American Evangelicalism and Old Testament Studies: Three Conclusions

Back on November 24th, I began a series of posts on American Evangelicalism and Old Testament scholarship. No, not every post I've done since then has been on the subject; I have interrupted the series from time to time. But for the most part, that's what I've been talking about for the last seven weeks or so.

As I've mentioned before, I designed the posts so that each one could be read on its own. At the same time, I tried to make the series coherent for people who were reading all of it. Anyway, now it's time to wrap this up. But before I get to that, here's a list of the nine previous posts, with links:

American Evangelicalism and Old Testament Scholarship

The Beginning and Rise of the American Fundamentalist Movement

Old Testament Scholarship and Christianity Today Magazine: Getting Started

American Evangelicalism Losing Its Mind: Old Testament Scholarship and CT Magazine

A Certain Word for Successful Mission: Sub-plot in the Story

The Blight of Anti-Supernaturalism: Christianity Today's Common Complaint

The Boom and Bust of Biblical Archaeology

Onslaughts and Olive Branches, 1st of 2

Onslaughts and Olive Branches, 2nd of 2

This is the last post I'll do on the subject, for now anyway. So where do I begin the ending? I have to start by saying that the following conclusions must be provisional for two reasons.

First, up to this point I have surveyed only one of several possible indexes of the history and current status of American Evangelicalism: Christianity Today magazine. That has been my main (though certainly not my only) resource for this project.

Second, because the following ideas are new and untested, they are still for me uncertain. However, I feel compelled to take a stab at coherence, and that's what the rest of this post is about. As I've worked through the evidence, three possible conclusion have occurred to me.

First, it seems to me that whatever might have been of an “intellectual middle class” within American evangelicalism is now virtually non-existent. This is not to say that evangelicals have in the last 30 years given up their desire to represent a bona fide intellectual as well as religious tradition. If anything, that desire has grown and seems to have met with considerable satisfaction. However, it certainly is the case that among evangelicals almost all of the intellectual enterprise has been relegated to the uppermost echelon. This development appears to have been neither planned nor predicted. But it does appear, for whatever reason, to be the way things are. In 1983, the evangelical Old Testament scholar Peter Craigie (pictured here) expressed a concern about the almost unbridgeable gap between studying the text in the classroom and preaching it from the pulpit. The minutiae of history of which literary criticism consists—so crucial for the final exam in an Old Testament course—seems bereft of relevance when proclaimed from the pulpit.

Craigie observed that with regard to the “great debates of Old Testament scholarship during the last century” which were “so loaded with theological overtones,” conservatives usually took a merely defensive stance. But more recently, he said, that had been changing. And he pointed with pride to the recently-published Old Testament volumes in the New International Commentary series, as well as the Word Biblical Commentary. [1] From this vantage point in time, it seems that Craigie’s evaluation could not take into account what were then the beginnings of a widening gap between the relatively few evangelical professors and their more-scholarly students on the one hand, and the rest of the growing evangelical movement on the other hand.

How else could one explain the clear transition in Christianity Today? As I've illustrated many times in this series, the magazine's early years were characterized by a serious engagement with the larger world of religious and theological scholarship, including Old Testament studies. More recently, and especially since the 1970s, CT's attention to such matters has been reduced to almost nothing.

And what about the recent works of evangelical historian Mark A. Noll? In 1984, Noll proudly chronicled the rapid rise of biblical scholarship among evangelicals. [2] But in 1994 he published The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, which basically says that there isn’t one and which represented for Noll a potential letter of resignation from the evangelical movement. It seems fair to conclude that if one were to ask, “Is evangelical scholarship growing or declining,” we could correctly answer, “Both.”

A second not-so-provisional conclusion: the evidence I have cited seems to confirm one of George Marsden’s most basic theories regarding contemporary evangelical identity. In his book Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism 1870-1925, Marsden observes within fundamentalism “a strikingly paradoxical tendency to identify sometimes with the “establishment” and sometimes with the “outsiders.” This tendency, he says, is rooted in the majority status of nineteenth century evangelicalism (that is, before the fundamentalist-modernist controversy), combined with fundamentalism’s role “of a beleaguered minority with strong sectarian and separatist tendencies.” [3] As Marsden’s subtitle suggests, this paradoxical tendency has shaped not only the evangelicalism of the past, but also the contemporary expressions of “neo-evangelicalism.” As I have pointed out, it is clear that evangelical biblical scholars have attacked but at other times commended what is essentially the same kind of scholarly work done by outsiders. I am convinced that Marsden’s theory goes a long way in helping us to understand why.

Third and finally, there seems to be a connection between the explosion of American evangelicalism’s popularity beginning in the mid-1970s and the demise of intellectual life among their “laity” that is more than coincidental. Again, this is still for me less of a thesis and more of a hunch. But the facts are undeniable. According to a Gallup Poll, in 1976 nearly 50 million Americans age eighteen and over--one-third of the nation’s adults--said they were “born again.” Garry Wills, in a piece for the New York Times Magazine, spoke of “the blossoming evangelical movement, now the major religious force in America, both in numbers and impact.” Michael Novak asserted that “the most understated demographic reality in the United States is the huge number of evangelical Protestants.” President Gerald Ford attended the 1976 convention of the National Association of Evangelicals. And Bicentennial celebrations provided a platform on which the nation’s religious roots could be recalled. [4] Of course, most significant of all was the election that same year of a decidedly-evangelical Southern Baptist named Jimmy Carter. For the first time, evangelicals were in the White House and no longer seemed like a “beleaguered minority.” It didn’t take long for conservatives to get the message. Political and cultural power was theirs. Even fundamentalist Jerry Falwell was soon changing his outsider’s tune and singing the praises of a so-called “Moral Majority.” From the facts, one might conclude that when given the choice between the development of an intellectual tradition versus the exercise of political power, American evangelicalism chose the path frequently taken.
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[1] CT, XXVII (March 4, 1983), p. 105.

[2] Mark A. Noll, “Evangelicals and the Study of the Bible,” in Evangelicalism and Modern America, ed. George Marsden (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984), pp. 103-21. Anecdotal evidence of what Noll has carefully assessed appears in a 1991 essay by CT senior editor Dennis Kinlaw. “Behind Scholars’ Closed Doors” relates Kinlaw’s recent experience as an outside examiner of a doctoral candidate in the field of historical theology. After they “probed and bored and challenged,” the other two examiners turned to the significance of the candidate’s dissertation. What emerged, says Kinlaw, was a beautiful moment in which the “obvious, but humble commitment of the young man to historic orthodoxy” became apparent. Afterwards, Kinlaw remembered the times “when the segment of the kingdom to which I belong had no such bright and highly trained and credentialed young people to explicate the mysteries of God. In fact, the door to studies that would furnish that excellence was closed to ‘fundamentalists.’ Old-style ‘modernists’ reigned in those circles.” CT, XXXV (April 29, 1991), p. 11.

[3] Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, pp. 6-7.

[4] CT, XXI (October 8, 1976), p. 52.

Onslaughts and Olive Branches, 2nd of 2

In the previous post I highlighted a few of the onslaughts: the places where Christianity Today magazine has taken a negative view of modern Old Testament scholarship.

