By Stanley J. Grenz
In 1997 Jon Stone
concluded that neo-evangelicalism is "captivated by the issue of defining
its boundaries." In support of his claim, Stone cites the "flood of
books and articles" that has flowed from evangelical pens since World War
II. In his estimation, this phenomenon "documents a sustained effort at
defining the limits of evangelicalism by affirming and reaffirming its boundary
differences with both liberalism and fundamentalism."' As Stone's comment
indicates, the tendency to delineate boundaries has been part of
post-fundamentalist neo-evangelicalism since its inception in the 1940s. Yet in
recent years, this concern appears to have taken on a new intensity, as
evangelical theologians have begun to debate among themselves the question as
to just how encompassing the evangelical "big tent" can be.
The current quest
for boundaries carries potentially crucial ramifications for evangelical theology.
The goal of this essay is to explore the implications of the phenomenon of
boundary-setting for the shape of evangelical theology in the postmodern
context. To this end, I first look at the concept of boundaries itself. I then
turn to the question of the nature of evangelicalism as a boundaried people.
Finally, I apply the results of my study to the question of the role of
evangelical theology within evangelicalism as well as to what I see as the
nature of the Evangelical Theological Society.
I. THE QUEST FOR
BOUNDARIES
Simply defined, a
boundary is "anything forming or serving to indicate a limit or
end."2 Viewed from this perspective, boundaries are an inevitable part of
life. They are present everywhere, even when the demarcated limits are fuzzy or
difficult to decipher. Hence, religious groups are likewise marked by
boundaries, despite the current trend to highlight the fluidity of the lines
running between them. As Stephen W. Sykes notes, "The fact that the
boundaries of a religion may be difficult to determine with precision does not
mean that a religion has no boundaries."3
1. Boundaries in the
Bible. The concept of boundaries runs through the Bible. The idea is especially
prevalent in the OT, where the term is closely tied to actual physical demarcations.
So important were boundaries in the ancient Near East that special stones were
erected to rim political or economic domains. These markers delimited national
frontiers and property lines.
The ancient
Israelites considered boundaries to be of divine origin. God was responsible
for setting boundaries throughout creation (Ps 74:17, cf. Gen 1:4-8; Ps 104:9;
Jer 5:22). He had likewise determined the habitations of the nations (Deut
32:8; Acts 17:26), including Israel
(Exod 23:31; Num 34:1-15). For this reason, Isaiah could cite the overrunning
of national boundaries inherent in military conquest as one of the sins of the
king of Assyria (Isa 10:13).
Upon their entrance
into the promised land, God determined the borders of each of the tribes of Israel
(e.g. Josh 22:25), and he apportioned the inheritance of the various clans
within the tribes, accomplishing this task through appointed leaders (Num
34:16-29) or the practice of casting lots (Num 34:13; Josh 14:2). Because these
apportionments were believed to carry divine sanction, the stones that the
ancient leaders had set in place to demarcate property boundaries were not to
be altered (Deut 19:14; 27:17; Prov 15:25; 22:28; 23:10), and moving an ancient
boundary stone came be seen as a sign of great wickedness (Job 24:2; Hos 5:10).
The boundary did not
only mark the limit of a domain; it stood as well for the territory itself.
This is evident in the use of the Hebrew term gebul, which can signify both the
actual boundary or the territory thus bounded. Moreover, each geographic or
tribal territory, together with its boundaries, carried religious significance.
Each was connected to a particular deity that was to be worshiped by the
inhabitants within that domain. Magnus Ottosson notes the importance of this
concept for the religious self-conception of the Hebrew people: "The
frequent use of the expression gebhul yisrael, `the territory of Israel ,'
points to a conscious, most likely religious understanding of the boundary of
the national territory whose Lord and God is Yahweh."4
The connection
between a bounded territory and a corresponding deity points to a deeper sense
of boundary present among the ancient Hebrews. The OT writers speak of Israel as a
particular people, a people who are distinct from the nations. Hence, they
viewed Israel
as what we might call a begrenzte Gemeinschaft, a "boundaried"
people.
The genesis of Israel 's
awareness of their special boundaried status lay in their conviction that as a
nation they were God's covenant partner. In fact, the sense of boundary is
inherent in the Hebrew term berith, insofar as a covenant-which indicates a
"binding relationship"5-is by its very nature limited to those whom
it brings together within the bond that it forges. This is the case, even if
the relationship is that of a vassal to a suzerain, which provided one of
several prominent ancient Near Eastern practices that gave rise to the Hebrew
concepts Although covenants were a part of life in the ancient world, the idea
that a people could be the covenant partner of their god, together with the
relational exclusivity inherent in this idea, appears to have been unique to
Israel. As Bernhard Anderson concludes, "Covenant expresses a novel
element of the religion of ancient Israel : the people are bound in
relationship to the one God, Yahweh, who makes an exclusive (Jealous') claim
upon their loyalty in worship and social life."7 Weinfeld adds that Israel viewed the covenant to be so exclusive so
as ife .
