Part 1
Cultural Confrontation and Consecration
In its modern context, evangelicalism’s adaptation to popular culture has been explicit and intentional. According to George M. Marsden, four distinct schools of cultural thought define early 20th century Evangelicalism.[1] These four schools consist of two streams of thought regarding culture: isolationism and engagement. However, we will only concern ourselves with the latter in this paper.
The first school is rooted in the thinking of William Jennings Bryan. He “combined a commitment to preserve traditional Christianity (rather broadly interpreted) with a willingness to cooperate with those who differed and an emphasis on the practical and the social.”[2] This school of early 20th century Evangelical thought located the incompatibilities between Christianity and its encompassing culture in the culture rather than Christianity. Bryan argued that the faith did not need changing. Instead, the Christian faith was to reshape its encompassing culture through participation in it. On whether to dispute with culture or change the Christian faith, Bryan said that it “is better to raise the temperature than change the thermometer.” However, the sustainability of Bryan’s philosophy of culture came under public scrutiny with the Scopes Trial in 1925.
The Scopes “monkey trial” of 1925 reflected the consequences of Bryan’s relation of evangelical faith to culture. In a Dayton, Tennessee courtroom, Bryan and Clarence Darrow disputed the legitimacy of Biblical literalism as a scientific theory of creation. While Bryan won the case, in the process the fundamentalist form of evangelical faith came under scrutiny and ridicule by much of the American media. The media stereotyped fundamentalists as “uneducated, country bumpkins.” [3] This well documented defeat caused evangelicals to retreat to from the larger culture, creating a subculture amongst themselves.
The second school of early 20th century evangelical cultural interaction is that of J. Gresham Machen. Machen was a contemporary of Byan and shared much of his conviction that Christianity must participate in its encompassing culture. Furthermore, like Bryan, Machen disagreed with the modernist principle that faith was to conform to cultural norms. However, He also disagreed with an isolationist faith that exonerated itself from cultural participation. Instead, Machen argued that Christianity was to “consecrate” culture. He argued that “instead of destroying the arts and sciences and being indifferent to them… [Christians should] cultivate them with all the enthusiasm of the veriest humanist, but at the same time consecrate them to the service of our God.”[4]
When evangelicals returned from their self-imposed exile, the convictions of Bryan and Machen had combined themselves into a single evangelical social ethic. As an example of this, Francis Schaeffer embodied Bryan’s dedication to confrontation of social ills as well as Machen’s conviction that Christians redeem its encompassing culture. In his book Art and the Bible, Schaeffer expresses these unified evangelical commitments. He argues that Christians should not shy away from the visual arts, that the “Christian life should be the greatest form of art” and that “art work can be a doxology in itself.”[5] Schaeffer argued that art could be used as both an argument for personal piety and a form of worship. Moreover, he argues that “Christian art today should be twentieth-century art.”[6] Lastly, Schaeffer challenges secular art by questioning its source of worth. Schaeffer, in evangelical form, argues that all artwork has value because it is an extension of what God does: “creativity has value because God creates.”[7] While one may struggle to find a direct lineage through Machen and Bryan to Schaeffer, there is undeniable agreement in their philosophies of evangelicalism’s role in culture.
However, fine arts are not the only area where Evangelicalism engages with its encompassing cultural. Modern evangelical mega-churches look more like shopping malls than traditional church buildings. Evangelical Christian bookstores line strip-malls throughout America. Even evangelical movies are a significant aspect of American Culture. Fireproof, an evangelistic story of a heroic firefighter made by evangelicals and released in September of 2008, grossed $33,456,317 in American theaters.[8] Moreover, Left Behind, another evangelical movie franchise, spawned numerous cinematic sequels as well as a controversial video game. An Evangelical author, Gilbert Morris, even published a book in 2000 entitled, How To Write and Sell a Christian Novel.[9] However, a distinct feature of much of the evangelical subculture is that while it consecrates the forms of its surrounding culture it propagates a evangelical vision of the world. Churches, bookstores, movies, video games and novels simultaneously exist for entertainment and proselytizing. Modern evangelicalism has gladly embraced the convictions of Bryan and Machen.
Beginning with Bryan and Machen, continuing through Francis Schaeffer, and presently embodied in evangelical mega-churches, bookstores, movies, video games, and novels, evangelicalism continues to confront secular society with evangelical ideals as well as consecrate version of secular culture for itself. These two convictions, to confront and consecrate secular culture, function as two defining convictions within the contemporary evangelicalism. It seems only logical, then, that these convictions would branch out beyond mere cultural accommodation, to theological accommodation as well.
These evangelical convictions must be distinguished from traditional liberalism and the modernist principle. Whereas evangelicalism seeks to answer the questions that secular culture and society may raise, liberalism subjects religious truth to the answers which secular society offers. This does not mean that there is not overlap between the two traditions. In many instances, questioning has led evangelicals to affirm traditionally liberal answers. However, such instances are should not be understood as a “liberalizing” of evangelicals. Instead, it is the outworking of the conviction that evangelicals should always have an answer to the questions posed by the world around it.
The Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy vs. Biblical Infallibility
One such instance of evangelicals affirming doctrines traditionally considered liberal is the controversy surrounding the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. Prior to the late nineteenth century, the doctrine of biblical inerrancy was hardly a litmus test for evangelical faith. However, by the middle of the twentieth century the doctrine of biblical inerrancy was one of the single most defining features of American evangelicalism. An example of the prominence of this doctrine is that Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), formed in 1949. The ETS was a non-denominational evangelical society of scholars requiring only one affirmation from its members: the doctrine that the Bible was inerrant in its original manuscripts.[10]
The evangelical crisis over inerrancy began in the 1960′s and, according to some historians, extending well into the 1980′s. One of the most prominent disputes was between those who held the traditional doctrine of biblical inerrancy against those who affirmed a doctrine of biblical infallibility. The doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy argued that the Scriptures, in their original manuscripts, “are free from all falsehood or mistakes” and it “safeguards the truth that the Holy Scripture is entirely true and trustworthy in all its assertions.”[11] Colloquially stated, this theory argued that the minutest of details of Scripture were accurate in all that they taught.[12] The alternative doctrine of biblical infallibility similarly argued that the Scriptures were divinely inspired. However, this understanding sought a looser definition of inspiration. It sought to affirm the divine origin of the scriptures while allowing for factual errors in areas such as history and cosmology.[13] In addition, this doctrinal division was neither simple nor unilateral. While theologians such as Carl Henry and Harold Lindsell both vehemently defended the doctrine of inerrancy, they found too much diversity to agree amongst themselves. Consequently, they split from one another. Similar nuances and divisions existed throughout both sides of the conversation. Rather than look at the argument of the doctrines of Biblical inerrancy versus Biblical infallibility as two-sided, one should view this disagreement on a spectrum ranging from the fideist inerrancy of Lindsell, through the historical-critical based inerrancy of Carl C.F. Henry, to various progressive evangelicals such as E.J. Carnell, Bernard Ramm, Charles Fuller, Dewey Beegle, and Donald Bloesch.[14] This conversation ultimately came to a form of conclusion with the Chicago Statements on Biblical Inerrancy (1978), Hermeneutics (1982). These statements have recently been reaffirmed and commented on by traditional evangelicals such as R.C. Sproul and G.K. Beale; using the documents to exegete and “evangelical” doctrine biblical inerrancy.[15]
In many ways, the evangelical disputation over the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is an extension of the evangelical convictions of cultural confrontation and consecration. The late nineteenth century formulation of biblical inerrancy may arguable be understood as evangelicalism’s attempt to confront the evolutionary and text critical affirmations made by natural scientists and historians. At the same time it may also be understood as evangelicalism’s attempt to accommodate the popular scientific method of the era; making theology the queen of all sciences. Ironically, one could make similar arguments of the opposing doctrine of Biblical infallibility as well. By the middle of the 20th century, the plethora of criticisms of the traditional doctrine of inerrancy forced progressive evangelicals to find a way to confront the notion that Bible was just another religious text while at the same time address legitimate questions posed by both scientists and historians. One can see the both the outworking of the evangelical conviction to both confront as well as consecrate the prevalent secular culture. Moreover, it is from within these convictions and divided theological landscape that Enns and Sparks propose a redefinition of Biblical Inerrancy.
[1] George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, (Cary: Oxford University Press US, 2006), 124- 135.
[2] Ibid., 133.
[3] Randall Herbert Balmer, Lauren F. Winner. Protestantism in America. (New York: Columbia University, 2005), 121.
[4] George M. Marsden. Fundamentalism and American Culture. (Cary: Oxford University Press US, 2006), 137- 138.
[5] Francis A. Schaeffer, Art and the Bible: Two Essays, 2nd ed. Forward by Michael Card, (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2007), 18.
[6] Ibid., 75.
[7] Ibid., 51.
[8] Box Office Mojo: Fireproof <http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=fireproof.htm> Accessed April 11, 2009.
[9] Gilbert Morris, How to Write and Sell a Christian Novel: Practical Advice from a Best-Selling Author, (Phoenix: ACW Press, 2000).
[10] Gary J. Dorrien, The Remaking of Evangelical Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 118.
[11] Roger E. Olson, The Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 213.; Here Olson is quoting the 1978 Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy.
[12] This became a progressively nuanced argument. Eventually evangelicals attempted to defend the doctrine of biblical inerrancy by arguing that it only extended to the original manuscripts, that any errors had occurred during the process of making copies.
[13] Ibid., 213.
[14] I am admittedly narrowing a very broad and diverse number of scholars. This spectrum provided is intended to provide a framework from which to evaluate the works of Enns and Sparks in context, rather than to provide a comprehensive history.
[15] G.K. Beale, The Erosion of Inerrancy within Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2008); R.C. Sproul, Knowing Scripture, 2nd ed., (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2009).
OK. I’m hooked. Looking forward to the next part!
Very interesting article. It is interesting how the surrounding culture is forcing evangelicals to address these sorts of issues about how they understand the bible and the nature of its authority.
Where in the bible does it give answer to the question as to whether the text is either inerrant or infallible?
The interpretations of the text taken by some number of evangelicals is not necessarily correct to the meaning of the words. The six days of creation in Gen 1 do not need to be interpreted as literally six ’24 hour’ days, and there have been metaphorical interpretations of that narrative in existence long before anyone ever spoke about such a thing as evolution or the geological age of the earth. St Augustine of Hippo (see: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XI.7.html) had one such interpretation.
I think this challenge that confronts them is going to force them to see the error of sola scriptura.
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