What's interesting, however, is that for every pejorative remark regarding scholarship outside the evangelical camp, one can find another that is much more neutral, if not downright friendly. In many cases, the evangelical writer feels compelled to say that, yes, the work under review might be offensive to some. But then the writer goes on to vouch for the good intentions and correct points, even extending a welcome—where one might expect a warning—to the CT readership who are encouraged to study such works for all they're worth. For example, in 1959, remarking on Walter A. Maier’s commentary on Nahum, David Kerr observes:

If any trend distinguishes the direction of Old Testament studies at the present time, it is that which recognizes that the substance of biblical writing is often more important than the source. In some instances this trend is carried so far as to attempt to hold a fairly orthodox theology along side the most radical views of the literature of the Old Testament. In some other instances it has led to a higher respect for the integrity of biblical documents. [1]

In the 1960 review of recent books, although some writers are said to espouse what is called “Wellhausenism,” their efforts are credited in the warmest of terms. [2]

The Old Testament: Its Origins and Compositions by Curt Kuhl is calmly reviewed by Fred E. Young: “In simple and non-technical language, the PJED thesis is posited. He begins with P, although he dates it later than D.” The book, says Young, “is a good presentation by a critical mind on the books of the Old Testament and should receive wide reading by students interested in a critical approach to Old Testament scholarship.” [3]

Likewise, Carl Armerding notes that William L. Holladay's book Isaiah: Scroll of a Prophetic Heritage “is not committed to the literary unity of Isaiah." Nonetheless, says Armerding, "he finds in the varied materials of Isaiah a theological unity that will provide a thematic guide to a solid biblical theology.” [4]

Finally, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture by Brevard Childs (pictured above) is called “the notable event in Old Testament publication for 1979.” Armerding sums up his brief review by calling it “fresh, responsible, and devoid of irresponsible speculation.” [5]

What should we make of those much-different attitudes in the same publication representing the same group? In a final post on this subject, I'll take a stab at interpretation.
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[1] CT, III (February 16, 1959), 8-9. It's interesting, I think, that Kerr's description of Maier's commentary sounds much like the later works of one Brevard S. Childs.

[2] CT, V (November 7, 1960), 43-44 and (December 19, 1960), 38.

[3] CT, V (July 3, 1961), 36.

[4] CT, XXIII (March 2, 1979), 30.

[5] CT, XXIV (March 7, 1980), 28.

Onslaughts and Olive Branches, 1st of 2

In this series on American Evangelicalism and Old Testament scholarship, I plan to write two more posts. In the final one, I'll draw a few conclusions. But here and in and the next entry, I want to call attention to one of the unmistakable features of Christianity Today magazine when it deals with biblical scholarship: namely, the remarkable vacillation between bitter attacks and kind commendations in response to what is essentially the same thing.

First, the onslaughts. At times, especially in the writings of O. T. Allis and E. J. Young, only the most traditional positions are approved. Everything else is attacked. For example, in “Albright’s Thrust for the Bible View” [1], Allis clearly intends to set the record straight regarding the famous archaeologist. He says that while Albright has been hailed as the destroyer of old modernism, he is not the giant-killer he’s made out to be. In fact, for all of his celebrity among conservatives, Albright still holds to the basic outline of modernism. The best piece of evidence against him is his book, Recent Discoveries in Bible Lands.

Allis complains that, ironically, Albright asserts a historical reliability of the Pentateuch that is equal to the reliability of the accounts dealing with Zoroaster and Gautama (Buddha). It’s not much of a claim for the Bible, complains Allis. Furthermore, Albright reportedly claims that the census accounts in Numbers 2 and 26 are late:

This means that these two registrations which are definitely stated to have been taken by Moses must be regarded as two variants of the one census ordered by David centuries after Moses’ time. . . . This is one way of getting rid of the supernatural in the biblical records.

All this brings Allis to what seems to be his main point. Picking up the theme of anti-supernaturalism as liberalism’s Achilles heel, he says:

It is important that Christian people everywhere face up to the fact that the “religious history” of the Bible is supernatural to the core and that the supernatural events which it records are its most important and most precious content. In the last analysis, the attitude of higher criticism is anti-super-naturalistic.

Furthermore, the supposedly-conservative Yehezkel Kaufmann fails to provide any real help. Allis’s review of Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, claims that although the book challenges the predominant version of the documentary hypothesis, its author holds a view of Scripture that “does not differ materially from that of the scholars whose views he criticizes and rejects.”[2]

The same attitude comes across when E. J. Young refers to those who hold a “‘critical’ view of the Old Testament” as opposed to scholars who represent “the views of a Bible believer.” [3]

Reviewing Walter Harrelson’s book Interpreting the Old Testament, R. Laird Harris complains that “He hardly leaves a single book of the Old Testament intact.” Indeed, Harrelson takes many positions “to which a conservative would react.” According to him, the Old Testament contains a good amount of legendary material, and “Jonah is a fable—written during the exile.” More generally, “No Old Testament miracle or long-range prophecy is allowed to be true. Of the 293 works listed in the bibliography, perhaps three are conservative!” Harris concludes his remarks by taking aim at some specific inaccuracies of the book. [4]

A short note in the issue, dated May 10, 1974, lambastes the Jerusalem Bible for the following section of its introduction to the Pentateuch:

For many centuries all five of the books were attributed to Moses as the sole or principal author. However, modern study of the texts has revealed a wide variety of styles, a lack of sequence and such repetitions and variations in narrative that it is impossible to ascribe the whole group to a single author.

The CT editor observes that this is not merely an assumption of the Documentary Hypothesis but also a dismissal of the traditional view as an impossibility. There is, he notes, a “paradoxical narrowness of today’s supposedly ‘liberal’ theological thought.” He also implies that to deny the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is to write off “the infallibility of Scripture.” [5]

In the next post, I'll give some examples of some other Evangelicals being quite friendly to mainstream Old Testament scholarship.
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[1] CT, IV (May 25, 1959), 7-9.

[2] “Challenge to the Wellhausen Theory,” CT, V (November 7, 1960), 39.

[3] CT, VIII (February 1, 1963), 5.

[4] CT, X (April 9, 1965), 38.

[5] CT, XVIII (May 10, 1974), 34-35.

The Boom and Bust of Biblical Archaeology

This post continues a series I started on November 24th. I've tried to give each entry a stand-alone quality so that you don't have to go back and read all of the previous posts.

The series began with an overview of the history and character of American Evangelicalism. Since then, these posts have examined the interaction between biblical scholarship (especially Old Testament studies) and Evangelicalism. I'm using Christianity Today magazine as the main indicator of where popular Evangelicalism has stood and what it has said. I welcome your questions and comments.
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From its beginning in 1956, Christianity Today magazine provides plenty of evidence that in the early years American evangelicals viewed biblical archaeology, far more than any other factor, as the antidote to what it considered to be destructive, modernistic theories about Scripture. Frequently, no specific examples are cited. Instead, one finds the bare assertion that, whereas the anti-supernaturalistic liberals have theorized against the traditional views, recent archaeological finds have overturned their unfounded ideas and exonerated that what the Bible asserts is factually true.

