Evangelicalism

Part of the problem was that, as Shaftesbury implies, Evangelicalism changed greatly over time. To analyze and explain the changes is the main purpose of this book. Yet there are common features that have lasted from the first half of the eighteenth century to the second half of the twentieth. It is this continuing set of characteristics that reveals the existence of an Evangelical tradition. They need to be examined, for no other criterion for defining Evangelicalism is satisfactory. An alternative way would be to appeal to contemporary opinion about who was included within the movement. That approach, however, risks being ensnared in the narrow perspective of a particular period. For polemical purposes the right of others to call themselves Evangelicals has often been denied, particularly in the twentieth century. The danger is that the historian may be drawn into the battles of the past. It is therefore preferable to identify adherents of the movement by certain hallmarks. Evangelicals were those who displayed all the common features that have persisted over time.

Evangelical apologists sometimes explained their distinctiveness by laying claim to particular emphases. The Evangelical clergy differed from others, according to Henry Venn (later Clerical Secretary of the Church Missionary Society) in 1835, 'not so much in their systematic statement of doctrines, as in the relative importance which they assign to the particular parts of the Christian System, and in the vital operation of Christian Doctrines upon the heart and conduct'. Likewise Bishop Ryle of Liverpool asserted that it was not the substance of certain doctrines but the prominent position assigned to only a few of them that marked out Evangelical Churchmen from others. By that criterion, Ryle was able to distinguish his position from that of the great number of late nineteenth-century High Churchmen whose message was similar to his own, whose zeal was eqvial to his own and who preached as much for conversions. They elevated certain doctrines surrounding the church and the sacraments to a standard of importance that he believed to be untenable. The tone of Evangelicalism permeated nearly the whole of later Victorian religion outside the Roman Catholic Church, and yet the Evangelical tradition remained distinct.

Likewise the ministers of the London Baptist Association set about defining Evangelicalism negatively. 'In our view', they announced in 1888, 'the word "evangelical”"has been adopted by those who have held the Deity of our Lord, in opposition to Socinianism; the substitutionary death of the cross, in opposition to Sacramentarianism; the simplicity of the communion of the Lord's Supper, in opposition to the doctrine of the Real Presence. It certainly has also further references... in opposition to those who deny the infallibility of Scripture on the one hand, and who assert another probation for the irnpenitent dead on the other.' One eye is constantly being cast over the shoulder at the ritualists and the rationalists. Instead of the joy of new discovery that pervades eighteenth-century lists of distinctives, there is a resolve to resist an incoming tide of error.

Preaching the gospel was the chief method of winning converts. Robert Bickersteth, Bishop of Ripon from 1857 to 1884, held that 'no sermon was worthy of the name which did not contain the message of the Gospel, urging the sinner to be reconciled to God'. There was a danger, Evangelical preachers believed, of offering only comfort from the pulpit. Hearers needed to be aroused to concern for their spiritual welfare. If the delights of heaven were described, so were the terrors of hell. Jonathan Edwards, the American theologian who stands at the headwaters of Evangelicalism, believed in insisting on the reality of hell; Joseph Milner, an erudite early Anglican Evangelical, would preach sermons on topics like 'The sudden destruction of obdurate offenders'.