Weinfeld adds that Israel
viewed the possibility of dual or multiple loyalties so exclusive so as were
permitted in other religions."8 On this basis, then, the possibility of
dual or multiple loyalties such ancient Hebrews were theto see themselves as a
boundaried people in a unique, even exclusive, sense.
The prophets
understood the covenant between God and Israel to be themselves as a
boundaried people in a unique, even exclusive, sense. result of a particular
historical act, the covenant between God and of election, which they saw as
having occurred at a specific point in time. At a particular historical act,
the act of election, which they saw as historical journey, God had elected Israel to be
his covenant in time. At particular juncture of their, and the nation, in turn,
God had elected Israel
to be his covenant partner, the OT writers spoke of God's electing act
as having occurred in the exodus, which in turn came as the fulfillment of his
prio pledge to Abraham (Deut 7:6-8) Johannes Behm succinctly summarizes the
point. Israel 's
concept of election, he writes, "implies with utmost clarity that we are
not dealing with an mere idea of God in the remote past. God's will elected the
children of but with an act of God in the remote past. God's will elected the
children of Israel ,
who then for their part elected God."9
The exclusivity of Israel 's sense
of being a bounaried people was tempered, however, by two additional, related
aspects sense of being a boundaried people was the OT covenantal idea. The
first was the acknowledgment of a universal extne of God's covenanting action
that formed the wider context in which his special relationship with Israel stood.
Long action that formed the establishment in which his special rael, God had
entered into covenant with humankind and even with all creation, first in Adam
and later in Noah. Bernhard Anderson notes that the latter covenant
"assures God's faithful pledge to humanity, to nonhuman creatures, and to
the earth itself."10
Horst Seebass claims
that the concept of the election of the part for the sake of the whole is
inherent in the root Hebrew term bachar ("choose") itself.
"Everywhere that bhr occurs in relationship to persons," Seebass
writes, "it denotes choice out of a group (generally out of the totality
of the people), so that the chosen one discharges a function in relationship to
the group.
Thus throughout, bhr
includes the idea of separating, but in the sense that the one separated by
bhr, `choosing, selection,' stood that much more clearly in the service of the
whole." Seebass then applies this observation specifically to the election
of Israel : "The horizon
of the election of the people of Israel
is the peoples of the world, in relationship to which as a whole the
`individual' Israel
was chosen."11
Wolfhart Pannenberg
connects the concept of election for the sake of the world to the overarching
intention of the divine love for humankind: "The particularism of the love
of God for the elected one is to be related to the more comprehensive horizon
of God's love for all mankind. The chosen one, then, is assigned to serve as
God's agent in relation to a more comprehensive object of God's love. Therefore
the chosen one belongs to God precisely in serving God's greater purpose in the
world."" Schrenk, in turn, points out that the Christological impulse
led the early Christians to apply the OT principle to the church: "Against
the historical background of later Judaism, with its nationalistic pride in
election and its sectarian restriction, primitive Christianity gives a wholly
new turn to the concept on the basis of Christ Himself. It has in view the
election of a universal community in which there is no place for the
developments mentioned." Schrenk then adds, "The truth that election
does not aim at the preferential treatment of one part of the race involves the
further positive truth that the community as a whole is elected for the whole
of the human race. It is commissioned to fulfill eschatological and
teleological tasks in the service of the divine overruling."13
This aspect of the
biblical concept of election suggests that the ultimate goal of God's
constituting of a boundaried people is not to exclude but to include. In fact,
rather than being established with the intent of keeping others out, boundaries
are meant to be crossed. And this crossing of the boundaries is to run in both
directions. The mandate of the boundaried community is to reach out beyond the
border that delimits its identity. But the goal of such outreach includes that
of drawing others into its ongoing mission to the world.
Although the NT
writers carried to new heights the sense of election for the sake of the whole
that they inherited from their OT predecessors, the early Christian
community-like Israel -did
not obliterate the boundary that separated it from the wider mass of humankind.
On the contrary, the early church seems also to have been stamped by a
heightened sense of its own distinctive character as a boundaried people. This
is evident, for example, in the differentiation made in the NT between the
domain of God and the realm of Satan. The Scriptural writers spoke of believers
as those whom God had "rescued ... from the dominion of darkness and
brought... into the kingdom of the Son he loves" (Col 1:15).
The division of
reality into two realms provided an ontological basis for the theological
understanding of the act of excommunication that emerged in the early church.
