One of the realities of life in the Christian community post 1517 is more complex forms of division. Division was, of course, a reality prior to Luther’s Reformation, but with the German Reformer’s writings and actions came a new level of division along organizational lines. Prior to the Reformation, every Christian had two types of membership in the Christian community: Membership in their local church in which they practiced public worship, received the sacraments, lived with their fellow members, and so forth. They also held membership in the broader church universal, which was a larger organization that helped mediate conflicts in local churches, define acceptable doctrine within local churches, handled much of the church’s money, and trained the church’s leaders.
The key point is that the broader church universal and the larger organizational structure of the church were functionally the same thing. With the Reformation, a third membership was added that guts the second membership of most of its obvious responsibilities, that membership is the denomination. (It should be noted that I’m speaking exclusively of western Christianity here – the picture gets much more complex if we include the Orthodox, Nestorian, Coptic, and Jacobite churches.)
With denominationalism, the role of the local church stays largely the same. But the second membership becomes the denomination, which performs all the functions of the universal church prior to 1517. They handle the money, define the doctrinal parameters of the denomination, and so forth. Yet our membership within the larger people of God secured in Christ hasn’t changed. I may be a member in the Presbyterian Church in America, but I still have obligations to love my brothers and sisters in other Christian denominations – even if our organizational ties have been severed. And this is where Al Mohler and the young, restless, reformed wing of evangelicalism shows it’s greatest weakness.
To recap, Al Mohler is the President of Southern Seminary, the flagship seminary of America’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptists. (They claim 16 million members, but everyone knows that figure is wildly inaccurate. A very liberal but honest estimate of their membership would be about half that. Lying about such an important figure is probably something the SBC should repent of – and, you know, stop doing – before they start telling everyone in evangelicalism to be young-earthers, but that’s another rant for another day.) When Mohler came to Southern in the early 90s it was known as a moderate-to-liberal seminary within a generally conservative denomination. Moreover, it was generally understood that there was a big difference between Southern Baptists and Evangelicals – and the Baptists wanted it that way. As Mohler says in the CT piece, “Baptist was a Yankee word.” But when Mohler took over he quickly began cleaning house at Southern. The moderate-to-liberal faculty were all dismissed and replaced by conservatives. And the watersheds that defined “moderate-to-liberal” vs. “conservative” were issues like the doctrines of grace/TULIP (commonly – and inaccurately – referred to as “Calvinism”), complementarianism, young earth creationism, and inerrancy. In Mohler’s defense, this was not an arbitrary list he defined, but simply an attempt to make the school conform to its own standards, a document called the Abstract of Principles.
Within 10 years Southern had become a thriving, rapidly-growing seminary and Mohler had developed a reputation as a firebrand reformer who was also a quite capable controversialist and popular-level intellectual. Around that time, there was a growing interest nationwide in various forms of Reformed theology. Mark Driscoll and Acts 29 championed a brand similar to Mohler’s in its theology, but more culturally savvy. Meanwhile, PCA pastor Tim Keller was also quietly working in Manhattan at a wildly successful church plant he and his wife had started in the 1980s called Redeemer Presbyterian. In the Baltimore/DC area, pastors C.J. Mahaney and Joshua Harris were developing and growing a movement that embraced elements of Pentecostalism and Reformed thought in an interesting and historically unique ministry called Sovereign Grace. Additionally – and most importantly – Baptist pastor John Piper’s ministry of Desiring God and his church, Bethlehem Baptist, were growing at unprecedented rates with Piper quickly becoming one of evangelicalism’s most famous authors through books like Desiring God, Don’t Waste Your Life, and Let the Nations be Glad!.
It wasn’t long before these disparate groups began to come together around their shared belief in a vaguely Reformed set of doctrines. (I say vaguely reformed because technically speaking the only Reformed guy in the bunch I just named is Keller because Keller is the only one that baptizes babies and talks about the Gospel primarily as a proclamation of creational renewal, both of which are absolute staples of the reformed tradition. The rest are, and I don’t mean this derisively, Baptists who like aspects of Calvin’s thought.) Through conferences hosted by Desiring God, Together 4 the Gospel, Ligonier, Acts 29, and Sovereign Grace, these men began to work more closely together and the “young, restless, reformed” movement was born.
