The Younger Evangelicals

BOOK REVIEW

Most of the younger evangelicals were born since 1975 and know little of twentieth century evangelical history. The younger evangelicals are different from traditional and pragmatic evangelicals which are the two dominant evangelical groups at the end of the twentieth century.

The younger evangelicals appeared at the end of twentieth century they are linked with the history and developments of the entire century, and they know about the movements of that century. The evangelical story of the twentieth century stands in the tradition of the “impulse to reform the church” determined by the cultural context of twentieth century. The spirit of rational inquiry and confidence in scientific knowledge resulted in the questioning of traditional Christianity. Doubts were raised about a supernatural worldview and the literal interpretation of scripture.  It resulted in doctrine of liberalism and Jesus was no longer viewed as a supernatural being but a prophet.

The conservatives reacted against the liberal message and conflicts arise between fundamentalist and liberals, which gave birth to evangelical reform which was different than reformation, pietism, Puritanism, evangelical awakening and revivalism. In the twentieth century evangelicalism has shaped the mindset of the twentieth century evangelical. Three movements of evangelical thought have dominated the last seventy five years. They are fundamentalism, neoevangelicalism and diversity evangelicalism. These movements created a proliferation of churches, mission agencies, publishing houses, social organizations, colleges, Bible schools, seminaries, theological systems and ethical rules. The evangelical history of the twentieth century has three cycles

i)                    Origin of the fundamentalist movement 1910-1925

ii)                  Anti-intellectual, Antiecumenical, Anti-social concern 1925-1945

iii)                Prointellectual, Proecumenical, Pro-social concern 1945-1966

iv)                The period of widening in intellectual expressions, relationship and social concern 1966-2000.

Evangelical groups follow a cycle of birth led by charismatic leaders. Each new movement follows the pattern of becoming organized and eventually institutionalized. Later, a new group breaks from the parent group and the cycle begins again. The younger evangelicals represent the first new cycle of the twentieth century. Older cycles continue to exist and minister, generally with decreasing effectiveness. Many sub groups exist within evangelicalism, but the traditional, pragmatic, and younger evangelicals represent the main voices of evangelicalism at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The Character of Younger evangelicals they grew in postmodern world, Have recovered the human understanding of human nature, Aware of new context of ministry, Differ with the pragmatist approach to ministry, Minister in a new paradigm of thought, Stand for the absolutes of the Christian faith in a new way, Recognize the road to the future runs through the post, Committed to the plight of the poor, Willing to live by the rules, Facility with technology, Highly visual and Communicate through stories, Grasp the power of imagination, Ready to commit, Realize the unity between thought and action

The Young Evangelical Thinkers

The pragmatic evangelicals’ responds to postmodern culture and those postmodern Christians are trying to redefine the relation of faith and knowledge, that instead of coming to the faith rationally, true knowledge requires the Holy Spirit to work an ontological change in human heart. In short it is a reaction against the modern with enlightenment that privileged rationality. The evangelicals are embracing tradition and no one tradition can completely encompass the whole. The younger evangelical is returning to the basics, the traditions that have lasted for centuries. This new shift toward basics affirmed by the whole church prepares the church for its twenty first century battle with post modern relativism and for its comparison with world religions.

Communication- from print to cultural transmission

The younger evangelicals are placed within the communication revolution that takes place since the sixties. They are shaped by new forms of communication and will hear and communicate the Christian faith in a new way. Major shift in culture occurs with an observable shift in communication. The early church mediated the message to different audiences; in this new era mediation of faith into a new culture requires a different approach. The method of communication must change because the culture has changed. This century is an era of communication and younger evangelicals understand it from experience, but not by mere observation.

Brief history of communication

Oral communication

Communication in biblical times was primarily oral. The primacy on the spoken word, which was handed down in stories (patriarchs), parables (proverbs), wisdom literature (Ecclesiastes), and in apocalyptic language (Daniel and Revelation). This oral tradition was not of individual but of communities. This ancient form of communication is called “cultural transmission”. In other words one generation told and handed over the stories to another generation. These stories communicated the meaning of the world- in origin, its meaning, its future. Communication occurred through immersion in the stories and shared wisdom of the community which conveyed the Christian vision of reality. Communication did not occur by formal method of education but simply through lived experience, involvement and participation.

Print communication

The invention of Printing press and media changed the ancient cultural transmission. The invention of press fueled reformation and accounts the difference between pre-modern and modern forms of communication. Shift occurs from culture based to didactic methods. Spiritual formation shifted from participating in community to learning doctrine from printed material examined analytically and affirmed intellectually. Faith was now set forth not in great cathedrals, works of art, and images but in confessions, catechisms, hymns, and sermons that presented Christianity in written form- words to be studied, analyzed, believed and confessed.