Along this line, for example, William Sanford LaSor reviews Nelson Glueck’s book Rivers in the Desert and quotes with glee the statement , “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference. (p. 31).” [1]

Two months later R. K. Harrison says, “It is almost a commonplace today for Old Testament scholars to admit that recent archaeological discoveries have demonstrate the essential historicity of events mentioned in the Old Testament.”[2]

In a later article on “British Old Testament Study,” Harrison complains that, in spite of increasingly-severe attacks from archaeological sources, liberals still hold on to the Documentary Hypothesis of Pentateuch and similar positions. According to Harrison, liberal critics appear appear indifferent to the fact that the approach they have adopted is becoming less and less defensible. Part of the reason for this attitude, he says, may be that most British Old Testament scholars have had little or no first-hand experience in archaeology, being trained almost exclusively in literary analysis. They do not attach due importance to archaeological findings. [3]

An interview with the great archaeologist W. F. Albright (at left), published in January 1963, must have been a highlight for readers of CT. Informed by an array of evangelical Old Testament scholars, an editor, presumably Carl Henry, asked the questions. One easily detects in Albright’s answers a good number of carefully-worded caveats and disclaimers. Nonetheless, he gives the magazine much that it wants to print. The interview includes, for example, the following exchange:

CT: Would you view a reference in the biblical narratives as a presumptive evidence of historical veracity?

Albright: Certainly.

Later in the interview, Albright is asked about how recent archeological discoveries have impacted scholarly attitudes toward the Documentary Hypothesis. In his reply, Albright says:

The study of the Dead Sea Scrolls has dealt a crushing blow to the minute critical analysis of the early books of the Bible that has prevailed since Wellhausen.

Still later he says:

the ‘School of Wellhausen’ is only one of many ideological systems built on arbitrary philosophical postulates and baseless historical presuppositions. [4]

In a piece that appears five years later, Albright is heard to say that proving the accuracy of Scripture “remains important and new confirmations are turning up almost daily.” [5] Following the Six-Day War, the vision of a victorious Israel and a united Jerusalem fired evangelical enthusiasm. According to John Montgomery, even those with limited exposure to the recent discoveries had been overwhelmed by “the amazing degree to which the archaeology of the past fifty years has confirmed the precise historicity of the Bible.” [6]

In a short article, D. J. Wiseman reports that findings from a recent excavation near Mosul, Iraq “include the earliest references to the capital city of Samaria and to King Johoash outside of the Old Testament.” Indeed, such Bible-confirming discoveries occur “so frequently that such finds now tend to go unnoticed.” [7]

Likewise, Edwin Yamauchi declares, “it may be safely said that the mass of archaeological evidence has strikingly confirmed the traditions and corrected radical skepticism.” Quoting D. Winton Thomas he adds, “Archaeological research will, we may believe, continue steadily to show that the Old Testament narrative is essentially trustworthy . . . ” [8]

Ten years later, in 1979, Samuel Shultz reviews The Bible in Its World, by Kenneth A. Kitchen (at right). Shultz summarizes:

Against the background of second and third millennium documents currently available, he suggests that these narratives are not legend or fiction but are closest to the historical class of literature. Kitchen is cautious in relating archaeology to the Scriptures. For example, rather than flat assertions, he simply observes that anyone in Joseph’s position would have been in close contact with writing, and that in the Middle Bronze period when alphabetic writing seems to have been invented, there is ‘the attractive (but totally unproven) possibility of patriarchal traditions being put into such script, in West-Semitic, from the seventeenth/ sixteenth centuries B.C. onwards, as the basis of what later we now find in Genesis. [9]

Here one notices a cautiousness that was unheard of in the early years. And by 1984, there is evidence of a realization that all of those celebrated discoveries combined with a new generation and wider array of interpreters has broken up the old and certain system. Gone forever are the days when one scholar, such as Albright, could dominate the field with his views. The explosion of new information made a standard synthesis like Albright’s Archaeology of Palestine, very dated. Yet no one immediately stepped forward to provide a good synthesis of all the new discoveries. [10]

This helps to explain how it was that on the subject of biblical archaeology the pages of CT fell nearly silent. One of the few entries in the last 25 years is a fine piece by Kevin D. Miller on the work of Egyptologists Kenneth Kitchen and James Hoffmeier. The two scholars are reported as fending off the large number of “biblical minimalists,” giving evidence and establishing a historical background against which Abraham, Joseph in Egypt, Moses and the Exodus, and subsequent Bible personalities and events may be presumed historical. [11] Nonetheless, by the 1970s, real interest in reporting the latest archaeological discoveries and what they mean to the conservative cause was all but forgotten, an obvious parallel to the treatment of biblical studies.
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[1] CT, III (March 16, 1959), 37.

[2] CT, III (May 25, 1959), 5.

[3] CT, V (February 13, 1961), 12.

[4] “William F. Albright: Toward a More Conservative View,” CT, VII (January 18, 1963), 4-5.

[5] CT, XII (June 21, 1968), 3.

[6] CT, XII (August 16, 1968), 47.

[7] CT, XIII (January 3, 1969), 31.

[8] CT, XIII (February 14, 1969), 13.

[9] CT, XXIII (April 20, 1979), 31.

[10] CT, XXVIII (March 16, 1984) 51.

[11] “Did the Exodus Never Happen?” CT, XXXXII (September 7, 1998), 44-51.

The Blight of Anti-Supernaturalism: Christianity Today's Common Complaint

I'm now several entries into a series. These posts aim to explore a particular intersection: that place where world-class Old Testament studies meets up with American Evangelicalism. My question is, how has Evangelicalism in the U.S. reacted and responded to the larger world of biblical scholarship? I'm using Christianity Today magazine as my main source.

A common contention among the writers of CT is that objectionable theories regarding the Bible are founded upon a philosophical bias against all things supernatural. For example, in a 1959 book review, Gleason L. Archer, Jr. (pictured above) applauds E. J. Young’s booklet, Who Wrote Isaiah? for its “excellent defense of the genuineness of the entire 66 chapters of Isaiah.” The book, says Archer, “furnishes much-needed apologetic material for scholars, Bible teachers and seminarians who hold to the historic Christian faith.” Again, “Not simply as a matter of faith but of keeping true to the laws of evidence, Dr. Young most convincingly demonstrates that no other theory of authorship does justice to all of the facts.” Then, reinforcing Young’s thesis, Archer states that it is a fallacy to think “that Isaiah 40-66 could have been inspired, no matter who wrote it.” Such a view “by implication renders the New Testament untrustworthy, for John 12:41 unequivocally asserts that the same Isaiah who wrote Isaiah 6:10 also composed 53:1.” Higher critical theories positing multiple authorship and different periods of provenance in the book of Isaiah stem from infidelity. Their inconsistencies and confusion are united only in “a philosophic prejudice against the possibility of supernatural prediction of the future.” [1]

Young’s own review of 1962 books on Old Testament theology sharply criticizes several of the entries on the ground that their underlying positions fail to “do justice to the supernaturalism of the Old Testament.”[2] A reprint essay by C. S. Lewis on “Faulting the Bible Critics” asserts that scholars go wrong by their “constant use of the principle that the miraculous does not occur.” [3] (Evangelicals using the voice of C. S. Lewis in defense of supernaturalism may have been a little misleading, though. In another context, Lewis said that some of the early biblical stories were clearly "legendary").

