Content - Theology Category

Dive Deep into the Theology of Lent and Easter

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:29:00 GMT

As we prepare for the sacred seasons of Lent and Easter, there's no better time to reflect deeply on the theology of Christ's passion, death, resurrection, and ascension.

Including both accessible reads to in-depth studies, this collection will help you reflect on Christ's passion, death, and resurrection as you journey toward Easter.

Keep reading to learn more about these featured books, each with a brief description to help you choose the perfect companion for your Lenten and Easter reflections.

15 Essential Books for New Seminary Students

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 11:00:00 GMT

Unlock deeper understanding and spiritual growth with this must-have collection of books tailored to guide you through your seminary journey. These books will help you build a solid theological foundation, inspire spiritual reflection, and equip you for faithful service as you start your seminary journey.

Whether you are just beginning your theological education or seeking to further your scholarship, this collection has something for every new seminary student. These books provide the tools to build a solid foundation for faithful ministry and lifelong learning.

Fall Conferences Roundup: Noteworthy Titles from IVP Academic

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 17:48:00 GMT

Fall Conferences Roundup: Noteworthy Titles from IVP Academic

A Conversation on Luke-Acts with Michael F. Bird

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 15:08:00 GMT

A Conversation on Luke-Acts with Michael F. Bird

5 Ways Seminary Deepened My Appreciation of Different Theological Perspectives

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 14:39:00 GMT

5 Ways Seminary Deepened My Appreciation of Different Theological Perspectives

A Conversation on Greco-Roman Mythology and New Testament Studies with Sandra Glahn

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 15:08:00 GMT

A Conversation on Greco-Roman Mythology and New Testament Studies with Sandra Glahn

A Conversation on Renewal Worship with Steven Félix-Jäger

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 14:53:00 GMT

All Christian worship is led by the Holy Spirit. But is there a distinctive theology of Pentecostal worship? In this interview, author Steven Félix-Jäger discusses Spirit-led doxology, implications for the global church, and his own experience of sensing the presence of the Holy Spirit in worship.

Your book Renewal Worship argues that while all worship is Spirit-led, the renewal movement or Pentecostal church offers a distinctive theology of worship. What is distinctive about its doxology?.

Steven Félix-Jäger: Pentecostals and charismatics practice expressive, embodied worship that features an expectation for encountering the Holy Spirit individually and corporately in the communal gathering. They see worship as both the reception of and response to the Spirit's overflow and the visualization of what is to come. Renewal worship uses the Acts 2 account of Pentecost as a guiding theological motif to underscore a theology that is pneumatocentric, eschatological, and steeped in the Pentecostal narrative tradition. What Pentecostals hold to be true is expressed in their worship, and their worship informs what they know to be true.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well that those who worship God must "worship in the Spirit" (Jn 4:24). Can you give one example of a time when you sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit in worship?

Félix-Jäger: The primary expected outcome of Pentecostal worship is to sense the presence of the Holy Spirit, so there are countless examples of times when I sensed the Spirit's presence in worship. One moment sticks out particularly well for me, though. When I was eighteen years old, I was a junior high youth intern and worship leader at a large charismatic Southern Baptist Church in central Florida. On our way to a missions trip in Nashville, we stayed the night at a large Baptist church in Georgia. After settling in, me and about ten other students and youth workers decided to hold an impromptu worship service in one of the smaller rooms.

As was customary in those days, we got stuck singing "Let It Rain". . . for a long time! The Spirit was so tangibly present in the room—the air felt thick. At the end of our singing, we prayed and felt renewed and empowered, having dwelt in the presence of God together. When we left the room, the junior high youth pastor looked at us a bit askance and asked, "Did you know you were all singing in tongues?" We were amazed. Everything we heard was in English, but those outside the room heard something different. That was, for me, a pretty radical time of renewal worship.

Why do you think some Christians have difficulty attending to the Holy Spirit, and what are the implications of that for the church's worship?

Félix-Jäger: In our Western context, we've grown accustomed to appreciating artistic forms disinterestedly in stillness and reflection. Most cultures around the world, however, engage rituals and the arts holistically through embodied action. I think this is one of the reasons why Pentecostal worship resonates so well globally. Pentecostals also have a porous sense of the world, believing that the Spirit works in the miraculous even today. Pentecostals pray for and expect healings, signs, and wonders. Other traditions may have different theological emphases that give worshipers different points of focus. I believe every Christian tradition is valuable and offers something special to the kingdom of God, so the key is for each tradition to find its own authentic ways to worship in Spirit and in truth.

How do you think students, pastors, and worship leaders can benefit from your book and incorporate its insights into their ministry?

Félix-Jäger: After recognizing the lack of academic resources for renewal worship, I felt inspired—even called—to write on the subject. Studying renewal worship allows us to grasp what's going on with both the global Pentecostal movement and with Pentecostalism's influence on contemporary worship. This book offers a constructive theology of worship for Pentecostal and charismatic Christians, articulating theological language for commonly utilized renewal worship practices. By evaluating the worship practices of global Pentecostalism, this book can help students, pastors, and worship leaders understand the movement in general and global Christianity broadly.

What is your hope for those who pick up and read your book?

