As a child I had the privilege of not growing up in a religious home. In fact we never went to church, not even on Easter of during the Christmas season. There were no religious paintings on our walls and God, the bible, church, or religious words were never mentioned in our home.
\nGod miraculously pursued me as a junior in high school and when I was born again, my life deepened and became more meaningful.
\nI read the Bible on the bus to and from school and at home. God had gifted me to be a long-distance runner so as I shared my faith in school, everyone listened to me. Then I miraculously found a church that emphasized the bible as God\u2019s authority, Christ as the way to God, evangelism to lead people to Christ, and that all men need to repent of their sins. It was all new to this 16-year-old and I immersed myself in the Bible, evangelism, and having Christ at the center of my life. From attending West Oaklane Church of God, I can now see how the United Kingdom impacted my church. In his book, Evangelicalism In Modern Britain, Bebbignton distinguishes what is now widely held as the marks of Evangelicalism:
\nConversionism-the belief that lives need to be changed;
\nActivism-the expression of the Gospel as effort;
\nBiblicism\u2013 a particular regard for the Bible; and
\nCrucicentrism-a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.1<\/p>\n
Twenty-one months after my conversion experience I attended Lancaster Bible College and saw these same four marks throughout my training. I was soon introduced to the term evangelical and realized I was part of a bigger movement. From \u201984-\u201988 I was introduced to J.I. Packer, John Stott, Charles Stanley, Jonathan Wesley, John MacArthur, Jim Baker, George Whitfield, C.S. Lewis, Jimmy Swaggart, Leonard Ravenhill, Gordon MacDonald, Jim Elliot, Donald Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, and so many others. Through listening to discussions in and out of class I also learned that evangelical meant being Republican, Caucasian, men only in leadership, women should not preach and they definitely should not teach men, speaking in tongues is unbiblical, evangelize the world, each verse has only one meaning, do not associate with gay people, evangelize the world, love the sinner but hate the sin, attending all church services is a barometer of your spiritual life, God\u2019s Word is more important than your feelings, evangelize the world, and of course a few more \u201cinsights.\u201d <\/p>\n
While reading Evangelicalism In Modern Britain: A history from the 1730\u2019s to the 1980\u2019s, I was thrown back to the 80\u2019s where most of my professors were trained but maybe not \u201ceducated\u201d in the 40\u2019s and 50\u2019s. For many of them their hearts were full of humility but their heads were not open to see life from a different mindset. <\/p>\n
Speaking of different mindset, this morning I spent 3 hours with pastors in our community discussing unity in our city and what I heard from the main speaker, Tim Doering from Netzer really got my attention. He said, \u201cThe enemy wants me to think, it\u2019s about me. The original iniquity of America is greed. We have no idea how much we swim in greed. This leads to individualism. Greed invites us to believe we don\u2019t have enough in God\u201d2 As he said this all I could think about was Dr. Clark\u2019s paper when he wrote, \u201cLeading early Evangelical leaders themselves noted that their faith propagated fastest and best where capitalist markets were developing.\u201d3 Ironically Bebbington disagreed with this because he believed the cultural context helped evangelicalism to grow and spread.4 <\/p>\n
I felt Dr. Clark and Mr. Doering were helping me to understand that even though Evangelicalism has been great for our society, it has truly been capitalism and sometimes greed that has helped it to spread. From Christian music to Christian conferences to Christian wrist bands, evangelicalism has done a great job marketing itself. Some would say, \u201cOh no, Christianity is not in the marketing business but it is hard to overlook, Christian magazines, television, radio, t-shirts, etc. Maybe Bebbington disagreed with this because marketing was not as strong in the 70\u2019s and 80\u2019s or maybe he just simply believes the cultural context is pretty strong and contributes heavily to the expansion of Christianity. For example, \u201cDenominational splits form an excellent index to the advance of fresh ideas.\u201d5 I definitely agree with Bebbington here because when you have splits or new congregations, different ways of doing \u201clife\u201d emerge and can also cause expansion. <\/p>\n
With all this in mind I can see how the late 1730\u2019s in Britain influenced the early 1980\u2019s in Philadelphia, Pa. My church still held true to Bebbington\u2019s four marks of Evangelicalism, just like my college. I can also see how capitalism, church splits, and new denominations helped Evangelicalism to expand across the pond. Reading this book has given me a greater appreciation for being an Evangelical because for the past ten to fifteen years I have shied away from that term. Even though that word still has bad connotations, I actually appreciate it a little more, thanks to Bebbington. <\/p>\n
1.\tD.W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730\u2019s to the 1980\u2019s (London: Routledge, 1989), 3
\n2.\tTim Doering, Understanding God\u2019s Design for the Church. Seminar at Coatesville, PA Pastor\u2019s luncheon. October 5, 2023. (Netzer.org, One Church Equipping).
\n3.\tDr. Jason Paul Clark, Evangelicalism and Capitalism: A Reparative Account and Diagnosis of Pathogeneses in the Relationship(DPhil Thesis, Middlesex University, London, 2018), 54.
\n4.\tD.W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730\u2019s to the 1980\u2019s (London: Routledge, 1989), 252.
\n5.\tIbid., 245.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a child I had the privilege of not growing up in a religious home. In fact we never went to church, not even on Easter of during the Christmas season. There were no religious paintings on our walls and God, the bible, church, or religious words were never mentioned in our home. God miraculously […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"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":[2310],"tags":[2489,12,467],"class_list":["post-33206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02","tag-bebbington","tag-clark","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33206","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\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33207,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33206\/revisions\/33207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}