Evangelicals and History

In recent years, something has happened to cut off evangelicals, particularly in the Church of England, from their historical roots. This has done enormous harm to the cause of evangelicalism, and made it particularly weak and vulnerable in the face of some modern movements and deviations, such as, liberalism, ecumenism and the charismatic movement. The renunciation of our history took place at Keele in 1967 and the significance of it has been brought home to me afresh by my recent reading of the biography of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones published in 1990.

In writing of the Keele congress John Stott stated:

Keele expressed the formal public, penitent, renunciation by evangelical Anglicans of that pietism which for too long had marred our life and our testimony. And by pietism, I mean an exaggerated religious individualism, a withdrawal from both the church on the one hand and the world on the other, into a personal godliness and a tight-closed ecclesiastical ‘in’ group, a retirement into a self-made security with God and with one another, a contracting out of our responsibility both to the visible church and to the world…

Pietism is an immature protective attitude of those who have not yet attained their majority. I don’t think therefore it is an exaggeration to say that the Keele Congress marked the coming of age of the current generation of evangelicals. Keele was the conscious emergence of evangelical Anglicans into maturity in the wider life of the church and the world. Keele marked for many of us our conversion from the negative and the defensive…

The opposite of pietism is involvement. We must say, therefore, that pietism is not the hallmark of true evangelicalism but rather a denial of it. Historically evangelicals have often been pietists but when they have been pietists they have not been true to their nature and calling.1

There are two things to be said about this statement. The first is that I believe it to be a misreading of earlier Evangelicalism. It was not cut-off from the life of the Church of England in the way described. Evangelicals were involved in its structures, and involved deeply. I am reminded of a leading Evangelical who said to me, that he was unable to attend the Keele Congress because that week he had to attend a meeting of the standing committee of the Church Assembly. Others could have testified to similar commitments. The supposed isolation was largely imaginary. Secondly, this is a classical case of throwing out the baby with the bath water. By the renunciation of the so-called pietism of the past evangelicals were, in fact, writing off evangelical history as well. To describe all evangelicalism prior to
Keele as pietist was both unjust and untrue. Such a rash judgment was bound to set up an alienation of contemporary evangelicals from their heritage and a separation from their history, which was to have the most serious and damaging results.

To read the entire Churchman article, click here.