Félix-Jäger: I hope this book illuminates some of the many theological riches that are present in renewal worship. I like to apply Paul's image of church-as-body to Christian traditions. I believe every tradition is unique and significant and has much to offer the kingdom of God. Like the other traditions, Pentecostalism has much to offer as well. Let's find out what those riches are and learn from them. In true ecumenical spirit, I'd love to see worship traditions learn from each other and grow together. One day we're all going to worship together as we make up that great multitude in Rev. 7:9. Why not start now?

A Conversation on Defiant Faith with Bill and Will Kynes

Fri, 03 Jun 2022 16:32:00 GMT

How can we as Christians practice defiant faith in the face of suffering? In their book Wrestling with Job, Bill Kynes, a lifelong pastor, and his son Will Kynes, a Job scholar, guide readers on a journey through the book of Job. In this interview, they discuss their writing process, their personal connections to the book, and Job's powerful lessons on perseverance.

As a father and son, how did you decide to write a book together? What was your writing process like?

Bill Kynes: After thirty-one years of preaching in one church, I finally summoned the courage to preach a series of sermons on the book of Job. I was fortunate, however, to have a partner in this project: my son Will. Will had done his Cambridge PhD research on Job, and our weekly conversations provided insight and ideas that became an integral part of my preaching. This book attempts to share that process of integrating academic biblical scholarship with pastoral reflection that we enjoyed in those conversations.

Will Kynes: We haven't written anything formally together before, but conversations like those frequently contribute to the writing each of us does separately. More than that, there's hardly anything that I have written, going all the way back to my first feeble attempts at essays written on wide-ruled paper, that hasn't profited from my father's careful editorial eye. Writing this book was an enjoyable opportunity for me to return the favor. We started with my father's sermons and our recollections of the insights from biblical scholarship that we had discussed. We then agreed on further points of biblical scholarship that are important for a fuller understanding of Job, which I then wrote up. Then, we each had the opportunity to edit the other's work.

What is it about Job that makes the story so compelling to you?

Will: I have long had a passion for the book of Job going back to an experience I had with debilitating illness when I was living in Kenya after college. I read through the book then and was struck by how it was asking precisely the questions that I was struggling with, but the answers it offered were nothing like I expected them to be. That led to now nearly two decades of researching, writing, teaching, and speaking about the book.

Bill: As a pastor, I have seen people struggle with the conflict between what they believe about God's goodness and love and the hard things they sometimes have to endure. Job takes us into that struggle. As I preached through the book, I hoped that my exposition would help my listeners see that the Bible is realistic about life and its challenges and that Job provides a model of faith in the midst of suffering that we can all learn from.

I'm struck by your phrase "defiant faith" as it relates to Job. What does that mean? How might Job serve as a model to readers for their own defiant faith?

Will: We've noticed that readers of the Bible, both in the academy and the church, tend to separate faith in God from arguing with, complaining to, or even accusing God. Faith, it is often assumed, has to be submissive, and challenging God must be evidence of a lack of faith, of doubt or even skepticism. The book of Job demonstrates that this is a false dichotomy. Job holds together faith and defiance; more than that, he argues with God precisely because he has faith that God is good, just, and powerful enough to make things right.

Shockingly, though Job hasn't pulled any punches in his verbal battle with God, at the end of the book, God approves of Job's speech (Job 42:8-9) and rewards him for his faithfulness. This reflects a common response to suffering and injustice across the Hebrew Bible. Job joins the heroes of Israelite faith, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, the psalmists and prophets, in demanding that God make things right.

Your title, "Wrestling with Job," could mean "wrestling with the content in Job" or "wrestling alongside Job." Does one of these fit better to you?

Bill: That double meaning is intentional—we're glad you caught it! Job is a very difficult book to read, and we want to encourage our readers not to shy away from any of the challenges its content poses, but to wrestle honestly with them.

Why Christians Are People of the Book: A Theology of Publishing

Tue, 23 Nov 2021 20:32:00 GMT

By Al Hsu

Christians are People of the Book. But the Bible doesn't actually call us "people of the book." That phrase isn't in Scripture. It comes from the Koran. Islam refers to Jews and Christians as people of the book. The Koran says "If only the People of the Book had faith, it would be better for them,"¹ and "O ye People of the Book! Believe in what we have now revealed."²

So the phrase comes from Islam, in a somewhat disparaging way. But Christians have received it and taken it on as our own because it resonates with us. Puritans, Baptists, Methodists have all described themselves as People of the Book. Christian missionaries in Africa and Asia were known as People of the Book because of their focus on Bible translation and producing written versions of Scripture. It's consistent with our Christian history and theology.

The God Who Publishes

Theologically, it goes back to God's identity. Christians are People of the Book because God is God of the Book. John 1: In the beginning was the Word—the logos—and the Word was with God and the Word was God. We root our theology of publishing in two main themes: revelation and incarnation. Revelation: God has spoken. God communicates. God has a word for humanity. And incarnation: The Word has become flesh. God pitched his tent among us. God reveals the word in ways that we can hear and understand—in our own human language, embodied in local words. The divine Word is expressed and understandable in human language, using our communications media.

