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Theological Forum

Vol. XXV, No. 1, May 1997

 

The Evangelical Movement and the Reformed Disposition.

Strong and Weak Points.


Cees van der Kooi



Is it possible for churches with a Reformed identity at the end of the twentieth century to ignore the evangelical movement with impunity? What is the message of these churches for the evangelical movement and vice versa? The observations and answers which will be given in what follows are naturally stamped by a very definite context, namely, that of the Dutch society. Nonetheless it is likely that observations and answers will offer sufficient points of contact in order to render service in other societal constellations.

I. Evangelical

At the outset we must ask ourselves what is meant precisely by the "evangelical movement"? In our country we discern a gradation of groups and organizations which have regular contact with each other within the Evangelical Alliance. There is a variety of groups that concentrate on youth and evangelization, social action, aid to drug addicts, independent evangelical congregations, organizations focused on the creation of study materials, leisure time activities, and work in media. I shall not even begin to try to list these groups by name. Without doubt I would forget a couple, here and there it would appear that my information is no longer up to date, or I would blunder in other ways . But perhaps such easily made mistakes are related to the field of the evangelical movement itself. There are numerous small and even tiny organizations that are all manifestations of what we typify as evangelical. But above all our concern is naturally with the people who in one way or another have appropriated for themselves this manner of believing. Together they represent in greater or lesser measure something of a style of believing that we designate with the term evangelical. What do we mean by this? Permit me to venture a description and begin with that which is most striking. Distinctive of evangelical persons is their concentration on a personal faith in Jesus Christ, and an effort to give shape to fellowship with God in personal life by means of Bible reading and prayer. The gospel is confessed as the trustworthy message of salvation and redemption. One acquires a relationship with God by consciously entrusting oneself to him and by accepting Jesus Christ as Redeemer. Evangelical Christians are strongly aware that they live in a culture wherein the Christian faithand certainly a personally confessed faithhas become a sociological and cultural minority phenomenon. There is a clear line of demarcation between faith and unbelief, knowing God and not knowing him, between Christians and non-Christians. And it is important for the present and the future that people heed the invitation contained in the gospel. The gospel is a matter of eternal weal or woe. Consequently, there is a clear focus on evangelization, on carrying the message abroad.
Further typical of the evangelical movement is that, with respect to the contents of the faith, proponents wish to follow the pathway of orthodoxy. Theologically, evangelicals want to keep themselves far removed from every form of free thinking or liberalism because this detracts from the redemptive character of the faith. They are sensitive whenever doubts arise in the churches whether some persons are indeed in all points as orthodox as their language and formulations might lead one to expect. I shall return to this because it plays a role in the process of mutual interchange.
As to the content of the faith there is little or no need of alteration. It is wholly otherwise with the form. Evangelicals attempt to follow contemporary modes optimally and if possible even to be in the forefront with respect to the form in which the message is conveyed. Good examples of this in The Netherlands are the Evangelical Broadcast (Evangelische Omroep) as a whole and in particular in its youth days and the annual Flevo-festival organized by Youth for Christ. The impact is massive, the music hard and modern, the program varied. A group identity is offered and is directed to problematics that young people recognize. While the ecclesiastical youth work of the large churches is waning or wiped away completely for want of identity, youth work is blooming in the field of the evangelical movement. Clearly, evangelical groups consistently succeed better than ecclesiastical youth work in providing a distinguishing identity, both socio-psychologically and in terms of confessional content.


II. The Reformed Disposition

And Reformedwhat is that? Many books have been written on the subject. In any case we must assert that the Reformed disposition is a collective name for various groups that all have something to do with Calvin. Yet undeniably they are rather different. One can think of Reformed as denoting the groups which, with respect to their faith experience were influenced by the Second Reformation with its appeal to personal faith experience or the inner encounter (bevinding). One finds Christians of this type, among others, in the Reformed Alliance in the Netherlands Reformed Church (NHK), and one finds them in the Christian Reformed Church (CGK). With Reformed one can mean those churches that issued from the Secession and the Doleantie, in short, the present-day Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (GKN). In these churches [GKN] the doors are definitely open much wider to culture and the world than is the case with other groups of Reformed adherents. The result has been that precisely in these churches the chill wind of secularization has blown hard. Whatever one might judge further concerning these churches, the issues of modern culture and theology have been taken on by them. Questions concerning the nature of the authority of the Bible and concerning hermeneutics have not been avoided in these churches. My definite impression is that presently people in other sectors of the Reformed persuasion, sometimes without being aware of it or proclaiming it from the housetops, profit from what has come to light in these discussions. Perhaps they can avoid the mistakes and harvest the good results. We get a totally different picture when we step outside The Netherlands and view the influence of the evangelical movement in the United States. It seems that the independent, free, evangelically tinted churches exercise enormous influence over the leadership of the large denominations. The churches of the evangelical movementat least, this is the impressiongrow and are successful in the formula they follow. Also here the characteristics noted earlier are evident. The content of the preaching and the message viewed confessionally are orthodox and at times can be called fundamentalist, while the packaging of the message is very modern (as in the Willow Creek Community in Chicago and the Sunshine Church in Grand Rapids).