In one of the few substantial biblical essays to appear within the last 30 years, Allan MacRae takes on the question of the unity of Isaiah:

After some higher critics had generally accepted the idea of “second Isaiah” on the ground that predictive prophecy was impossible, some of them continued to marvel at its great similarity of style to “first Isaiah.” One even said that this second Isaiah wrote in such a way as almost to make one think that he was actually Isaiah come back from the dead! Higher critics who have adopted a naturalist frame work on which to stretch the books of the Bible have not done well in helping us to determine the author of the biblical Book of Isaiah. The same could also be said for the Book of Daniel. Any light that higher criticism can therefore shed on the authorship of a book of the Bible, or on the circumstances of its writing, is desirable. Yet we must take great care to avoid being misled by antisupernaturalists who rule out the activity of God in directing the writers.

Later, MacRae criticizes Wellhausen’s theory of the Pentateuch because “The theory leaves no room for divine revelation.”[4]

But in at least one review, the defense of supernaturalism is viewed not so much as a badge of honor, but more as a crutch. In a 1972 book review by L. R. Dewitz, The Old Testament: Its Claims and Its Critics by O. T. Allis receives its own share of criticism. With apparent tongue in cheek, Dewitz laments the side-stepping of real problems: “For one who, like Allis, acknowledges the unique disclosure of God in the Old Testament and realizes his way of action, nearly everything falls into place. There are hardly any problems left.” Regarding the 600,000 men reportedly involved in the Exodus, the reviewer quotes Allis to the effect that “it is only when full justice is done to the supernatural in the record that [the numbers] become credible and we can accept and rejoice in them as the biblical writer would have us do.” [5]
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[1] CT, III (February 2, 1959), 35-36.

[2] CT, VII (February 1, 1963), 7.

[3] CT, XI (June 9, 1967), 8.

[4] “The Ups and Downs of Higher Criticism” CT XXIV (October 10, 1980), 34-35.

[5] CT, XVI (July 7, 1972), 28-29.

A Certain Word for Successful Mission: A Sub-Plot in the Story

During its fifty-plus years, what has Christianity Today magazine said when it comes to scholarly analysis of the Bible? My current series of posts is exploring that question, with a special focus on Old Testament studies.

At this point, I want to give attention to what might be considered a tangent. This post is about one sub-plot in the story. It deals with questionable ideas and their impact on Christian mission. In the pages of Christianity Today, it is not simply the case that the Documentary Hypothesis of the Pentateuch or theories about multiple Isaiahs, are wrong simply because they fail to square with the facts, merely because they refuse to go where the evidence leads. More than that, according to CT, the confusion that the misguided theories create serves only to undermine the church’s evangelistic mission.

For example, a few months before Cyrus Gordon’s first article on pentateuchal criticism came out (see previous post), a piece by Carl Henry recalls the author’s recent speaking engagement at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Henry, pictured in this post, was CT's first editor-in-chief. As he explains, during the question-and-answer session he was asked about his views toward higher criticism and its relationship to Christian faith. “And my answer, now as then,” he wrote,

is that modern criticism has shown itself far more efficient in creating faith in the existence of manuscripts for which there is no overt evidence (J, E, P, D, Q) . . . than in sustaining the confidence of young intellectuals within the churches in the only writings that the Christian movement historically has received as a sacred trust. Modern criticism too often bestows prestige upon the critics by defaming the sacred writers. [1]

Here we get a glimpse of the evangelical emphasis on the mission of the church to instill and sustain faith rather than to merely prove that the methods and conclusions of higher criticism are incorrect. In this instance, the defense of the Bible is a means as well as an end. The end is the promotion and sustenance of genuine Christian faith.

Along the same line, a 1965 piece by Otto Helwig stands out. A missionary working in Teheran, Helwig tells of his discussions with prospective converts who assure him that another of their teachers (presumably another Christian missionary) has taught them that the Bible contains errors. Based upon his experience in attempting to convert Muslims in Iran, Helwig announces his belief that critical appraisals of the Bible are “detrimental to the goal of extending the Gospel, particularly among Muslims, who hold such a high view of the authority and infallibility of the Koran, or among Jews with their high view of the Old Testament.” Even those who teach in Middle Eastern mission schools present theories “about J, E, D, and P and different Isaiahs” which do not “directly inform a non-Christian about the Gospel.”

Helwig says that to the ears of these prospective converts, critical theories sound like “a discrediting of the Christian religion.” Thus, until a Bible teacher accepts “the Bible as truth, . . . he cannot be a fully effective witness to the saving work of Christ.” Helwig goes out of his way to leave to the side the whole question of the how much truth said critical theories contain. For him, it is imperative that the missionary “take the leap of faith.” Only then does he stand on the side of effectual certainty. [2]

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[1] CT, III (March 30, 1959), 5.

[2] CT, X (November 19, 1965), 15.

American Evangelicalism Losing Its Mind: Old Testament Scholarship and CT Magazine

This post is part of a series focused on evangelical Christianity's reception of, and reaction to, world-class Old Testament scholarship. Evangelicals are known for being committed to the Christian Bible as Holy Scripture. But how has Evangelicalism interacted with the larger world of biblical scholarship? In order to explore that question, I have used Christianity Today magazine, the flagship publication of popular American Evangelicalism, as a gauge.

From the pages of CT, it's clear that evangelical leaders of the 1950s and 60s were determined to inform the rank and file of current Old Testament scholarship, and to offer persuasive counters when the prevailing theories ran against evangelical commitments and sentiment. New Testament and theological counterparts to the Old Testament articles abound in the early years. The number and size of the articles make it obvious that the editors wanted the considerable readership to know about such topics as

• the Documentary Hypothesis of the Pentateuch
• the Synoptic Problem
• the priority of Mark among the Gospels

They also wanted their readers to know about the ideas of influential theologians like Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, and Emil Brunner. What this post will show is that, by the late 1970s, the substantial attention and criticism, along with occasional appropriation, had all but vanished.

One of the earliest treatments of the Pentateuch to appear in the pages of CT was, ironically, written by the Jewish scholar, Cyrus H. Gordon. In his article, “Higher Critics and Forbidden Fruit,” [1] Gordon complains that he is faulted even from the right because he is “not devoted to JEDP, the badge of interconfessional academic respectability.” One can only wonder who it was to Gordon’s right faulting him in this way. My guess would be that it was some of his Jewish colleagues. It certainly wasn’t any fundamentalist or emerging evangelical.

Gordon recalls from previous years that he came to realize that his knowledge of biblical archaeology and his commitment to higher critical views of the Pentateuch were “mutually exclusive.” Indeed, a commitment to “any hypothetical source-structure like JEDP is out of keeping with the true scholar’s obligation to go wherever the evidence leads him.” As he explains, following World War II his studies in Ugaritic and Sumero-Akkadian materials revealed that in pre-Mosaic texts there were to be found literary themes and even specific phrases that also turn up in the Bible, indicating that the biblical texts are not necessarily later. Instead, because of the similarities, it is more likely that such biblical texts are early, dating from the same period as the materials with which they compare.