Recently, Christianity Today ran a profile focused on Mohler and his role in reforming Southern Seminary, the SBC, and evangelicalism on the whole. Justin Taylor, Kevin DeYoung, Andrew Walker and others understandably found the piece condescending. Writer Molly Werthen did a decent job giving a big picture of Mohler’s influence, but some of her writing – especially the section discussing Mohler’s library – comes off as terribly patronizing to our Southern brothers and sisters. Moreover, that section is especially distressing, but it also makes some dreadfully cynical assumptions about Mohler. It assumes he’s some kind of insecure southerner who uses a big library to impress northerners. But, to point out the obvious… maybe he just likes books? Though Worthen’s portrayal of Mohler is hardly charitable (and, speaking as a former newspaper editor, is journalistically questionable) there’s more that needs to be said and to say it we have to return to our three memberships described above.
Mohler is a fundamentalist. Again, I don’t mean it derisively. I simply mean that by the historical definition of the term as it was defined throughout the first half of the 20th century, he’s a fundamentalist. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just what he is. And as the President of Southern, he has every right to try and push Southern in that direction. It’s not necessarily the direction I’d like to see them go, but it’s not my school or my denomination so my opinion doesn’t matter. But where Mohler’s thinking becomes dangerous is when he tries to impose these views on the rest of evangelicalism – a movement originally intended to be a departure from fundamentalism. Functionally, I wonder if Mohler sees a distinction between the Southern Baptist Convention and the big tent of evangelicalism. He seems to make the same demands of rigid complementarianism, young earth creationism, and belief in predestination that have defined his regime at Southern. What other reason could he have for going after people like the members of the BioLogos forum in such a public and aggressive fashion? None of them are SBCers, yet he’s attacked them on a regular basis for the past year.
Historically, Mohler’s rigid fundamentalism is not what Evangelicalism has stood for. Scot McKnight said as much in his post last week and historically speaking, he’s absolutely correct. Evangelicalism, when it emerged in the mid 20th century, arose under the leadership of thinkers like Carl Henry, Billy Graham and, later, Francis Schaeffer. It was a self-consciously moderate move away from the extremes of fundamentalism and modernism, an attempt to reclaim the center. And while Henry and Schaeffer would share much of Mohler’s theology, a point belabored by Mohler’s defenders, they did not share Mohler’s universalizing ethos that would see everyone in evangelicalism embrace that theology (and, for what it’s worth, Schaeffer himself wasn’t a young earther). They saw theological diversity as a very good thing. At Mohler’s Southern the “diversity” amounts to having faculty that are both four and five point Calvinists. In contrast, Henry and Graham sought a big tent approach to our membership in that third group, the group that goes beyond local churches and denominationalism. The required theology was very basic, practically creedal in fact. To be evangelical you needed to affirm things like the trinity, the incarnation, the physical resurrection, the virgin birth, and inerrancy – and on that issue of inerrancy, a lot of leeway was given for a variety of approaches to scripture. These views are all common – and almost universal – throughout all of Christian history. Offering such broad criteria for membership in evangelicalism allowed us, at our best, to be a movement comprised of Methodists, Anglicans, Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, non-denominationalists, and Congregationalists. If we adopted Mohler’s more rigorous criteria that includes complementarianism, young earth creationism, and the doctrines of Grace… goodbye big tent, hello ghetto fundamentalism.
At its best, the big tent allowed our movement to accomplish things we couldn’t accomplish as smaller groups. Certainly, big tent evangelicalism is not perfect. But the problems that arose (a lack of theological rigor and our co-option into the Republican Party being two of the greatest) can’t be blamed on the existence of the big tent, but on the people inside inside it who weren’t always careful enough in their thinking about what they should be and do.
But, while discussions about the strengths and weaknesses of the big tent have value, they ultimately miss the point. The most important part of the big tent isn’t what we do with it, but that it exists. Jesus puts a huge emphasis on Christian unity. In his High Priestly prayer in John 17 he goes so far as to say the proof that he came from the Father is that Christians would be one. So regardless of what we do with the big tent, it should exist as a place where we can set aside secondary differences and embrace our brothers and sisters, where we can worship with them, pray with them, and – when able – pursue the work of the Kingdom with them. Mohler’s inability to distinguish between the SBC and evangelicalism is a threat to this big tent because his list of “essentials” is so much lengthier and – it should be noted – historically anomalous.
