The Evangelical Hypothesis

Posted on August 16, 2011 by TwoFriars

Several years ago I wrote a blog series on “The Heresies of American Evangelicalism.” The deliberately provocative title was an attempt to call evangelicals back to a proper mode of Christian faith and practice. The approach, however correct, was too negative, and it also gave the impression that orthodoxy and heresy are somehow fixed categories that are (a) universally meaningful and (b) universally binding. I think neither is true. Today, I want to take a different approach, one that I hope will be more positive, but also more compelling.

I call my position the “evangelical hypothesis,” which is a reference to Alain Badiou’s notion of the “communist hypothesis.” The other term he uses is “the Idea of communism,” and “the Idea of evangelicalism” could have worked equally well for my purposes. The point is that, like Badiou, I am attempting to identify an idea or truth (in the Badiouan sense of these words) that comes to expression in evangelicalism. The virtue of identifying such an idea is that it can serve both critical and constructive purposes, as I hope to demonstrate.

First, I need to distinguish the present thesis from the many previous attempts at giving definitions of evangelicalism. These attempts have all failed because they tried to provide demographic descriptions of a particular set of people. John Stackhouse, for example, explicitly states that his purpose is to achieve more accurate polling data. This may have its uses, but I take my approach to be the exact opposite of his. Instead of taking the existing forms of evangelicalism as a given and deriving a definition from these forms, I instead seek to give verbal form to the “eternal truth” or “Idea” that comes to expression in the evangelical mode of Christian faith.

Second, it’s important to remember that multiple eternal ideas may come to expression. In a book on universalism that I am currently writing, I identify the evangelical idea as the notion that the truth of one’s being is located in a concrete act of the individual will, or what David Bebbington calls “conversionism.” My focus here is more broad than a particular doctrinal locus or theological problem. The idea I am after in this context is a more expansive posture toward all theological truth.

Enough by way of introduction. The evangelical hypothesis, or the eternal idea of evangelicalism, is “mission without churches”—another play on the phrase often used by Badiou to define his version of communism: “politics without parties.” By mission without churches I mean that evangelical faith brings to expression, however obliquely and indirectly, the truth that the mission of God is radically subtracted from the immanent logic or law of religion. Evangelicalism, properly understood, is an anarchic mode of Christian existence.

Let me illustrate this with some snapshots (in no particular order). Exhibit #1: the Anabaptist reaction against the Constantinianism common to both the Catholic Church and the churches of the magisterial Reformers, not to mention all civil religion. Exhibit #2: the innumerable parachurch organizations that arose with neo-evangelicalism in the mid-twentieth century. Exhibit #3: Charles Finney’s rejection of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination on the basis that, “Anything brought forward as doctrine, which cannot be made use of as practical, is not preaching the gospel.” Exhibit #4: the cross-cultural and deeply activist missionary impulse at the heart of modern evangelicalism. Exhibit #5: the thriving of evangelicalism, especially in its non-denominational and non-institutional forms, in the midst of the massive decline in all the mainline denominations and established religious institutions. Exhibit #6: the concern with identifying a “mere Christianity” not bound to traditional creedal formulas. Exhibit #7: the conversionist emphasis on the free decision of the individual will in response to a personal word of God, as opposed to an assent of the mind to an impersonal creed. Exhibit #8: the so-called “emerging” church. Exhibit #9: the so-called “new monasticism.” Exhibit #10: the meteoric rise of diverse forms of evangelicalism in the Global South.

These should suffice to make my point. Not all of these “snapshots” are things I personally endorse, but they serve to attest the eternal idea that lies buried within them all. The evangelical idea is (a) that the gospel is simultaneously both transcultural and indigenous, meaning that cross-cultural translation is at the heart of Christian faith, and (b) that true Christian faith is absolutely independent of any and every religious structure (or “church”) that would attempt to legitimize it. Hence, mission without churches. This deliberately paradoxical formulation expresses the truth that established religious structures, or church institutions, are non-essential to the practice of evangelical faith. And this means that the evangelical propagation of the faith, i.e. its missionary movement, must not be the extension of any previous institution. The proclamation of such an extension would be what John Flett calls “propaganda.” And just because I have been speaking of religious institutions does not mean that I restrict the word “church” to denominations and other self-identified religious groups. Just as Luther said whatever one worships is “god,” so too whatever provides the ideological support or social matrix for one’s identity is “church.” For many self-described evangelicals today, for example, the “church” takes the form of the Republican party.

