What Is An Evangelical? by John Ortberg

I thought this was a strong look at a word that carries lots of meaning, baggage, and questions for the future...and maybe JO is right, maybe it will mean nothing or something different to the students I am teaching in the years and generations to come...we will see...

Coming to terms with terms isn't easy.

I have always loved words. One of my favorite early memories is of my dad reading to us at bedtime. One of those books—Alice in Wonderland—had a scene about words that delighted and puzzled me.

Alice ran into Humpty Dumpty, who had an attitude and an unusual verbal style. He used the word glory, for instance, to mean "there's a nice knock-down argument for you." Alice objected, "Glory does not mean a nice knock-down argument."

"When I use a word," Humpty said in a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty, "which is to be master—that's all." He explained that he always paid a word extra when he made it do a lot of work.

One of the words I think about a fair amount these days is evangelical. I grew up in a Swedish pietistic evangelical denomination. I went to college in Wheaton, Illinois, which then was the Vatican City of evangelicalism. I attended Fuller Seminary, founded to advance evangelical scholarship. I went to Young Life and Campus Life meetings in high school (depending on which had the cutest girls at the time. Then I prayed according to the ACTS structure—adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication—and those girls were variously part of the "T", "C", and sometimes the "S" section.) I read The Living Bible. I sang "It only takes a spark to get a fire going." I went to Explo '72—all marks of evangelicalism at the time.

British historian David Bebbington writes that evangelicalism is marked by four characteristics: conversionism (an emphasis on being born again); biblicism (an emphasis on the ultimate authority of the Bible); activism (involvement in sharing the faith); and crucicentrism (a focus on the atoning and redeeming work of Christ on the cross—and a word Humpty Dumpty would have had to pay extra.) Though it was characterized by these qualities, the evangelical movement never had a duly authorized spokesman the way that Rome or Canterbury did.

Except maybe for one.

It is hard now to describe the impact that the name Billy Graham had on the little world in which I grew up. He met with presidents, consorted with world leaders, commanded the media, and remained the most admired man in America in poll after poll. He represented and defined and, in some ways, embodied our little subculture.

I think it was Mark Noll who said that you could peg someone's position relative to evangelicalism based on his response to the name Billy Graham. The seminary I attended still lists him as an emeritus trustee. Leadership journal and this website both are part of a publication entity Billy Graham dreamed up one night. I am part of a generation of preachers for whom he was an inescapable icon and inspiration. The only recognizable impersonation I can do is his. My wife, Nancy, and I spoke at a retreat at Montreat, North Carolina, last summer, just a week or so after the death of Ruth Graham. The weight and depth of the Graham legacy was palpable. American evangelicalism was the movement of which Billy Graham was the leader.

All this leads me to wonder what evangelical will mean in the next generation. How will it be understood? How much does it matter?

Here are a few clues. Not long ago, two articles in USA Today defined evangelicals as people who are "conservative in their political, economic, and moral beliefs."

David Kinnaman, in his widely read book Unchristian, discovered that among folks who are outsiders to the Christian faith, the number that had a good impression of the word evangelicals was 3%. To the rest, they were unknown. Or they were defined by what they are against.

The Pew Foundation recently reported the most widely targeted survey of religious attitudes to date, and one of their more striking findings was that 21% of all people who defined themselves as "atheists" also say they "believe in God." It made me wonder if they were a little unclear on the category. But apparently these are folks who are so turned off by organized religion that they defined themselves as atheists to make sure they are in no way identified with a faith—even though more than a fifth of them actually say they are believers.

Maybe the fate of the word evangelicalism doesn't matter all that much. I always liked evangelical. It seemed to me different from fundamentalism and mainline. It seemed more substantial than born-again, which often was used in ways that were intentionally divisive. To me it meant people who loved Jesus and took the Bible seriously, but were not afraid to read all kinds of books and discuss all kinds of ideas, and who cared about culture and statecraft and the arts. But it may not mean that to other people. Maybe the subculture I grew up in will eventually give in to confusion and competition and irrelevance. God is always getting people to sing new songs.

Words and labels, as old Humpty Dumpty knew so well, shift over time. The word that carries freshness and compels the heart in one generation is oppressive to another. There was a time when "a committee" (a group of people with a common commitment; with the capacity for dedication) was inviting. Now it's like asking people to sign up for rheumatism.

The evangel itself, the gospel, doesn't need any of us to worry about it. It was embodied a long time ago by the one Person who will always be around to put things back on the right track.

There will never be a "next Billy Graham." God just doesn't seem to go in much for cloning.