In any event, my takeaways on the Mohler/CT issue go something like this: a) Worthen’s piece was at times condescending and cynical. It’s understandable that Mohler’s friends would be upset about that. b) That said, if they showed the same passion for Christian unity that they showed for their friend’s reputation then perhaps the non-reformed members of evangelicalism wouldn’t think that Reformed Christians are characterized primarily by our arrogance and pretension. c) If Mohler wants to fundamentalize the SBC, he has every right to do so. But he has no right to make those same demands on his brothers and sisters in Acts 29, the PCA, Sovereign Grace, etc. For example, I don’t buy young earth creationism. I think the biblical case for it is very weak and the scientific evidence against it is overwhelming. Some of my friends share this view. Are we not evangelicals? We take public stands on all issues essential to the Christian faith – and sometimes we get lit up for it by those outside the church (and sometimes by those inside it). Yet it seems that Mohler’s brand of evangelicalism leaves no room for people like us.
Of course, if we were in the SBC, then Mohler and the SBC powers that be could do whatever they want with us, we’d be under their ecclesial authority. We’d be obligated to submit. But I’m not under Mohler’s authority, I’m under the authority of my local pastor and the PCA, both of whom have said we don’t need to be young earthers. Mohler and the SBC can do what they want, but they have no right to make those same demands on their brothers and sisters in other denominations. So Mohler’s insistence on these beliefs as necessary for evangelical belief is arrogant, historically absurd, and, to use a term more common around here, imperialistic. Most importantly, it threatens the lifeblood of Christian testimony to the non-Christian world: the unity of Christian brothers and sisters.
JAKE: Wow! This is a powerfully argued statement that elicits my resounding endorsement. You put your finger on the problem that has eluded the “young, restless, reformed” crowd, which vigorously defends Mohler as if he has assumed a pontifical office to speak for all of us: what’s good for the goose (Evangelicalism) isn’t necessarily what’s good for the gander (SBC). (I use this idiom deliberately because of its subtext on gender relations.) I’m always concerned when Christians elevate “non-essential” issues to “essential” issues, demanding unity when liberty of conscience should be extended. The outcome of false shepherding will be the same every time: sorrowful and painful division in the Body of Christ.
Jake–
My understanding of the evangelicalism, as it emerged from fundamentalism, was that there was very little difference on doctrine except on the issue of separation (I will not associate with you if you do not hold all my beliefs as a fundamentalist), and of secondary separation (I will not associate with you if you do not separate from those who do not hold all my beliefs as a fundamentalist). I had a couple of professors in seminary who went to Bob Jones, and I have friends who went to Bob Jones, and this is always the impression that I get.
The Evangelical movement, however, saw the need to engage culture more broadly while not giving up an inch of ground on the “fundamental” doctrines. They didn’t really think that the fundamentalists, who often retreated into their own conclaves, ever really influenced the wider world.
So, I don’t know if it actually is fair to call Mohler a fundamentalist, technically speaking–or, at least, it isn’t fair to call him a fundamentalist in juxtaposition to the label of “evangelical” in a historical sense. To me (although I will freely admit that I know very little about Mohler), he strikes me as a man who wishes to lead in a certain direction, and who therefore pushes strongly in that direction.
I have never heard him insist on separating decisively in a you-are-going-to-hell-unless-you-believe-everything-I-believe kind of way from the rest of Christendom. There is a huge difference between taking strong stands and refusing to acknowledge anyone as a Christian who disagrees with all of your stands on secondary and tertiary issues. The former is strong leadership (whether it is also good leadership can be debated, I suppose), while the latter is fundamentalism, strictly speaking.
If there are good examples that he has taken a technically fundamentalist posture, though, I would be interested in seeing them.
Jacob – Good clarifying point. Thanks for commenting. I don’t know of Mohler ever saying something as strong as what a strict separatist would say. Then again, I don’t know of any contemporary leader in the church who would go that far, save maybe MacArthur.
