Religious Roots: A Call to Dig

However self-satisfied other growing religious movements—such as Hare Krishna, Scientology, or the Unification Church—may be, it should be clear to everyone that evangelicalism is different. Self-examination and self-criticism are widespread in evangelical circles. The latest prominent example is “The Chicago Call,” issued by an ad hoc group of forty-three Christians with evangelical sympathies. It was actually prepared in Warrenville, a distant suburb of Chicago, May 1–3 (see News, June 3 issue, page 32). Such is the perception of evangelicalism by the media these days that the Call, printed in full on the following pages, was the subject of Newsweek’s entire May 23 religion section.

The Call was consciously prepared in the tradition of the Chicago Declaration (December 21, 1973, issue, page 38) and the Lausanne Covenant (August 16, 1974, issue, pages 22–24, 35–37). Unlike them, this new statement will almost certainly not lead to a continuing organization. Like them, it will not cause much to happen that would not have happened anyway. But it can serve as a useful stimulus for discussion and debate. The Chicago Declaration challenged evangelicals to greater concern about the ills of society; the Lausanne Covenant focused on world evangelization. The Chicago Call supplements, rather than differs from, the others with an appeal to greater concern for more traditional “churchmanship.”

Despite the Episcopal ties of six of the eight convenors (their roots, notably, were non-Episcopal), the Call is not a veiled appeal for more converts to Anglicanism. Indeed, the majority of the participants were from and intend to remain in distinctly non-Episcopal traditions. The preparers feel that all Christian traditions have broader heritages than are generally being tapped.

Basically, the Call is a warning against ignoring or scorning the past. In our culture, the needs of the present and of the future are stressed; ties with the past are played down. The response to Alex Haley’s search for his “roots” is a welcome counter-trend, but the damage symbolized by the replacing of “history” in school and college curricula with a more present-oriented “social studies” will take a long time to undo.

To ignore the past, we are often told, is to repeat the mistakes that were made. For the Christian, ignoring the past is also an implicit denial of a cardinal truth: there is one body of Christ; all believers, whether now alive on earth or not, are members of that body. Gifted teachers, writers, exegetes, and theologians are God’s gifts to the Body for subsequent ages as well as for their own.

To be sure, our existing denominationalism and independence of action contradict our profession of the unity of the Body, and the Chicago Call addresses itself to that divisiveness as well.

The modern Western emphasis on individualism played an indispensable role in settling this vast continent and in promoting Christian evangelism and nurture while older institutions were proving unable to adapt to changing needs. However, such individualism (whether personal or corporate) needs to be kept within biblical guidelines. For example, the idea that every Christian, no matter how lofty or lowly his role, should be submissive to a group of mutually submitting leaders in a local church will not sit well in a culture in which we are accustomed to making decisions and then informing parents, church leaders, or other ostensible counselors. But the question is not, What suits our culture or temperament?, but rather, What does God say, especially through his Word?

The Chicago Call will serve its purpose if it promotes reflection and discussion about the themes it addresses. One does not have to agree with each of its confessions and affirmations (or with whatever one cares to read between the lines) in order to endorse heartily, as we do, the giving of “careful theological consideration” to these matters. And where present practice is found to be out of keeping with biblical precept, let us “be doers of the word, and not hearers only.”

TO OUR READERS: As happens several times a year, there will be a three-week interval between this issue and the next (July 8). During this period Christianity Today will move to Carol Stream, Illinois. (As announced previously, the news department will remain in downtown Washington, D.C.)

Prologue:

In every age the Holy Spirit calls the church to examine its faithfulness to God’s revelation in Scripture. We recognize with gratitude God’s blessing through the evangelical resurgence in the church. Yet at such a time of growth we need to be especially sensitive to our weaknesses. We believe that today evangelicals are hindered from achieving full maturity by a reduction of the historic faith. There is, therefore, a pressing need to reflect upon the substance of the biblical and historic faith and to recover the fullness of this heritage. Without presuming to address all our needs, we have identified eight of the themes to which we as evangelical Christians must give careful theological consideration.

A Call to Historic Roots and Continuity:

We confess that we have often lost the fullness of our Christian heritage, too readily assuming that the Scriptures and the Spirit make us independent of the past. In so doing, we have become theologically shallow, spiritually weak, blind to the work of God in others and married to our cultures.

