Evangelicals and Origins
Gary Wills is an emeritus professor of history at Northwestern, a Pulitzer Prize winner, a columnist in respected intellectual organs — and an outspoken liberal Catholic who frequently criticizes the Church for its reactionary sins. He recently reviewed Frances FitzGerald's The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, for the New York Review of Books. In the review, titled "Where Evangelicals Come From," he summarizes and largely endorses Mrs. FitzGerald's views on evangelicals. (I have not read Mrs. FitzGerald's book, so I am accepting Wills' friendly characterization of it.)
Dr. Wills has historically been suspicious of the political and religious aims of evangelicals, and here he continues in that tradition. He adopts a disparaging tone, assumes bad intentions, lifts quotes out of context, etc. (See an example at Fn. 1 below.) All of that is to be expected from him and from the NYRB, but still his diagnosis of evangelicalism is worth examining. Wills (echoing FitzGerald) highlights the following characteristics of evangelicalism:
Evangelical religion is revival religion, that of emotional contagion. It can best be characterized, for taxonomic purposes, by three things: crowds, drama, and cycles.
By "crowds," Willis means not just that evangelical preachers have been successful in reaching large audiences, but that they exploit the self-sustaining psychology of the crowd, using numbers to convey legitimacy since they were otherwise outsiders. "The preacher was credentialed not by church authorities but by the size of his crowd and its responses to him — by the number of souls he saved."
Wills uses "drama" to refer to evangelicals' purported "urgency to be saved at once," an urgency which springs "from an awareness that the end is near" – not just the believer's personal death but the end of the entire world. "The impending battle of Armageddon can fill every moment of the believer’s life with drama. Any moment we may leap out of time straight into eternity."
Finally, Wills says evangelicalism is characterized by "cycles." He writes, "[Evangelicals] do seem repeatedly to disappear, only to reemerge unexpectedly," when "[v]arious crises, real or perceived, make the apocalypse plausible again." He draws examples from over the decades including the public debates over evolution, communism, feminism, homosexuality, etc.
In my opinion, these three criteria comprise a very weak taxonomy of evangelicalism. To begin with, these criteria are so vague they could describe almost all successful movements. What movement is without crowds? What movement is sustained without a sense of imminent purpose? What movement has no ebb and flow?
Moreover, these features are alien to the experience of numerous evangelicals. For example, many mega-churches emphasize the importance of Christians discipling one another in small groups; frequently that is a larger part of the church-going experience than the weekly worship service. Where is the psychology of crowds in that?
Reading between the lines, Wills wants to characterize evangelicals as less intellectual and more emotional than other believers. Evangelicalism "prefers... emotion over slower religious reasonings." But his evidence for this — worshippers and preachers experiencing "paroxysms," "seizures," mass hysteria — is nowhere to be found in the evangelical churches I've attended. No doubt it is present among some evangelicals, but perhaps this just reflects the normal variation of 'rationally-disposed' and 'emotionally-disposed' people in the general population. Is there any reason to think that ratio is different among evangelicals than among the general population?
What is most telling about Wills' taxonomy is that it is cast in wholly sociological terms, not religious ones. Even if "crowds, drama and cycles" are accurate and distinctive features of evangelicalism, they are fundamentally collective ones — even though being an evangelical is above all else a personal religious commitment.
Why doesn't Wills acknowledge this most obvious feature of evangelicalism? Evangelicals are people for whom the Gospel of Christ is really important. A better trinity of criteria might be Gospel centrality, Gospel transformation, and Gospel universality. That is to say, evangelicals believe nothing in life or in the world is as important as the Gospel; they believe that the Gospel should radically transform our individual lives; and they believe that the Gospel is good news that should be communicated to everyone. In an article purporting to explain what is distinctive about America's evangelicals, it is strange that Wills never mentions these key religious beliefs, much less explains why evangelicals believe them or how they are impacted by them. Does Wills ignore the centrality of the Gospel to evangelicals because he is offended they see themselves as more faithful than other believers... like himself? (By way of contrast, here's an article in Christianity Today reflecting on the historical and religious meaning of "evangelical.")
When Wills' does dip his toe into doctrinal waters, he seizes upon ancillary issues. For example, looking for an example of evangelical drama, Wills highlights the debate between "postmillenialism" and "premillenialism," two views about the end of the world that were particularly hot topics among evangelicals in the first half of the 20th century. Wills argues that views about this issue shape evangelical identity — but in 40+ years of attending evangelical churches, I have heard the issue discussed perhaps a half dozen times and with only academic interest. No doubt some people have passionate beliefs about it, but the idea that this particular interpretive nicety exemplifies evangelical dramatics is absurd at this point in American church history.
In short, Wills seems to seize upon ancillary and variable elements of evangelicalism, while ignoring the central, defining features. Does this illustrate the oft-reported problem of America's left hand not knowing what the right is doing (and vice versa)? We can't expect to make much progress on our differences if we can't even get straight on what the 'other side' believes or why.
If you wish to discuss this post with me, I'd welcome receiving an email from you. Please email me at language.on.holiday@gmail.com.
Fn. 1: For example, after correctly identifying the deep tension in evangelical thought between withdrawing from the broader culture and engaging with it, Wills tries to smear those advocating for greater separation. Carl McIntire was a prominent mid-century Presbyterian pastor who advocated for separatism due to fears of accommodation. Wills writes that McIntire believed "the proper response to nonbelievers is 'attacks, personal attacks, even violent attacks'" – hinting that McIntire advocated violence against non-Christians.
That ludicrous claim is only made possible because Wills delicately lifts the "attacks" phrase completely out of context. The phrase appears in McIntire's 1952 book, The Testimony of Separation, in which he warns believers that they will suffer attacks, not commit them.
Separation [from unfaithful churches]... involves loss of friendships, positions, stained glass windows, family ties, manses, pensions, properties, ecclesiastical standing.... Separation involves controversy – hard, grueling controversy. It involves attacks – personal attacks, even violent attacks. It involves salaries, food, houses; it tests faith. It involves the attempts of those on the other side to confuse in every way possible.... [quoted in McIntire (Xulon: 2012), by Gladys Titzck Rhodes & Nancy Titzck Anderson]
To read this passage about the trauma of separation as an incitement to physical violence betrays Wills' motivations much more than McIntire's.