That said, there still seems to be a form of strict separatism in Mohler. He won’t say “you are going to hell if you don’t believe in young earth creationism.” But he will say that anything besides a young-earth reading of Genesis calls into question the biblical narrative of redemption and the inerrancy of Scripture. So it’s not that old-earthers are going to hell, we’re just undermining the Christian faith.
On one level, of course, it’s a much better statement than threatening us with going to hell because you can make an actual argument for why old-earthers threaten the Christian faith that’s grounded in legitimate authority – the Scriptures. Having been threatened with burning in hell many times by fundamentalists, I know they have no such grounding for their statements besides their hatred and blindness. So on that level, what Mohler is saying is better.
Yet on a second level Mohler is saying that men like Packer, Schaeffer, Stott, Gleason Archer, Meredith Kline, Bruce Waltke, and Peter Enns all hold to a view that ultimately undermines the Christian faith. And that strikes me as a very harsh attack when a more measured and charitable tone would be more appropriate.
Here’s a link to his lecture at Ligonier from earlier this year: http://www.biologos.org/resources/albert-mohler-why-does-the-universe-look-so-old
I am curious, then–where do you draw the line between a strong conviction and an uncharitable position? I know that you think certain behaviors/beliefs/attitudes among Christians undermine the Christian faith, because you frequently write in an attempt to correct them. I do the same thing on the subjects that I feel passionately about.
What’s the difference what we do and what Mohler does?
As the history student, I’ll just chime in to split hairs and say that when we talk about evangelicalism over against fundamentalism, we’re really talking about neo-evangelicalism. N. American fundamentalism and neo-evangelicalism (and much of modernism for that matter) grew out of a much older stream of British and American evangelicalism that started with the revivals of the 1730s and 1740s.
I wonder how a longer view of the evangelical tradition would shape this discussion. My sense is that it supports the “big tent” idea over against any view that tries to draw lines too narrowly in terms of doctrine. So far as I know, David Bebbington’s four-fold characterization of evangelical emphases – biblicism, activism, conversionism, and crucicentrism – remains the best for understanding historical evangelicalism. Anyone who wants to make Calvinism or views on creation into litmus tests for evangelicalism is clearly at odds with the historic tradition.
Jacob – That’s an excellent question. My first thought is that perhaps a word besides “uncharitable” might be wise. I’m always thinking about the history and I feel like historically speaking Mohler’s position on creationism is laughable. Before the 20th century, the age of the earth question really wasn’t an issue in the church – and somehow they managed to survive 1900 years without pounding out a teaching on the subject. And even in the 20th century, most of the world’s Christians have continued to thrive without a strict adherence to the many points that Mohler seems to be emphasizing as essential. So perhaps a better way of saying it would be to drop the word “uncharitable” or, at the very least, say that Mohler’s argument is “uncharitable in light of church history.” In which case I’m simply saying that church history should cause Mohler to be a bit more temperate in his criticisms. But I really like that question and I think I’ll be returning to that often in my own writing and thinking. Thanks for commenting.
Andrew – Yes, I would love to see a deeper historical connection with a bigger evangelical tradition. I think we’d benefit enormously from a more careful interaction with that strand of our tradition. (Then again, John Newton is one of my heroes, so I’m biased. :p )
Having reread my comment, I apologize if it came off as arrogant or condescending, as though I’m the only student of history in this conversation. Far from it; I know from our conversations that both Jake and Jacob are well-informed of evangelicalism’s longer history. And if there’s anything to be learned from the CT article, it’s that condescension and its appearances should be avoided. I meant only that as someone who sits around thinking about history all day, I’m something of a one-trick pony when it comes to these discussions.
Interestingly (to me anyway), I’ve just been reading some correspondence regarding the Evangelical Alliance, an attempt in the mid-nineteenth century to bring together evangelicals from Britain with those in America and on the Continent for common action. Naturally there were debates as to which doctrines should be made into standards for affiliation, or even if doctrine should be made into a standard. (And there was that whole sticky matter of slavery.) Evangelicals have been dealing with these questions for a long time – one more reason to take the long view, I guess.