Therefore we call for a recovery of our full Christian heritage. Throughout the church’s history there has existed an evangelical impulse to proclaim the saving, unmerited grace of Christ, and to reform the church according to the Scriptures. This impulse appears in the doctrines of the ecumenical councils, the piety of the early fathers, the Augustinian theology of grace, the zeal of the monastic reformers, the devotion of the practical mystics and the scholarly integrity of the Christian humanists. It flowers in the biblical fidelity of the Protestant Reformers and the ethical earnestness of the Radical Reformation. It continues in the efforts of the Puritans and Pietists to complete and perfect the Reformation. It is reaffirmed in the awakening movements of the 18th and 19th centuries which joined Lutheran, Reformed. Wesleyan and other evangelicals in an ecumenical effort to renew the church and to extend its mission in the proclamation and social demonstration of the Gospel. It is present at every point in the history of Christianity where the Gospel has come to expression through the operation of the Holy Spirit: in some of the strivings toward renewal in Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism and in biblical insights in forms of Protestantism differing from our own. We dare not move beyond the biblical limits of the Gospel; but we cannot be fully evangelical without recognizing our need to learn from other times and movements concerning the whole meaning of that Gospel.

A Call to Biblical Fidelity:

We deplore our tendency toward individualistic interpretation of Scripture. This undercuts the objective character of biblical truth, and denies the guidance of the Holy Spirit among his people through the ages.

Therefore we affirm that the Bible is to be interpreted in keeping with the best insights of historical and literary study, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, with respect for the historic understanding of the church.

We affirm that the Scriptures, as the infallible Word of God, are the basis of authority in the church. We acknowledge that God uses the Scriptures to judge and to purify his Body. The church, illumined and guided by the Holy Spirit, must in every age interpret, proclaim and live out the Scriptures.

A Call to Creedal Identity:

We deplore two opposite excesses: a creedal church that merely recites a faith inherited from the past, and a creedless church that languishes in a doctrinal vacuum. We confess that as evangelicals we are not immune from these defects.

Therefore we affirm the need in our time for a confessing church that will boldly witness to its faith before the world, even under threat of persecution. In every age the church must state its faith over against heresy and paganism. What is needed is a vibrant confession that excludes as well as includes, and thereby aims to purify faith and practice. Confessional authority is limited by and derived from the authority of Scripture, which alone remains ultimately and permanently normative. Nevertheless, as the common insight of those who have been illumined by the Holy Spirit and seek to be the voice of the “holy catholic church,” a confession should serve as a guide for the interpretation of Scripture.

We affirm the abiding value of the great ecumenical creeds and the Reformation confessions. Since such statements are historically and culturally conditioned, however, the church today needs to express its faith afresh, without defecting from the truths apprehended in the past. We need to articulate our witness against the idolatries and false ideologies of our day.

A Call to Holistic Salvation:

We deplore the tendency of evangelicals to understand salvation solely as an individual, spiritual and otherworldly matter to the neglect of the corporate, physical and this-worldly implication of God’s saving activity.

Therefore we urge evangelicals to recapture a holistic view of salvation. The witness of Scripture is that because of sin our relationships with God, ourselves, others and creation are broken. Through the atoning work of Christ on the cross, healing is possible for these broken relationships.

Wherever the church has been faithful to its calling, it has proclaimed personal salvation; it has been a channel of God’s healing to those in physical and emotional need; it has sought justice for the oppressed and disinherited; and it has been a good steward of the natural world.

As evangelicals we acknowledge our frequent failure to reflect this holistic view of salvation. We therefore call the church to participate fully in God’s saving activity through work and prayer, and to strive for justice and liberation for the oppressed, looking forward to the culmination of salvation in the new heaven and new earth to come.

A Call to Sacramental Integrity:

We decry the poverty of sacramental understanding among evangelicals. This is largely due to the loss of our continuity with the teaching of many of the Fathers and Reformers and results in the deterioration of sacramental life in our churches. Also, the failure to appreciate the sacramental nature of God’s activity in the world often leads us to disregard the sacredness of daily living.

Therefore we call evangelicals to awaken to the sacramental implications of creation and incarnation. For in these doctrines the historic church has affirmed that God’s activity is manifested in a material way. We need to recognize that the grace of God is mediated through faith by the operation of the Holy Spirit in a notable way in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Here the church proclaims, celebrates and participates in the death and resurrection of Christ in such a way as to nourish her members throughout their lives in anticipation of the consummation of the kingdom. Also, we should remember our biblical designation as “living epistles,” for here the sacramental character of the Christian’s daily life is expressed.

A Call to Spirituality:

We suffer from a neglect of authentic spirituality on the one hand, and an excess of undisciplined spirituality on the other hand. We have too often pursued a superhuman religiosity rather than the biblical model of a true humanity released from bondage to sin and renewed by the Holy Spirit.

Therefore we call for a spirituality which grasps by faith the full content of Christ’s redemptive work: freedom from the guilt and power of sin, and newness of life through the indwelling and outpouring of his Spirit. We affirm the centrality of the preaching of the Word of God as a primary means by which his Spirit works to renew the church in its corporate life as well as in the individual lives of believers. A true spirituality will call for identification with the suffering of the world as well as the cultivation of personal piety.

