Letter from America

There are two great challenges facing evangelicals in America today. The first is contemporary. How can evangelicals effectively minister in an atmosphere where war is looking increasingly likely? What is their role? Are they to tacitly support the administration, passively ignore the political realities, or actively campaign for a pacifist response?

Each of these approaches have had their supporters in conflicts past. The other challenge is historic. Because the revival of American evangelicalism over the past 50 years has, by and large, been based in para-church organisations, the gut-feeling of many American Christians is one that is thoroughly unused to being committed to a local church. This - as anyone with a moment's reflection could see - might easily transpire to produce enormous problems for the Christian community at large in the future.

Where is the doctrinal cohesion of the Christian community going to come from if it is not constantly reinforced by faithful and relevant preaching from the pulpit? How are our cultural tendencies towards selfish materialistic individualism to be transformed by the gospel if not within the fabric of checks and balances as provided by membership of a local church?

Answers?

These are the clear questions. The answers are less apparent. But I think they may best be approached by a reconsideration of the roots of historic, orthodox evangelicalism; and in particular by a careful reading of the writings of one American theological giant: Jonathan Edwards. Such a consideration leads to three necessary answers to those two questions we've mentioned, three answers that reflect the historical, biblical and practical commitments necessary for a revitalised classic evangelicalism in America today.

Roots

First, I think, we need a careful understanding of the historical roots of evangelicalism in America. Jonathan Edwards is the premier voice here and the current trend to look at his writings and life is encouraging. Far from a perfect man he nonetheless had the gift of vision. His description of a Reformed evangelicalism is one which produces useful marking posts for contemporary evangelicals today. For instance, he was happy to eschew superficial terminology in favour of essential truths. He was willing to be known as a Calvinist 'for the sake of definition' but sought then to re-express the truths of the evangelical Reformed gospel as he found them in Scripture. The word 'evangelical' today, and nowhere more so than in America, is close to losing all meaning. What matters is not what we call ourselves but what we stand for.

Edwards lived at a time when historic evangelicals, still wearing the mantle of their Reformed faith, were gradually slipping away from biblical Christianity to a chimera of the same. The matter at stake is not the word but the essence. Edwards's evangelicalism was marked by a thoroughgoing commitment to expository preaching, a near-extreme commitment to evangelism through revival, and a personal relationship with Jesus that was Spirit-filled and genuine.

Are these markers that we could appropriate today? Is a church or movement appropriately designated evangelical if it does, practically speaking, teach the Bible? Is a church or movement actually evangelical if it is not active in evangelism meaning the regenerative conversion of sinners to saints? Is a church or movement really evangelical if the experience of its members is far-removed from a personal, Spirit-filled encounter with the living Lord Jesus? I only ask.

Bible teaching

Second, I think, we need a renewed understanding of the place of the Bible in church. I portray my preacher's calling when I talk like this, and I may have to learn to listen to other important areas of ministry in the church. It just seems the elephant in the room, if I may so speak.

I come across, these days, American evangelicals who have been brought up in evangelical churches and yet have never had the experience of being taught through a book or passage in the Bible. What's with that? Why is it? Why have evangelicals, of all people, lost confidence in the preached word of God? People talk of the visual society in which we live and all that but I have found that walking people through the meaning of a passage and a book in the Bible is deeply, and simply, attractive. There is a magnet in the Word.

Hallmarks

Third, I think, we need to develop practical commitments, along the lines already mentioned, of churches and organisations that have regular expository preaching, consistent evangelism, and vital friendship with Jesus as their hall-mark.

So, enough of what I think. What do you think?

Josh Moody,
Connecticut

© Evangelicals Now - November 2002
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