Among the Evangelicals
2nd January 2011
You may ask yourself, ‘Why is a publication called The Chronicle of Higher Education writing about “evangelicals”‘? I wonder that, too. Feel free to search the article for some connection with ‘higher education’; I couldn’t find one. It appears to be Yet Another SWPL hit-job on Christianity — or at least what the author understands Christianity to be, which isn’t at all close — in the guise of an academic overview.
Yet as soon as evangelicalism becomes a subject, it splinters and splits. Indeed, taken together, recent studies by more-or-less outsiders show there is no such thing as evangelicalism. The term represents a broad range of significantly different theologies, practices, and religious movements within Christianity, and there are often tensions among and within them. Which is no revelation at all to most more-or-less insiders, who call themselves evangelicals, however qualified, and who argue as much with others who do the same as with those of us who don’t.
Apparently the author doesn’t know much about history (cue Herman’s Hermits). ‘Evangelicals’ are people who accept the Protestant Reformation dictum of sola scriptura, the belief that the Bible and what may be found therein, is the sole and ultimate authority for Christian practice. This is why ‘evangelicals’ insist on their congregations being ‘Bible-based’.
From the standpoint of historical goes-back-to-the-Apostles Christianity, of course, this is absurd; the Christian ecclesia isn’t just a religion, it’s also a church in the sense of a corporate body with an organic historical existence and a hierarchy of authority. One might as well say that all it takes to be a Marine is a set of dress blues and a Marine Corps Manual, the silliness of which is immediately obvious. ‘To you you’re a pilot; maybe even to me you’re a pilot; but to a pilot are you a pilot?’ Sadly, no. But the article never touches on this; indeed, the author might not even be aware that it’s an issue (which wouldn’t surprise me a bit).
But there it is. It saddens me that the intellectual rigor of The Chronicle of Higher Education seems to be decaying as quickly as that of Higher Education itself.