In Pilgrims on the Sawdust Trail, one finds a motley of notable authors-academicians, ministers, and theologians-weighing in on American Christian heritage and the implications of Christianity's present global situation in the search for evangelical identity.
Mark Noll first offers an obliging foreword that quickly rehearses the evolution of American Evangelicalism. In seven pages Noll takes you to the heart of the matter: American evangelical identity remains elusive because there is no existing evangelical ecclesiology. Indeed, there are only sectarian ecclesiologies or, better, ideologies. So what are we left with? A fluid contemporary religious "movement" or "style" that, in large part, suffers from historical amnesia, intellectual fatigue, the driving force of individualism and consumerism and, hence, a propensity toward fragmentation and subjectivity. Generally speaking, today's evangelical identity tends toward a polarity: contemporary evangelicals either distinguish themselves by their enslavement to the idol of "being relevant" or, alternatively, uttering shrill cries from the wilderness of separatist fundamentalism.
Noll, however, optimistically sees a new trend on the rise. The future of American evangelical identity, he believes, will likely be tied more closely to what happens in the rest of the world, especially the Southern Hemisphere, where confessional Christianity is beginning to surge. American Evangelicalism must look beyond itself and outside of itself if it is to find itself. Perhaps Noll has it right: a time may be looming on the horizon when American evangelicals will consciously align themselves with what Oden calls "paleo-orthodoxy," defined by symbolic faith and practice, in order to divert its present trajectory toward liberalism, abject personalism, and cultism. Pilgrims on the Sawdust Trail is to be commended as a useful means of entrance into the broad corridors of discussion on Christian identity within Evangelicalism.
Many of the essays that follow Noll's illuminating foreword and Timothy George's complementary introduction do in fact reflect a visceral sensitivity to the southern world's exploration of symbol adherence as a means of ecumenical progress and solidification of evangelical Christian identity. Other essays do not. There is partisanship present here; several writers tote the party line and trumpet their constituency's distinctives as a reveille for others to fall into formation instead of surveying possibilities for authentic ecumenical negotiations or creedal and confessional orientation. Case in point are the three essays on Pentecostalism by George D. McKinney ("The Azusa Street Revival Revisited"), Cheryl Bridges Johns ("The Pentecostal Vision for Christian Unity"), and Glenn E. Davis ("Who Is the Holy Spirit for Us Today"). Aside from Davis's highly questionable, nontraditional exegesis and exposition of John 20:19-23 to substantiate a charismatic vision of Holy Spirit gifts as the panacea to ecclesiological ills, these essays offer little by way of interesting or constructive dialogue regarding Christian identity or ecumenicalism. Likewise, the essays by Fuller President Richard Mouw ("What Evangelicals Can Learn from Fundamentalists") and Kevin Bauder ("What's That You Smell?") read like apologetic infomercials for fundamentalism. Neither Pentecostalism nor fundamentalism have much to contribute to the present conversation, and no wonder: both are modern movements of specific contextual moments, addressing specific contextual circumstances. What is more, they frequently profess (typically over-against sacramental, liturgical, and covenantal traditions) that to be their kind of evangelical-Pentecostal/charismatic or fundamentalist-is to be iure divino Christian. Assurance of Christian identity and status lies within the peculiarities of these communities, notwithstanding their transdenominational/ nondenominational reach. Exclusivity prevents these two from being a key source to uncovering pan-denominational, multigenerational Christian identity.
There we find Joel Carpenter representative of the more constructive essays toward the quest for Christian identity. Carpenter contemplates whether there is in fact an "essentialist" Evangelicalism that can cover all varieties. He concludes that Evangelicalism's historic, essential identity bares an altered face. The movement spoken of today, which has its roots in German Pietism, Puritanism, and revival/revivalist theologies and methodologies, differs greatly from the "evangelical churches" of Luther's day: "The evangelical persuasion now included a lessening emphasis on the creedal and sacramental channels of faith, a preference for voluntary religious affiliation and interdenominational cooperation, aggressive evangelization, conversionist views of salvation, earnest and abstemious living, and revivalistic and millennial expectations about God's work in the days to come" (31). Today it is "experimental religion"-the stressed need to know Jesus personally that begins with an experienced conversion-which theoretically stands as a shared element in all forms. Increasingly, this essential trait alienates sacramental Lutherans, Episcopalians, and some Presbyterians for whom paedobaptism avails as a gracious means of Holy Spirit's application of Christ's accomplished salvation. Standing in the evangelical tradition of Martin Luther, such denominations have argued that the witness of consensual Christianity testifies that essential Evangelicalism, as identified by Carpenter, is not Christian enough: hence the inherent divisiveness of evangelical Christianity, particularly the fundamentalist variety. Conscious of this and other dividing factors within Evangelicalism (e.g., lack of recognizable leadership; evangelical piety downplaying the meaning and significance of denominations; parachurch organizations making hash out of traditional ecclesiology), Carpenter suggests that evangelicals "cannot change who we are, but should recognize that our strengths can also be our deficiencies, and try to address our shortcomings" (40). He outlines four shortcomings: a missing evangelical theology of the church and the sacraments; parachurch (and, one might add, mission agency) subversion of denominations; evangelical isolation and estrangement from other Christians; and a respectful recognition of the Global South's Christian voice. Carpenter has his finger on it but doesn't seem to realize it. If evangelicals address these shortcomings, then they change who they are and gain an essential Christian identity, such that resonates with paleo-orthodoxy and the wider Body of Christ.