A key text for us is John 20:30-31: "Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

These are written that you may believe. This is a revolutionary statement. The Gospel writer has every confidence that this text, these written words, can bring someone to faith in Jesus. It's a contrast to mystery religions where you had to have some sort of secret knowledge or mystical experience. In Christian tradition, you can read a text in Greek, in Latin, in English, in your own heart language, and that text has the capacity to generate belief. It's revelational, it's incarnational. And for Christians, writing is not just informational. It's formational. It's transformational. The biblical writers were convinced that written texts could change people's lives. That's why the Scriptures were written. These markings on a page, pen and papyrus, somehow still conveyed all the transformative, revelatory power of God.

For Christians, writing is not just informational. It's formational. It's transformational.

Making Things Public

As publishers, we take on the ancient role of the herald. The herald's vocation is proclamation. The herald is an agent of the king. A king's herald declares to the inhabitants of a kingdom what needs to be known so that all in the realm may flourish.

If you want to see where publishing shows up in Scripture, read the old King James. The King James uses the word "publish" to describe the announcement of news.

Isaiah 52:7: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation."
Mark 1:45: "But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter."
Mark 13:10: "And the gospel must first be published among all nations."
Acts 13:49: "And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region."

The etymology of "publish" is to make something public. The work of publicity and PR (public relations) makes things public about a company, product, or individual. Good publicity means that good things are being said publicly about something, that someone's name is being spread more widely across a realm.

God is a publisher. He makes things known about himself. Jesus is a publisher, publishing good news across the land. And Christians are publishers, making public the story of Jesus. The Greek word euangellion, translated as "gospel," means "good news." In the first century, "gospel" had military connotations for when Caesar sent messengers to spread word that his reign had come to a new territory. We make public the reality of the life and ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, and its implications for all of humanity. Proclaiming the gospel is "good newsing."

Christian publishing is rooted in this sense of public proclamation and external witness. We are publishers in God's image. The king has good news for the world—his kingdom is at hand! Slaves will be set free, the blind will see, the lame will walk, the poor will rejoice. We are heralds of this king and publish this good news for all to hear.

God is a publisher. He makes things known about himself. Jesus is a publisher, publishing good news across the land. And Christians are publishers, making public the story of Jesus.

Heralds proclaim news to those both inside and outside the kingdom. To those who are not yet subjects of the king, the news is evangelistic and invitational. Come join this kingdom and find liberation and freedom in service to this king! To those who are already in the kingdom, the news is more educational, like civic lessons—here is what it means to be a citizen of this kingdom. This is how the kingdom works, and how you can grow and live as kingdom people.

So publishing is missional. Christian publishing focuses outward. And this is the difference between writing and publishing. A private journal may be devotional writing for personal reflection for the writer. But unless it is made public, it is not publishing.

Publishing requires an audience. As Andy Crouch puts it in his book Culture Making, culture making requires a public. "Culture making requires shared goods. . . . Until an artifact is shared, it is not culture." Christian publishing is a vocation with a public culture-making purpose. So a question for us: Who is your public? To whom are you making things public?

The Codex Revolution

Because publishing is incarnational, it takes form in the physical media of the day. As People of the Book, Christians were instrumental in developing the physical book—the codex. Parchment notebooks with leaves and covers. While Christians didn't invent the codex, they popularized it in a media revolution. In the Old Testament Jewish era and Greco-Roman era, books were rolls and scrolls. But in the first and second centuries, Christians were early adopters of the codex.

For the early church, the portability of the codex book meant that itinerant preachers could carry Scripture with them wherever they went. Christian writings didn't need to be housed in a synagogue but could travel on the road. In times of persecution, it was easier to hide a codex than a scroll. As the gospel went forth, it did so not only in word and deed, but also in conveniently carried books that enabled Christian mission and ministry to flourish.

Codices were convenient for preaching and teaching. Scrolls were good for sequential access, reading through a Gospel, but the codex was better for random access. A codex of Paul's letters was easier to use, because you wouldn't need to unroll past Romans and 1 Corinthians to get to Ephesians or Colossians. You could just open the codex to the right passage. Also, a codex was less expensive than a scroll. It was good stewardship; you could write on both sides of a page in a codex, not just one side of a scroll.

Codex books were the earliest Christian artifacts. Before art and architecture, before crosses and cathedrals, books were evidence of the early church. The codex became a distinguishing mark of early Christianity.

Being in codex form was a sign that writings were Christian. Acts 19:19 notes that in Ephesus, those who had practiced sorcery who became Christian publicly burned their (pagan) scrolls. Christian converts disavowed the textual forms of their old religion and adopted a new format for sacred texts. If you were a pagan, you had scrolls. If you were a Christian, you had codex books. As the church spread, Christian codices supplanted scrolls in the general book trade. Codex books were just 1.5% of books in the first century, but by the fourth century, they were fully half the market.

Codex books were the earliest Christian artifacts. Before art and architecture, before crosses and cathedrals, books were evidence of the early church.

By the second century, codices were compiled and canonized as the body of Scripture that we know as the New Testament. In the fourth century, Jerome's Latin translation was a biblioteca divina, a divine library. By the thirteenth century, it had shifted from "the books" to ta biblia, the Book. And then Christians launched another media revolution in the sixteenth century with the printing press and the Gutenberg Bible.