But the task of trying to describe and define Jesus' movement—to paint the portrait of his bride and sing his new song—that falls to every generation. It falls to every church. It falls to you.

I hope you find the right Word.

John Ortberg is pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California, and is editor at large of Leadership Journal.

The Future Direction of Theology by Scot McKnight

Here's an interesting piece looking at where contemporary theological thinking in the church is going in one respected biblical scholar's opinion...I've enjoyed reading both of the "wrights" books myself in the past year...


Scot McKnight says N.T. Wright and Christopher Wright show the future of theology.


Recently I was asked where theology was headed. I assured my reader that I wasn’t “in the know” but that I would hazard a guess or two. First I thought we were likely to see a more robust Trinitarian theology, one deeply anchored in the great Cappadocian theologians like Gregory of Nyssa. But in some ways all the main lines of Trinitarian thought have already been sketched by great theologians like Karl Barth, James B. Torrance and others. With this first idea now set aside, I had a second idea of where theology is going: “The Wright Brothers.”

No, not those Wright Brothers, but another set of Wrights (who aren’t even brothers, except in Christ): Tom and Chris. Even if they don’t map where all of theology is headed, these two scholars and devoted churchmen, both Anglican, do set before us two words that have become increasingly fruitful and I think will be the subject of serious theological reflection in the future. The two words are “earth” and “mission.” Each scholar discusses both, but I will focus in this post on Tom Wright’s focus on “earth” and Chris Wright’s focus on “mission.”

Increasingly we are seeing more and more Christians own up to the earthly focus of biblical revelation—the claim God makes upon this earth through his Eikons (humans made in his image). We are seeing a deeper reflection on what it means to participate in the historical flow, in government and politics and society and culture, and we are seeing a renewed interest in vocation and work. One of the more striking elements of this new surge is that theologians who are deeply anchored in the Bible also see our eternal destiny having an earthly shape.

And not only are we seeing the increasing presence of “earthly,” but we are seeing a reshaping of theology itself so that God’s mission in this world becomes central. Everyone knows that the latest buzz word is missional but not enough are thinking carefully about what mission means in the Bible and what it means to speak about “God’s mission” (missio Dei). But there is a surge of thinking now about this topic and it will continue to spark interest both for pastors and professional theologians.
Now to the Wright brothers.

Tom Wright, in his book Surprised by Hope, relentlessly critiques the gnostic-like preoccupation so many have with heaven as a place for our spirits and souls—the place where we really belong, and the sooner we get there the better. It is not that Tom Wright denies heaven; no, he affirms it robustly but he argues that the eternal home for the Christian is not that old-fashioned view of heaven but the new heavens and the new earth. And he argues the new heavens and new earth are something brought down from heaven to earth. (Read Revelation 20—22.)

I think some have made far too much of this, as if it is a revolutionary insight. What it is, in my judgment, is a strong critique of how dualistic we’ve become. And it is a welcome call for us to see that what we do now prepares us for what we will do in the new heavens and the new earth. I think Tom Wright’s emphasis here is spot-on: we need to grapple more directly with the connection of what God calls us to do now as continuous with what we shall be called to do for eternity. I hope many will see their way to read Tolkien’s Leaf by Niggle, for it addresses similar themes.

This emphasis of Tom Wright’s actually forms a foundation for Chris Wright’s exceptional study The Mission of God. Here we find yet another theme that is reshaping so much of where theology is going: mission. I wish people asked this one simple question: What is the mission of God in this world? Chris Wright, taking his cues from the Old Testament—he’s an Old Testament scholar—says the mission of God is to make his glorious Name known throughout the whole world. This mission, found so often in the prophets, shapes how we not only read the Bible but how we live out the Bible in our world.

God makes his Name known through God’s people, first Israel and then the Church. Most centrally, God’s mission with a Name becomes fully visible in Jesus Christ—in his life, death, resurrection, and the gift of the Spirit. This Story, this grand narrative of God’s mission, is reshaping how theology is being done.

There is a converging hook here: Chris Wright ends his book on the theme of God’s mission involving the earth—the whole earth. Tom Wright ends his book about earth on mission—the mission of God in this world. I think they are both right.
I can’t see into the future, but I can see down the road a bit, and what I see is an increasing emphasis on earth and mission. Those two themes are likely to take us into the next two decades.

Back to Sunday School

Here's a fascinating interview with a former WA dad and respected Wheaton prof around the issue of spiritual formation and the church's shrinking role in the discipleship process...and the book is a great read for those seeking to put together a spiritual formation vision in a ministry context...