The obvious rejoinder is: why can’t we just redefine “church” to refer to these indigenous, local embodiments of faith in Christ? Of course, we can do that, and I myself have done so. But this can easily lead to a co-opting of evangelicalism by the hegemony of religion and thus the erasure of the anarchic seed of evangelical faith within the ideological superstructure of Church. The point here is to articulate as clearly and unambiguously as possible the radically nonconformist logic that comes to expression in evangelicalism.

Why make this case for the evangelical hypothesis? And why now? Because it seems to me that we are seeing a massive retreat from the eternal idea of evangelicalism. Some, like Francis Beckwith, are taking solace in Roman Catholicism. Many others are taking solace in some form of traditional liturgy as a way of connecting them, so they say, to the larger body of Christ. But these are really the least of my concern. Far more dangerous, in my view, is the recent turn to neo-fundamentalism—specifically, a Reformed neo-fundamentalism—within formerly neo-evangelical circles, as evidenced especially by changes in Christianity Today and at institutions like Fuller Seminary and Wheaton College (my alma mater). Whether it is to Catholicism, Orthodoxy, mainline Protestantism, or to Reformed orthodoxy, many evangelicals are turning away from their pietist, nonconformist roots. While some may view this as a positive turn back to the broader Christian tradition and a greater fidelity to the regula fidei, it strikes me at the same time as a betrayal of the eternal idea of evangelicalism, the anarchic beating heart of evangelical piety. It goes without saying that the 30-year political capitulation of most American evangelicals to the conservative party has also been a betrayal, though a capitulation to the opposing party would be no less problematic. And one could list any number of other cultural, political, and philosophical “churches” that have led people away from the evangelical hypothesis.

This has been an unfortunately brief account of the evangelical hypothesis. As a result, it is no doubt sure to cause confusion and require further elaboration and explanation. For now, however, it will have to suffice to say—as controversial and counterintuitive as it may sound—that the promise of evangelicalism is the promise of a post-religious Christianity.

David W. Congdon

is a PhD candidate in systematic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. His dissertation argues for a reassessment of the relation between Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann. He lives in Princeton with his wife and son. He enjoys watching as many films as he can find time for, smoking his pipe, and listening to the Arcade Fire.

This entry was posted in Ecumenism/Interfaith, Theology and tagged Aric Clark, David W. Congdon, Doug Hagler, Nick Larson. Bookmark the permalink.

Kait Dugan

David –

Thanks for this. It was a fascinating read. Would you be kind enough to expound upon what you mean when you say “the beating heart of evangelical piety”? What content would you give to “evangelical piety” specifically?

- Kait Dugan

http://twitter.com/dwcongdon David Congdon

Hi Kait, I am going to resist giving a universal definition of what evangelical piety has to entail. That’s part of my resistance to all universal definitions and prescriptions. I think piety — which is identical for me with mission, since I don’t want to dichotomize between inner and outer realms of Christian practice — has to be the work of love as it responds to the concrete neighbor in our midst. Part of that work of love will involve more traditional practices, such as the reading and contemplation of scripture. But I hope it is primarily about concrete actions that attend to the persons in our local community. Such actions cannot be prescribed in advance or in the abstract. There’s no “law” that applies to all people at all times. Such “piety” has to be discovered anew in the particular moment.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Douglas-Hagler/848645164 Douglas Hagler

This is exactly what the definition of piety should be. We think strongly enough to try writing a book about it – and we’ll see how that goes. But yes – piety is concrete love of neighbors (including enemies).

http://twitter.com/MickBradley MickBradley

This is the first post at TFF where I feel as though it is written to an audience far more lofty on the academic-theologian ladder than I am. Lots and lots of systematic academia-lingo, not a whole lot of actual substance – at least not the kind of substance that I can take away and put to use in my faith communities.

