Transforming the world?

Past imperfect

TRANSFORMING THE WORLD?
The social impact of British Evangelicalism
By David Smith
Paternoster. 146 pages
ISBN 0 85364 819 0

The author here surveys aspects of evangelicalism since the Methodist revival from a particular aspect. He is asking how far has evangelicalism maintained or lost the original vision of the Reformers - and particularly the Calvinist section of it - for a transformation of society and culture?
In the course of this, he traces the frequent captivity of the established denominations, and the evangelicals within them, to many aspects of their surrounding culture. The result has usually been a retirement into a cosy, pious sub-culture of their own. That has alienated and sometimes shocked those outside it by its lack of seriousness about its own inconsistencies with regard to wealth and social inequalities. Inevitably that has made Christianity seem irrelevant to large sections of the population and its practitioners seem to be inconsistent and hypocritical. He holds that the captivity of the churches to the wealthy played into the hands of Marx and Engels when the churches could have made their protests superfluous.

Failure to challenge

The vision of a more just (not necessarily egalitarian) society was lost among most evangelicals. They became more defensive of the status quo than aiming to transform it. He quotes some notable exceptions, but they had little influence, as evangelicals moved to a preoccupation with personal piety and black and white evangelism that ignored apologetics. Keswick he sees as representing this in particular. He does not mention the huge missionary effects of Keswick and others that poured effort into world evangelism where new churches had to grapple with social issues, while comparable questions at home were ignored.
As for the present time and the future, he is not very optimistic. The 'Evangelical Chorus', as he helpfully describes the variety of emphases today, he sees as having various small groups concerned with the under-privileged at home. They do not, however, constitute any evangelical programme and they do not have much clout. This, he suggests, is because they do not have a clear theological basis for social action such as the Calvinist movements had.

Shrewd judgments

The book is not altogether an easy read, and its sentences are often extremely long, but it is full of useful quotations from key people and stimulating ideas. He himself seems to lean towards an Anabaptist approach to denominations, but it is doubtful whether that tradition has been able to do much to transform society. Not all evangelicals will agree with his judgments, but he has many shrewd and sometimes controversial comments on the scene. It is a stimulating read, but it would have been helped by a clearer statement of what he thinks is the way forward.
One thing he does not address is the philanthropic influence of people like Shaftesbury, Barnardo, the numerous Mission Halls or the evangelical Quakers such as the Rowntrees and Elizabeth Fry. Not many evangelicals even had a vote but, looking at the smaller world in which they lived, they did much to improve it. They can hardly be blamed for having few political ambitions.
Today is different and he can properly ask why we have lost the vision for a more just society and action to bring it about. Pre-occupation with essential evangelism, personal spirituality and foreign missions has resulted in few evangelical churches having any serious interest in the needy in their town or a more just order in society.
Interwoven with the question of political change is a discussion of the apologetic task and the grappling with the broader culture and its increasing secularisation. Here again he has some useful things to say about the dangers of retreat from the task on the one hand, and compromise when we do get engaged on the other. He commends Francis Schaeffer here and he had a theological base for his approach. David Smith's challenge to get going in both these areas, social and cultural, is well worth heeding.

The social impact of British Evangelicalism

Past imperfect

Failure to challenge

Shrewd judgments

Oliver Barclay

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