Archives for 10.16.19

I’m writing about the book, Pocket History of Evangelical Theology, published by InterVarsity Press, by Roger Olson. Last time I listed the roots of what Olson calls postfundamentalist evangelicalism (otherwise known as “evangelicalism” today). For a more detailed definition of postfundamentalist evangelicalism, see this post. For an expansion on the first two roots of evangelical theology, see this post.

Once again, I’ll list Olson’s roots, and then we’ll expand on the middle three of them. The last two will be explained in the next post.

1. Pietism
2. Revivalism
3. Puritanism
4. Wesleyanism
5. The Great Awakenings
6. Old Princeton Theology
7. Holiness-Pentecostalism
8. Fundamentalism

Pietism (see this post)

Revivalism (see this post)

Puritanism

The Puritans are important in the development of evangelicalism and fundamentalism primarily through their influence in the life of Jonathan Edwards. (Secondarily, the Baptist movement owes its beginnings first to Puritans and subsequently the English Separatists. This development, not noted by Olson, contributes to both evangelicalism and fundamentalism insofar as Baptists are a part of both movements. But back to the Puritans…) “The Puritan movement began in Elizabethan England in the late sixteenth century. … Puritanism broadly defined began as the English movement to purify the Church of England under Queen Elizabeth I … of all vestiges of ‘Romish’ doctrine and practice.” (38) The Puritans were statists, admiring John Knox of Scotland and his reformation of Scottish society into a constitutional monarchy with an established Presbyterian church. “The Puritans wanted a similar thorough reform of England.” (39) This anti-Romish impulse for purity and orthodoxy eventually led to the Plymouth Colony in America and a society formed on Puritan ideals. Out of this society later came Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening with assistance from the English evangelist, George Whitfield. Puritanism, then, forms a significant well-spring of evangelical and fundamentalist thought.

Olson says, “Evangelicalism as a movement was born in the 1730s and 1740s Great Awakening.” (46) By evangelicalism here, he means, I suppose, “pre-fundamentalist evangelicalism.” That is, the evangelical movement that followed the Great Awakening eventually became the fundamentalist and evangelical movements we know today.

Wesleyanism

Wesleyanism is the influence of John Wesley on the evangelical movement. Wesley, unlike Whitfield, was Arminian in his theology. He and his brother Charles were friends of Whitfield (and Wesley preached Whitfield’s funeral sermon), but they diverged sharply in soteriology. Nevertheless, Wesley’s emphasis on personal conversion paralleled the emphasis of Edwards and Whitfield. All of them called for individual salvation and decried any notion that church membership or ritual could make a man right with God. “For Wesley, true ‘scriptural Christianity’ begins in a person with the experience of being ‘born anew’ by the Spirit of God. Of course, he did not deny the efficacy of the sacrament of infant baptism, but he did deny that it alone establishes a person’s right relationship with God. For Wesley, authentic Christianity is experiential Christianity and must be freely chosen; it can never be inherited or the product of an effort to ‘turn over a new leaf.’” (48)

Further, Olson says, Wesley “believed that only God can save a person and that if a person is saved it is entirely due to God’s grace, but people must respond to God’s grace and to the gospel with a free decision of repentance and faith.” (48)

Wesley’s views of salvation and individual conversion form a major root of evangelicalism (and fundamentalism). His views of sanctification likewise influenced a large following, but their impact was only on a segment of the evangelical world, not the whole.

The Great Awakenings

Olson calls the Great Awakenings “the Crucible of Modern Evangelical Theology” (52, emphasis added). Olson says, “Something quite new appeared out of the Great Awakening and Edwards’s and Wesley’s sermons and essays — a massive movement, a subculture of experiential Christianity solidly rooted in Protestant orthodoxy.” (52) Noting the differences between these two (who he calls the “fathers of evangelical Christianity”), he says that their “two streams of thought about salvation” entered evangelicalism and remain present, but also make evangelical theology “an unstable compound always about to explode into internecine rivalry, if not warfare.” (53-54) Alas, we all know this is true.

The Great Awakening subsided but later events gained the name “the Second Great Awakening.” Prominent in this history was Charles G. Finney, but he is not the sole proponent of the Second Awakening. While his bad theology should receive no applause, no one can deny that his methods and the fervent activity of many other contemporaries profoundly shaped evangelicalism/fundamentalism with an emphasis on the authority of the Bible and the need for individual conversion. This influence is the influence of revivalism, but it is in the “crucible” of the First and Second Great Awakenings that its ideas formed.