Publishing as a Missionary Order

We stand in the tradition of the scribes in the scriptoriums, the makers and keepers of the books. And these scriptoriums are missionary orders. Our work as editors is to commission and send out books to herald their messages to those who need to hear them. Publishing is a missional calling.

Books are little missionaries. Books can go places that we can't. One of IVP's authors is an extreme introvert and rarely travels. But her books have been translated into a dozen languages. She rejoices that they are going places that she would never go, and can speak to readers in heart languages that she could never learn.

And so it continues with us. Publishing is revelational, incarnational, transformational, missional. That's the tradition we have inherited, the vocation we're called to continue. May we go and do likewise, as People of the Book.

Evangelicalism in the Early Twenty-First Century

Fri, 08 Dec 2017 21:30:00 GMT

By Mark A. Noll

The word “evangelical” seems to be in trouble—but for two different reasons. In the rough and tumble world of American politics, the label is now often used simply to designate the most active religious supporters of President Donald Trump. By contrast, in the rarified world of professional scholarship, academics now sometimes treat it as a term with so much ambiguity, fluidity, and imprecision that it cannot meaningfully designate any single group of Christians. For both of these contemporary opinions, there are some admittedly good reasons. Yet stepping back for a longer view historically and a wider view internationally opens up another possibility: maybe the scholars are too fussy and the pundits too short-sighted.

My own interest in this issue is not merely academic since I serve as coeditor of the five-volume History of Evangelicalism Series by IVP. That experience leaves me with a personal stake in the question, but has also provided a number of unusually helpful insights. The five authors from three countries (or four if you consider Scotland as separate from England) explore developments in the British Isles (Ireland, Wales, and Scotland as well as England), North America (Canada as well as the U.S.), and the settler societies of the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa where evangelicalism out of Britain has exerted an enduring influence. To say the least, the series reveals extreme diversity among Protestant Christians who called themselves evangelicals or who have been so regarded by historical consensus. Yet commonalities of not only belief and practice, but also sentiment and instinct, are often as obvious as the diversity. The rewarding chance to work on the series has, in turn, provided a propitious angle from which to comment especially on questions of diversity, continuity, incoherence, and coherence raised by contemporary debates over the meaning of "evangelica" and "evangelicalism." It also points to a conclusion that the most significant present-day questions about the history of evangelicalism do not arise from American political turmoil but from the shape of world Christianity as a whole.

Does "evangelical" mean anything at all?

In the contemporary American narrative promoted by the media’s obsession with partisan politics, evangelicals are the white conservative voters who have gone from solidly supporting the Republican party (especially Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush) to giving even more overwhelming support to the nationalistic populism of Donald Trump. A big recent book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frances Fitzgerald presents this narrative in carefully researched detail. Entitled The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, it implies that its plot line—with three-fourths of its over 600 pages devoted to the white Christian Right—captures the essence of evangelicalism.¹

Neither this book nor the many other accounts that echo it are foolish. With 80% of white evangelicals, as identified by pollsters, voting for Donald Trump in 2016, and a similar percentage affirming their approval of his presidency to date, it is obvious why accounting for white evangelical support of right-wing nationalism remains a prominent feature of American political analysis.

Yet if the identification of white American evangelicals as a right-wing political force makes considerable sense, the limitations of that identification are just as obvious. In a careful review of Frances Fitzgerald’s book, Randall Balmer of Dartmouth College points out that in some American eras, evangelicals included as many social progressives as conservatives.² Before the Civil War, the nation’s best-known evangelist, Charles Finney, and several of his converts like Theodore Dwight Weld led the struggle against slavery. After the Civil War, the firmly evangelical Frances Willard guided the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in its fight to protect women and children from abuses fueled by alcohol. In our era when evangelicals can be confused for the Republican Party at prayer, it is worth remembering the situation from little more than a century ago. For more than two decades, William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic candidate for president, was the United States’ best known evangelical layman and also one of the nation’s most ardent advocates for the income tax, female suffrage, and peaceful international arbitration as a substitute for war. Even in the recent past, Randall Balmer points out that international efforts for peace in the Middle East and elsewhere were led by Jimmy Carter, a Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher—a point Balmer has developed in a full-length study of the United States’ 39^th president.³

Other evidence of the same sort abounds. A recent book by Heath Carter of Valparaiso University entitled Union Made examines labor and industry between the Civil War and World War I.⁴ It documents fulsomely the many Bible-believing, church-going, and Christ-honoring union organizers who fought for workers’ rights—against, to be sure, Bible-believing, church-going, and Christ-honoring captains of industry. In the present, the record of the Salvation Army, World Vision, the International Justice Mission, and other such organizations shows that white evangelicals have never constituted a monolithic political force. Observers like Balmer and Carter do not deny that evangelicals have often contributed substantially to conservative political causes, but they are certainly correct that throughout American history “evangelical” has always meant more than the Right Wing.