III. Points to be learned from the Evangelical Movement

What can Reformed Churches learn from this current?

A. A strong point in the evangelical movement is the awareness that the gospel touches the individual person. The Word of God which comes to us in the Bible is pointed toward the unique person. The individual is addressed and challenged to give an answer. The accent lies on the fellowship God exercises with each one personally. This concern for the personal life of faith involves a further concern people in these circles have for ways to carry on this personal relationship. The Bible is read in a "quiet time;" space is created for prayer and meditative involvement with God's Word. In these circles I have myself experienced as one of the beneficial fruits the invitation to take seriously the promissory character of specific Bible words. To cite something that I have personally experienced as a good thing, the promises of the gospel as contained in 1 John 5:11 and 12 can, in this relationship with God, become words one carries in one's heart. I was invited to let them be real. They express a truth arising from my own heart that transcends my circumstances.

B. I mentioned prayer. In evangelical circles one is taught to pray. Prayer belongs to life's ordinary things. That is a gain. Prayer is not only for the great moments in life, for what is decisive, but can also be something that happens in life's routines"while you're wearing your cap,"something that has to do with the so-called little things that still make up the lion's share of daily experience.

C. A strong point is the focus on communicating the gospel to others. Herein lies a great difference from the large churches. The focus on making known the good news and on conversion has disappeared from sermons and religious life. People are embarrassed by it and immediately confuse it with petty soulwinning. In modern church circles the suspicion quickly prevails that the concepts of mission and evangelization are concerned only with winning a few little souls. It is stressed that mission and evangelization are not possible without all kinds of diaconal ministry. The result of this awareness is that the message of the gospel is made identical to diaconal service or humaneness. The poor state of theological knowledge plays a negative role in this matter. The conviction that God is gracious is actually transmuted into a commonplace, a platitude that no longer surprises or shocks. And because of this it is no longer so necessary to win others for the Christian faith. In reality the idea that being human is complete without God has been taken over from the surrounding culture.
In conservative circles something else can be at work. Even when congregations do officially confess that salvation is in no one else than Jesus Christ, it is possible that they in practice are inwardly focused and extremely closed communities, whose rituals and customs can only be understood by those who by birth and rearing know the ropes. The fear of opening oneself to methods and styles of action that call to mind the world outside one's own ecclesiastical heritage becomes so great that henceforth anxiety reigns. The conclusion seems clear to me: The churches can learn much from the evangelical movement when it comes to reaching young people with the gospel and reaching out to groups outside one's own circle.

D. As the last strong point I cite sanctification. In the evangelical movement people are convinced that the new life in Jesus Christ has consequences for the ordering of existence. Money, time, work, marriage and friendships are sectors where the differences are to be noted. Perhaps here and there the criticism can be levelled that in ethical matters a too anxious bearing exists that can lead to a strait-laced narrowmindedness in morals and customs. The criticism can also be made that in the evangelical world the forms of modern communication techniques take over so strongly that people again become uncritical. All in all, I regard it as a plus that in any case the quest for sanctification lives and that people let themselves be addressed with respect to it.

IV. Lessons to be learned

And the minuses? I point out in passing a couple of matters that have to do with the sociology of small and, especially, independent groups. There exists among evangelicals now and then a substantial dose of self-importance. In some groups one meets a disdain for the large churches and their theological liberalism, while at the same time they themselves hardly ever pose a theological question. One observes a cockiness that thrives in small, independent groups and is not corrected within a larger ecclesiastical union, or a martyr complex when an ecclesiastical headwind arises. Be this as it may, I shall limit myself to a number of theological points.