The author of Spiritual Formation as if the Church Mattered says the church must reclaim its disciple-making infrastructure.

"Spiritual formation is the task of the church. Period." That's how James C. Wilhoit opens his new book, Spiritual Formation as if the Church Mattered. Wilhoit, professor of Christian formation and ministry at Wheaton College, has been teaching about spiritual formation since 1981. He says he owes a great debt in his own spiritual formation to Dallas Willard, whose foreword to Wilhoit's book reiterates the theme: spiritual formation, he says, is the "central problem facing the contemporary church."

Wilhoit spoke about the book and how churches often misunderstand the task of formation.

Your title suggests that most people do not have the church in mind when they talk about spiritual formation.

A lot of the patterns of spiritual formation give a sense that the church doesn't matter. These are things that you could largely do on your own. I came to write this book after people would sometimes call me and say, "We're interested in doing spiritual formation in the church."

And I asked, "What are you doing?"

"Oh, we're using Richard Foster in this class on spiritual disciplines."

But teaching a couple of classes on Celebration of Discipline is not what it would mean for the church to be about its business of formation.

So when you talk about spiritual disciplines, you're not just talking about the 13 that Richard Foster outlined in that book?

Certainly you have those classic disciplines that Foster talks about. But the trouble with those disciplines is they can become kind of "quiet time only" activities. So I want to put emphasis those disciplines that are distinctively relational. We all are in the midst of being formed and challenged in relationships, and we just have to be intentional about that — about engaging people in the margin, about offering forgiveness to people that have hurt us. And so that has to be there.

Foster's introduction is so helpful in emphasizing this, and a lot of people's lives, like mine, were changed by it. But a lot of people read the book and practiced these activities in a way that never touches their life.

I want to emphasize the context as well as the practices. What I have seen with my students is if you take a legalist and teach them Richard Foster, they simply become a far more adroit legalist. We constantly need to go back to this theme that it is all about seeking to live out the gospel and live out of our brokenness.

How do you define spiritual formation?

I want to have a definition of spiritual formation that has a strong community focus to it, that is not just aimed at one's self. So Christian spiritual formation refers to the intentional communal process of growing in our relationship with God, in being conformed to Christ and the power of the Spirit.

How does that relate to church activities like worship?

Not all of what the church does is spiritual formation, but if one is thoughtful, one recognizes that all components of the church have a formational dimension.

There are ways that you can ask how to structure worship in service of spiritual formation without so privileging spiritual formation that everything is meant to serve that. Worship has the goal of taking us into God's presence. That's a sufficient telos [end purpose].

In the book, I talk about the four Rs of spiritual formation: receiving, remembering, responding, and relating. Worship is one of the ways that orients us to receiving from God's grace, and it makes us aware of our creatureliness and our dependence on him. Worship is one of those things that should set us up for spiritual formation and is an important vehicle in that formation.

In February, we polled our online readers about the church's most important responsibility, and almost a quarter selected "helping non-Christians find Christ."

On one level, they're right. I have many students that come to my course as Christians, and the gospel is introduced to them as if they did not know it. They had perceived the gospel as a kind of front door for the church, not as a road map.

One of the ways the church could do spiritual formation much better is to conceive many of its ministries as gospel-oriented. They need going to remind people that the way one becomes a Christian and the way one grows as a Christian are essentially the same thing. We come to believe the gospel more fully, to understand the depth of our sin, to understand the beauty and attractiveness of Jesus Christ, and to learn to trust his words more fully.

Over time we can begin to lose the reality of sin, the Cross, and redemption. I continually need to come back. The gospel is a daily reminding myself of the Cross, a daily reminding myself that I'm loved and accepted in God through the Cross.

In evangelical churches today, what do you think is the main enemy of spiritual formation?

There are a variety of things. I'd like to do a top-ten list. But for one, out of a short-term pragmatism, we are disassembling structures that have served the church well in terms of formation.

Like what?

Sunday morning adult education courses. Evening worship services that have an emphasis on testimony, accounts of world Christianity through missions, and more informal, life-related messages. This kind of formational infrastructure is being taken apart.

You also have other factors, like the rising emphasis on the sermon. It is being asked to do things that the sermon alone cannot do.

What are evangelicals doing well in regard to spiritual formation?

Varieties of things. Certainly if you look to compare the broadest religious groups, people are being exposed to the Scriptures. People are also particularly involved in missions. Short-term missions programs have a remarkable effect upon formation. The use of small groups is certainly something that is very positive.