We need to rediscover the devotional resources of the whole church, including the evangelical traditions of Pietism and Puritanism. We call for an exploration of devotional practice in all traditions within the church in order to deepen our relationship both with Christ and with other Christians. Among these resources are such spiritual disciplines as prayer, meditation, silence, fasting, Bible study and spiritual diaries.

A Call to Church Authority:

We deplore our disobedience to the Lordship of Christ as expressed through authority in his church. This has promoted a spirit of autonomy in persons and groups resulting in isolationism and competitiveness, even anarchy, within the body of Christ. We regret that in the absence of godly authority, there have arisen legalistic, domineering leaders on the one hand and indifference to church discipline on the other.

Therefore we affirm that all Christians are to be in practical submission to one another and to designated leaders in a church under the Lordship of Christ. The church, as the people of God, is called to be the visible presence of Christ in the world. Every Christian is called to active priesthood in worship and service through exercising spiritual gifts and ministries. In the church we are in vital union both with Christ and with one another. This calls for community with deep involvement and mutual commitment of time, energy, and possessions. Further, church discipline, biblically based and under the direction of the Holy Spirit, is essential to the well-being and ministry of God’s people. Moreover, we encourage all Christian organizations to conduct their activities with genuine accountability to the whole church.

A Call to Church Unity:

We deplore the scandalous isolation and separation of Christians from one another. We believe such division is contrary to Christ’s explicit desire for unity among his people and impedes the witness of the church in the world. Evangelicalism is too frequently characterized by an ahistorical, sectarian mentality. We fail to appropriate the catholicity of historic Christianity, as well as the breadth of the biblical revelation.

Therefore we call evangelicals to return to the ecumenical concern of the Reformers and the later movements of evangelical renewal. We must humbly and critically scrutinize our respective traditions, renounce sacred shibboleths, and recognize that God works within diverse historical streams. We must resist efforts promoting church union-at-any-cost, but we must also avoid mere spiritualized concepts of church unity. We are convinced that unity in Christ requires visible and concrete expressions. In this belief, we welcome the development of encounter and cooperation within Christ’s church. While we seek to avoid doctrinal indifferentism and a false irenicism, we encourage evangelicals to cultivate increased discussion and cooperation, both within and without their respective traditions, earnestly seeking common areas of agreement and understanding.

Issuing the call: Marvin W. Anderson, Bethel Seminary; John S. Baird, Dubuque Seminary; Donald G. Bloesch,* Dubuque Seminary; Jon E. Braun, New Covenant Apostolic Order; Virgil Cruz, Dubuque Seminary; James Daane, Fuller Seminary; Donald W. Dayton, North Park Seminary; Jan P. Dennis,* Good News Publishers; Lane T. Dennis,* Good News Publishers; Gerald D. Erickson,* Trinity College (Deerfield); Isabel A. Erickson, Tyndale House; Donald C. Frisk, North Park Seminary; Pete Gillquist,* Thomas Nelson Publishers; Alfred A. Glenn, Bethel College (St. Paul); Nathan Goff, pastor, College Church (Wheaton); Jim Hedstrom, student, Vanderbilt; Richard Holt, dentist (Wheaton); Thomas Howard,* Gordon College; Morris A. Inch, Wheaton College; Herbert Jacobsen, Wheaton College; Kenneth Jensen, New Covenant Apostolic Order; Richard A. Jensen, Wartburg Seminary; Theodore Laesch, pastor, St. John Lutheran Church (Wheaton); Kathryn Lindskoog, author; Howard Loewen, Mennonite Brethren Bible College; Richard Lovelace, Gordon-Conwell Seminary; F. Burton Nelson, North Park Seminary; Ray Nethery, New Covenant Apostolic Order; Roger Nicole, Gordon-Conwell Seminary; Victor R. Oliver,* Tyndale House; M. Eugene Osterhaven, Western Seminary; Lois M. Ottaway, Wheaton College News Service; Gordon W. Saunders, Trinity College (Deerfield); Rudolf Schade, Elmhurst College; Luci N. Shaw, author; Kevin N. Springer, New Covenant Apostolic Order; Jeffrey N. Steenson, student, Harvard; Donald Tinder, Christianity Today; Benedict Viviano, Aquinas Institute; Gordon Walker, pastor, Grace Fellowship Church (Nashville); Robert E. Webber,* Wheaton College; Matthew Welde, Presbyterians United for Biblical Concerns; Lance Wonders, student, Dubuque Seminary. *Member of convening committee

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