Although Jesus' instructions in Matthew's Gospel regarding church discipline
carry overtones of the Jewish assumption of the centrality of a boundary
dividing Israel and the Gentiles (Matt 18:17), Paul conceives of
excommunication as entailing the act of handing offending persons over to Satan
(1 Cor 5:5; 1 Tim 1:20). In commenting on Paul's command to the Corinthian
church to take action against a blatant sinner in their community, Gordon Fee
asserts that "the language means to turn him back out into Satan's
sphere." Fee then explains: "In contrast to the gathered community of
believers ... this man is to be turned back out into the world, where Satan and
his `principalities and powers' still hold sway over people's lives to destroy
them."14 J. N. D. Kelly offers a similar perspective on the Pauline
statement regarding the action taken against Hymenaeus and Alexander. Kelly
claims that the language connotes "the expulsion of the sinner from the
church, the realm of God's care and protection, and the formal handing of him
over to the power of Satan." Kelly then links this act to an underlying
understanding regarding the distinction between the church and the world as
actual realms: "To the mind of the primitive Church this did not simply
mean that he left the Christian congregation and resumed a peaceful life in
pagan society; such a man was thought to be really exposed to the malice of the
Evil One."15
The sense within the
early church that believers constituted a boundaried people led as well to the
development of the concept of heresy. Unlike the connotations with which it
later came to be imbued, in the Hellenistic world the term hairesis did not yet
carry the judgmental tone later associated with it. Rather it could simply
refer to "doctrine" or to a philosophical "school," and
hence to "the teaching of a particular school of philosophy."16
This more neutral
use of the term is evident in the NT in the book of Acts. Here hairesis denotes
a school of thought or a sect, such as the Sadducees (Acts 5:17) or the
Pharisees (Acts 15:5; 26:5). Even the Nazarenes (i.e. Christians) could be
designated a hairesis (Acts 24:5,14; 28:22). Paul, however, seems to have
preferred to speak of the Christian community as "the Way" (Acts
24:14), perhaps because he wanted to reserve hairesis to refer to erring
factions within the church (1 Cor 11:19; Gal 5:20). In keeping with this change
in meaning, a heretic came to be seen as a divisive or factious person (Titus
3:10), and later the term came to include the idea of holding to false doctrine
(2 Pet 2:1), which meaning has predominated in the Christian tradition. Bruce
Demarest reflects the dominate understanding when he declares that heresy
"connotes doctrinal deviation from the fundamental truths taught by
Scripture and the orthodox Christian church, and active propagation of the
same."17
2. The concept of
boundaries and the postmodern turn. In a manner somewhat similar to its OT
counterpart, the early church conceived of itself as a boundaried community.
But the question remains as to the type of boundary that demarcates the church
from the world in general and the character of evangelicalism as a boundaried
people in particular. Our attempt to find a way through this issue can be
abetted by a cursory look at certain contemporary understandings of the nature
of group boundaries.
In recent years,
certain Christian missiologists have drawn insight from set theory in their
explorations of evangelism and missions theory. Paul Hiebert, to cite one
prominent example, points out that people in the West generally think in terms
of a particular class of "bounded sets" or, to use the more precise
designator that dates to the German mathematician Georg Cantor, "intrinsic
well-formed sets." 18 A
bounded set is "intrinsic" in that it is formed on the basis of the
supposed essential nature of its members. To say that such a set is
"well-formed" means that it sports a clear demarcation between items
that belong to the set and those that do not. In short, bounded sets are
circumscribed by a boundary designed to include some things and exclude others.
According to Hiebert, because we cannot see into human hearts, viewing the
category Christian as a bounded set launches us on a quest to determine which
beliefs and practices identify persons as Christians and separate them from
non-Christians. It leads as well to a keen desire to differentiate clearly
between persons who are Christians and those who are not, doing so on the basis
of outward manifestations such as adherence to certain beliefs and conformity
to certain practices. As a result, he concludes, determining whether a person
stands inside or outside the boundary emerges as the chief consideration in
every situation. 19
In contrast to this
typically Western approach, Hiebert proposes an alternative that draws from
another way of speaking about groups and membership in a group, namely, the
concept of a centered, or "extrinsic well-formed," set. Rather than
being based on some supposed essential nature that constitutes items as members
of a set, membership in an extrinsic set is predicated upon relationality,
whether this be the relationship of the items to each other or, preferably for
Hiebert, their relationship to a common reference point. Hence, things that are
related to the center in a particular manner-or are related to each other in a
common field-may be said to belong to the set, whereas those not related in
this manner cannot be so designated. In Hiebert's estimation, viewing the
category Christian as a centered set shifts the focus away from attempts to
define the church by appeal to its boundaries. Rather the emphasis is on Christ
as the defining center of the church, and the church is seen as a people
gathered aroundor in relationship to-Christ.20
Hiebert's
appropriation of set theory resonates with certain recent developments in
cultural anthropology.21 The modern understanding, which emerged after the
1920s, viewed culture as the entire manner in which a particular people live
and, by extension, as a kind of glue that binds individuals to society. Hence,
in 1948 Melvin Herskovitz, to cite one example, described culture as "the
total body of belief, behaviors, knowledge, sanctions, values and goals that
mark the way of life of a people."22 Modern anthropologists, in turn, saw
as their task that of exploring the specific pattern of behaviors that
distinguishes any given society from all others.23 Viewed from this perspective,
a society becomes a quasi-bounded set consisting of all those persons who are
intrinsically members of that society evidenced by the fact that they display
the particular behavior patterns indicative of the group.