Where Carpenter leaves off, the essays from Roman Catholic spokespersons, Richard John Neuhaus and Jeffrey Gros, editor Timothy George, and seasoned ecumenists Gabriel Fackre and Thomas Oden begin. Notwithstanding evangelical suspicion of Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox communions, Neuhaus sets forth an argument-hard for Augustinian ears to ignore-for a more circumspect evangelical ecclesiology with the Church of Rome situated in the background, doing so with clear insight that evangelicals are unable to (a) come to a consensus on Christian identity and (b) formulate a meaningful, historical ecclesiology. The question quickly becomes, Is visible unity important or not? It is a question both Neuhaus and Gros answer in the affirmative, appealing to none other than the words of Jesus himself in John 17, fortified by passages from St. John's First Epistle. Neuhaus then gets at the heart of ancient Christian ecclesiology when he writes, "In Catholic theology the way we put it is to speak of the church not simply as having sacraments, but as itself being a sacrament to the world" (105). There must be unity for the church to exercise itself with maximal salvific effectiveness in the world. Just as Word and sacrament cannot be divided so, too, the church-which harbors the Word-cannot, or at least should not, be divided. From this perspective Neuhaus and Gros articulate a full-orbed doctrine of corpus Christi mystericum as their ecumenical answer to American evangelical identity. The way forward, then, is backward; not to 1516, but to the Great Catholic Church of the Nicene and Ante-Nicene Fathers, yet always with an eye on the great contributions of Luther, Calvin, and others, in the better articulation and promulgation of the gospel of Christ. To be sure, this would be an enormous pill for low-church (or no-church), Purpose-Driven-Life minions to swallow, and an impossible one for Banner of Truth devotees.
Though Neuhaus's essay does not represent the best of his work, it is well worth considering simply because Evangelicalism has reached a centrifugal point. Entropy is beginning to take place. Many of us see it every week on the campuses, in the workplaces, and in the churches at which we work-disenfranchised evangelicals joining the exodus into Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, with no apologies attached and ecclesiastical tradition to leave behind. They have opted for a narrative grander than autobiography; a history more expansive than the moment; and a tradition of greater antiquity than Billy Graham. Ad hominem abusive arguments about papists and Mary worship is no longer cutting it. Both camps stand to benefit from shared Bible study and a convivial partnership reexamining historical theology and church history.
The idea of "tradition" shapes Timothy George's essay. He starts by identifying four basic characteristics of Evangelicalism: conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism. But George adds a fifth: Evangelicalism as a renewal movement. It is this last distinctive that begins and hallmarks the "evangelical tradition." That this is the "tradition" of Evangelicalism gives one reason to celebrate and lament. Celebrate in that the Reformation itself was a renewal movement of the gospel, albeit one that Luther and Calvin saw as a tragic necessity. Lament in that "some of their latter-day champions appreciate the necessity but fail to discern the tragic element in that great rupture" (129). George remains positive in his outlook because evangelicals are showing "a renewed and growing interest in the history of biblical exegesis, the issue of doctrinal development, and the ecumenical context of spiritual theology" (137). And it is where these interests should ultimately lead that Christian identity and authentic ecumenism may be found, which is a point defended by Gabriel Fackre and Thomas Oden.
Pilgrims on the Sawdust Trail succeeds in presenting a number of worthwhile essays on "Evangelical Ecumenism and the Quest for Christian Identity." Ultimately, however, it is a Spruce Goose and must be recognized as such. It fails to get off the ground because, unlike Eastern Orthodoxy or Catholicism, evangelicals lack a passion for unity and authority. This is why ecumenism is looked upon askance and sacramental theology and historical ecclesiology will not be genuinely reconsidered. Unity in the church is a secondary, nay, tertiary doctrine for evangelicals who are, by very definition, indoctrinated to be more concerned about themselves than the community, even the community of the redeemed. And when "self" is the authority, well then, ecumenism will just sit in the water as a curious conversation piece. Still, Pilgrims on the Sawdust Trail provides a valuable service by prompting its readers not to be content with a floating museum.