There are plenty of other arguments, says Gordon. For example, a different style does not mean a different author; the same speaker will use remarkably different styles in different settings. Moreover, repetition is no ground for positing different authorship because “repetitions are typical of ancient Near East literature.” Gordon says that it was, again, his studies in Ugaritic that led him to reject the different divine names as a criterion for source identification. Every sort of literature, from Ugaritic to the works of Herodotus, reveals that many gods had more than one name. Thus, the two-name expression Yahweh Elohim no more justifies the notion of conflated J and E sources than the Egyptian Amon-Re is “the result of combining an ‘A’ document with an ‘R’ document.” The only certain sources of the Old Testament are the ones cited in the biblical text itself, such as “the book of the Wars of Jehovah cited in Numbers 21:14.” As it stands, “No two higher critics seem to agree on where J, E, D, or P begins or ends.” And this leads to a dismal experience. Gordon writes:

I am distressed to meet ever so many intelligent and serious students who tell me that their teachers of Bible have killed the subject by harping on the notion that biblical study consists of analyzing the text into JEDP. The unedifying conclusion of all such study is that nothing is authentic.

Here we should note that Gordon does not claim that the Pentateuch has no literary sources. He asserts the opposite. Because the Bible was written within a “great international culture” it “cannot be devoid of sources.” But, he adds, the problem is that modern attempts to probe the development of the biblical text have led to very few conclusions on which we can stand. Thus the “hypothetical system” should be abandoned.

In a later article, “The Minoan Bridge: Newest Frontier in Biblical Studies,” Gordon asserts that the language of Minoan Linear A is Semitic. Indeed, “early Hebrew and Greek literatures have a common denominator and should be used to illuminate each other.” This, it turns out, confirms Gordon’s contention that the genealogy of Genesis 10 reports an historical reality: “the cradle of our civilization was One World and not a compartmentalized Near East.” One of the more-remarkable facets of this piece, and several others that are found in the early volumes, is its level of sophistication. Throughout, it is expected that the reader already knows the basic outline of the Documentary Hypothesis and is capable of understanding what is being put forward as evidence against it.[2]

Two years later, in another significant article, evangelical Edwin Yamauchi compares Homeric studies to biblical studies. The ancient Greeks, he begins, assumed the Homer had composed both the Illiad and the Odyssey. But in the late eighteenth century scholars, now referred to as analysts or separatists, dissected the poems into various layers. In the same way the likes of Astruc, Eichhorn and, most-notably, Wellhausen distinguished in the Pentateuch the source documents J, E, D, and P. In both enterprises, “the results were generally nihilistic.” But biblical archaeology, from its inception with the excavation of Nineveh begun in 1842, has overturned the negative evaluation of the historicity of the Pentateuch. The once-doubted existence of the Hittites was established in 1906. Customs referred to in the book of Genesis have been confirmed with the discovery of “10,000 texts from the Hurrian (biblical Horite) city of Nuzu in northern Mesopotamia.” Genesis 37-50 reveals a remarkable knowledge of ancient Egypt. And “Most biblical archaeologists . . . are now convinced of the substantive historical accuracy of the biblical traditions” (citing, with approval, the works of W. F. Albright). Nonetheless, the documentary hypothesis continues to be a pre-supposition of almost all Old Testament scholars. And this means that there is every reason to protest those who say they are not convinced by recent evidence from archaeology. To ask for irrefutable proof “is to overestimate the demands that can properly be placed on archaeological evidence—evidence that is circumstantial in nature, often fortuitous in discovery, and always but partial in survival.” [3]

To repeat and summarize then, in the early years of CT, the number and quality of articles dealing with biblical studies is impressive. But for what must have been a number of reasons, beginning in the mid-1970s, the once-common articles on subjects like the destructive Documentary Hypothesis or how the historical-critical method must be kept in the service faith begin to wane in number and size. It’s no exaggeration to say that by the early 1980s, the once-considerable coverage of the scholarly field was no more. For example, in place of the annual surveys of recent literature in the various fields was the occasional “Special Book Section” which featured mostly popular titles. [4]

Much more recently, a review of the first volume of the New Interpreter’s Bible leaves the reader with nary a clue that anyone ever suggested sources for the first three books of the Bible. Instead, the authors of the commentaries (T. Fretheim, W. Brueggemann, and evangelical W. Kaiser) are graded in terms of how well they juggle the various new schools and trends in biblical studies. [5] The next year’s volume of CT contains only a few articles dealing with the Old Testament and none, really, that match the depth of articles published in the early volumes. Instead, what we find for the most part are light reviews of light books. For example, the issue for March 4, 1996 contains a review by a New Testament specialist of three popular books on the Old Testament, all having to do with Jesus. [6] The “Annual Bible Issue” for that year turns out to be a conglomeration of a few light and cheery book notes combined with several sleek ads for new books and Bible-study software, an article on Old Testament divine warfare in the shadow of the Cross, and a series of sidebars on “My Favorite Old Testament Passage” written by contemporary evangelical heroes like scholar J. I. Packer and evangelist Luis Palau. The relatively-sophisticated pieces that made Julius Wellhausen notorious among the previous generation are completely gone.
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[1] CT, IV (November 23, 1959), 3-6.

[2] CT, VII (Mar. 15, 1963), 3-5. Significantly, an editorial blurb accompanies this second article by Gordon and describes the author as follows: “A member of a conservative synagogue, he may best be described as upholding the Jewish tradition of those for whom scriptural study is not only an academic pursuit but also a sacrament and way of life.”

[3] CT, X (November 19, 1965), 3-6. Here, Yamauchi’s position can be compared to John Bright. Regarding the question of the historicity of Scripture vis-à-vis archaeology, the normal procedure is to give the biblical record every benefit of the doubt.

[4] See, for example, CT XXVIII (September 7, 1984), 29-52.

[5] CT, XXXIX (April 3, 1995), 104-05.

[6] CT, XXXX (March 4, 1996), 58-61.

Old Testament Scholarship and Christianity Today Magazine: Getting Started

In three recent posts, I traced out the early history of evangelical Christianity in the United States:

The first post describes The Beginning and Rise of the American Fundamentalist Movement. Fundamentalism was partly a reaction. It was opposed to the advance of theological liberalism in the U.S. during the decades following the Civil War. (To get a taste of popular liberalism at the beginning of the 20th century, see this short article on how the book of Genesis should be taught in Sunday school. Note especially the last sentence). Another way of looking at Fundamentalism sees it as an effort to maintain the tenets and culture of early nineteenth-century conservative Protestantism.

The second post tells the story of Fundamentalist Defeat and Reaction. The 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial" in Dayton, Tennessee was a terrible blow to the public image of Fundamentalism. In the years following the trial, conservatives in America reacted in three distinct ways. The most progressive response (and, in time, the most successful) was what came to be known as evangelical Christianity.