Beginning in the
1980s, the modern approach came under attack. Since then, postmodern cultural
anthropologists have tended to treat culture "as that which aggregates
people and processes, rather than integrates them," to cite Anthony B.
Cohen's description. In typical postmodern fashion, current characterizations
of culture, such as Cohen's, elevate difference, rather than similarity, among
people.24 Although postmodern anthropologists continue to consider cultures as
wholes, they view these wholes not as monolithic, but as internally fissured.25
The elevation of difference has also triggered a heightened awareness that
culture is the product of social interaction, and hence that people are active
creators, rather than passive receivers, of culture.26 Moreover, such social
interaction entails an ongoing conversation regarding the meaning of the public
symbols that participants in a particular society share. Hence, Alaine Touraine concludes that,
rather than a clearly understood body of beliefs and values or a dominant
ideology, what binds people together is "a set of resources and models
that social actors seek to manage, to control, and which they appropriate or
whose transformation into social organization they negotiate among
themselves."27
The insights of
postmodern cultural anthropology foster a conception of society that resembles
to some extent a centered set. Viewed from this perspective, a society is
defined by the common set of symbols standing at its center and by the ongoing
participation of its members in the task of determining the meaning of the
symbols to which they are all related.
II. BOUNDARIES AND
THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT
In keeping with the
legacy of the Biblical communities of faith, Christians have always viewed
themselves as comprising a boundaried people in some sense of the term. But how
ought this to be understood? Or, posing the question in a manner more germane
to the central task of this essay, in what sense can evangelicalism be
described as boundaried?
Some theologians
would argue that the answer to both questions is essentially the same. Both the
church in general and evangelicals in particular form a boundaried people
simply because they comprise a bounded set. The tendency to see evangelicalism
as a bounded set has been especially prominent among post-fundamentalist
neo-evangelicals. The concern for boundaries that emerged among evangelicals
since the 1940s was to a large degree ignited by a crucial goal that sparked
the emergence of the coalition out of the ashes of fundamentalism. As the Jon
Stone quotation with which I began implies, the neo-evangelical leaders saw
themselves as providing a third way standing between a callus fundamentalism on
the one hand and a bankrupt liberalism on the other. Despite this common raison
d'etre, evangelicals have not always agreed on the propriety of attempting to
delineate the movement by appeal to its supposed defining boundaries.
Some have raised the
question as to whether the sine qua non of evangelicalism properly lies in any
purported demarcating boundary whatsoever. Stating the question at issue in
terms of set theory: Is the evangelical movement a bounded set? Or does its
character require a quite different understanding of the manner in which
evangelicals may be seen as a boundaried people?
1. Is evangelicalism
a boundaried community? Many contemporary evangelicals not only view as
self-evident the assumption that the movement is a bounded set, but are
convinced that evangelicalism's demarcating boundary is ultimately doctrinal in
character. In their estimation, persons are deemed to be evangelical if they
acknowledge a particular set of doctrines, which taken together are seen as
comprising "the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints"
(Jude 3).
To cite one example,
in the closing paragraphs of his little diatribe, The Evangelical Left (1997),
Millard Erickson seems to assume that evangelicalism is a bounded set and that
its boundaries are theological. In a veiled response to a rhetorical remark
made by Clark Pinnock in his book A Wideness in God's Mercy,28 Erickson raises
the matter of the boundaries of evangelicalism. Referring to what he fears as
the doctrinal slippage of certain evangelical theologians, he raises the
question as to "how far one may move, or how many times one may halve the
distance between things, and still claim to be within the original group."29 In hinting at his own position on the
matter, Erickson follows up his query with a folksy illustration. Just how
gooselike can a duck become, he asks, and still remain a duck? Erickson then
concludes his musings with a veiled warning: "there must come some point
where the line has been crossed."30
Some Christian
traditions forthrightly claim that the true church is creedally defined and
hence doctrinally bounded. Even certain Protestant denominations have at some
point or another in their historical trajectory devised doctrinal standards as
tests of fellowship and then put themselves forward as the only faithful
guardians of true orthodoxy. Nevertheless, recent applications of set theory to
the question of the character of the church as a boundaried people, such as
Hiebert proposed, together with postmodern insights into the nature of
societies suggest that evangelicalism ought not to be understood as a bounded
set, despite the widespread influence of this outlook.
Regardless of
whether or not doctrine may be viewed as a sine qua non of the church, seeking
to define evangelicalism creedally runs counter to what has been the
evangelical vision from the inception of the movement." Like their Puritan
and Pietist forebears, and even the Reformers themselves, the leaders of the
early eighteenth-century evangelical awakening did not intend to launch a new
ecclesiastical structure or to recreate the true church in the face of a
perceived condition of total apostasy. Following in the wake of the Reformers'
concern for a gospel (i.e. an "evangelical") church, the early
evangelicals purposed to renew the church from within by fostering a rebirth of
what Donald Dayton has aptly termed "convertive piety."32 For this
reason, whatever organizational expression the evangelical movement later came
to adopt quite naturally wore a para-church face.