Okay, good discussion here, but a few more questions.
Andrew – when you write, “Anyone who wants to make Calvinism or views on creation into litmus tests for evangelicalism is clearly at odds with the historic tradition,” I’m wondering whether Mohler actually does make these issues a “litmus test.” To me, a litmus test would necessitate separation (if you shouldn’t separate from those who fail the litmus test, then why perform it?), and therefore fundamentalism, technically speaking. I hadn’t known that he had insisted on these subjects as litmus tests, but again, I have read very little of Mohler’s thoughts on the subject.
Jake – I’m confused on Mohler’s stance on young earth in light of your comments. My thought (although I would appreciate being corrected) is that Mohler takes his stance on a young earth because he believes that the earth was created in the space of six days, and NOT the other way around. In other words, his primary belief is on six-day creation, and his belief in a young earth is incidental to that primary belief.
If so, then I don’t think see how his conviction could possibly be considered laughable in the light of church history. Was a six-day creation EVER challenged by anyone before the 19th century? I am not aware of any different view put forward (but I would be fascinated to see one, because I can’t think of any reason other than 19th century scientific theories to cast doubt), which would mean that Mohler is right in step with 1800 years of church history on a six-day creation, and that other views on the subject are the aberration–not his.
Jake (new subject) – here are my thoughts on the “strong conviction” issue. I think that all evangelicals SHOULD be able to urge the church in the particular directions that they feel the church should move. (I’m assuming a fair amount of Holy Spirit led Bible study, prayer, and conversation with other believers on the subject, by the way.) I even think that these comments should be allowed to go so far as to show how the challenged viewpoints are detrimental, harmful, or even antithetical to the Christian faith. Of course, I think that all of this should be done in a spirit of humility, love, and unity.
This is why I have no problem with Mohler (or at least, I don’t think I do), nor with someone like you who would call his position laughable. Again, these seem like strong convictions, and as long as you two don’t renounce one another as Christians, this seems to be a spirited, but healthy, debate. Unless Mohler is indeed applying “litmus tests” that result in excommunication, then I don’t see his urging the whole church to his position to be out of order–indeed, it would seem odd if he didn’t make the effort. At worst, he is incorrect.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you want to genuinely argue for different people to hold different beliefs on the matter of the days of creation, I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss as a fundamentalist someone who has pretty firm views on the subject that reject your own–provided, of course, that they don’t over-elevate the importance of the issue.
What do you think?
If we are following the motto, sometimes attributed to Augustine, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity,” then it is clear that Dr. Mohler has made young-earth creationism an essential issue. See the articles below:
Ligonier Ministries 2010 National Conference
Why Does the Universe Look So Old?
Albert Mohler
http://www.biologos.org/resources/albert-mohler-why-does-the-universe-look-so-old
How Should BioLogos Response to Dr. Mohler?
Karl Giberson
http://biologos.org/blog/how-should-biologos-respond-to-dr-albert-mohlers-critique-karls-response/
How Should BioLogos Response to Dr. Mohler?
Peter Enns
http://biologos.org/blog/how-should-biologos-respond-to-dr-albert-mohlers-critique-petes-response/
Darwin and Dr. Mohler: The Truth Comes Out
Karl Giberson
http://biologos.org/blog/darwin-and-dr-mohler-the-truth-comes-out/
Are We Facing the Demise of Big Tent Evangelicalism?
Darrel Falk
http://biologos.org/blog/are-we-facing-the-demise-of-big-tent-evangelicalism/
Jacob: You’ve asked an important question: “Was a six-day creation EVER challenged by anyone before the 19th century?” I’m currently undertaking an inquiry on the relationship between science and religion. My greatest discovery, so far, is Augustine’s literal (referring to authorial intention and genre), not literalist, commentary on the creation story in Genesis. Alister McGrath, a figure who has earned my respect because of his training in science and theology, acquainted me with this classic source who provides a theological lens to affirm creation AND evolution. He writes in the first chapter references below:
“Augustine of Hippo is unquestionably the most respected and widely cited theologian in Western Christianity, serving both as a major intellectual stimulus and resource to virtually every subsequent period of theological reflection and activity. Augustine’s doctrine of creation is classic, both in the sense of establishing a norm and offering a resource for future generations. While Augustine’s successors have felt free to modify and develop as much as endorse his ideas, it is clear that they have been one of the most productive and significant influences on the shaping of Christian theology in the West, and seem set to remain so.