A. Reconciliation with God is conceived of onesidedly as personal. Reconciliation relates to the individual person, but this truth is distorted when it is thought that reconciliation only circles around the individual person or terminates there. When we read what the hope of God's children is according to Romans 8, then creation and her sighs also belong in the picture. The reconciled life with God and life under that promise involve also the question what this signifies for our society, for groups of people, for creation and culture, for industry and economy. It must be acknowledged that this broadening has found a reception with many evangelical Christians, certainly in their personal action and conduct. But now and then a methodistic limitation of redemption to the individual person intrudes, a limitation which is definitely not Pauline. The theology is narrower and weaker than their actual posture at times leads one to suppose.

B. In connection with this the criticism must be expressed that there lives in evangelical circles a too meager or scarcely developed awareness that God is the creator of the world and thus has a concern for the entire world. Little attention is paid to themes that traditionally within the churches of Calvinistic origin have been strongly developed and which provide a vision with respect to culture. The concern for politics, for culture, for the broader society, for the worldthese do not count as matters with which one needs to busy oneself directly. Put in theological language: the doctrine of personal salvation has more vitality than the awareness that the Father of Jesus Christ is also Creator and Lord of the world.

C. The emphasis on personal communion with God can take on all-too-familiar features and the lines of relationship are sometimes very short indeed. It is true that the children of God may approach God with their questions. In John's Gospel they are even called friends, but this New Testament emphasis on God's nearness must not be turned into an obliteration of boundaries and distinctions. Evangelical Christians must sometimes learn again to wipe their feet before they come before God, and to become observant of the difference between human beings and the holy God. The relation between God and human beings, also between God and the believer, never becomes so smooth and unproblematic that the cross no longer plays a role in this regard. God reaches us along the way of the crucified, that is to say, many times through hiddenness. Or, as I once heard someone say, if you try to cuddle up to God, you may experience a rude awakening.

D. Sanctification of personal life is important in evangelical christendom. People can be addressed regarding this, and this is a positive. It becomes negative when within one's own group people have an exact picture of how the other person ought to be. In some groups this leads to a normative bearing on the part of faithful members of the group. One may object that in a certain sense this is a socio-psychological phenomenon in every group. But as soon as the measuring rod for what is spiritual and what is unspiritual is laid down, pressure is applied. God's eye watches in agreement. I regard this as serious especially whenever no space is afforded to young people for finding their own identity as a result. The problem again is not only psychological; something theological also stands behind it. Whenever in our theology we have no eye for the fact that God's Spirit reaches more widely than our boundariesthan what we regard as desirable conduct or a good personalitywe will have a tendency to stereotype all that deviates from us. Love has become conditional, and God's love threatens to be identified with a group norm.

E. Activism. The majority of evangelical Christians will heartily acknowledge that they are saved by grace alone. One can regularly hear that evangelicals heartily endorse the "by grace alone, by faith alone" and "Christ only." Historically the accent on "by faith alone" had to do with the fact that the grace-character of salvation was emphasized. Regularly I get the impression in evangelical circles that the recognition of the gracious character of salvation applies indeed to the work of redemption in the narrower sense, but that it does not completely work through to the outside of that area. Is this the reason why the preaching of the evangelically minded preachers is so activistic in tone? The sermon becomes instruction concerning what one must do, the accent falls on what one personally has done, is doing, or must do. Briefly, what I earlier called a strong feature, the focus on the personal in faith, now casts a deep shadow. Now and then it is a very I-centered and activist thinking that rears its head, and it is hardly ever observed that the space of God's operation is broader, stranger, and more mysterious than we human beings often imagine.

F. With this I touch on the matter of church and covenant. For both concepts it is true that they are little developed or conceived very narrowly in the evangelical movement. People tend to understand the church in a congregationalist sense. The church is a society of likeminded, consciously believing people. That then also means that if things are not to your liking, transfer to another church or free congregation is relatively easy. The church is viewed as an incidental association that a number of believers have formed together. That the church is the result of God's initiative, the body of Christ into which we are taken up as membersthere is little conception of this. The origin of the church is placed in the people who at Peter's invitation let themselves be baptized, instead of the emphasis on the initiative on God's part that resounds through Question and Answer 54 of the Heidelberg Catechism: