{"id":15751,"date":"2018-01-08T22:57:44","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T06:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=15751"},"modified":"2018-01-08T22:57:44","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T06:57:44","slug":"evangelical-activism-turned-workaholism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/evangelical-activism-turned-workaholism\/","title":{"rendered":"Evangelical Activism Turned Workaholism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bebbington\u2019s book, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s, <\/em>was very interesting and informative. It focused on \u201cthe four qualities that have been the special marks of Evangelical religion: conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel in effort; biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible; and what may be called crucicentrism, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Together they form a quadrilateral of priorities that is the basis of Evangelicalism.\u201d[1]<\/a> I also noticed the conflict that was highlighted regarding the defensive posture adopted by late nineteenth-century writers against \u201cHigh Church doctrine on the priesthood and the sacraments.\u201d[2]<\/a> Since Evangelicalism is all that I know and am familiar with, it was helpful to understand how it came to be and differed from the High Church in Britain. As someone who has served in full-time church ministry for many years, the part of the book that was most disturbing was the extreme activism encouraged by many evangelicals (which I will address later).<\/p>\n

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For me, one of the most significant contributions of Evangelicalism is found in the following quote: \u201cEdward Garbett claimed in 1875 that the three cardinal Evangelical principles are the direct contact of the individual soul with God the Father, the freedom and sovereignty of the Holy Ghost and the sole High Priesthood of God the Son. His intent is to repudiate High Church teaching about the role of the priest in mediating the grace of God to the people.\u201d[3]<\/a> The fact that Evangelicalism eliminated the High Church priest from standing between the believer and God was a gift that I will always be grateful for. I can\u2019t imagine being taught that I need to go to another man in order to mediate my relationship with God. Seeing how this has also been translated by twentieth-century ministers confirms the power of this early Evangelical influence. When asked \u201cWhat is an Evangelical?, in 1944, Max Warren, General Secretary of the Church Missionary Society, gave priority to evangelism over everything else, even worship. The need for conversion, trusting the Holy Spirit to sustain the believer\u2019s new life and the priesthood of all believers were his other three cardinal principles.\u201d[4]<\/a> Understanding that we are all priests who have full access to the Father made God much more personal and accessible to the ordinary Christian. This also made it possible for Christians to have significant spiritual experiences and influence outside the walls of the formal church building.<\/p>\n

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Another aspect of Evangelical history highlighted by Bebbington was the extreme obsession with conversions. Ministers had strong convictions about this and preached about the importance of it to the point of feeling the need to be converted themselves. \u201cOne clergyman was even converted by his own sermon. Preaching on the Pharisees in his Cornish parish, William Haslam realized that he was no better than they, but then felt light and joy coming into his soul. The cry went up, \u2018The parson is converted!\u2019 The experience turned him into an Evangelical.\u201d[5]<\/a> I had to chuckle at this, especially since many pastors joke about converting each other or having alter calls at pastor\u2019s conferences. Kidding aside, I\u2019m sure as clergy became awakened to the Evangelical movement, their hearts and minds were being transformed as much as their parishioners. What a beautiful example of leading by example as they embraced more fully the work of the Holy Spirit in each person\u2019s life. Although the desire for conversions is noble, the downside of this leads to my disturbing next point.<\/p>\n

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As Evangelicalism developed, their focus on activism and conversions led them to extreme workaholism. Clergy did whatever they could to create more time for ministry because they felt time was scarce. \u201cA working week of between 90 and 100 hours was expected of men in the nineteenth-century Wesleyan ministry. It is hardly surprising that the connexion maintained a \u2018Worn-Out Ministers\u2019 Fund\u2019.\u201d[6]<\/a> This has been the curse of ministry and the downfall of many pastor\u2019s marriages and families ever since. The idea that we are doing the Lord\u2019s work and therefore it justifies being workaholics is absolutely unhealthy and has done more damage than good to the advancement of the Gospel. When I was in full-time church ministry I was lead to believe that I was on-call 24 hours a day and that the work of the ministry was more important than my own life and family. The same ridiculous hours are expected of pastors today and many still struggle to set healthy boundaries. Due to this lack of healthy balance, many pastors have ended up divorced, estranged from their kids, or destroyed by moral failure. This has been the crime of Evangelicalism on our pastors and churches and needs to be held in check if we are truly wanting to convert the unbeliever. No unbeliever is going to be attracted to a burned out life of broken families and broken bodies.<\/p>\n

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The last interesting aspect I noticed in the book was the move of many Evangelicals away from higher education in favor of winning souls. \u201cAs it was, the quest for souls generally drove Evangelicals out from centers of learning to the parishes and to the foreign mission field.\u201d[7]<\/a> It is interesting to me that this topic has already been brought to my attention thanks to Kyle in my advisor group focusing on this topic for his area of study. I believe he is wanting to make an impact on Assemblies of God ministers in hopes to create easier opportunities for them to pursue higher education, since his denomination does not emphasize education as much as some others might. It appears this trend away from education in an effort to focus on quickly getting to the ministry of saving lost souls has caused some denominations to be far less educated than others. Although I do believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to equip us for ministry, I think this influence from Evangelicalism has caused some ministers to be ill-equipped for the job at hand. I also believe just because someone is highly educated does not necessarily make them a good minister, but having a balance of training, calling, and the power of the Holy Spirit seems like the best recipe.<\/p>\n

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______________________________________<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [1] David W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s<\/em>, (London: Routledge, 1988) Kindle Locations 127-131.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [2] Ibid., 154-155.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [3] Ibid., 155-158.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [4] Ibid., 167-168.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [5] Ibid., 212-215.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [6] Ibid., 365-367.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [7] Ibid., 378-379.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bebbington\u2019s book, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s, was very interesting and informative. It focused on \u201cthe four qualities that have been the special marks of Evangelical religion: conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel in effort; biblicism, a particular regard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"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-15751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bebbington","tag-dminlgp","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15751","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15752,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15751\/revisions\/15752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}