Baptists and neo-evangelical theology

Baptist History and Heritage, Wntr, 2000 by Glenn T. Miller

From the 1940s to the 1970s, neo-evangelical theology was the most important conservative theological movement in North America. Led by such able thinkers as E. J. Carnell, Paul King Jewett, Carl F. H. Henry, Harold Lindsell, Millard Erickson, Bernhard Ramm, David Hubbard, Roger Nicole, and Harold Ockenga, the neo-evangelicals gathered up the shattered pieces of the old fundamentalist movement and gave conservative theology a new cultural voice. Although neo-evangelicalism was a theological movement, it was also reflective of a larger movement of renewal among American conservatives. At the same time as the neo-evangelical theologians were forging their intellectual synthesis, Billy Graham regenerated American revivalism thorough a combination of large outdoor meetings, radio and television programs, movies, and print. In the process, he became the best-known American religious leader of his generation and an advisor to a number of American Presidents. Further, like earlier revival movements, the evangelicalism of the 1950s and 1960s either created or renewed a number of religious institutions. These included the National Association of Evangelicals, Fuller Theological Seminary, Gordon-Conwell Divinity School, Christianity Today, and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. The interest that the neo-evangelicals created in theology among American conservatives also had economic import. Eerdmans, Baker, and Zondervan, the leading conservative publishers, came to rank among the largest distributors of serious religious material.

Defining the New Evangelicalism

Yet, defining the new evangelicalism is not easy. Carl Henry's The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947) was the manifesto of the movement. The volume was a criticism of fundamentalism's recent history. In this study, Henry set forth a program of theological reform that would

   affirm the great fundamentals but avoid the `deficiencies' of
   fundamentalism. It would be intellectually engaged, socially aware,
   balanced and realistic about prophecy, positive about Christian unity, and
   based on a flesh and relevant rendering of biblical teaching. (1)

Each of these components is important in understanding neo-evangelical theology.

First, neo-evangelicals did not repudiate the fundamentalist past. The neo-evangelicals believed that, despite all the hoopla and confusions of the 1920s, the fundamentalists had battled for doctrines that were central to faithful life. In particular, the neo-evangelicals were not prepared to surrender a strong doctrine of Scripture to their critics on the left. The Bible did not contain revelation, as some neo-orthodox might say; it was revelation, as the neo-evangelicals did say. Carnell put this eloquently:

   We owe our great debt to the fundamentalists for preserving the faith when
   for fifty years the modernists were in the saddle without any competition
   philosophically or practically. Scores of these fundamental leaders have
   suffered desperately at the hands of the modernist hierarchy in the
   denominations. They were compelled to form independent schools and many
   times independent churches. (2)

This appreciation for the immediate past was not feigned. Even at their most restrained, many neo-evangelicals were conscious of themselves as the spiritual descendants of people who had been forcibly ejected from positions of leadership and who had become "separatists" as a result. Nor were they willing to accept the neo-orthodox tendency to replace history with symbol. Ironically, Carnell used the concept of irony to critique the master of irony, Reinhold Niebuhr:

   This ... is the grand irony of Christian realism. Reinhold Niebuhr can
   prove that man is a sinner; but man already knows that. Reinhold Niebuhr
   can develop the dialectical relationship between time and eternity, but
   this is beyond the tether of a dime store clerk or a hod carrier. When it
   comes to the acid test, therefore, Christian realism is not very
   realistic.... Niebuhr does not speak about Christ's literal cross and
   resurrection at all. He speaks, at most, of the symbols of the cross and
   resurrection. But of what value are these symbols to an anxious New York
   cab driver. (3)

Secondly, the new evangelicals were interested in finding Christian solutions to social problems. They were convinced that Christ was the answer to the problems of a hateful and war-torn world, and they wanted to say this in no uncertain way. Part of their concern was, to be sure, the communist menace of the 1950s that many, left and right, felt threatened the nation's and the world's security. But their program went beyond the immediate threat. The United States itself faced the need for moral and spiritual renewal, and this meant that Christians had to face the facts about the contemporary world. In 1957, Dirk Jellema stated in an essay "Ethics" in the programmatic Contemporary Evangelical Thought, edited by Carl F. H. Henry:

   "Fundamentalists have in the past paid no attention to philosophy ... they
   have neglected the philosophical, scientific, social and political problems
   that agitate our century, "said Gordon Clark, a decade ago. "Fundamentalism
   is prodigally dissipating the Christian culture accretion of centuries, a
   serious sin," cried Harold Ockenga, a decade ago. "Whereas once the
   redemptive Gospel was a worldchanging message, now it has narrowed to a
   worldresisting message," said Carl Henry a decade ago. (4)