The Evangelical Left:
Encountering Post-conservative Evangelical Theology
By Millard J. Erickson
Paternoster. 152 pages
ISBN 0853648786
Millard Erickson is perhaps not as well known in the UK as he is in America where he has established himself over the years as a leading evangelical theologian and a popular observer of, and commentator upon, contemporary trends in evangelical theology. This book, first published in the US last year, presents in a brief compass his thoughts upon some of the latest developments in evangelical thinking.
Erickson focuses his discussion on a number of North American theologians but this is not a book of interest only to those across the pond - the names of Stanley Grenz and Clark Pinnock, two key figures in Erickson's analysis, are well-known on this side of the Atlantic and their works, particularly those of the latter, have had an impact upon British evangelical thought and life and are set to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Both men possess enviable communication skills and, unhindered by any intellectual snobbery, write and speak not just for the academy but also for the church at large. Indeed, their enviable passion for the church is sure to guarantee that their influence will increase in the coming years.
Erickson's approach to this 'evangelical left' makes his book particularly valuable. The emphasis in each chapter is on exposition first, with the positive and negative critiques being reserved for the concluding section of each. As a result, he makes no attempt to score cheap points off the opposition - he genuinely wishes to hear what the 'evangelical left' are saying before he attempts any response of his own. For this reason alone, the book is worth purchasing and reading-it offers a sound overview of the theology of these so-called post-conservatives and will save the hard-pressed minister many hours of reading. Erickson tells us what these men say and where we can find it.
The book itself consists of six chapters which deal with the history and context of post-conservative evangelicalism (PCE); its understanding and approach to theology; its doctrine of Scripture; its doctrine of God; its doctrine of salvation; and a tentative prediction of the way its theology will develop in the future. Throughout the book, a number of key concerns emerge again and again:
1. PCE represents an attempt to take seriously many of the questions being posed by modernity, especially in its attempts to see how much of classical evangelical theology was shaped by its culture and how much was actually truly biblical.
2. PCE rejects the notion that the Bible is in itself God's Word, and the notion of propositional revelation for other approaches.
3. PCE rejects the classical understanding of God in favour of a 'relational' approach which involves, among other things, a radical assertion of human freedom and a dramatic limitation of God's knowledge of the future built upon the premise that because the future does not and has not yet existed, it cannot be an object of God's knowledge.
4. PCE holds to revised understandings of salvation, varying from conditional immortality to post-modern evangelism with its strongly universalist tendencies.
Erickson is no mean-spirited heresy-hunter, and he rightly condemns the PCE for their desire to critique the evangelical tradition-human doctrinal formulations inevitably bear the stamp of their age and cannot be given positions of absolute authority. He also notes the importance of taking the issues raised by modernity and post-modernity seriously - to answer questions as they are posed today, we cannot simply shout 17th-century slogans more and more loudly in an attempt to drown out the opposition. It is, however, one thing to realise the limitations of one's tradition, but quite another to indulge in a wholesale rejection of the essential components of that tradition, and Erickson is an acute critic, raising a number of important questions. For example, he points to the rather vague relationship which the opponents of 'propositional' revelation draw between scriptural propositions and revelation. Indeed, when examining works such as Grenz's Theology for the Community of God, Erickson indicates that it is rather difficult to work out how Grenz's approach in practice differs from 'propositional' theology. He also takes PCE to task for its rejection of classical theism. Most significant in this regard is the rejection by Pinnock and others of God's knowledge of the future. The implications of this for Christian belief and practice are little short of catastrophic - can one have any sound basis for intercessory prayer if the future is 'open'? Erickson also points to the sinister tendency of evangelical theologians spending more time finding common ground with liberal theologians while disparaging their own traditions.
The problematic side of the book emerges in the last chapter, where Erickson draws his conclusions. His clear insights into the problems of PCE make this chapter somewhat puzzling. While arguing that the PCE theologians have moved considerably from the classical position, he denies that they have moved so far as to exclude themselves from the evangelical constituency altogether. We are thus left at the last minute with a fudge which returns us to the basic question that underlies the whole book and yet which Erickson finally refuses to face: what is it that defines an evangelical? In terms of theology, one can argue that the Bible is the Word of God or one can deny that the Bible is the Word of God; one can assert that theology is talk about God or one can assert that theology is only talk about the religious self-consciousness; one can assert that God knows the future or one can deny that God knows the future; and one can assert that salvation is through faith by grace or one can deny this. Evangelicalism is apparently wide enough to comprehend all of these opinions, something which can only mean that it is not defined in any way or at any level by its doctrine but by something else-whether its institutions, its religious ethos or whatever.
In failing to draw the obvious - and inevitable - conclusion from everything else that he has said, Erickson transforms his book from being an insightful analysis of the problem into a symptom of the problem. In addition to the above problems, we should note at this point that the historical precedents for regarding the kind of theology proposed by Pinnock as evangelical or even as falling within the widest bounds of traditional notions of Christian orthodoxy, are virtually non-existent: for example, the basic theological trajectory within which his doctrine of God would appear to stand is that stemming from the Socinians of the 17th century, such as Biddle and Crellius. Erickson rightly says that doctrinal movement cannot go on unchecked, but this reader was left wondering exactly where the line would be drawn, given that mutually exclusive views of all of the most central doctrines are to be allowed to coexist under the evangelical umbrella.
This then is a book to buy and read - both for its fair and balanced exposition of PCE and for the wider issues which the book's strange - and inconsistent - conclusions themselves raise about evangelical identity in the late 1990s. Like it or not, the representatives of the 'evangelical left' are here to stay and it is the responsibility of those of us who are increasingly cast, to extend Erickson's political analogy, as the evangelical equivalent of 'Old Labour', to make sure that we make intelligent and informed, but also clear and decisive, responses to the questions and challenges they raise.
Carl R. Trueman
University of Nottingham