This is probably going to impress David’s advisors at Princeton, though. So, yeah.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Douglas-Hagler/848645164 Douglas Hagler

I totally disagree (about it being only of value to David’s advisors, particularly). I think that this is both interesting and approachable. It is definitely in the genre of academia, but it is something worth considering – what is Evangelicalism? Is it something positive that’s been hijacked (as I implied) by a social conservative political agenda? Is it something that, somehow, Evangelicals misunderstand? Is it possible for Evangelicalism to be something that Evangelicals misunderstand? Or is the idea of “Mission without Churches” itself outside the intent of the early Christians (as Aric asks)? And so on.

And, heck, if jargon-definition is an issue, here’s a great chance to ask what the author means by the words he chose.

http://twitter.com/MickBradley MickBradley

I’ll retract my comment about the post lacking in substance and apologize for the tone.

I’m simply saying that in this case – for me – the writing style pushes me away rather than drawing me in. I don’t feel invited to engage in conversation or clarification, I feel invited to back the hell off because I’m not appropriately seminary-trained in systematics.

And it’s not that I don’t really understand the lingo – I’m around people at LPTS who talk and write like this all the time. But after reading it three times, I’m still not feeling like this post has anything I can grab ahold of and wrestle with in discussion.

Now I’ll go listen to your vid responses, maybe I’ll find something in there that makes me feel invited to converse.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Douglas-Hagler/848645164 Douglas Hagler

Thanks, cool.

I have definitely noticed that different people tend to comment on some posts and not others (I have even skipped a few to date that didn’t hit a target for me) – and I don’t think any of the three of us expect every post to hit every target, particularly since we are going for a wide variety of voices, topics, methods, and even levels of academic-ese.

What I like thus far is that, particularly with the addition of Disqus, each post seems to get some of our audience significantly engaged.

If you want, you can go back to Charlotte Elia’s post – she still owes us one more piece of church father/mother required reading…unless Augustine counted as the first one.

http://blog.waterintobeer.com Mary Charlotte Elia

Augustine is the coach of the all-star team. There is one more player to be announced. I’m not sure if it is a good or bad thing that I’ve about written more words in the comments than in the piece.

http://twitter.com/dwcongdon David Congdon

Thank you to my respondents. I am grateful for the invitation to write this piece, and I look forward to the conversation. I must say, however, that all of them have rather drastically misread my piece. But I expected as much, so let me clarify some things. I will do so in three parts: (1) the evangelical idea is not an evangelical definition, (2) mission without churches is not mission without communities, and (3) the evangelical idea is a political-ideological critique of evangelicalism.

First, my use of the word “evangelical” is not at all connected with what is known as “American evangelicalism” or some such descriptor of a certain demographic or ecclesiological subgroup. The whole point of my piece is to completely avoid that. I am NOT — this is crucial — providing a description of the empirical reality called “evangelicalism.” I am not giving an analysis of what self-describing “evangelicals” believe or ought to believe. The evangelical hypothesis has no intrinsic relation to a specific set of people in the world right now. The connection with Badiou here is important, and it’s possible that misreadings of my piece are due to a misunderstanding of Badiou’s concept of idea. I thought I made this clear when I said that I am not giving a “definition of evangelicalism” along the lines of Bebbington and Stackhouse.

I only use the adjective “evangelical” because I think this idea (which I believe is definitive for Christian existence, not at all restricted to some subgroup of believing Christians) *comes to expression* (key phrase, taken from the writings of Gerhard Ebeling as part of the hermeneutical debates in the mid-20th century) in certain instances of evangelical history — though I could have used numerous other examples from outside this history — and because I think (some) evangelicals are the most likely to “get” what I’m talking about.

Second, mission without churches is not at all mission without communities. I admit to being a bit stunned by Nick’s comment regarding the “individual will.” It was my mistake for not explicitly stating that I reject this position. I can see how someone might take the comment about individualism and my later comments about “mission without churches” and conclude that these are two parts of the same picture. But that is antithetical to what I was trying to say. Almost all of the critical remarks by Doug, Nick, and Aric are concerned with what they take to be my rejection of the ecclesial community, as if “mission without churches” means mission without the people of God. No! Far from it! Let’s just “anathematize” that view right now so that we’re all on the same page. So when Nick says that basic to faith is participation in a community, I am in total agreement. But when he then goes on to say that it “makes no difference” to him whether one calls it a church or something else, I am going to resist — not because I am opposed to the word “church” as such, but because that leads him to misread my essay. It leads him and others to think that the word “church” is here synonymous with “faith community” or something like that. But that’s to misunderstand what I’m saying. I am putting forward a very specific technical definition of the word for a very particular purpose. And I am resistant to using the word “church” positively for the reason that I explicitly give: viz. that I am concerned about being co-opted into the preexisting structures of religion and hegemonic power. Nick closes his response by expressing confusion about why I can say “mission without churches” and then give ten snapshots of what he sees to be “church.” The issue is not only my very specific definition of “church,” but also the fact that the evangelical hypothesis is not identifiable with any of those snapshots but rather “comes to expression” indirectly through them. That’s an important point I cannot stress enough.

