What is the Future of Evangelicalism?

As the articles in this issue of Modern Reformation suggest, evangelicalism is experiencing a change in seasons: former evangelical statesmen are passing from the scene, new evangelicals don't seem to rally around the same issues and ideas as their forefathers, and it's increasingly difficult (if it was ever really possible) to identify clearly what an evangelical is. If you have any warm feelings at all about evangelicalism, you want some answers: Where is evangelicalism going? Who better to turn to for answers than the individuals whose lives and work helped create and shape evangelicalism. Modern Reformation is honored to include the reflections of these evangelical leaders, pastors, and scholars as we seek to understand our own time and the future of the evangelical expression of Christianity.

In his influential study, Awash in a Sea of Faith, Jon Butler argued that at its inception as a nation the United States was characterized by a variety of articulations of the Christian faith and that only with the coming of the Early National Period and the emergence of American evangelicalism did America find a more unified voice on what it believed biblical Christianity is. (1) In this short piece, however, I would like to challenge Butler and ask if evangelicalism's emergence may have simply traded one sea for another, moving from being awash in a myriad of understandings of the Christian faith to a plethora of individual Christian experiences of faith.

American evangelicalism's explosive first growth during America's Second Great Awakening forced the historic churches to come to grips with its claims. Radically democratized and responsive to its hearers, it soon challenged all of the historic faith traditions (most of which had their roots in the Reformation) as it argued for a new order for American Christianity. (2) By the latter half of the twentieth century, however, evangelicalism had its second growth and once again challenged the American churches with its successes. More recently, the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) has begun to experience what one might call an "evangelical shift," as evangelical seminaries have begun to outdistance their "mainline" counterparts. Seemingly more healthy in terms of their resources (students and money!), evangelically inclined schools are beginning to make their voice heard in the ATS.

However, evangelical involvement in formal theological education has not always been the norm. Early on, it trumpeted the fact that most of its preachers had little or no formal seminary education. Further, evangelicals have at times relished the fact that they have clearly cut themselves off from the historic churches. While Protestants have always been good at this (the response to Philip Schaff's brilliant The Principle of Protestantism was a heresy charge), evangelicals have at times taken this to the extreme. (3) To put it another way, evangelicalism may be becoming the victim of its own sense of historylessness, which could lead to an aimless drifting on the American religious scene. As elder statesmen pass away and institutions shift with the times, the lack of the anchor of a sense of history and confession has put American evangelicalism into a state of flux perhaps as significant as that faced by the liberal churches a century ago.

Where Butler saw America "awash in a sea of faith," present-day evangelicalism, which lacks a deep and abiding sense of a living tradition (though by no means authoritative in the Roman Catholic sense), seems adrift in a sea of individual faiths that are radically personal and individualistic in nature. The fides qua creditor (the personal faith that apprehends the merits of Christ) has so trumped the fides quae creditor (the historic Christian faith that is believed) that the latter is largely unknown and sometimes simply ignored. This radical individualism and sense of historylessness manifests itself perhaps most clearly in the lack of a formal confessional tradition within the evangelical movement. And lacking this anchor, evangelicalism has democratized to the point of making individualizing confession to the point of meaninglessness. "How can you question my faith? It works for me," and so on. The faith experience of the individual becomes absolutely authoritative. (4)

My own faith tradition, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (founded in 1847), has had a tension-filled experience with American evangelicalism. While it adapted some evangelical methods and strategies for reaching those apart from the church and it applauded a number of evangelicalism's points, (5) it simultaneously criticized evangelical theology severely for what it believed were departures from the historic faith-the fides quae creditur. However, with the fundamentalist/modernist controversy and the emergence of a reorganized evangelicalism in the post-World War II era, some in Missouri moved closer to evangelicalism. Walter A. Maier, the famous and influential Lutheran Hour speaker not only preached a sermon titled, "You, Too, Should be a Fundamentalist," he also frequently challenged his hearers to "accept" Christ's "offer" of salvation.

Like all American churches, by the middle of the twentieth century Missouri faced the question of the nature and authority of Scripture and they covered the spectrum on the question. Some moved toward positions more in harmony with Higher Biblical Criticism. Others echoed an evangelical emphasis on the inerrancy of the Bible. When many of the former left the synod in the mid-70s, the more evangelically inclined group found itself beginning to struggle with questions over exactly what Missouri's relationship to evangelicalism should be. Some argued for the use of "evangelical style" while retaining "Lutheran substance." Others backed away from earlier alliances. Clergy often divided over questions of the role of the historic Lutheran confessions in defining not only doctrine but practice.

In this respect, Missouri mirrors the fragmentation of evangelicalism itself. Questions over biblical character and authority, the role that the historic confessions play in forming identity, the use of culturally relevant forms of worship, the extent to which theological agreement is achievable and even desirable, and others, continue to characterize Missouri conversations internally as well as externally. It is no secret that a significant number of Missouri pastors have joined the Eastern Orthodox Church; not as glamorous perhaps, but just as significant, a number of Missouri pastors and laypeople seem to be more comfortable with like-minded and like-practicing evangelicals. Missouri is still not sure how to deal with this reality.

So what does the future hold for evangelicalism? I am convinced that until it comes to grips with the question of authority, history, and, above all, its relationship to the confessional tradition of the Reformation, I believe it will continue to struggle with questions of identity and its response to contemporary culture. Lacking an historic, confessional connection to the church in its historic and confessional fullness, evangelicalism may continue to be adrift in a sea of individual faiths.