The third post spotlights The Beginnings of American Evangelicalism, represented by what turned out to be two very effective institutions: Fuller Theological Seminary and Christianity Today magazine.

So that's where we've been. Going forward, I want to use Christianity Today (sometimes abbreviated CT) as a scope through which we can view evangelical response to scholarship in general and especially to the field of Old Testament studies. The goal is to arrive at a better understanding of what is distinctive about American Evangelicalism, especially its attitudes toward the Bible and modern scholarship.

At the outset, it is important to note that from the earliest times of their discernible identity, American evangelicals have held to the traditional understandings of Scripture which they had inherited from their fundamentalist forebears. This is not to say that the evangelical view was pre-critical. In other words, fundamentalist biblical scholarship never attempted to retreat to the time before the Enlightenment. Even a fundamentalist text like Gleason L. Archer’s, Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody Press, 1974), is a completely modern piece of work. So it is not the case that these “anti-modernists” called fundamentalists were not themselves modern. Rather, within the huge circle of modernity, both fundamentalists and their liberal or modernist counterparts had different sets of values. And those differents sets of values sent them down different pathways.

To someone who knows a bit about modern Old Testament scholarship, it comes as no surprise that the O.T. question taken up most often in the pages of CT centers on the unity, authorship, and date of the Torah, or Pentateuch. The second most-common question is the unity and date of the book of Isaiah. Running a distant third is the question of the date and interpretation of the book of Daniel. So, in the observations that follow, most of the material reviewed will deal with the Pentateuch. Questions regarding Isaiah will also get some attention.

My guess is that most of the people who frequent this blog cut their higher-critical teeth studying the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and the unity of the book of Isaiah. These were considered to be big issues, questions that were raised by modern Old Testament scholarship, and that had to be answered. Such were the beliefs of early neo-evangelicals.

The Beginnings of American Evanglicalism

So very much of the following I learned from Dr. Douglas E. Brown, Jr., whose teaching at Harding University Graduate School of Religion has had a sizable impact on the theological thought of preachers and professors among the Churches of Christ.

To make my work here more readable, I've placed documentation in numbered footnotes. Comments, corrections, questions, and disagreements are welcome.
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In the previous post, I described some of the effects that the 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial" had on conservative Protestantism in the United States. In short, over the next two decades those American Christians called "Fundamentalists" reacted in different ways and soon formed three distinctive groups which can described as follows:

1. Closed Fundamentalism -- defiant, militant, insular (e.g., Bob Jones University, and Carl McIntire's "American Council of Christian Churches").

2. Open Fundamentalism -- still mostly separate from the broader culture, but more-accomodating on some points than the group described as "Closed" (e.g., Moody Bible Instititute).

3. Evangelicalism -- determined to be culturally-engaged and world-class, and to avoid anti-intellectualism (e.g., National Association of Evangelicals).

Because the word "evangelical" was hardly new, the third and most-progressive group often referred to itself as “Neo-evangelicalism.” This group differentiated itself from both of the others in at least four ways:

First, evangelicals disassociated themselves from fundamentalist forms of separatism. Evangelicals did not abandon separation as a mark of Christian identity. But they did reject what they saw as fundamentalist extremes and a failure to promote cross-denominational unity and cooperation. An example of this point, E. J. Carnell identified fundamentalism as "the quest for negative status, the elevation of minor issues to a place of major importance, the use of social morays as a norm of virtue, the toleration of one’s own prejudices but not the prejudices of others, the confusion of the church with a denomination, and the avoidance of prophetic scrutiny by using the word of God as an instrument of self security but not self criticism.” [1]

Second, evangelicals disassociated themselves from the anti-intellectual tendency of the fundamentalists. Here the 1959 statements of evangelical spokesman John Gerstner are typical. The current scene, he said, is characterized by one kind of conservatism that is in “greater conversation with non-evangelical viewpoints.” In spite of the fact that the evangelical tradition “has known some in its fellowship to be obscurantist in their outlook," the best of the evangelicals have always been willing “to discuss vital issues with dispassionate academic objectivity." [2] Likewise, in 1960 Harold J. Ockenga (pictured here) distinguished evangelicalism from fundamentalism by saying that they were different “in areas of intellectual and ecclesiastical attitude.” [3]

Third, evangelicals disassociated themselves from the fundamentalist retreat from apologetic interaction with contemporary culture. The early works of Carnell are best examples of this emphasis. [4] It is likely that other American scholars would have written even more books on Christian apologetics had it not been for the tremendous success of the atheist-turned-Anglican C. S. Lewis. Books by Lewis such as Broadcast Talks, Christian Behaviour, Beyond Personality, [5] and Miracles [6] filled much of what was considered a void.

Fourth, evangelicals disassociated themselves from what they perceived to be the weak social concern of fundamentalists. Prior to the early twentieth century, many of those aligned with Protestant orthodoxy had promoted social action as one expression of their faith. [7] But at least two factors had contributed to a fundamentalist retreat from those historic commitments. In certain pockets of fundamentalism, the movement’s identity was closely connected with dispensational premillennialism. This triggered a heightened expectation of the end time and a pessimistic retreat from general society. [8] Also, the well-known “social gospel” was clearly associated with liberal theology. Evangelical reaction against fundamentalist disengagement clearly began with the 1947 publication of Carl Henry’s little book The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. [9] An early issue of Christianity Today carries on this emphasis by pledging “to apply the biblical revelation vigorously to the contemporary social crisis, by presenting the implications of the total Gospel message in every area of life.” The writer adds, “Fundamentalism has often failed to do this.” [10]

As concrete expressions of their distance from fundamentalism, evangelicals also established two historic institutions. First, they began a school that would train pastors and other sorts of leaders who would be capable of guiding churches, and who would be qualified to work in the world’s centers of influence: Fuller Theological Seminary was founded in Pasadena, California in May 1947. During the 1930s and 1940s, Charles E. Fuller hosted the immensely popular syndicated radio program, “The Old Fashioned Revival Hour.” At the formation of the Seminary named for his wealthy father, he was joined by Ockenga, pastor of the Park Street Congregational Church in Boston. These were days of bright beginnings. The Seminary was designed by Fuller to become “what Cal Tech is to engineering and West Point to military science.” [11] Fuller strongly recruited the best scholars among former fundamentalists, not the least of whom was E. J. Carnell. With earned doctorates from Harvard and Boston Universities, Carnell proved to be a powerful influence within the new school and its constituency. Fuller also secured the services of New Testament scholar George Eldon Ladd, whose writings deeply influenced Evangelicals. Significantly, among the faculty at Fuller were converts who had entered evangelical Christianity from mostly-unchurched backgrounds. The best-known and most prolific of these leaders was Carl F. H. Henry. [12]

Evangelicals also began a representative magazine, a flagship publication designed to express and guide evangelical thought. In 1956, Carl Henry became the founding editor of the magazine which has ever since served as a guide and clearinghouse for contemporary evangelicalism. They named it Christianity Today.
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[1] E. J. Carnell, The Case for Biblical Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1969), 169-70. Along the same line, Clyde S. Kilby observed a greater tendency “for orthodox believers to wish to get together rather than separate from each other. Those who seem determined to be a law unto themselves are finding it harder to survive at all.” Christianity Today, III (December 22, 1958), 20.