So what exactly do I mean by “mission without churches”? See the following statements: “true Christian faith is absolutely independent of any and every religious structure (or ‘church’) that would attempt to legitimize it”; “whatever provides the ideological support … for one’s identity is ‘church’”; “the mission of God is radically subtracted from the immanent logic or law of religion” (more Badiou allusions); “for many self-described evangelicals today, for example, the ‘church’ takes the form of the Republican party”; “the evangelical propagation of the faith, i.e. its missionary movement, must not be the extension of any previous institution.”

Notice that “church” is in scare quotes in these statements. Notice also the words “legitimize” and “ideological support” and “law.” These are the best indicators of what I’m talking about. Church refers to the ideological structure that one posits or relies upon as a way of giving faith a stable foundation and legitimation. This might take the form of actual worshiping communities, but it is by no means restricted to that sense of the term. As it relates to actual churches, my position is a rejection of ecclesiocentrism (in agreement with Nate Kerr and John Flett): mission is not the extension of a particular culture or theoretical worldview, but rather the indigenizing act of cross-cultural translation. Put another way, the church’s identity — and here I disagree with Aric — does not reside in its being, but in its contingent, contextual action. So here I do place myself against the positions of Hauerwas, Hütter, etc. But of course this does not mean that I am against communities of faith as such! Moreover, my understanding of church is not limited to this ecclesiological horizon. Part of the impetus behind this piece is the recognition that the capitulation of evangelicalism to neocon ideology is a failure of mission. “Mission WITH churches” is what we see when self-describing evangelicals wed their proclamation of the gospel with certain social, cultural, and political (not to mention also theological!) presuppositions. “Mission with churches” is the hegemonic and ideological superstructure that I am placing the “evangelical idea” against. It surely goes without saying that my evangelical idea is thus in flat opposition to almost everything that goes by the name “evangelical” in the world today.

Third, to continue that point, my position is not “socially conservative” (horror of horrors!) as Doug put it. I am completely in agreement with Doug that American evangelicalism is part of the hegemonic structure of power that needs to be resisted, which is why my “evangelical idea” is the strongest possible critique of evangelicalism. It seems that he (like others) was misled by my positive use of the word “evangelical” into thinking that I am somehow approving of what the media refers to as “evangelicalism.” It was a bit comical to hear about 80,000-member megachurches, as if I somehow think this is a good thing! Where does one reach that conclusion from my piece? When Doug says that these are hardly “mission without churches,” I couldn’t agree more! My piece is a condemnation of this very phenomenon. So “mission without churches” has nothing to do with “mission without denominations.” Also, just because I list “parachurch organizations” or anything else in my list of examples does not mean I necessarily approve of it. I stated that explicitly.

My real interest is in the sociopolitical scene, even though my references to it are few and oblique. The similarity between my position and Badiou is not only formal; it also has material continuity. “Mission without churches,” as I understand it, ought also to be “politics without parties,” in the fully emancipatory and radically egalitarian sense that Badiou intends. This was, I’ll grant, something that I didn’t state directly, but it is part of what I want people to take away from my piece.

I hope this helps clarify what I mean. I was constrained by the word limit to say things in a way that were bound to be misleading. Thanks to my respondents for pushing me to make my position clearer.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Douglas-Hagler/848645164 Douglas Hagler

This is good clarification – I think we misread each other. My main point was my final one – that if your defition of the evangelical hypothesis was right, then what we call “evangelicalism” has been thoroughly hijacked by a social conservative agenda, such that the hypothesis is not even discernible if we look for this evangelical idea amongst self-described evangelicals. What I was trying to do was to point out the tension between what you said was the evangelical idea, and what the overwhelming majority of self-described evangelicals seem to be doing.

