the impact of mass evangelism under Billy Graham. In him we have seen the phenomenon of an evangelical who crossed all theological lines in his work while maintaining a strictly orthodox position. His work has not been disregarded by those of other theological convictions and has compelled them to rethink the basis of their approach.

EVANGELICALS AND FUNDAMENTALS

Evangelical theology is synonymous with fundamentalism or orthodoxy. In doctrine the evangelicals and the fundamentalists are one. The evangelical must acknowledge his debt to the older fudamentalist leaders. It is a mistake for an evangelical to divorce himself from historic fundamentalism as some have sought to do. These older leaders of the orthodox cause paid a great price in persecution, discrimination, obloquy, and scorn which they suffered at the hands of those who under the name of modernism repudiated biblical Christianity. For decades these fundamentalists were steadfast to Christ and to biblical truth regardless of the cost. They maintained the knowledge of orthodox Christianity through Bible schools, radio programs, Christian conferences, and Bible conferences. In the true New Testament sense, they were witnesses, or martyrs. Most of these leaders were well known to me personally. I speak of men such as James M. Gray, Lewis Sperry Chafer, Arnold C. Gaebelein, I. C. Haldeman, Harry Ironsides, J. Gresham Machen, J. Alvin Orr, Clarence Edward Macartney, Walter Meier, Robert Dick Wilson, W. B. Riley, Charles E. Fuller, Robert Schuler, Oswald T. Allis, Harry Rimmer, to mention only a few. These were great defenders of the faith.

The evangelical defense of the faith theologically is identical with that of the older fundamentalists. The evangelical believes in creedal Christianity, in the apologetic expression of Christianity, in the revelational content and framework of Christianity. Therefore, he stands by the side of these fundamentalist leaders. He differentiates his position from theirs in ecclesiology. These men were driven by controversy and discrimination to various shades of separatism. Some were compelled to leave their denominations, some operated as autonomous units within their denominations. Through controversy, in suffering, they sired a breed of fundamentalists who, in following them, confused courtesy in contending for the faith with compromise of the faith; academic respectability with theological apostasy; and common grace with special grace. They developed the theory that any contact, conversation, or communication with modernism was compromise and should be condemned.

Let it be repeated that there is a solidarity of doctrine between fundamentalism and evangelicalism. They are one in creed. They accept the inspiration and dependability of the Bible, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the creation and fall of man, the vicarious atonement by Christ on Calvary, justification by faith and not by works, regeneration and sanctification by the Spirit, the spiritual unity of the Church, the evangelical, educational, and societal mission of the Church, and the kingdom of Christ experiential, ethical, and eschatalogical. The evangelical and the fundamentalist could sign the same creed.

Moreover, they have a common source of life, for they belong to one family. Christian life comes from the Christian faith and cannot be divorced from it. The repudiation of Christian truth cannot eventuate in a Christian life. In this the evangelical stands with the fundamentalist. But the evangelical goes a bit further and condemns doctrinal orthodoxy which does not result in a life of love and service. The test which Jesus gave to his disciples was that of brotherly love but it was given in the framework of an acceptance of his Deity, his miracles, his messiahship, and his imminent death as Saviour. If, therefore, the fundamentalist criticizes the evangelical or vice versa, that criticism should be within the family relationship and demonstrate the spirit and attitude of love which is a test of true discipleship.

EVANGELICAL OBJECTIVES

The evangelical has general objectives he wishes to see achieved. One of them is a revival of Christianity in the midst of a secular world. The world is helpless in the presence of its problems. Its attempt at solutions totally disregards the orthodox message and answer. The evangelical wishes to retrieve Christianity from a mere eddy of the main stream into the full current of modern life. He desires to win a new respectability for orthodoxy in the academic circles by producing scholars who can defend the faith on intellectual ground. He hopes to recapture denominational leadership from within the denominations rather than abandoning those denominations to modernism. He intends to restate his position carefully and cogently so that it must be considered in the theological dialogue. He intends that Christianity will be the mainspring in many of the reforms of the societal order. It is wrong to abdicate responsibility for society under the impetus of a theology which overemphasizes the eschatalogical.

