At its core, evangelicalism has always been
a system of spiritual/theological beliefs. The Bebbington Quadrilateral has been considered the go-to guide to the evangelical ethos. The
quartet can be abstracted as: conversionism
– the need for sinful man to experience spiritual rebirth; biblicism – to have a high (e.g., inerrant) view of Biblical
authority, and to know and follow Scripture; crucicentrism – the centrality of Christ’s sacrificial atonement for
sin; and activism – to proclaim
salvation and produce its fruits by compassion, mercy and justice.[i] The
précis was devised some decades ago by a theologian living in Britain, and
grows ever-more remote as American evangelicals continually find themselves
redefined. Although Bebbington’s is often called a typology, it is less a taxonomy
of evangelicalism than a profile of the lowest doctrinal common-denominators that
all evangelicals would be expected to share. The Bebbington baseline reflects a
spiritual/theological ethos, but evangelicalism
is better expressed in practice than on paper. The definition of evangelical
encompasses much more than the gown and mortarboard set give on. To be an
evangelical is a way of life connected to, and sometimes confusedly at odds with
its faith precepts.
There
is a doctrinal base, but also a lived experience loaded with subcultural
periphenalia, perhaps best distilled by Kristin Du Mez, who coined the term
“Hobby Lobby Evangelicalism”.[ii]
She describes the retailer sells more
than just decorative baubles; it aligns them to the hopes, longings, and imaginings
of the American Christian consumer, implanting subliminal seeds of homespun sentimentality
and churchy wholesomeness. As Du Mez puts it, marketing “products
offering the illusion of the country, all the charm with none of the manure.” Evangelicals
express themselves not just through what they buy, but in how they converse. A
random shopper at Hobby Lobby may likely encounter the tribal idiom, evangelicalese. Evangelical-speak is a religious
vernacular infused with biblical allusion, replete with its own esoteric vocabulary.
Evangelicalism is at the same a theological statement
and a cultural project. Protestant groups were drawn into its network as a
tactical alliance for biblically-based, culturally-relevant evangelistic and
social outreach. The blessing and bane of “common ground criss-crossed by many
fences” meant throwing a bit of one’s religious identity into a neutral
territory.[iii] Despite
mis-givings, many traditions had to become tolerant enough to accommodate some measure of cross-denominational inconsistency. For
example, Presbyterian ministers had to suffer “asking Jesus to come into your
heart”, along with “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” strummed in youth group
singalongs. At non-denominational Christian schools, summer camps and youth
rallies, Calvinists had a Hobson’s choice to study, play and worship alongside
revivalists with their house-on-fire brand
of transactional evangelism. And in a Billy Graham Crusade, Southern churches
had to tolerate interracial seating.[iv] As a
movement, evangelicalism is more than just the aggregate of its constituents. One
doesn’t speak of pan-evangelicalism;
by nature it is a receptive ecumenism based on a bare-bones theology, formed
among those sharing a family resemblance because the gene pool is intermingled with second cousins and shirt-tail
relatives. Defining evangelicalism based solely on theology is next to
impossible, because most evangelicals can’t define their own theology. It’s
like a religious Golden Corral, as
Pat Robertson is quoted:
As far as the majesty of worship, I'm an Episcopalian; as far as a belief
in the sovereignty of God, I'm Presbyterian; in terms of holiness, I'm a
Methodist . . . in terms of the priesthood of believers and baptism, I'm a
Baptist; in terms of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I'm a Pentecostal.[v]
[i] Keith C. Sewell, The Crisis of Evangelical Christianity: Roots, Consequences, and Resolutions,
Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publ., 2016, P. 5.
[ii] Kristin Du Mez, “Hobby Lobby
Evangelicalism”, Patheos, September
6, 2018. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2018/09/hobby-lobby-evangelicalism/
(accessed January 10, 2019).
[iii] Carl F. H. Henry, “Somehow, Let’s Get
Together”, Christianity Today, June
9, 1957, P. 24.
[iv] Steven P. Miller, Billy Graham And The Rise Of The Republican South, Philadelphia:
Univ. Of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, P. 31.
[v] David Edwin Harrell, Pat Robertson: A Personal, Religious, And
Political Portrait, New York: Harper & Row, 1987, P. 102.