I wonder, then, whether self-described evangelicals are likely to accept an evangelical idea that does not describe what it is that they do. Is it a critique that will make sense to those who are outside evangelicalism only?

http://twitter.com/dwcongdon David Congdon

“What I was trying to do was to point out the tension between what you said was the evangelical idea, and what the overwhelming majority of self-described evangelicals seem to be doing.”

Precisely! I’m not really concerned with whether self-described evangelicals view this idea as descriptive or applicable to them. I’m simply making the case that, insofar as they reject this idea, they reject that which is properly evangelical.
http://twitter.com/reflectant Nick Larson

This is a great comment Doug. Will self-describer’s accept the idea. I know that I spend a lot of time offering up critiques to “mainliners” that does not describe what it is they all do, but what it is they could be doing. So far it’s a mixed reaction in terms of response, some love it (the call to be more than we are) some frown at it (because they are comfortable where things sit now).

Matthew Frost

And your clarification aligns well with one of the first things that struck me about this piece: how thoroughly you align yourself with the concept of BECs, Basic Ecclesial Communities. And yet I see a leap in your logic that as a student of WCC ecclesiology I can’t in good conscience follow. You say, “mission without churches … expresses the truth that established religious structures, or church institutions, are non-essential to the practice of evangelical faith. And this means that the evangelical propagation of the faith, i.e. its missionary movement, must not be the extension of any previous institution.”

You move here from “institutions are non-essential” — in which case they may still be sufficient means — right into the statement that institutions cannot be permitted to be the roots of evangelical mission. I would urge you to be careful that your “politics without parties” idea doesn’t become the exclusion of those who are not in your “outsider” concept. Flett is right that mission as an extension of *ideology* is propaganda. But for exactly that reason, I want to question your too-tight identification of institutions of religion with religious ideology, and your seeming rejection of a sense that what you propose as the eternal ideological content of evangelical identity is in fact ideology.

I hear you separating the evangelical idea from the sociological supports of identity, and that’s fine for the purposes of making a conceptual abstraction. But it must touch ground somewhere. In the process of making this Badiouan abstraction of mission, I see you arrogating the gospel mission of the church in any place and form to an explicitly antisocial ideology, and away from any possible association with existing churches in order to protect it from becoming partisan. But I will say to you that it is the nature of the church in any place, time, and form to be in mission, and it is the proclamation of the free and independent gospel of God that creates that mission as it comes into concrete and sinful human forms. It worries me tremendously to see you isolate the two to keep the idea of gospel mission “clean,” when it is the sole practical nature of our Christian unity as churches that we engage in it.

http://twitter.com/dwcongdon David Congdon

Let me try to say things a little differently. I am in no way trying to isolate or abstract mission from existing ecclesial communities or other social groups. That’s not what I’m getting at, and I’m sorry if my language is a bit clumsy. I’ll admit that I’m dealing here with an intellectual problem, but I think finding a more appropriate intellectual-theological articulation of the “church” is essential to the actual practice of mission in the world. (To avoid confusion, I’m going to use “church” here in the positive sense to refer to concrete communities of faith, not in the negative sense that I employ in the essay itself.)

What I am getting at is the notion that the church in any particular time and place is constituted by a certain mode of action in response to the gospel kerygma. It comes into existence when people are engaged in the work of the people (lit. “liturgy”) in response to the particular sociopolitical needs of one’s situation (what Badiou would call a “world”). The mission of the church is therefore not the extension of any prior worldview or institution, whether it’s a political ideology or a denomination or a philosophical system. A community of faith is engaged in a properly “evangelical” mission when it recognizes the freedom of the gospel to subvert the very cultural-historical presuppositions of the sending community, and so creates a wholly new indigenous embodiment of the gospel. The evangelical “idea,” as I conceive it, is simply a radicalization of Luther’s insight into the freedom of a Christian. I’m simply socializing this freedom to include the very cultural and political forms of the community. The “liturgy,” in a certain sense, has to be discovered anew in response to the concrete claim of the neighbor/enemy. The church “takes place” as a liturgical exigency in the eschatological moment.