Christianity went through an enormous shift from the oral/visual/communal to the verbal/ confessional/individual. During sixties a reversal takes place from oral/visual/communal to cultural transmission. The younger generation was persuaded by their immersion in culture, it has come back.

The audio visual communications revolution

            Sixties was the dawn of electronic and technological society in which we now live. The audio visual medium of communication is the key to interpreting our culture. The younger evangelicals are affected by this revolution because this period made a shift in communication. For them the message of faith is primarily the effect it produces in me. Secondly, faith is communicated through complex and variegated means. Thirdly, the content of communication is the listener as he/she is affected by the message.

Pragmatists and the media revolution

            The evangelicals are the leaders in use of new technology and communication media to spread the gospel. They were the first to see the potential of radio. They quickly gravitated to television and are now moving to internet. They used overhead projector, slide projector and now power point presentation. But pragmatists rejected the media revolution and followed the CEO model of church. Building big churches and helping poor.

Communication revolution and younger evangelicals

The younger evangelicals has embraced a more cultural form of communication and applied these communication principles to ministry. Younger evangelicals embrace the new audio and visual forms of communication; reject the restrictions of print communication with its emphasis on knowing primarily through rational means. They also embrace the more emotive, imaginative and symbolic forms of communication. The younger evangelicals were born, reared and educated within the new forms of communication and the post modern world. The church shift from reliance on print communication to the recovery of the ancient concept of communication through immersion and participation in community is a distinct mark of the younger evangelicals.

From a historical to tradition

            A significant movement calling Christians back to tradition of the church is ‘Radical Orthodoxy’. This movement has attracted worldwide attention among non evangelical Christians and is being read seriously by younger evangelicals. Younger evangelicals are attracted to the assertion that theology is the “Queen of the sciences” During the modern era, theology lost its place among the disciplines. There was a time when all the disciplines were interpreted through modernity, reason, science, psychology, sociology and other disciplines emerged as the independent disciplines of knowledge. Radical orthodoxy proclaims the modern approach which studied theology through secular disciplines is bankrupt. Younger evangelicals see Radical orthodoxy as a promising theological movement. It reclaims the world by situating its concerns and activities within theological frame work. The agenda of younger evangelicals is to break the reliance of evangelical Christianity on its accommodation to modern culture and to restore Christian memory by returning evangelical faith to its roots in classical Christianity.

The younger evangelical emerges with a new love for the past and a commitment to the notion that the road to the future runs through the past. They express their involvement in the cultural transmission of the faith.  They want to immerse themselves in the past and form a culture that is connected to the past, a culture that remembers its tradition as it moves into future.

Theology- From propositionalism to nature

During the modern period the primacy of reason gave rise to arguments for or against the existence of God. Both believers and nonbelievers followed the rules of evidence to arrive at statements to support or deny the propositional statement, God is. They had good reason to believe or disbelieve this proposition. Those who believed were convinced that they knew something about God through God’s revelation of himself and interpret in terms of reason. Those who did not believe were quite confident that their knowledge of the origin and working of the world was based on reason and science. In twenty first century world the attitude toward the use of reason shifted rather significantly. The new attitude born out of cultural shifts is that the use of reason and science to prove or disprove a fact is questionable. The younger evangelicals see theology as the way to understand the world. It is an understanding based on the biblical narrative. This is the approach to faith that has captured the postmodern mind. Postmoderns have abandoned the modern view in which the supremacy of interpretation is given to science. Younger evangelicals call us to see the world primarily through the creation story. They believe God revealed in the great events of creation, incarnation, and recreation, interpreted first by the prophets and apostles in scripture, protected in creeds, and handed down to us in the worship of the church. Their vision stands within the historic confession of faith. Theology is not science but a reflection of God’s community on the narrative of God’s involvement in history as found in the story of Israel and Jesus.

Apologistics- From rationalism to embodiment

Many younger evangelicals have shifted to the communal affirmations of faith which are rooted in the early consciousness of the Christian church and which have been handed down in the life of the church and its worship. The modern distortion focused from secular notion that truth can be determined by reason outside of the Christian community. The future of evangelism lies in the rejection of this modernist notion and in the affirmation of the historic tradition that truth is embodied in the incarnate Christ, revealed in the narrative of Israel and Jesus, interpreted in the writings of scripture, and embodied and handed down in the local church as a living experience of truth in a particular time in history, geographical area and in a particular person. The younger evangelicals reject the rational and evidential apologetics of the traditionalists. They have strong sense of embodied apologetics.