Many evangelical
institutions composed doctrinal statements, to be sure. Yet such documents were
not meant to function as confessions of the faith of the participants in the
cause (and less so as creeds to which all Christians must adhere), but as the
basis for cooperative engagement of concerned believers across confessional
lines. The founders of such institutions appear to have sensed that the task of
confessing the faith of the church lay with the church itself and not with a
loose coalition of Christians who joined together in the various tasks that
they associated with the program of renewal. Therefore, the attempt to treat
evangelicalism as a bounded set by erecting a theological boundary for the
movement as a whole is theologically problematic, for it in effect transforms
what was meant to be a loosely tied, trans-confessional renewal movement into a
particular confessional tradition, that is, to make the para-church into the
church.
Furthermore, the
attempt to set a doctrinal boundary around evangelicalism negates the central
insight of the movement and hence its central contribution to the church that
evangelicals all desire to renew. From its inception, evangelicalism has
existed as a protest movement. The early evangelicals knew from personal
experience that adherence to doctrinal standards cannot guarantee the presence
of what they believe to be true Christian faith, namely, a heart converted to
God and to others. They saw vividly demonstrated in their day the truth of
Jesus' critique of his opponents, when in recalling the words that God had
spoken through Isaiah, he declared, "These people honor me with their
lips, but their hearts are far from me" (Mark 7:6). In keeping with this
insight, evangelicals have continually cautioned against the tendency to equate
being a Christian with mere external matters, such as participating in the
sacraments and reciting the creed. Being a Christian, they declare, cuts to the
heart, for the gospel is a message of inward transformation that leads, in
turn, to a life of devotion and discipleship. Of course, right doctrine has a
role to play in the transformation of heart and life. Nevertheless,
evangelicals have always been adamant in asserting that doctrinal orthodoxy is
never an end in itself, but is important insofar as it plays a role in
inaugurating and nurturing true Christian piety. In other words, evangelicals
are constantly vigilant lest mere assensus (assent) displace fiducia (saving
trust). J. I. Packer reflected this aspect of the evangelical emphasis when he
noted recently, "What brings salvation, after all, is not any theory about
faith in Christ, justification, and the church, but faith itself in Christ
himself."33
Equating
"evangelical" with a particular set of doctrines also risks
contradicting the generous theological spirit that lies at the heart of
evangelicalism. Although they did not always live up to their ideals,
eighteenthcentury evangelicals had a deeply-felt awareness of their own
limitations in seeing clearly and knowing the truth completely. Following their
lead, the truly evangelical spirit acknowledges that doctrinal formulae will
always have a type of provisionality to them until the day when seeing
"but a poor reflection as in a mirror" and knowing "in
part" give way to seeing "face to face" and knowing
"fully" (1 Cor 13:12 Nrv). Christian history, from the Inquisition
through the persecution of the Anabaptists to the mistreatment of the
Remonstrants, indicates that genuine theological humility is all too often the
first casualty in the fervent defense of doctrinal conformity. Unfortunately,
theologians who set up a particular set of doctrines as the boundary markers of
evangelicalism tend to claim that their own particular theological perspective
comprises the essence of evangelical orthodoxy and as a result all-to-readily
fall into the temptation of elevating their particular doctrinal system as the
standard for evangelical belief. Moreover, evangelical boundary-keepers
routinely set up a one-dimensional theological continuum complete with
"safe" boundaries, then proceed to characterize those who differ with
them regarding certain points of doctrine as standing "partway between the
evangelical view and some nonevangelical position," to cite Erickson's
characterization of what he deems to be representatives of "the
evangelical left."34
Although
evangelicalism itself cannot be described by appeal to a theological boundary
after the fashion of a bounded set, in one sense its nature as a renewal
movement readily fosters viewing the church in a bounded-set manner. In
apparent contrast to the early Reformers whose conception of the true church as
marked by word and sacrament seems to reflect a centered-set understanding, the
evangelical focus on convertive piety suggests that the boundaries of the
church are circumscribed by the experience of the new birth. When viewed
through evangelical eyes, the church appears to be a bounded set, insofar as
the reality of being born of the Spirit comprises the essential nature of
everyone who truly belongs to the community of faith. In this manner, the new
birth emerges as the boundary marker of the ecclesial community and the "ancient
landmark" that, evangelicals declare, dare not be moved.
In contrast to this
possible evangelical perception of the nature of the church, as a renewal
movement within the church evangelicalism itself cannot be characterized in a
bounded-set manner. Evangelicals are, to be sure, united by their common
conversion experience. Yet rather than constituting evangelical Christians in
themselves as a bounded set, the new birth is what brings all believers
together within the church, according to evangelical theology. Hence, this
essential characteristic-being born again-which all Christians share and which
separates Christians from the rest of humankind, is not what constitutes one
particular group of believers as participants in the evangelical movement. Rather,
such participation is predicated by an acceptance of the common task that forms
the center of the evangelical coalition, namely, the mission of propagating the
gospel of transformation and of renewing the church.