Matthew Frost

Ah. So “mission without churches” functions more on the basis of defining “church” against the churches’ concrete existence, for the sake of their essence? (To borrow existential terms) As one of Vitor Westhelle’s students, I’m familiar with the concept of church as event. Hearing you landing the idea somewhere in that vicinity, I’m a bit more on board with it. I think the concept you’ve derived is solid; as I said, it’s just the means of negotiation between concept and reality that are tricky. That’s always a difficult line to walk, because we have to draw it as we go.

Anonymous

Thanks for your thorough clarification. It wouldn’t be the first time I misunderstood something. I don’t know Badiou’s work which seems pretty foundational to your argument, so that may be where I’m missing some of the links.

I think part of the disconnect in our responses has to do with semantics. Even when you define your own terms in an essay you can’t really escape the broader connotations labels like “evangelicalism” contain. It does seem to me that your critique needs to be responsive to the empirical reality even as you are attempting a constructive project very different from most of what passes for evangelicalism these days. If your use of the term can find no footing inside the communities that self-identify as evangelical then it might be better to simply cede the word and coin a new word for what you are attempting to describe. I’m aware that there are historical precedents for what you are describing, but language ultimately is defined by usage, not history or etymology.

As for your point about the church’s identity rising out of its contextual action and not its being – I’ve been trying for years and still haven’t been able to get a good foothold in this argument between being vs. action. I think it may well be a red-herring. There is no action without an actor, but the identity of an actor is immaterial if inactive. It is true that wherever we can point and say “there is the church” we are pointing to something “happening”, but we are also pointing to someTHING. I think it is fruitful and appropriate to talk about the beloved community as an entity, as perhaps the very goal of Jesus’ ministry. Simply by being who it is supposed to be the beloved community accomplishes what Jesus is about. The eucharistic feast is an end in itself – BUT it is also the case that any true instance of eucharist leads inevitably to missionary action so we can in retrospect judge the thing by its behavior. Where we get into trouble is identifying the beloved community or “the Church” with any particular church. I’m probably speaking in circles here.

http://twitter.com/dwcongdon David Congdon

My response to Matt above may address some of your concerns, Aric. Maybe not. Let me know.

As for the word “evangelical,” I refuse to give it up, despite the many calls to do so. You originally asked me to talk about how evangelicalism today is a betrayal of historic evangelical ideas. I didn’t want to write that piece because (a) it’s already been written several times over by the likes of Donald Dayton and (b) I’m not a trained historian. But it remains absolutely true that evangelicalism was originally a radical movement of freedom and social progressivism. My thoughts about the “evangelical idea” were born out of this historical fact, and I make some allusions to this history in my ten snapshots (especially the Finney reference, who is the father of evangelical liberalism).

While I agree that usage is central to meaning, I think we must resist making it all-determinative. It may be that in certain contexts we will need to speak differently — I’m certainly open to that. But that’s a matter of linguistic translation from one context to another. I have yet to hear anyone provide a word comparable to “evangelical” that will adequately translate its material content: grounded in the gospel (“good news”), free for new expressions of faith, oriented toward mission. For these and other reasons, the word is indispensable.

I think your mention of the “beloved community” is a good example of what I want. But I fail to see how this is an example of some “being” in distinction from “action.” Isn’t it rather the case that the beloved community comes into existence whenever and wherever there are people fighting together against social injustice? Isn’t it precisely marked by a kind of radical political action? The beloved community came into existence in the marches against racial prejudice, but it vanishes the moment people settle into the institutionalized routine of segregated life.

Anonymous

Your article is definitely more interesting than the prompt I offered. I was just aiming to get some thoughts rolling, but I agree that the topic I suggested has been done.

I’m going to mull over your last paragraph some more. I think you’re right.
Brad Anderson

Let me restate Aric’s concern in more direct language, David: the dichotomy between being and action is a false one. This is not because they are one and the same; they are not. The church’s being has to do with election and (new) covenant, a la 1 Peter 2, etc. It is called into being by its Lord (and yes, Jesus himself does call it “church,” so I think dispensing with the term as irrevocably ideological instead of redeeming it is a major mistake), an event distinct from (and originally and logically prior to, though in ongoing reciprocation with) the church’s own action. So yes, election/vocation preceeds mission, and provides the church a certain ontological impetus for its action. Yet this being is inextricably tied to action; a lack of the latter can very well nullify the former, at least in particular times and places.