Ecclesiology- From Invisible to visible

The younger evangelicals are committed to start up churches. Churches were established in modern pattern which make them as church planters. There is no tradition or denominationalism the younger evangelicals find open minds and hearts to the fresh winds of the gospel and most of them are poor. The younger evangelicals differ with the traditionalists and the pragmatists. They reject the traditionalist notion of the purity of the church or the great commission ecclesiology as too reductionistic. They have turned away from the mega church movement to find a visible smaller fellowship of believers drawn from all the traditions that affirms the whole church and seeks to embody Christ’s presence in a particular neighborhood.

Being Church- From Market to mission

The mega Church is not only church it’s an experience of a megamovement an environment much like a theatre, a worship that is much like a presentation, a show in some cases. There is no question that this type of churches will “sell”. Since 1980 the phenomena of the megachurch and of church growth principles have been the topic of conversation. We can found out traditional church shrink as the contemporary church has grown. The problem of traditional church is it immersed in culture. For younger evangelicals church is a counter culture. The church as the instrument of God is called to carry out God’s mission in culture, calling people to come under the reign of God through Jesus Christ. The calling of the church in every culture is to be mission. The church’s mission is to be the presence of the kingdom. Faith stands in the traditional pattern of metanoia, a turning from sin to come to Jesus and to be under his reign. Salvation involves membership in a community and decision to act. Conversion touches the heart and mind and includes a new ethical direction and a new communal dimension. The apologetic of the faith is based on the corporate witness to this metanoia. In the younger evangelical community the church is not a social organization, a political organization, or a health club. The younger evangelicals are interested in starting start up churches. The younger evangelicals stand in historic tradition, only one church of Jesus Christ which includes people from every culture and scattered across the world. Younger evangelical church is committed to growth, but being bigger and their idea is multiply by planting more start up churches. They are committed to cross- cultural ministry.

Pastors- From Power to servant hood

The issue of leadership in local church is a question in the early church. Church elders appointed deacons, in Acts 7 bishops, elders and deacons came together to solve the problem of gentile converts. In letter to Corinthians gifts, call were discussed, Paul delineates three functions of ministry oversight, teaching and service. By the end of first century church leadership was situated in bishops, presbyters and deacons; by the medieval period there were pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and deacons; by the seventeenth century a more democratic form of government congregationalism emerged; by the later part of twentieth century leadership in many evangelical churches was modeled on business and the power of CEO. The business model of church is out of step with two thousand years of history. The younger evangelicals call to servant leadership, which is based on biblical principles. Christian leadership is the opposite of the exercise of power, the CEO model because there is no evidence in Scripture. True model of Christian leadership is the servant model. The servant model is developed into a “team ministry” leadership; its goal is to work with the teams to facilitate the ministry of others. Younger evangelicals in traditional churches are frustrated with church bureaucracy who led them to leave churches that are run like business model, in start-up churches they don’t deal with committee structures and controlling bureaucrats. The new start-up church should be modeled on Jesus who spoke on synagogue who is certainly a charismatic leader. “I came to serve, not to be served” which leads us to be like servants and ministers of each other. This model of leadership is a new kind for twenty first century.    

Youth Ministers- From parties to prayer

Youth ministry needs to be put into historical perspective; the concept of youth ministry is a phenomenon of last century. The study about youth led to formation of new word namely adolescent, and different theories emerged about them. So the church has developed various ministries for them, based on the change experienced in society. Each new generation is shaped by a new set of cultural values. Youths of this century were the first generation media phenomenon, rapid cultural change, hippie generation, experience of all pervasive rise of music; they throw away tradition and traditional values, a time of globalization etc. The contemporary Christian movement applied a radical contextual approach to reach this culture with the Christian message. The younger evangelicals and the youths want smaller groups, smaller space, and fewer people, but deeper relationships, lifelong friendship. The churches greet youth with pasty, phony smiles and condescending trite conversation. They want the church to be friendly with genuine commitment to a relationship based on self giving. The youths are facing lot of changes in family, job, economic, global culture, advanced technology, spirituality of New Age, terrorism. The future youth ministry must be rooted in an embodied apologetic, reach youth with evangelism by narratives. Youth work oriented around programs, parties, skits, entertainment, market driven techniques of the past must be changed to Bible study, prayer, and healing based on committed relationships and nonjudgmental understanding of the brokenness of the lives of today’s youth. It is driven by a missional understanding of the church and by a commitment to be an embodied presence of Jesus in and to the world.

