The roots of Evangelicalism

Colin Gunton mentions in passing that:

Evangelicalism arises out of: (a) the Reformation and (b) Pietism.

I've heard that before but cannot remember where. The question is do we know our own history? How far are we aware of where we have come from.

I would say we are doing better at remembering one of our parents (the Reformation) and less good at remembering the other. I would even go so far as to say that Evangelicalism may be suffering for it.... but that may just be from my limited view in the corner I inhabit. But there is room for us to remember all our history much more than we do.

Once we remember we may then attempt to reflect.

Colin Gunton comments that to the extent Evangelicalism relies on the Reformation it is more objective, and on Pietism more subjective. PT Forsyth comments:

'after the Reformation period, [theologians] dwelt upon justification until they lost sight of sanctification altogether. Then the great pietistic movement had to arise in order to redress the balance.' (The Work of Christ)

...I wonder whether I should read Pia Desideria... its only 136 pages apparently.

More musings on the differences between the Reformers and Evangelicalism

Further to my recent musing on the difference between Evangelicals of the eighteenth century onwards and the Reformers of the sixteenth here, I am now thinking that the root difference was that the Reformers looked for 'revival' through a top-down reformation of theology and worship, where as the Evangelicals looked for the change in hearts of individual Christians which would then lead to the reformation of society. [Phew long sentence]

So a monarchal compared to a democratic approach.

This is no doubt partly a result of the Enlightenment but also other factors.

The Puritans may form a bridge between the two in England.

Evangelicalism and the Enlightenment

Lots of interesting books coming out of IVP at the moment. One of them includes the following in the blurb:

David Bebbington's Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s, published in 1989, offered an intriguing hypothesis regarding the genesis of this movement. He argued that evangelical religion had emerged as a substantially new entity through trans-Atlantic evangelical revival in the 1730s, and had taken a collaborative rather than antithetical stance towards the Enlightenment. In both respects, Bebbington distanced himself from older interpretations that had held the opposite view. (Source)

I wonder if Bebbington is right or not....

Anyway, I can't stop, I should be writing an essay on Land Law.

Trueman on the legacy of the Bash-camps and MLJ

What a disaster! Apparently Jim Packer and Carl Trueman are the only people who got it right about British evangelicalism!

Just in case I want to put my hands on it in the future, Carl Trueman has some thoughts about the "Spirit of '66". They may be right, they may be wrong, but they are certainly stimulating.