Careful historians perform a much-needed service by complicating the story of how evangelical motives underlie evangelical social and political action. The evangelical stress on personal conversion and personal moral responsibility has, in fact, often been aligned with worries about Big Government and insistence on individual choice as the key to social betterment. But those same evangelical convictions have also spurred a wide variety of creative plans for collective reform as well.

The evangelical stress on personal conversion and personal moral responsibility has, in fact, often been aligned with worries about Big Government and insistence on individual choice as the key to social betterment. But those same evangelical convictions have also spurred a wide variety of creative plans for collective reform as well.

The conceptual challenge from scholars poses a more basic question than the simplistic equation of evangelicalism and right-wing politics. This challenge focuses on the religious meaning of the term, which is proper since evangelicals have always insisted that religion is their primary concern. But how should that primary concern be defined?

In 1989 my coeditor for the IVP series, David Bebbington (University of Stirling, Scotland), provided a succinct definition in his book, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, that has been widely referenced.⁵ The definition identifies evangelicalism as a form of Protestantism with four distinct emphases:

conversion, or “the belief that lives need to be changed”;
the Bible, or “the belief that all spiritual truth is to be found in its pages”;
activism, or the dedication of all believers, especially the laity, to lives of service for God, especially in sharing the Christian message and taking that message far and near;
and crucicentrism, or the conviction that Christ’s death on the cross provided atonement for sin and reconciliation between sinful humanity and a holy God.

While many, both scholars and popular writers, have employed this definition to good effect, others have pointed out difficulties. Most obvious in an American context are divisions created by race. Along with many white Protestant groups that are marked by these four characteristics, so too have many African Americans. Yet the American embrace of slavery, followed by culturally enforced segregation, means that whites and blacks who share these religious emphases share very little else. An evangelicalism that includes both blacks and whites might make sense in very narrow religious terms, but far less in the actual outworking of American history.

A development of only the last half century also complicates the picture. The differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants, especially evangelical Protestants, once was as clear-cut as possible. But no longer. Almost all surveys focused on religious commitments now turn up at least some Catholics who in belief and practice look an awful lot like evangelicals. The once unbridgeable chasm is now being bridged.

The differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants, especially evangelical Protestants, once was as clear-cut as possible. But no longer. Almost all surveys focused on religious commitments now turn up at least some Catholics who in belief and practice look an awful lot like evangelicals. The once unbridgeable chasm is now being bridged.

A broader historical challenge has recently come from Linford Fisher of Brown University in a substantial article documenting that “evangelical” has often meant less, and sometimes more, than the Bebbington definition.⁶ From the time of the Reformation and for several centuries, Fisher shows that the word usually meant simply “Protestant” or, almost as frequently, “anti-Catholic.” During the eighteenth-century revivals associated with George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and John Wesley, “awakened” believers in Britain and America did not use the word too frequently. When they did, it meant “true” or “real” religion as opposed to nominal or only formal religious adherence. Fisher also shows that after World War II, former fundamentalists in the United States endorsed the word as they sought a less combative, more irenic term to describe their orthodox theology and their desire to re-engage with society. Organizations like the National Association of Evangelicals and the wide-ranging activities of Billy Graham popularized the word. In the process some Pentecostals, Lutherans, Mennonites, Christian Reformed, and others who had not been associated with the main body of America’s earlier “evangelical Protestants” were now glad to join in using it to describe themselves. At the same time other Protestants who had thought of themselves as evangelicals began to avoid the word as designating something too close to fundamentalism.

In more recent days several authors have highlighted further indications of uncertainty. In a thoughtful recent consideration of “Billy Graham’s Legacy,” Margaret Bendroth points out that self-described evangelicals have a long history of disagreeing among themselves on issues like biblical inerrancy, women’s ordination, and homosexuality. But now such disputes seem to have reached a deeper level. She identifies of the publication in 2011 of Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins, which addressed the question whether all humans will ultimately be redeemed, as particularly telling. Bell’s suggestion that they would be saved generated intense push-back from others, but also some support—and all from within the camps usually designated evangelical.⁷ The questions raised by Fisher, Bendroth, and others concern whether the word “evangelical” has been applied with sufficient consistency to make it worthwhile as a category of analysis.

The international picture only adds more ambiguity. A wider lens that takes in the world beyond the United States reveals the same political diversity that characterizes the American past. As documented in the five-volume series from InterVarsity Press, modern evangelicalism in its early decades included many in the American colonies who firmly supported American independence, quite a few Presbyterians and Congregationalists in England who agreed, but also significant English leaders like John and Charles Wesley who considered independence both anti-biblical (they cited Romans 13) and hypocritical (they meant slave owners howling about violations of their “liberty”). The later campaign against slavery in the British empire by William Wilberforce and his associates remains the best recognized evangelical mobilization for human liberation—though less attention has been paid to the conservative positions on domestic political questions that the Wilberforce circle adopted. During the second half of the nineteenth century, Primitive Methodists in England led in the formation of agricultural trade unions, and some of the original organizers of the Labor Party actively supported the evangelism of D. L. Moody. Throughout the English-speaking world, evangelicals joined those who supported unionization, wanted more government support for education and medical care, and actively campaigned for social welfare. Individuals like Samuel Keeble in England, Joseph Branch in Wales, and W. G. Spence in Australia represented large evangelical constituencies in these efforts, even as other evangelicals spoke out against those who pushed for progressive social causes.

