Requiescat

by Phil Johnson

Reforming Evangelicalism?

Too late.

(First posted 22 July 2005)

or the record, I have no sentimental attachment to the term evangelicalism or the visible movement that now employs that name. What's important to me are the principles of historic evangelicalism. I have explained a little more fully what those principles entail in an article posted here. Those wishing to delve into this theme more deeply should also read the document and subsequent discussion posted here.

The question of whether the evangelical movement is dying, dead, irrelevant, irreformable, or whatever, is not my primary concern in the series of articles I've been posting. If asked, I would say the large movement that has represented "American evangelicalism" for the past century and a half (beginning roughly with D. L. Moody and culminating in Billy Graham) is in its final death throes. (Billy Graham himself hardly seems "evangelical" most of the time nowadays.)

Actually, that's a really optimistic assessment. My strong suspicion is that the movement is well and truly dead, and we shouldn't mistake the bloated and expanding size of its corpse, or its occasional spontaneous post-mortem twitches, for signs of real life.

I'm not interested in reviving or reforming that movement. Neither church history nor Scripture gives us much encouragement to work for the reformation and perpetuation of organizations and movements. Earthly institutions and human campaigns always decline and decay. Even the Protestant Reformation had its main impact outside the Roman Catholic Church, the Catholic priesthood, and the papacy—although those were the visible institutions the earliest Protestants originally set out to reform.

Institutional reform almost always fails. Twentieth-century evangelicals who stayed in the mainline denominations ultimately failed to reform any of them. We shouldn't be the least bit surprised or discouraged by that, but we should learn from it. Our concern should be for truth and principles, not for visible institutions, organizations, and movements.

To be as clear and concise as possible: What I am eager to see preserved and perpetuated are the sound, biblical ideas that sparked the evangelical and fundamentalist movements, not the corrupt cultures that ultimately overwhelmed them and led to their predictable demise.

My main aim in this current series of posts is to delineate some of the important differences between sound evangelical and fundamental principles and the various fads and manias most people today falsely refer to as "evangelicalism."

For those who haven't time to look it up, here's what I have written elsewhere about how to define true evangelicalism: Historically, the word evangelical first came into widespread usage along with the Protestant Reformation. William Tyndale used the expression "evangelical truth" as a synonym for the gospel. By the 18th century, the adjective was being used to describe "that school of Protestants which maintains that the essence of 'the Gospel' consists in the doctrine of salvation by faith in the atoning death of Christ, and denies that either good works or the sacraments have any saving efficacy" (Oxford English Dictionary). Naturally, as Protestants, evangelicals affirmed both the formal and material principles of the Reformation (sola Scriptura and sola fide). They were also committed to the exclusivity of Christ; believing that His atoning work is the only hope of salvation for sinners. That usage of the term evangelical has been crystal clear for at least two and a half centuries. In other words, in the historic sense of the word, when we speak of the evangelical movement, we're speaking of those who share 1) a commitment to the authority and sufficiency of Scripture; 2) a belief in the necessity and the efficacy of Christ's atoning work; and 3) a profound sense of urgency about getting the gospel message to the uttermost parts of the world. The simplicity of the definition is the very thing that gives clarity to the expression. There is not really much that's vague about the historic meaning of the term evangelical. Notice: the distinguishing characteristics of historic evangelicalism are weighty, foundational, and fundamental principles—not peripheral matters. That is why evangelical convictions have always transcended denominational lines. Those vital truths established an unshakable core of unity and remarkable harmony on matters that are of the essence of the gospel. Yet they allowed for amazing diversity on peripheral issues.

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