Postfundamentalist Evangelicalism

You may wonder what this is: “post-fundamentalist evangelicalism.” The term, as far as I know, belongs to Roger Olson, a prolific author and theology professor. I believe that he subscribes to Arminian theology. His specialty seems to be historical theology. I am reading a little book he put out called the Pocket History of Evangelical Theology, published by InterVarsity Press and apparently is drawn from a larger work, The Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology. Olson writes well, I think anyone could follow what he has to say. The book helps in several ways. For one, it defines evangelicalism today, and I think does so quite well. It demonstrates a clear understanding that evangelicalism and fundamentalism are not the same thing. This is also helpful. In addition, it traces the roots of evangelical theology that provides an excellent summary of antecedents. This helps our understanding of both fundamentalism and evangelicalism, since prior to the 1950s, evangelicalism wasn’t “post-fundamentalist” it was coincident with fundamentalism. In other words, prior to the sea change of “new evangelicalism,” fundamentalism and evangelicalism essentially meant the same thing.

All of this gets ahead of ourselves a little bit. For this post I’d like to summarize some of Olson’s work on defining evangelicalism, the subject of his first chapter. He starts out by pointing out seven “justifiable uses” of the term. (Page 8) The next few pages outline the seven uses. I’ll summarize them here:

1. The etymological use: people “of the good news,” people connected to the gospel. In this use, “evangelical is simply synonymous with authentic Christianity,” as opposed to “moralistic or legalistic religion,” (8) meaning forms of Christianity that depend on liturgical form or ritualistic legalism for right standing with God. Evangelicals in this sense believe in salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone.
2. The Reformation use: this use makes evangelical “simply synonymous with Protestant.” (8) In Germany, the “Evangelical” churches are “not-Catholic.” We see this in North America in the names of such denominations as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America or the Evangelical Free Church.
3. The British use: evangelical is used in Anglicanism to describe those Anglicans of the “low church” variety, as opposed to the “high church” Anglicans who border on Catholicism in their love of ritual, forms, and even doctrines that are close to Catholicism.
4. The fruit of Pietism and revivalism: this use “arises out of the Pietist and revivalist attempts to reform and revive Protestant Christianity in Germany, Great Britain, and North America in the early eighteenth century.” (9-10) Those in support saw the churches (especially the ‘state churches’) as fallen into dead orthodoxy. They campaigned for a “heart religion” that expressed warm and fervent faith. “Evangelicals rejected sacramental salvation and covenant salvation as inadequate views of true conversion to Christ.” (10) This usage (and others) shows some of the historical development of evangelical theology.
5. As a synonym (virtually) for fundamentalism: this use of the term “comes from the conservative Protestant reaction to the rise of liberal Protestantism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” In this sense, evangelicals were those who actively opposed modernist thought, attempted to secure control of denominations and schools for orthodox doctrine, and, failing that, ended up establishing new institutions. Some of those in this contest were willing to carry the label “fundamentalist” while others, perhaps less comfortable with that term, invested “evangelical” with the same orthodox militancy for truth.
6. A new use of the term came after the fundamentalist-modernist controversies, as “the 1940s and 1950s postfundamentalist evangelicalism began to break away from the increasingly militant and separatistic fundamentalism of the 1920s and 1930s.” (12) This aspect of evangelicalism is the subject of Olson’s book. He defines postfundamentalist evangelicalism as a renewal of revivalistic evangelicalism, divorced from the extremes of militant fundamentalism. Evangelicals in this sense are “NOT fundamentalists.” Initially, they are reactionary; subsequently they became the broad majority of non-Catholic, non-liturgical, non-fundamentalist conservative Christianity.
7. The last usage of evangelical is “popular rather than historical.” (13) It is the term journalists (and others) bandy about when describing “Christianish groups.” Even groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses have had the label imposed on them. The popular usage of uninformed people contributes to the confusion about the meaning of the term.

Olson wants to describe the theological development and unique contributions of postfundamentalist evangelicalism. He defines it further with this:

“Evangelicalism is a loose affiliation (coalition, network, mosaic, patchwork, family) of mostly Protestant Christians of many orthodox (Trinitarian) denominations and independent churches and parachurch organizations that affirm…

• “a supernatural worldview…
• “the unsurpassable authority of the Bible…
• “Jesus Christ as unique Lord, God, and Savior…
• “the fallenness of humanity and salvation provided by Jesus Christ…
• “the necessity of personal repentance and faith…
• “the importance of a devotional life…
• “the urgency of gospel evangelism and social transformation;
• “and the return of Jesus Christ…” (14-15)

Olson says, “many evangelicals affirm more; none affirms less or deny any of these basic belief commitments.” (15)

Of the list above, most fundamentalists would likewise affirm these ideas, except perhaps “the urgency of … social transformation.” This tenet is a defining mark of evangelicalism. It is what Carl Henry called for in his book, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. Fundamentalism also insists on separatism (as noted above), which evangelicals specifically reject. Olson quotes Donald Bloesch in The Future of Evangelical Christianity as saying,

“Evangelicalism unashamedly stands for the fundamentals of the historic faith, but as a movement it transcends and corrects the defensive, sectarian mentality commonly associated with Fundamentalism.” (Bloesch, 15, cited in Olson 20)

I have to say that Olson’s definitions seem accurate to me. Evangelicalism (i.e. postfundamentalist evangelicalism) and Fundamentalism depart at this point: Evangelicalism rejects separatism while Fundamentalism embraces it; Evangelicalism embraces social transformation, while Fundamentalism rejects it (without rejecting compassion for others — the key word is transformation).

There is a lot more of interest in Olson’s book. I plan to produce a few more blog posts from his little book. I recommend it to those interested in our subject.