More generally, the changing shape of world Christianity puts contemporary American debates into an appropriately broader context. The 2001 edition of David Barrett’s World Christian Encyclopedia identified 210 million Christian believers as “evangelicals” worldwide, with another 510 million as “Pentecostal, Neo-Pentecostal, or Charismatic.” Of those numbers only 64 million evangelicals lived in Europe or North America, only 116 million of the Pentecostal-charismatic total. Full-scale interpretation in a recent book by Mark Hutchinson and John Wolffe, A Short History of Global Evangelicalism, and a comprehensive reference volume edited by Brian Stiller, Evangelicals Around the World, flesh out Barrett’s statistical picture.⁸ The two books describe an increasingly diverse, but still recognizable worldwide network linked by shared religious convictions. Together they indicate that the politics and preoccupations of the contemporary American media should not be allowed to dictate what “evangelical” means.

The changing shape of world Christianity puts contemporary American debates into an appropriately broader context.

Yet for some thoughtful individuals who in former days rested comfortably with the evangelical label, precisely these contemporary controversies have ruined the term beyond repair. Jay Green, the immediate past president of the evangelical-founded Conference on Faith and History, may be one of those. In his analysis, a kind of intellectual political energy had been responsible for the founding sense of purpose that in the mid-1960s brought the Conference into existence. But now, with a different “politics of evangelical identity” at work in American society at large, Green despairs: “It is simply no longer the case that evangelicalism functions as an expression of Christian faith capable of sponsoring either serious intellectual engagement or genuine cultural renewal.”⁹

But others say, “not so fast.” Molly Worthen of the University of North Carolina has insisted that “evangelical” remains a viable term when considered as a “shared conversation” about how to reconcile faith and reason, what true salvation means, and how private faith relates to modern secular life. In turn, Worthen can conclude about the contemporary United States that “the religious right is really the product of a civil war within evangelicalism. It represents the political efforts of a fairly narrow slice out of the myriad evangelical traditions that have been active in American and Western history.”¹⁰ If she is correct, then closer attention to that history should help answer questions about the uncertainties of the present.

Evangelical identity in the English-speaking world

The History of Evangelicalism Series shares some of Molly Worthen’s optimism about the viability of the term, but from a broader angle (the English-speaking world) and a longer period of time (the early eighteenth century to the start of the new millennium). These five volumes carry a mostly coherent story from the early 1700s through the twentieth century, but not because all of the many individuals and organizations identified as evangelicals stood shoulder to shoulder on all questions of Christian belief and practice. Instead, coherence comes from two overarching realities. The books, first, find it an easy matter to trace multiple connections descending historically from the colonial Great Awakening and Britain’s Evangelical Revival. Second, they document a clear historical trajectory marked by serious commitment to the authority of Scripture, the saving work of Christ’s death and resurrection, the possibility of lives revived and redirected by the converting power of the Holy Spirit, and the necessity for all believers to put their private faith into public action. To put it differently, the books hang together because they record a continuous history of English-speaking Protestant Christians defined by an evolving, but connected investment in the commitments specified by David Bebbington. Brief attention to the five IVP volumes brings particular perspective to the dialectic between diversity and cohesion in evangelical history.

Brief attention to the five IVP volumes brings particular perspective to the dialectic between diversity and cohesion in evangelical history.

For the nearly two centuries treated by the first three books in the series, some questions about the boundaries of evangelical identity are easy to answer. Evangelicalism from the early eighteenth century to about 1900 can be viewed as a shared conversation that was more than a conversation. Evangelicals in the British homeland, the American colonies, and then in British settler colonies could be identified as the most vocal anti-Catholics of their era because they believed that Catholicism undercut the dynamic of personal faith required for “true religion.” The many disagreements in their shared conversation concerned theology (especially Calvinism versus Arminianism and then the meaning of baptism), church order (especially state-church Anglicans and Scottish Presbyterians versus those who believed in the separation of church and state), and orientation to politics and social reform (with competition among individualistic, voluntary, paternalistic, and government-directed positions).

The sharpest division arose over whether slave-holding ruled out evangelical fellowship and cooperation. The contribution by John Wolffe (Open University, U.K.), The Expansion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Wilberforce, More, Chalmers and Finney (2006), explains in detail how plans for a trans-national Evangelical Alliance in the 1840s enlisted a wide range of British, North America, and a few continental Protestants. When in 1846 representatives gathered in London, they agreed on the authority of the Bible, the life-changing work of the Holy Spirit, the atonement won by Christ on the cross, and more. Yet because these evangelicals disagreed over whether slave holders could join the Alliance—and because Americans were offended that this issue sidelined their objection to state churches—, the Alliance never became a vigorous international organization.