[2] CT, III (February 16, 1959), 39. See also, III (March 30, 1959), 3.

[3] CT, V (October 10, 1960), 12.

[4] Carnell’s first book was An Introduction to Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1948). Though his subsequent works were not so directly focused, they frequently took up apologetic themes.

[5] These three books were published from London by Geoffrey Bles in successive years 1942-44. A decade later, a revised and amplified collection of all three was published as Mere Christianity (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1952).

[6] London: Geoffrey Bles, 1947.

[7] See, for example, Clifford S. Griffin, "Religious Benevolence as Social Control, 1815-1860," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 44 (December 1957): 423-44; Griffin, Their Brothers' Keepers: Moral Stewardship in the United States, 1800-1865, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1960); and Charles I. Foster, An Errand of Mercy: The Evangelical United Front, 1790-1837 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960).

[8] “As evangelical thought developed along a premillennial line (notably since the Niagara Prophetic Conferences, 1868, and thereafter, reaching a certain peak around 1925), it often became increasingly apathetic towards civic involvement, expecting an immediate Second Advent.” George H. Williams and Rodney L. Petersen, “Evangelicals: Society, the State the Nation (1925-75),” in The Evangelicals, rev. ed., D. F. Wells and J. Woodbridge, eds. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House 1977), 260.

[9] Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1947.

[10] CT, III (October 13, 1958), 20. The essay is a “Statement of Policy and Purpose” which I presume was written by Carl Henry. As the first editor of CT, Henry continued his focus on this theme. In a substantial essay, “Perspective for Social Action,” he laments the opportunity that had been forfeited by orthodox Protestantism: “Perhaps at no time in modern history was American Protestantism so propitiously situated as at the early twentieth century for a world impact. . . . Sad to say, Protestantism dissipated this great opportunity and certain dire consequences followed hard upon its growing deference to the social gospel. . . . In its reaction against the social gospel, the fundamentalist movement became socially indifferent and even made the inevitability of social decline a part of its credo. To some extent, pessimism resulted from dispensational views which taught that world-wide spiritual apostasy must precede the second coming of Jesus Christ” CT, III (January 9, 1959), 10-11. Likewise, according to a history of neo-evangelicalism’s first 25 years in America, an evangelical “believes that a defense of the Gospel can be coupled with Christian charity and intellectual integrity.” The quote is taken from Ronald Nash’s review of Bruce Shelley, Evangelicalism in America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967), in CT, XI (July 7, 1967), 26.

[11] CT, III (January 19, 1959), 13.

[12] In addition to the general article by T. P. Weber, “Fuller Theological Seminary,” in Dictionary of Christianity in America, 460-61, a solid book-length treatment is provided by George M. Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987).

Fundamentalist Defeat and Reaction

Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan at the "Scopes Monkey Trial" in Dayton, Tennessee in the summer of 1925. Bryan died just five days after the trial was over. Many in the popular media drew connections between the death of Bryan and a hoped-for demise of Fundamentalism.

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Note: This post is a continuation of the previous one: The Beginning and Rise of the American Fundamentalist Movement. . . .

With such momentum behind it, only a public defeat, a national scandal, could slow down the fundamentalist movement in America. That defeat occurred in 1925 at Dayton, Tennessee.

Early on, the “Scopes Monkey Trial” was simply a case in which John T. Scopes, a young science teacher, would be tried for violating of a new Tennessee statute that banned the teaching of “any theory that denies the Story of Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible,” or of any theory “that man has descended from a lower order of animal.” But when the American Civil Liberties Union promised Scopes the best defense team in the nation and convinced him to confess, and when William Jennings Bryan agreed to join the prosecution team, the stage was set for one of the first real media circuses in American history. [1]

In spite of the prosecution’s initial victory—Scopes’ conviction was eventually overturned on a technicality—the coverage of the trial forever changed the image of fundamentalism in the United States. Clarence Darrow was one of the best defense attorneys of his day, and he took full advantage of Bryan’s miscalculated decision to serve as a witness in behalf of religious conservatism. What Bryan had somehow forgotten was that he would not be given an open platform. Instead, he would be required to respond to a series of barbed questions. From the standpoint of public relations, the trial was a rout from beginning to bitter end. The following exchange, for example, was reported around the world:

Darrow: When was the flood?

Bryan: I would not attempt to fix the date. The date is fixed as suggested this morning [i.e., according to Ussher’s Chronology printed in many Bibles of the day].

Darrow: But what do you think that the Bible itself says? Don’t you know how it was arrived at?

Bryan: I never made a calculation.

Darrow: A calculation from what?

Bryan: I could not say.

Darrow: From the generations of man?

Bryan: I would not want to say that.

Darrow: What do you think?

Bryan: I do not think about things I don’t think about.

Darrow: Do you think about things you do think about?

Bryan: Well, sometimes. [2]

Such reports were always accompanied by scathing editorials written by the likes of the caustic wit H. L. Mencken. As a result, the Scopes trial devastated the fundamentalist movement. Bryan’s true identity as a populist politician and spokesman was replaced by the image of a fundamentalist Pope. The character of the movement as an intellectually-engaged phenomenon with power centers in places like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Minneapolis was recast into something distinctively rural, unlearned and southern. As inaccurate as such representations were, they deeply influenced the way that Americans came to see fundamentalism. During the years that immediately followed the Scopes debacle, cultural ridicule drove the fundamentalist tradition to self-examination. The result was three distinctive groupings.

Closed Fundamentalism classifies those who, with little change, defended Protestant orthodoxy and a nostalgic early Americanism against modern trends. This approach is represented by the baseball-player-turned-preacher, Billy Sunday, Carl McIntire and his Twentieth Century Reformation Movement, Billy James Hargis and his Christian Crusade of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Bob Jones University. As a direct affront to the Federal Council of Churches--which later replaced “Federal” with “National’—in September 1941 McIntire, a prominent leader among the separatist fundamentalists, organized the American Council of Christian Churches. Its purpose was to be militantly pro-fundamentalist and anti-modernist. Hallmarks of this branch of the movement included a vehement rejection of both pacifism and any coexistence with suspected Communism, which was thought by these fundamentalists to be rampant. [3]

Open Fundamentalism classifies those who carried on the fundamentalist tradition, particularly its doctrine of dispensational premillennialism, without sharing the extreme attitudes, methods, and results of the isolationists. Representatives of this approach include the Moody Bible Institute, Dallas Theological Seminary, Hal Lindsey, author of The Late Great Planet Earth, and what became of the journal Bibliotheca Sacra. [4]

Evangelicalism classifies those who, while maintaining a commitment to the basic premises of the fundamentalist version of Protestant orthodoxy, clearly attempted to disassociate themselves from both groups of fundamentalists. At virtually the same time that Carl McIntire founded the ACCC, the National Association of Evangelicals was organized in October 1941. Because the term “evangelical” was not new, but was now taking on a new and more-specific definition, in the early days those who came out of fundamentalism often referred to themselves as “neo-evangelicals.”
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[1] Perhaps the best account of the proceedings and ramifications of the trial is provided by Edward J. Larson, Summer for the Gods: the Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion (New York: Basic Books, 1997). For an excellent short overview, see George M. Marsden, “Scopes Trial” in the Dictionary of Christianity in America, 1058-59.