Educators- From information to formation

Information is important only if it leads transformation, information without transformation is pointless. The purpose of theology is to develop character and wisdom. Theology is taught from the point of objective science. Younger evangelicals agree and feel knowledge is often taught apart from its life connection, especially biblical and theological knowledge. The younger evangelicals want is more information but a Christian way of thinking. The emphasis is not on memorizing Bible information but entering into biblical story and new approaches have been taken in leadership training. In many places seminary education is in crisis and training for ministry is shifting to alternative approaches. There are various factors for the shift some are:  The curriculum reflects modernity, students listen to text of culture, especially the culture of poor and oppressed. The younger evangelicals want theology from traditional yet creative and applicable way. They long for training that will lead to wisdom and spiritual leadership. Educational institutions are decreasing influence. Leaders must recognize that education in the seminary and in the church should be more than the accumulation of information and knowledge. True education forms character, wisdom, spiritual sensitivity, and servant hood leadership and it is not only knowledge but knowledge embodied and lived out individually and in community.

Spiritual formation- From legalism to freedom

Younger evangelicals desire a piety that has tradition behind, communal and participated by Christians always and everywhere, characterized by structure and freedom. They found this kind of spirituality in the ancient, more enduring forms of piety discarded by the modern innovative leaders. This piety of ancient and medieval Christianity draws young people like a magnet. For many younger evangelicals piety is not so much that of keeping the rules of evangelism but more that of keeping the rule of spirituality especially the rule established in and passed down from the great ancient and medieval traditions of the spiritual life. 

Worship leaders- From program to Narrative

Changes are affecting the approach of the younger evangelicals in practice of Sunday worship. Younger evangelicals seem to understand that worship celebrates the story of God’s work in history through the proclamation of the word and the enactment of the Eucharist. The content of worship is clear. Worship is the mission Dei, presented, celebrated and thankfully praised. It has to do with God and the praise given to God for the salvation of the world. For this reason worship is not presentational, it is not outreach but upreach. Worship is a gathering to remember the story, to let this story tell us who we are and to allow the story to form us into the people of God. This shapes the order of worship, the experience of the Eucharist, the use of symbol and the recovery of Christian year. Worship is changing significantly among the younger evangelicals.

Artists- From Constraint to expression

Beauty was not considered to be important to the Christian faith. The mega church movement added a new wrinkle to the evangelical view of the arts. The place of worship doesn’t look like churches and avoided Christian symbolism. They brought music and life oriented skit into the church which is a kind of art as illustration. An artist works with tradition and establishes a relationship with his or her tradition. The historic view of the arts found in the great works of art associated with the ancient Orthodox Church, the medieval era, and the Christian artists of the renaissance period. The younger evangelical is significantly different from his or her evangelical predecessors when it comes to art. They are adapting word- oriented culture of modern evangelicalism the new dimension art.

Evangelists- From rallies to relationship

The younger evangelicals are unique when approaching the question of evangelism. They are passionate about introducing people to Jesus. They are highly aware that conversion is not individualistic and it is no panacea for life’s problem. They differ from the pragmatic evangelicals in profile, more understand, and more committed to lifelong transformational relationships in small groups. Groups are intended for long haul relationships as opposed to the mega church use of groups, which are usually intended for rapid division and multiplication. The younger evangelicals are committed to a missional evangelism in their immediate neighborhood, an evangelism that is committed to making disciples and embodies the authentic reality of Christ in all of life.

Activists- From theory to action

Younger evangelicals are not separatists did not build cities, not developed language of their own, no political power, work in economic sphere, drive cars, and live in every city, town and village. As Christians of the early church rejected the way of the world, the younger evangelicals are separating themselves from the ideologies of the world, which occurs both in individual level and corporate role. The younger evangelicals aware that they live in a post- constantinian world, a world where the church and state are separate. Younger evangelicals like all of us are caught in the tension of being citizens of this country yet members of the church an alternative worldwide community whose ultimate priority is found in the words of the Lord’s Prayer. Throughout the history the church has struggled with the continual temptation to confuse the church with the nation. The church is not the nation, it is the body of Christ and the younger evangelicals understand this. The church transcends all national and cultural boundaries and draws from every tribe and nation. It is not about the politics of the world but the politics of Jesus, the living out of kingdom principles. Nations work is to rule the people, to govern the well being of the people, to restrain evil, to promote the good and the welfare of its people. The church’s function is to bear witness. Christians have the responsibilities to the state we have responsibility to obey its rules when they do not conflict with our heavenly citizenship, to pay our taxes, to love our neighbors. As citizens of a country be patriotic, proud of our country, support it in prayer and participation.