How Reformed is Evangelicalism?

Jesus Creed has an interesting discussion on the history of Evangelicalism, and how connected it is to the Reformation. It seems a recent review in CT (a link I couldn’t get to work) made evangelicalism sound too Reformed for some folks. Here was my contribution to the conversation. Savvy readers will hear echoes of my old undergrad thesis on Jonathan Edwards:

I haven’t read the book or Hansen’s review. I am Reformed by conviction, but would agree that you can’t draw a straight line from modern evangelicalism or even the Great Awakening back to the Reformation.

On the one hand, you had the absolute phenomenon of George Whitefield preaching a Calvinistic soteriology all over Britain and the colonies. You had Jonathan Edwards, who seemed to be writing more on the Awakening as it was happening than anyone. One of his central theses in seeking to explain the Awakening was that it was a recovery of Calvinist doctrine. Another was that of the personal and subjective experience of the Holy Spirit–which he often described in Lockean terminology (showing his synthesis of what was happening intellectually across the pond with his thoroughly biblical, Reformed framework).

On the other hand, you had the Wesleys and their Arminianism and the enduring movement they launched. The Awakening could be seen as an explosion of evangelicalism and as such it encapsulated several of the streams which would ebb and flow over the next few centuries.

If some authors seek to draw straight lines from the Reformation to evangelicalism, it seems they are indeed reading very selectively. The history of evangelicalism is not the story of the triumph of Reformed doctrine. Part of the allure of Spurgeon, for example, is that he is such a lonely voice proclaiming Calvinism, especially at the beginning and end of his ministry.

As someone who is Reformed, I see no problem in granting the roles of other movements in Christendom. In fact, to ignore the others would rob us neo-Calvinists of an aspect of our own narrative that we treasure: our ongoing struggle for theological supremacy, as noble, often marginalized, and oft-misunderstood underdogs.

To those of you outside the Reformed camp, if it seems its defenders are perhaps too eager to emphasize their contributions, I would submit that we likely see this as a necessary corrective. For 500 years, people have been trying to sweep Calvinism under the rug as an outdated, abominable doctrine. Perhaps we can be forgiven this zeal during a season when we appear to be on the ascendancy.