Yet my reason for setting out Augustine’s conceptually rich approach goes beyond its historical influence and potential fruitfulness. I have deliberately chosen a classic Christian writer who developed his system in the light of a close reading of Scripture and the Christian tradition long before the emergence of modern scientific revolution – the period, usually identified as 1500-1700, which is often seen as the historical moment when “modern science” and its attendant institutions emerged – to avoid any suggestion that these systems were somehow accommodated or adapted to conform with modern scientific knowledge . . . .
My point here is that Augustine offers us theological paradigms which are deeply rooted in the Christian faith, offering us a way of engaging with modern scientific knowledge without being constituted or determined by that knowledge in the first place. If Augustine’s approach is capable of accommodating modern scientific insights, this undoubted epistemic virtue would have been unknown to him.
A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology (2009)
Chapter 8 Augustine of Hippo on Creation: A Theological Lens
A more popular treatment can be found in his new book:
The Passionate Intellect: Christian Faith and the Discipleship of the Mind
Chapter 9 Augustine of Hippo on Creation and Evolution
Christopher–
Thanks for the links, but help me out here. This seems obviously like it’s a much deeper level of interest for you than me, so could you show me what makes you think that Mohler makes this an “essential” issue? The only line I find, where he puts any value, is this line in the first link you included: “…I would suggest to you that in our effort to be most faithful to the scriptures and most accountable to the grand narrative of the gospel an understanding of creation in terms of 24-hour calendar days and a young earth entails far fewer complications, far fewer theological problems and actually is the most straightforward and uncomplicated reading of the text as we come to understand God telling us how the universe came to be and what it means and why it matters.”
That doesn’t sound like someone separating from others on this basis, but someone advocating a strong conviction. Again, I think there is an important distinction there.
Maybe a good analogy is my take (as a Presbyterian) on infant baptism. I think that Baptists misinterpret Scripture when they don’t baptize their infants. I think that they get the reason behind baptism wrong, shifting the emphasis away from God’s promise to us into our pledge to God. I think that they even disobey Scripture in not baptizing their children, and they think that I disobey Scripture in baptizing their children. Still, neither of us would exclude the other from evangelicalism, except for the Landmark Baptists. Both of us can express strong convictions without necessarily equating secondary or tertiary issues to the level of essentials.
As for the Augustine quotation, you’ll have to help me out again. Does Augustine advocate a non-6-day view on creation? I wasn’t aware that he had done so.
Thanks for any help you can offer!
Jacob – I provided the links so you could find out the answer for yourself. Accepting something because I said so is not reliable. Nevertheless, I will quote from Dr. Mohler’s open letter to Karl Giberson, the VP of BioLogos Forum: “The theory of evolution is incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ even as it is in direct conflict with any faithful reading of the Scriptures.” This statement does more than express a “strong conviction”; it reveals a separationist impulse. Dr. Mohler thinks that our view on the origins of life is an essential issue that demands unity.
Augustine does not advocate a six, twenty-four hour day interpretation of the creation story in Genesis. Here is how McGrath describes Augustine’s theological lens in a nutshell:
“Augustine discerns the following themes in his reading of Scripture and weaves them together into his account of creation. God brought everything into existence in a single moment of creation. Yet the created order is not static. God endowed it with the capacity to develop. Augustine uses the image of a dormant seed to help his readers grasp this point. God creates seeds, which will grow and develop at the right time. Using more technical language, Augustine asks his readers to think of the created order as containing divinely embedded causalities that emerge or evolve at a later stage. Yet Augustine has no time for any notion of random or arbitrary changes within creation. The development of God’s creation is always subject to God’s sovereign providence. The God who planted the seeds at the moment of creation also governs and directs the time and place of their growth.”
I really encourage you to read the McGrath chapters I referenced in my previous comment; they were really eye-opening for me.