[2] This part of the trial transcript is taken from George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 187.

[3] Description and advocacy of this branch of the movement is set forth by George W. Dollar, A History of Fundamentalism (Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University, 1973).

[4] Though Lindsey is spoken of as an “evangelical” in a Christianity Today news article [vol. 28 (December 14, 1984), 51], the piece goes on to report that “Serious Bible scholars reject Lindsey’s fanciful depictions of how today’s world events mesh with biblical prophecies.” It also observes that even Lindsey’s alma mater Dallas Theological Seminary did not take his interpretations seriously. Thus, one factor that apparently distinguishes open fundamentalists from their neo-evangelical siblings is the degree to which one insists on the correctness of dispensational premillennialism. More than any other figure, it was New Testament scholar George Eldon Ladd, an intellectual leader among the first generation of neo-evangelicals, who severed the close tie between dispensationalism and conservatism. In one of his earliest books, The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom (London: Paternoster, 1959), Ladd powerfully argued that according to the New Testament the kingdom of God was present during the ministry of Jesus and the life of the earliest Christians. The force and import of his argument seriously damaged the dispensationalist claim that because of Jewish unbelief the Lord postponed the establishment of his kingdom and inaugurated in its place the “church age.”

American Evangelicalism and Old Testament Scholarship

[T]he evangelical position is pledged to a scientific scholarship operating within the circle of Christian faith. No obscurantist methodology is available to the evangelical to enable him to interpret Scripture. . . . Evangelicals may be flayed for not facing up to modern criticism [i.e., modern analysis of the Bible] or for not making a significant contribution to it. They may be accused of harboring too large a population of obscurantists. But the thesis here propounded is undamaged: The pattern of the Reformers states that when divine certainties end, the only safe guide is the finest of scientific scholarship exercised in humility before God.

Bernard Ramm, "Are We Obscurantists?" Christianity Today 1 (February 18, 1957), p. 15.

No, it's not exactly an epigram. But the foregoing is my lead in, let's call it, for a paper that I'm planning to publish in segments here at Frankly Speaking. My working title at this point is (drum roll, please), . . . "American Evangelicalism and Old Testament Scholarship, 1956-2006."

The project goes back to a good bit of research I did just a few years ago. I've had some more time to think about it since then, and I'm ready now to pick up where I left off.

I may wind up submitting this work to a refereed journal. (Always think of men wearing striped shirts when I say that). Or I may hold on to it and save it for a future dissertation or book or all of the above. So I'll be glad to hear anything constructive you might have to say about its content, style, significance, whatever. One reason I've chosen to blog this material first is so that I can receive helpful feedback before going to press rather than after.

My plan is to follow three steps: First, I want to describe the influences, events, and personalities that led to the establishment of Christianity Today magazine.

Second, I'll overview the contents of the magazine from its inception until 2006, especially as it takes up and deals with contemporary Old Testament scholarship.

Third, I will offer a couple of provisional conclusions regarding the identity of, and apparent changes within, American evangelical scholarship (and evangelicalism in general) during that period of time.

One of my main conclusions will be that, during the last half century, what I've decided to call the "intellectual middle class" of American evangelicalism, which was once quite strong, has all but vanished. Ironically, this has happened during the same era when the academic achievements of the best American evangelical scholars have grown more and more impressive.

It might even be possible to identify lines between what I'm describing and the apparent loss of vitality within evangelical circles coming into the twenty-first century. At any rate, I want the study to do more than simply offer description. I want it to also provide some analysis, and to show how the recent past has shaped the current scene. It might even provide at least part of the map that would indicate where the American evangelical movement should go from where it is now.

Evangelicals and the Use of Torture

Okay, so you've probably heard by now: The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has released the findings of a survey that began with this statement:

The use of torture against suspected terrorists . . .

Turns out, white evangelical Protestants are most likely to say that torture can often (18%) or sometimes (44%) be justified. They're also the least likely to say that torture can never (16%) be justified.

On the other hand, the religiously unaffiliated are some of the most likely to say that torture can never (26%) be justified. The only group with a higher percentage of this response are white mainline Protestants (31%)--that is, most Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, etc.

For what it's worth, the Pew Forum people say that because the responses from other religious groupings were too few for statistical significance, the responses of only white religious groupings were reported.

At any rate, ever since the report was published news outlets have cited the statistics and offered analysis. A CNN story, for example, begins by saying that the more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists. The story goes on to specifically point out that white evangelical Protestants are the group most likely to say that torture is often or sometimes justifiable (62%).

The sorts of blog posts and comments that I've seen so far are more less united; people both inside and outside of the evangelical camp are denouncing the group for their hypocrisy, an apparent allegiance to Republicanism rather than to the ethics of the Kingdom of Christ.

My questions: Is this a fair criticism? Can anything reconcile the avowed Christian faith of evangelicals with their greater support for torture under some circumstances?

What do you think?

Evangelic-olution and the Presidential Election

Something that makes the upcoming U.S. Presidential election so interesting to me: It seems like those conservative Protestants called Evangelicals are no longer such a solid block of voters.

Is that true? And if it is, will it make a decisive difference come November? I'm not sure. But here's a little more about what I mean.

It seems that some evangelical leaders (for example, Jim Wallis, head of the Sojourners) have done a lot to broaden what at least some Evangelicals care about. For example, in a radio interview several weeks ago , Wallis mentioned that in recent memory the huge majority of Evangelicals were focused on (1) abortion and (2) same-sex marriage, but that today it is much more likely that an Evangelical will also care about (1) poverty, (2) HIV/AIDS, (3) places like Darfur, (4) climate change, and (5) the war in Iraq.

I think Wallis is right. If he is, then it seems like the Democratic Party would have an easier time getting Evangelicals to vote for their candidate. (That's not to say that I necessarily think that the Democrats' policies are better on those questions. It is to say that, if a person cares about such issues, his perception would likely be that he's a better fit in the Democratic Party).

Among what I'd call "theological influences" that promote that sort of shift would be teachings, for example, that involve care for the Creation in response to humanity's stewardship of the earth, which goes back to Genesis 1 and involves the love of neighbor.

Now, I'm not one for moving to a conclusion without first establishing the premises,. But I might speculate that if American Evangelicals are significantly more diverse now than they were just a few years ago, then this could turn out to be an especially-interesting election.

In short, I think that a recent growth in diversity among American Evangelicals would be a very good sign for Barack Obama.

What do you think?

The Sad Saga of Ted Haggard

Ted Haggard’s letter to New Life Church can be seen here. I came across it over at Mike Cope’s blog. Someone there remarked about how ironic and sad it was that, in this case, a homosexual prostitute has evidently been more truthful than a Christian preacher.  

What bothers me as much as anything is that Haggard’s confessions have apparently been one step slower than the evidence against him. Your thoughts and reactions to this bombshell in the Evangelical community? To Haggard’s letter? To the amount and kind of attention this story has received in the media?