{"id":12,"date":"2014-07-14T04:05:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T04:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=12"},"modified":"2014-08-11T20:34:42","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T20:34:42","slug":"evangelical-how-good-news-often-became-bad-news-and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/evangelical-how-good-news-often-became-bad-news-and\/","title":{"rendered":"Evangelical \u2013 How Good News often became Bad News and How There Might Be Hope for Change"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s<\/em> by D. W. Bebbington is \u2013 as the title suggests \u2014 a text about a historical exploration of Evangelicalism in modern Britain.\u00a0 However, it is also about much more than this.\u00a0 While Bebbington specifically reviews the socio-cultural aspects of Evangelicalism in Britain, there are themes that he discusses that have influenced Evangelical movements world-wide.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, in beginning the text, Bebbington notes that among other varying attributes of Evangelicalism that he understands to have been emphasized, four characteristics remain consistently core: conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism.\u00a0 \u201cTogether they form a quadrilateral of priorities that is the basis of Evangelicalism.\u201d While his discussion of these aspects related to the specific topic of the text is eminently helpful in its own right, these are also qualities with which most Evangelicals world-wide find affinity.\u00a0 For instance, in the mid-twentieth century Albert Outler coined his own quadrilateral \u2014 what he called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.\u00a0 Outler\u2019s version consists of Scripture, Reason, Tradition and Experience.\u00a0 Later Howard Snyder of Asbury Theological Seminary added a fifth component \u2013 making a pentalateral \u2014 that he suggested was implicit within those already stated \u2013 Service.\u00a0 While it can be noted that of all the characteristics, Outler\u2019s version \u2013 who did his Ph.D. work at Yale, taught at both Yale and Duke and was an officially invited observer at the Second Vatican Council \u2013 seems to contain the least implicit and\/or explicit specific reference to crucicentrism the realities of the day showcased otherwise.\u00a0 As Bebbington notes in his text, the idea of Biblicism\/scripture was often left out various permutations of core doctrinaire assumptions produced by British Evangelicals. This was not due to their lack of commitment.\u00a0 Rather, it was often due to their being so immersed in the text that they felt no need to reference it.\u00a0 This same orientation could be similarly suggested of Outler\u2019s rendition related to crucicentrism.<\/p>\n<p>However, overall, despite the relevance of discussing the rationale for an even greater understanding of similarity in the midst of a common core of overlapping emphases, what I find particularly important about Bebbington\u2019s historical review, actually, is its notation of particular personalities, consistent shiftings of emphases within similarity and even some larger shifts of focus beyond the boundaries of easily understood similarity.\u00a0 My reason for suggesting my own emphasis on noting consistent historical shift over stability within Evangelicalism is due to what has been in the last thirty plus years a rigidification of understanding of doctrine and its adherence in some Evangelical camps and a reciprocal rigidification (ironically) of what amounts to a laissez-faire approach to spirituality in other Evangelical camps.\u00a0 The tensions of the \u201cmiddle ground\u201d in Evangelicalism of both \u201cLove of God\u201d (biblicism\/crucicentrism) and \u201cLove of Neighbor\u201d (conversionism\/activism) has not been an easy road to navigate.\u00a0 This is a rough sketch of this idea and more specificity would be needed to adequately convey a full connectivity of the above concepts, but I hope a semblance of the issue is communicated.\u00a0 It is important to note socio-cultural change because I find that this offers room for personal and corporate grace while also still humbly reminding of commonalities from which change occurs.<\/p>\n<p>What I love about Bebbington\u2019s book is that it ends for me in a hopeful fashion.\u00a0 It informs that where many Evangelicals for too long held to the stance of \u201cyour either with us or against us\u201d and also held to an essential Platonic dualism of the spirit being good and the body being bad, a new day is dawning where social responsibility is a vital part of spirituality that requires kindness and friendship, a hospitable working alongside those who think, believe and sometimes do otherwise. I am also coming away from the text feeling that it reminds Evangelicals to be \u201cambassadors of reconciliation\u201d seeking to bring about goodness \u2013 pieces of heaven on earth \u2013 here and now not just \u201cin the sweet by and by.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s by D. W. Bebbington is \u2013 as the title suggests \u2014 a text about a historical exploration of Evangelicalism in modern Britain.\u00a0 However, it is also about much more than this.\u00a0 While Bebbington specifically reviews the socio-cultural aspects of Evangelicalism in Britain, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,2],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bebbington","tag-dminlgp","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1328,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/1328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}