The specific goals of evangelicalism are definite. It seeks evangelical cooperation. This was expressed in the formation of the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942. The NAE insisted on a positive position toward the then Federal Council of Churches and later National Council in distinction from the position later adopted by the American Council of Christian Churches. The NAE gathered evangelicals in fellowship for articulation of the evangelical cause in a score of different fields without attack upon other cooperative movements of diverse theology. It summoned together a fellowship in action of many of those denominations not in the Federal Council, and for the first time it gave them a sense of unity and strength. Many individual congregations whose denominations were in the Federal Council of Churches were received into the NAE in order to articulate their convictions and give them an opportunity of cooperative action on an evangelical and orthodox base. The influence of this movement was great. While the parent organization of the National Association of Evangelicals has not reached a numerical strength which some had expected for it, it nevertheless has stimulated many subsidiary movements which originated as commissions within the National Association or were bound together with the National Association. Many of these are powerful organizations and movements in their own right, such as the National Sunday School Association, the National Radio Broadcasters, the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association, Youth for Christ, World Evangelical Fellowship and other related movements such as Child Evangelism Fellowship, the Christian Business Men’s Committee, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, and so on. It was, in fact, the parallel organizations to the NAE in England, India, and other areas that sparked the great Billy Graham campaigns in other parts of the world. Thus, the influence of the NAE has been far greater than its numerical strength.

Another objective was the training and feeding of evangelical ministers into the churches. Since the seminaries determine the course of the Church, it was felt necessary to fortify existing evangelical seminaries with additional professors and funds. As a result, several new evangelical seminaries were established. Here was adopted a positive attitude in inquiry, teaching, and proclamation of biblical Christianity. The students who passed through this training came forth with a certainty and knowledge expressed by “Thus saith the Lord” and with a practical program joined with a passion. In addition, there was inculcated an understanding of the connection of Christian principles with political and economic freedom.

It was the intention of evangelical strategy to reach evangelical churches who were pastored by ministers uncertain in their theological conviction. There are many ministers who have been trained in liberal theological seminaries who want to believe biblical Christianity but cannot because they lack theological education which supports the position. To reach these ministers with the rationale of biblical Christianity is the objective of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. The editorial contributors to this magazine have been selected with their theological and intellectual training in view. The success of CHRISTIANITY TODAY in articulating this viewpoint and in influencing the thought of ministers has been notable.

EVANGELICAL STRATEGY

An up-to-date strategy for the evangelical cause must be based upon the principle of infiltration. We have learned from modern militarism that the frontal attack has come to an end with certain notable exceptions. The French Maginot line was circumvented and thus antedated. The Communists in their battles in Korea, Indochina, and Tibet used the principle of infiltration. Once the line was infiltrated, defenses crumbled and a new line had to be established. We evangelicals need to realize that the liberals, or modernists, have been using this strategy for years. They have infiltrated our evangelical denominations, institutions, and movements and then have taken over the control of them. It is time for firm evangelicals to seize their opportunity to minister in and influence modernist groups. Why is it incredible that the evangelicals should be able to infiltrate the denominations and strengthen the things that remain, and possibly resume control of such denominations? Certainly they have a responsibility to do so unless they are expelled from those denominations. We do not repudiate the reformation principle, but we believe that a man has a responsibility within his denomination unless that denomination has officially and overtly repudiated biblical Christianity.

Evangelicals need a plan of action. The pressing demand is for an over-all strategy instead of piecemeal action by fragmentized groups. The younger evangelicals are determined to join hands with evangelicals everywhere in testimony and in action. They want to defend and maintain the institutions, endowments, and organizations which remain within the evangelical theological position.

It demands that each one of us make a personal commitment. We should examine our activities to make sure that we are engaged in intelligent service. Let us ask ourselves what is this organization accomplishing? Does this organization fit in with God’s plan? Is this movement advancing God’s cause? We must not dissipate our energy and money by serving on and supporting every work which is called to our attention. We must take an inventory of our investment of money. We should ask, is this institution or movement contributing to the ends which I seek? Should I continue my support of this movement? It is folly for businessmen and foundations to support institutions, movement, and individuals which subvert that for which the businessmen and foundations stand. This is paramountly true in Christian organizations. It is our responsibility to implement the strategy of evangelicalism by personal commitment.

An evangelical makes no apology in asking the help of convinced and committed Christians. This commitment is essential in developing evangelical leadership. Every evangelical should find his place in the implementation of the modern evangelical resurgence in Christianity.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.