Preliminary conclusion number two

Puritanism predates Revivalism, and “the Great Awakenings” are nothing more than specific instances of revivalism taking hold in America, especially. Likewise Wesleyanism is essentially Revivalism, but a specific flavor of it. It is interesting to me that Olson puts Revivalism ahead of Puritanism as a root of the movement. It is also interesting how much evangelicalism owes to Revivalism and Revivalists. When thinking about where we are today, we would do well to consider what God thinks of these movements and, if they are biblical and God-honouring (as I think they are), what we can do to implement Revivalism in our own ministries.

Returning to the book, Pocket History of Evangelical Theology, published by InterVarsity Press, by Roger Olson, today I want to discuss the roots of Postfundamentalist Evangelical theology. For a definition of Postfundamentalist Evangelicalism, see my prior post. The roots of Postfundamentalist Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism are identical, except for one point, which we will get to shortly. The two movements are branches of the same tree. Some people say Fundamentalism is a subset of Evangelicalism (including good friends), but I disagree. I think history bears me out. The two movements have a common ancestry, but they also have a definite point of divergence. I’ll say more on that later, as well.

Returning to the Roots

In Olson’s book, the first chapter defines evangelicalism. Having achieved that goal, he turns to Part II: The Roots of Evangelical Theology. This comprises eight chapters for eight roots (or threads in the tapestry, to use a different metaphor). The roots Olson lists are:

1. Pietism
2. Revivalism
3. Puritanism
4. Wesleyanism
5. The Great Awakenings
6. Old Princeton Theology
7. Holiness-Pentecostalism
8. Fundamentalism

Since Olson sees fundamentalism as a “root” of postfundamentalist evangelicalism, it is here where their root structure differs. Obviously, fundamentalism can’t be a “root” of itself. This may seem trivial, but it is one of those key facts which disproves the notion that fundamentalism is a subset of evangelicalism. Fundamentalism is a smaller movement than evangelicalism, but it isn’t evangelical in the modern sense of the word (which is Olson’s sense). The reason some see fundamentalism as a subset is because of a mostly shared root system and the fact that fundamentalism is smaller. The reality is that we have two divergent movements built on the same root system.

Having said that, let’s do some quick definition of the roots of postfundamentalist evangelicalism. Today we will look at just the first two, then pick up on the others in subsequent posts.

Pietism

Pietism began around one hundred and fifty years after the Reformation. By this time, many states had established (i.e. state-sponsored) Reformed churches and a certain settled formalism ensued. Pietism grew up out of a concern over this formalism, desiring a more heart-felt religion for those professing Christ. “Pietists are always concerned that Christianity be something more than historical knowledge and mental assent to doctrines; they want to distinguish authentic Christianity from false or merely nominal Christianity by identifying the ‘real thing’ by life-transforming experience of God in conversion and devotion to God in the ‘inner man’ and by discipleship that is shaped by the Bible, aims towards perfection, and seeks to be ‘in the world but not of the world.’” (Olson, 23)

Revivalism

Revivalism has some connections with Pietism, but is its own distinct movement. Ethnically, it is more a British and American phenomenon, even though there were (and are) Pietists in America. Olson’s initial definition of revivalism goes this way: “Revivalism was the phenomenon in Great Britain and North America that saw emotional preaching calling masses of mostly already baptized people, often outdoors, to make decisions to repent and follow Jesus Christ.” (33) The distinctive mark of revivalism as opposed to pietism is “the need for each person publically to repent and receive Jesus Christ by an act of inward faith as well as outward profession.” (34) Revivalism included Christians of differing theological beliefs (Calvinists and Arminians), who shared a similar fervor and a desire for awakening the lost or the backslidden to a public testimony of Christianity. The division in theology persists among evangelicals (and fundamentalists) today, but what the revivalists united on was that “they … elevated experience over doctrine as the true centerpiece of Christian existence.” (37)

Preliminary conclusion

The roots of Pietism and Revivalism are important components of evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Some of the new “Conservative Evangelicalism” wants to go back to a Reformed religion, bypassing almost all of evangelicalism’s roots. Especially the earliest and most persistent roots of Pietism and Revivalism receive the most scorn. This disdain for historical impulses galvanizing evangelical history is mystifying. Surely they contributed to the success of genuine Christian expansion worldwide for hundreds of years. Perhaps we should consider that religion of the heart is at least as important as the religion of the mind.