The orientation
toward a common calling accounts in part for the theological breadth that the
evangelical trajectory has encompassed from its inception. The concern for an
awakening of convertive piety in the early eighteenth century resulted in a
movement that embraced both George Whitefield and John Wesley; it included both
Jonathan Edwards and Isaac Backus. Since then, the diversity within
evangelicalism has increased, rather than decreased, as the movement has become
a worldwide, multicultural phenomenon. Today the ranks of evangelical theologians
in the USA have been
augmented by African-American and Hispanic thinkers, and the global evangelical
ethos is being affected by voices emerging from the burgeoning churches in
Africa, South America, and Asia . 35 Moreover,
Wesleyan,36 holiness and Pentecostal37/charismatic38 influences are now shaping
evangelicalism to the extent that Joel Carpenter has hailed the beginning of
"a new chapter of evangelical history, in which the
pentecostal-charismatic movement is quickly supplanting the fundamentalist-conservative
one as the most influential evangelical impulse at work today."39 These
seemingly disparate theological voices are not united by doctrinal uniformity,
even though they do in fact share many common tenets. Rather, in keeping with the
character of evangelicalism since the eighteenth century, they are committed to
the task of propagating the gospel of the new birth, which is of course cradled
in a particular theological context. The focus on a common endeavor suggests
that the evangelical movement functions more like a centered set than a bounded
set, and it resembles the social aggregate that postmodern cultural
anthropologists describe.
2. The boundaried
character of evangelicalism. These observations yield the conclusion that, when
viewed from the evangelical theological perspective, the designation
"boundaried people," understood in the narrow sense, must be reserved
for the church, and, consequently, that it cannot properly be predicated of a
renewal movement within the church. Nevertheless, the question still remains as
to whether there might be some sense in which the descriptor could be applied
to evangelicalism. To see how this may well be the case requires that we return
to the aspects connected to the Biblical concept of being a boundaried people I
cited earlier. That study yielded the idea that, as a boundaried people, the
community of faith enjoys a covenantal relationship to God, has been elected by
God, and bears the task of excommunicating heretics from its midst.
Two of these characteristics-that
of being a covenant, disciplining community-cannot easily be predicated of
evangelicalism. The NT clearly portrays God's covenant people in this age as
the church (e.g. 1 Pet 2:9-10). Evangelicals, in turn, might be seen as a
people within the church who continuously call the church to understand rightly
and take seriously its role as the covenant community. In this sense, the
ongoing presence of evangelicals within the church stands as a persistent
admonition to covenant renewal. Similarly, the prerogative of excommunication
lies solely with the church, as is evident in both Jesus' teaching (Matt 18:17)
and in Paul's instruction to the Corinthian congregation (1 Cor 5:4-5). As
proponents of renewal within the church evangelicals might well admonish the
church to take its disciplinary task seriously. But because it is a coalition
of Christians, and hence wears a para-church face, the evangelical movement
itself cannot properly be viewed as the disciplinary body. 40
The third concept,
election, holds more promise. Evangelicals have generally not been adverse to
viewing themselves as elect persons, at least not in the individualistic sense
that typifies the Reformed tradition. Whatever may be said about the idea that
"before the foundation of the world" God chose certain individuals
for salvation,41 election understood in this manner could only be appropriately
predicated of the company that comprises the church. If evangelicals are among
those destined to be saved, they belong to this blessed group by virtue of
their connection to the church and not because they are evangelicals.
Obviously, therefore, when I suggest that evangelicals may well be an elect
people, I have another understanding of the term in view. More specifically, I
am thinking of the biblical concept of the election of the part for the sake of
the whole. Viewed from this perspective, evangelicals may readily see
themselves as elect.
Even here, however,
we must be cautious. Evangelicals are not a boundaried community in the sense
of being elected as a people for the sake of the world. This, too, can only be
predicated of the church itself. Evangelicals are not elect for the sake of the
world by virtue of their status as evangelicals, but because they belong to the
elect people of God, the church. Whatever aspect of election that could apply
to evangelicals as a people and hence would constitute evangelicalism as a
boundaried people must instead be connected to its role as a renewal movement
within the church. The character of evangelicalism as a people committed to the
gospel of transformation and to the propriety of convertive piety suggests that
evangelicals comprise a specific part of the church that is elect for the sake
of the renewal of the whole church. In short, evangelicals form a boundaried
people insofar as-or to the extent that-they serve as God's chosen instruments
on behalf of the church, which alone comprises the truly elect of God in this
age.
III. THEOLOGY WITHIN
THE BOUNDARIED COMMUNITY
With this
understanding of evangelicals as a boundaried people in view, we are now
finally in a position to see the implications of our study of boundaries for
evangelical theology.