Nevertheless, within limits, evangelicals throughout the period were easily identified by networks of preachers, prayer meetings, publishing efforts, and personal witnessing that reached back to the eighteenth-century revivals. Diversity within these networks—over theology, denomination, education, geography, class, and race—did threaten disruption. But deeply shared attitudes pushed toward cohesion. In my contribution to the series—The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys (2003)—I draw attention to a memorable expression of these attitudes from George Whitefield, the era’s leading public evangelical. When he was once reproved by a group of his fellow Anglican ministers because he was sharing pulpits with Presbyterians and coordinating his evangelistic campaigns with Baptists, he replied that “It was best to preach the new birth, and the power of godliness, and not to insist so much on the form; for people would never be brought to one mind as to that; nor did Jesus Christ ever intend it.” That attitude—favoring revivalistic outreach and considering spiritual unity more important than any other kind—defined a broad evangelical tradition that burgeoned in numbers and cultural influence during the early decades of the nineteenth century.

That attitude—favoring revivalistic outreach and considering spiritual unity more important than any other kind—defined a broad evangelical tradition that burgeoned in numbers and cultural influence during the early decades of the nineteenth century.

John Wolffe’s Expansion of Evangelicalism singles out several key figures who exemplified the evangelical energy of that age. William Wilberforce’s campaign against slavery broadened out to a number of philanthropic ventures that included educational reform at home and protection of native peoples in the expanding British empire. A stage actress turned dedicated author and educator, Hannah More, wrote dozens of didactic books aimed at what she considered the interests of ordinary people. Literary scholars were once accustomed to scoff at her efforts, though a more recent generation of scholars has admired the savvy with which she operated in an intensely patriarchal society. Thomas Chalmers gained recognition as one of Scotland’s leading apologists (with modern astronomy particularly in view) and one of its most noteworthy urban reformers (with unfortunately not too successful programs combatting industrial poverty). As leader of the faction that in 1843 left Scotland’s established Presbyterian Kirk over practices compromising parish control over local churches, Chalmer’s legacy can still be viewed in the “Chalmers Memorial” and “Chalmers Presbyterian” churches sprinkling the landscape in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. In the United States, Charles Grandison Finney memorably democratized preaching, theology, reform, and intellectual life, sometimes against intense opposition from other evangelicals, but with enduring influence on later generations. Coherence, either of unified action or shared conversations of disagreement, characterized the age of evangelical expansion.

Coherence, either of unified action or shared conversations of disagreement, characterized the age of evangelical expansion.

But with exceptions. My book on the eighteenth century treats the evangelical conversions of enslaved Africans, mostly in the colonies but also the Caribbean. These converts, included David George, who founded Baptist churches in Georgia, Nova Scotia, and Sierra Leone, and Oladuah Equiano, whose Interesting Narrative (1789) detailed his evangelical conversion and also his struggle against slavery. John Wolffe’s Expansion of Evangelicalism shows how such conversions continued during the first half of the nineteenth century. But he also explains why white evangelicals frequently refused fellowship with these black believers. David Bebbington’s contribution—The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody (2005)—details the effects of the American Civil War on denominations like the African Methodist Episcopal Church. As soon as they could, emancipated slaves poured out of the white-dominated evangelical churches for denominations under their own control. Most maintained evangelical beliefs, but network ties with white evangelicals suffered a breach that has continued to this day. The impetus to create separate cultural expressions for white evangelicals and black evangelicals had been present from the start. The result is a challenge for historical interpretation: do groups sharing evangelical beliefs, but not religious practices and with few ongoing connections—agreeing on most doctrines but inhabiting divergent cultures—constitute one historical reality or two?

Do groups sharing evangelical beliefs, but not religious practices and with few ongoing connections—agreeing on most doctrines but inhabiting divergent cultures—constitute one historical reality or two?

Much clearer is what David Bebbington aptly describes as the widespread “dominance of evangelicalism” at the end of the nineteenth century. Evangelical beliefs continued strong in most of the older denominations (Congregational, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, even Anglican and Episcopalian), even as newer Protestant bodies promoted their own versions of evangelical truths (Churches of Christ, Plymouth Brethren, the Salvation Army). Although the proliferation of evangelical sub-groups can be viewed as a thinning of unity, it also testified to the evangelical capacity for cultural and theological adaptation.

David Bebbington concludes his book with a tour of the evangelical horizon at the end of the nineteenth century. Significant forces were working to weaken evangelical cohesion, especially the rise of urban industrialization that was pushing traditional evangelical strongholds to the suburbs as well as the tendency of wealthier urban church leaders to modify doctrine under the influence of elite conceptions of science, the ancient world, and the human personality. Yet even stronger were markers of network cohesion. The weekly sermons of Charles Haddon Spurgeon streamed out of London to eager readers throughout the English-speaking world and beyond; D. L. Moody was every bit as popular in England, Scotland, and Canada as he was in the U.S.; evangelical denominational families made up in informal contact what they lacked in formal international organizations; and forms of spirituality responding to the era’s Romantic currents (especially Keswick teaching on the higher spiritual life) attracted adherents worldwide.