Jacob,
For clarification, I’m in the same position as you: I’ve read next to nothing from Mohler and have no idea how essential he makes things like evolution or Calvinism. My point was that historically evangelicalism has accommodated a wide variety of theological views and if anyone tries to redefine evangelical by such things (as Mohler’s critics claim he does) history is against them.
Here are a few audio links from Mohler’s website that may be relevant to the question of Mohler’s definition of evangelical:
http://www.sbts.edu/media/audio/totl/2006/AMP_04_17_2006.mp3
http://www.albertmohler.com/media/audio/totl/Podcast/Thinking_In_Public_Bebbington_Wills.mp3
The second is Mohler’s interview with David Bebbington, who I suggested has given us the best serviceable definition of historic evangelicalism. I haven’t listened to these in their entirety, but it’s at clear at least that Mohler is well aware of the larger historical tradition of evangelicalism.
Having listened to Mohler’s interview with Bebbington, it seems Mohler substantially agrees with Bebbington’s fourfold historical definition of evangelicalism, but would define some of the emphases in narrower ways than Bebbington (“crucicentrism” as requiring belief in substitutionary atonement, “biblicism” as sola scriptura and an affirmation of innerrancy). So he does seem to be making the “big tent” of evangelicalism smaller than some (including myself) would like. But Calvinism does not seem to be a part of that definition. No word on evolution.
Jacob, Andrew, and Jake:
Peter Enns, a Senior Fellow at BioLogos Forum, responded to Dr. Mohler’s claim in his Ligonier Ministries address that “six 24-hour days of creative activity and a final day of divine rest… was the untroubled consensus of the Christian church until early in the 19th century.” Enns writes:
Dr. Mohler, you state that a strictly literal reading of Genesis finds overwhelming support in the history of the church. On one level, I agree with you. Until the rise of modern science, Christian interpreters did not have the options before them that we do today: literal, day-age, framework view, etc., all things you are well aware of. There was more unanimity because there were fewer choices.
But you assume that this diversity is a problem that must be resisted. You seem to expect the church today to maintain vigorously a position on Genesis 1 that was formulated before the evidence for an old earth came to light, as far back as the 17th century (not the 19th century as you say in your presentation). Are you suggesting it is always wrong to adjust how we read portions of the Bible in view of scientific evidence?
Many scholars have noted the similarity between the discussion over the age of the earth and heliocentricity in Galileo’s day. See, for example, Karl Giberson’s recent post. As scientific evidence became clear, it led the church to accept that the biblical geocentric model of the cosmos simply reflected their ancient point of view. This did not lead to an abandonment of the Bible as God’s Word, but only readjusting expectations of what we have the right to find there. I know you accept heliocentricity, but it is not clear to me what your reasoning process is. The biblical authors, along with all ancient peoples, assumed the earth was stationary and that the sun moved. Would that not require us to do likewise?
I would be interested in hearing more about why you wouldn’t feel the same way about a Young Earth as you do about geocentricism. You do not accept the scientific data that points to an actual old earth but only an apparently old earth. But from what I can tell, you don’t argue for a solar system where the sun only appears to be at the center. Why do you allow some scientific evidence to adjust our understanding of the Bible and not others?
I also do not agree with you that before the 17th century there was as much of an “overwhelming untroubled consensus” as you suggest. For example, in the first few centuries of the Christian era we see a lot of very informed discussion about how to handle Genesis 1 (as well as Genesis 2-3).[3] I appreciate your qualifier: you acknowledge that there was some diversity on how to handle Genesis. Still, you leave the impression that the history of the church has essentially interpreted Genesis as literally as you do.
But my main concern here is not to point out the church’s diversity on interpreting Genesis 1. Rather, I am concerned that you make it such a matter of orthodoxy. As you know, St. Augustine did not hold to a literal six-day creation, but an instantaneous creation. Oddly enough, this fits much better with the modern notion of a Big Bang, but that was not on his radar screen. He was actually influenced by Greek philosophy, and so his view did not gain a lot of acceptance thereafter. Christians have disagreed with Augustine, but it is hard to find someone who would warn others about him because of his views on Genesis 1. It was not a theological hill to die on.