In his description
of the ramifications of viewing the church as a bounded set, Hiebert writes, "The
church would view theology as ultimate, universal, and unchanging truth and
define it in general propositional statements. It would divorce theology from
the historical and cultural contexts in which it is formulated."42
Although Hiebert's wholesale dismissal of this enterprise as a legitimate
dimension of the church's theological task may well be somewhat overdrawn, his
point is applicable, at least in part, in the task of understanding the true
character of evangelical theology.
The variety of impulses
and traditions that comprise the evangelical movement suggests that
evangelicalism is a "big tent" that encompasses a wide diversity. It
is a patchwork quilt of variegated subnarratives. Insofar as it is a blanket
term for the theologies of a diverse group of ecclesial communities,
para-church institutions and concerned individuals, evangelical theology is not
a monolithic entity. Of course, the focus on convertive piety and the passion
for renewal that evangelicals share give rise to certain concrete theological
concerns, and these common features lead to an amazingly broad consensus among
evangelicals on certain doctrines. Nevertheless, the amorphous character of the
movement resists treating evangelicalism as a given, static reality that can be
neatly summarized by a set of universally held doctrines and therefore can be
invoked as marking its boundaries. In a sense, we might say that evangelical
theology is a family of local theologies, none of which dare set itself up as
the definitive standard for evangelical orthodoxy.
Hiebert's caution
may be confirmed in another way as well. I noted earlier that the insights of
postmodern cultural anthropology lead to a picture of a society as an aggregate
of people engaged in an ongoing conversation regarding the meaning of shared
public symbols with the goal of building a connotational consensus.43 Viewed
from this perspective, the church consists of a people who share a group of
symbols that serve as both building blocks and conveyers of meaning. These
symbols include a particular religious language, as well as specific images and
rituals. Viewed from the perspective of postmodern cultural anthropology, the
theological enterprise within the confessing community, the church, includes
the delineation of "church dogmatics," to cite the title of Karl
Barth's magnum opus. In fact, we might go so far as to claim that as church
dogmatics, the task of theology includes the ongoing attempt to articulate-and
thereby to defend-the Christian belief-mosaic, i.e. Christian orthodoxy, in the
face of competing theological conceptions.
Although they share
many symbols in common, Christians are not necessarily in agreement about the
meaning these symbols are to convey. On the contrary, meaning-making is an
ongoing task that involves lively conversation, intense discussion, and even
heated debate among participants.
Evangelicals join
this larger conversation convinced that the process of meaning-making is best
pursued when it is governed by certain formative commitments, at the heart of
which is the belief that the Christian gospel is inherently transformative of
heart and life, that is, that the gospel is convertive. Consequently, the task
of pursuing orthodox doctrine is not incumbent on evangelical theologians as
evangelicals. Nor do evangelical theologians busy themselves with the task of
articulating in a systematic manner the Christian belief-mosaic because they
are evangelicals. Rather, these efforts are predicated on their presence within
the church, the confessing community, itself. Evangelical theologians,
therefore, are church theologians who approach the theological task from a
distinctive stance, at the heart of which is the commitment to convertive
piety, and by taking seriously certain concerns that are largely the result of
the evangelical vision of what it means to be the people of God. In this way,
evangelical theology becomes a shared "research project." To borrow
one feature from Imre Lakatos's description of the scientific enterprise,44
evangelical theologians engage in the common Christian theological task of
exploring and seeking to provide a cogent articulation of the Christian
belief-mosaic guided by certain methodological rules.
One evangelical
para-church institution that perhaps above all others has sought unabashedly to
delimit the rules that ought to govern the evangelical theological enterprise
and then to pursue the theological research project on the basis of these rules
is the Evangelical Theological Society.
Membership in this
learned society is governed by two cardinal convictions, biblical inerrancy and
the doctrine of the Trinity, as articulated in its doctrinal statement. At
first glance, the requirement that members of the society sign the society's
statement annually suggests that these two theological commitments comprise a
theological boundary that constitutes the ETS as a bounded set. Yet the two
affirmations carry a much deeper and more far-reaching function. Rather than
being mere boundary markers, they comprise a shared center, two agreed-upon
methodological rules that facilitate a common research project. By directing
their efforts on the basis of this shared center, ETS members commit themselves
to the task of engaging in the ongoing conversation about the meaning of the
symbols of the Christian faith in a manner that draws from Scripture, read
through the lens of a trinitarian hermeneutic, as their ultimate authoritive
source.
To summarize. A
theology that is truly evangelical seeks to serve the boundaried people-the church of Jesus Christ -by engaging in the task of
meaning-making on the basis of a commitment to the renewal of the church and
the life-changing, transformative, convertive power of the gospel.