Unprecedented challenges to evangelical coherence arose in the twentieth century, as spelled out with considerable detail in the contributions by Geoffrey R. Treloar (Australian College of Theology and University of New South Wales), The Disruption of Evangelicalism: The Age of Torrey, Mott, McPherson and Hammond (2016), and by Brian Stanley (University of Edinburgh), The Global Diffusion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Billy Graham and John Stott (2013). The individuals featured in the subtitles of these book show that the extensive national and international networks forged in earlier decades remained vigorous. R. A. Torrey, one of D. L. Moody’s chief lieutenants, traveled literally around the world to promote “true religion” as depending on the active work of the Holy Spirit. John R. Mott’ great ecumenical energy culminated in the Edinburgh Mission Conference of 1910 that drew together a wide assembly of evangelists, church planters, and missionary medical and social workers. Amy Semple McPherson became a North American phenomenon as she proclaimed a Four-fold Gospel of healing and redemption, which translated older evangelical emphases into a new Pentecostal form. The energetic theological efforts of T. C. Hammond in Ireland and England made him a key figure in the creation of InterVarsity Fellowship, led to his recruitment by Australian Anglican evangelicals, and marked a fresh presentation of conservative evangelical teaching. In Brian Stanley’s narrative, John Stott and Billy Graham serve to show the broad, ongoing attraction of evangelical preaching and the multitude of international connections that earned both of these figures world-wide respect. Where Stott’s ministry ran along lines first established by the British empire, Graham’s more closely followed the post-World War II expansion of the United States’ international influence.

Yet even more than in earlier volumes, these books feature the internal strains experienced by the evangelical networks descending from the eighteenth-century revivals. Geoffrey Treloar rehearses the well-known story of Fundamentalist-Modernist conflict in the United States. Although such battles had considerably less impact elsewhere, they did leave a significant legacy in the evangelical world at large. From the beginning, parties that historians have called “liberal evangelical” and “conservative evangelical” were able to agree between themselves on the centrality of Scripture, the indispensability of the New Birth, and the imperative to live out the faith actively. Increasingly in the twentieth century, by contrast, that cooperation declined. “Liberal evangelicals” appeared increasingly as only the moderate faction among mainline or modernist Protestants; “conservative evangelicals” faced rising demand within their own ranks to “separate” completely from the world. The result narrowed the range of possibilities that evangelicals had once pursued among themselves.

From the beginning, parties that historians have called “liberal evangelical” and “conservative evangelical” were able to agree between themselves on the centrality of Scripture, the indispensability of the New Birth, and the imperative to live out the faith actively. Increasingly in the twentieth century, by contrast, that cooperation declined. “Liberal evangelicals” appeared increasingly as only the moderate faction among mainline or modernist Protestants; “conservative evangelicals” faced rising demand within their own ranks to “separate” completely from the world. The result narrowed the range of possibilities that evangelicals had once pursued among themselves.

Geoffrey Treloar’s extensive treatment of the First World War details the effect of world events on evangelical interests that Brian Stanley carries further. That war intensified nationalistic commitments, disrupted international communications, and tested resilience in the face of death and destruction. The Depression that followed—and then the Second World War, the Cold War, de-colonization, technological innovation, and global economic expansion—challenged local evangelical movements in different ways. The fact that The Global Diffusion of Evangelicalism is the one book in the series to make extensive use of websites for research signals the altered landscape for religious communities in the recent past. In developing themes from the earlier books, Stanley attends to how recent developments grew out of or modified earlier patterns: Pentecostal and charismatic expansion, debates concerning the character of Scripture and proper hermeneutical practice, along with initiatives in apologetics and preaching. For all evangelicals, however, the important new reality is now “the explosive popular Christianity of the southern hemisphere.” The Protestant or Protestant-like forms of Christianity that are expanding so rapidly in Africa, China, and Latin America are not concerned with the problems of nominal religion or the threat to Christianity of Enlightenment rationality, but with poverty, disease, oppression, and demonic forces. The Christian gospel confronting these enemies bears some resemblance to the message proclaimed by George Whitefield, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, or Billy Graham. Yet the cultural contexts in which these battles occur are also very different from those in which generations of English-speaking evangelicals proclaimed the gospel message.

The Protestant or Protestant-like forms of Christianity that are expanding so rapidly in Africa, China, and Latin America are not concerned with the problems of nominal religion or the threat to Christianity of Enlightenment rationality, but with poverty, disease, oppression, and demonic forces.

The Global Diffusion of Evangelicalism is a fitting conclusion to the series because it shows so clearly evangelicals carrying on shared commitments from before, while also confronting a Christian world in which those commitments are being at least partially marginalized. The five volumes do indicate that “evangelical” and “evangelicalism” have always been flexible terms. They also show that the terms retain a considerable measure of cohesion when positioned against the background of a shared history and fleshed out in specific affirmations about the Bible, Christ’s saving work, Christian activity, and the converting power of the Holy Spirit. Our world of rapid change and media rush-to-judgment threatens to destabilize all matters that once seemed fixed and secure. Yet for the terms “evangelical” and “evangelicalism,” ambiguity is not the only possibility. When used with responsible attention to history and careful focus on generally accepted norms of the Bebbington definition, they can still communicate reality and not just confusion. Readers of the five IVP volumes will, however, also realize that recent American preoccupations are missing the most important question about evangelicals in contemporary history. That question asks how evangelicals of British and American heritage, however defined, will participate in the rapid changes now taking place in Christianity throughout the world.