Also, although you are a Southern Baptist, I know you have great respect for the Reformed tradition. It is true that from Calvin, to the Westminster Assembly, to 19th century Princeton, and the Dutch Reformed tradition, many (not all) Reformed theologians understood the days of Genesis 1 to be “natural” days. But even then, they did not make it a point of Christian orthodoxy, as you seem to do. A present-day example is the Presbyterian Church of America, a denomination you know well. This conservative denomination follows the Reformed tradition in not making the days of creation a matter of orthodoxy but leaving the matter open to individual conscience.
Flexibility of views and generosity of spirit concerning Genesis 1 are hardly unusual among committed Christians. It is not a slippery slope to unbelief but a humble way forward to discern what it means to read God’s Word faithfully. I do not think such flexibility or generosity are a mistake, as you seem to argue. Would you not, along with many thoughtful Christian thinkers of the past, allow diverse points of view to sit side-by-side for the benefit of Christian unity?
NOTE
[3] Recently, Greek Orthodox theologian Peter C. Bounteneff has outlined this diversity among the second century apologists, Origen, and the Cappadocians in Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives (Baker, 2008).
Andrew – The subtext to much of Mohler and company’s approach to evangelicalism needs more discussion, I think. Just beneath the surface of a lot of the young reformeds’ thought seems to be the idea that big tent evangelicalism has failed, so we must narrow the circle in the ways we’ve been discussing here. And that’s why I wrote what I did at the end.
I think there’s a sense in which asking whether or not big tent evangelicalism works is the wrong question. But that seems to be the assumption behind most of Mohler’s thought. (I think Kevin DeYoung’s writings are another example of this sort of quasi-evangelical approach.) The big tent didn’t work because it gave us a watered down Christianity that struggled to be faithful to the gospel and the high callings of the church. Therefore, we shrink the tent to avoid those struggles.
But I don’t think that’s the right approach. I view the big tent as an absolute essential. In fact, on the basis of Christ’s words in John 13 and 17, I’d go so far as to say that if we lose the big tent we have failed as a church and that we have given the non-Christian world biblical warrant to look at us and say “Jesus isn’t God.” (Read John 17:21 and come to a different conclusion.) I think Bucer’s thought is really instructive on this point, which is why I’m going to do some posts on him in the next week or two. So shrinking the tent, as the neo-Puritan wing of the young reformeds wants to do, is simply not an option in my mind. Rather, we have to figure out how to live well within the broad confines of evangelicalism, something which has (admittedly) been a struggle for us over the past 50 years.
Jake–
I will be interested in reading your Bucer posts, especially because I haven’t read much on Bucer but have heard good things.
Here is a question that I would be interested in asking as you consider the issue you discussed in your last comment: To what extent must evangelicalism, as opposed to the whole Church of Jesus Christ (the Visible Church), be “big tent”? So, I am happy to consider other wings of Christianity as parts of the Visible Church (especially as I affirm that God saves out of bad theology–including my own–all the time), but I think that it would be silly to try to force-fit Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, or even Lutherans and Anabaptists into the term “evangelical” just for the sake of getting everyone into that particular tent.
So, I’m not sure that John 17 forces us to consider every last Christian an evangelical, even though it might push the boundaries of whom we would consider to be part of the Visible Church.
But as I said, I will be interested in seeing those posts. The Ecclesiology of the Reformers is fascinating.
By the way, just as clarification, I excluded Lutherans and Anabaptists not because I have anything against them, but because they themselves have historically resisted being considered part of the evangelical movement, even though they themselves are called “Evangelical” in the German language.
Jacob – I don’t have a lot of time, but here’s one thought: I’m a radical on church unity issues. I think we should have one organizational structure that unites all churches. So when I talk about church unity, that’s the end-game I have in mind. (And no, I don’t think it’s practical or feasible anytime in the next 100 years. I just don’t care about the practicality issue. It’s a long-term goal toward which we work, little-by-little.)
So on the big-tent question, I think evangelicalism has to preserve it b/c the push toward cross-denominational unity has to begin somewhere. And evangelicalism is especially well positioned to begin the push b/c we already have very diverse groups of Christians talking to each other regularly and working together on some projects.