Viewed from this
perspective, we might go so far as to suggest that evangelical theologians are
an elect people in a certain sense as well. They are elected to serve the wider
theological task of the church as a whole by shouldering this task as a
research project governed by the methodological rules that arise out of the
evangelical commitment to convertive piety. To the extent that evangelical
theologians engage in the theological calling from an unabashedly evangelical
stance, they too comprise, in at least a certain sense, a begrenzte
Gemeinschaft-a boundaried people. They constitute a people commissioned to
offer their particular witness to the theological community as a whole until
that glorious day when the ongoing crossing of boundaries has finally resulted
in all Grenzen-all boundaries-fading from view.
Endnotes
1 Jon R. Stone, On the
Boundaries of American Evangelicalism: The Postwar Evangelical Coalition (New
York: St. Martin's, 1997) 179.
2 The Doubleday Dictionary
for Home, School, and Office (ed. Sidney I. Landau and Ronald J. Bogus; Garden
City, NY: Doubleday, 1975) 84.
3 Stephen W. Sykes,
"Heresy," in Westminster Dictionary of
Christian Theology (ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden; Philadelphia :
Westminster ,
1983) 249.
4 Magnus Ottosson,
"gebhul," TDOT 2.366.
5 Bernhard W. Anderson , "Covenant," in Oxford
Companion to the Bible (ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan; New York : Oxford
University Press. 1993)
138.
11 Horst Seebass,
"bachar," TDOT 2,82-83.
12 Wolfhart Pannenberg,
Human Nature, Election, and History (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977) 49.
14 Gordon D. Fee, The First
Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987) 209.
15 J. N.D.
Kelly, A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles: Timothey I& II, Titus (HNTC;
San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1960) 58.
16 Schlier,
"hairesis," TDNT 1.181.
17 Bruce A- Demarest,
"Heresy," New Dictionary of Theology (ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson, David
F. Wright, and J. I. Packer; Downers
Grove , IL :
InterVarsity, 1988) 291-92.
18 Paul G. Hiebert,
Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994)
113.
19 Ibid. 115.
20 Ibid. 127.
21 For a more complete
delineation of the following material, see Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke,
Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context (Louisville,
KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001) 130-47.
22Melvin Herskovitz, Man
and His Works (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948) 625.
11 See, for example, John
W. Bennett and Melvin M. Tumin, Social Life (New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 1948)
208-9.
24 Anthony P. Cohen, Self
Consciousness: An Alternative Anthropology of Identity (London: Routledge,
1994) 118-19.
25 Kathryn Tanner, Theories
of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1997) 56.
26 Cohen, Self
Consciousness 118-19.
27 Alaine Touranine, Return
of the Actor (trans. Myrna Godzich; Minneapolis :
University of Minnesota Press, 1988) 8, 26-27,54-55.
26 Clark
H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World
of Religions (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992) 163.
29 Millard J. Erickson, The
Evangelical Left: Encountering Postconservative Evangelical Theology (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1997) 146.
30 Ibid. 147.
31 For a similar
explication of the point made in the following paragraphs, see Stanley J.
Grenz, Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era (Grand Rapids : Baker,
2000) 175-81.
32 For this designation,
see Donald W. Dayton, "The Limits of Evangelicalism," in The Variety
of American Evangelicalism (ed. Donald W. Dayton and Robert K. Johnston; Downers Grove : InterVarsity, 1991) 48.
33 J. I.
Packer, "Why I Signed It," Christianity Today 38/14 (December 12,
1994) 37.
34 Erickson, Evangelical
Left 146.
35 For a helpful summary of
some of these impulses, see William A. Dyrness, Learning about Theology from
the Third World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1990). See also William A. Dyrness, ed., Emerging Voices in Global Christian
Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994); William A. Dyrness, Invitation to
Cross-Cultural Theology: Case Studies in Vernacular Theologies (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1992).
36 See, for example, Henry
H. Knight III, A Future for Truth: Evangelical Theology in a Postmodern World
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1997).
37 See, for example, Land's
attempt at constructing "a more ... theologically responsible
Pentecostalism." Steven J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for
the Kingdom (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993). The work of Miroslav
Volf ought to be cited here as well, although Volf appears to be moving away
from his Pentecostal heritage. See, for example, Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and
Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1996); Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as
the Image of the Trinity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).
38 For an example, see J.
Rodman Williams, Renewal Theology: Systematic Theology from a Charismatic
Perspective (3 vols.; Grand Rapids :
Zondervan, 1988-1992).
39 Joel A. Carpenter,
Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxford,
1997) 237.
40 For a similar judgment,
see Robert K. Johnston, "Orthodoxy and Heresy: A Problem for Modern
Evangelicalism," Evangelical Quarterly 69/1 (1997) 35.
41 For this description of
election, see, for example, Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction
to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994) 669.
42 Hiebert, Anthropological
Reflections 116.
43 Tanner, Theories of
Culture 56.
44 See Imre Lakatos,
"Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes,' in
Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (ed. Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave; Cambridge : Cambridge
University Press, 1970)
132-33.
Source: Journal of the Evangelical Theological
Society, June 2002.
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