This is why I believe one can speak of the church, and not only in localized form, as people of God, as the transnational, transcultural, transhistorical community of disciples of Jesus Christ. The “trans-” prefixes don’t dispense with the localized, but they do transcend it to say that the church is more than the sum of its (local) parts, as it were. However, this does not mean that the church should be defined primarily in terms of structures and institutions, rather than organic community; both you and those you’re critical of make this move, and I think it’s a mistake. The church is not beyond reproach, and it is not beyond reform. It is, however, not reducible to action.

http://twitter.com/dwcongdon David Congdon

I don’t accept the notion that being precedes action. I subscribe to an actualistic ontology, so I don’t think election/vocation are ever independent of or prior to mission. That’s an axiomatic decision on my part, which I’ll grant is non-traditional. But I do think it has important implications that are theologically better than the alternatives.
Brad Anderson

That seems rather arbitrary as you state it here. Care to elaborate?

Matthew Frost

Solid point (as in the post) with respect to usage and meaning. To the extent that we do in fact respect usage by allowing it to determine meaning, we can’t just do it on the synchronic plane. “Evangelical” can’t simply mean what it means in today’s language games. And modern sociology of religion has a tendency to follow that exclusively, which we must remember is a diagnostic report, not a definition. The massive diachronic history tells us not only how the word came to have this content, but also what its content has been, and what it could therefore also be. It allows us to make the (polemical) abstraction of the basic, essential or “eternal” meaning as a tool for rehabilitating usage. It allows us, in short, to do grammar for the sake of the users, even if we have to fight them for it.
Brad Anderson

David, isn’t there a disconnect here between your understanding of language and of the church? You don’t want usage of a word to be all-determinative of its meaning, but you do want the actions of the church to be all-determinative of its meaning? I’m not getting, then, how your discussion of “evangelical” supports your understanding of “mission without churches.” Am I making sense, or am I asking you to account for something unnecessary for your point?

Moreover, this seems to become an extremely anthropocentric ecclesiology, i.e., the church is constituted solely by human action and not by anything God has done in Christ which could ultimately overcome our own inadequacies and sin.

http://twitter.com/dwcongdon David Congdon

No, I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood me, though we’re touching on issues far beyond the scope of my original essay and thus topics I haven’t addressed explicitly. So I understand that there will be points of confusion. To fully develop what I have in mind would require a book (to be written!), so you’ll have to let things be a bit tentative and experimental for now.

Let me address your claim about an “anthropocentric ecclesiology,” because this will I think answer your question about actions being determinative of meaning. My position is that the church is not self-constitutive; it is constituted at every point by God alone. The actions of the church do not in themselves constitute its being. When I speak about an actualistic ontology, I do not mean that my acts as independent and autonomous decisions make me (or the church) what I am. It is the act of God in Jesus Christ that is constitutive of my identity. However, I do want to say that this divine act coincides (paradoxically and indirectly) with my action. Put differently, my human agency is a Spirit-empowered repetition of and thus participation in the singular agency of Jesus Christ. Ecclesiology takes place within christology via pneumatology. So it’s not anthropocentric at all. And it’s the missionary action of God that determines the meaning of the word “church” (in its positive sense), not the action of the community in abstraction from its christological ground and telos.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Douglas-Hagler/848645164 Douglas Hagler

This brings to mind an interesting question that I wonder about a great deal – apart from the actions of Christians, how can we concretely say that God acts? Then, apart from, say, the existence of the universe and it’s functioning (which we don’t necessarily need God to explain, or at least plausibly theorize about), what then? That your actions are a repetition of the agency of Jesus Christ is a faith statement – what is present to the senses is always simply your actions.
Brad Anderson

David, I’d echo Douglas’s questions below, and I’d add my own. First of all, can you give a concrete example of what this would look like? How does the divine act coincide with your own, and why is it necessarily paradoxical and indirect?

What makes your human agency Spirit-empowered? What is the missionary action of God, of which you are writing here? Certainly, that would constitute “church,” (as opposed to the “action of the community in abstraction from its christological ground and telos” – who actually argues this???), but that’s not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether our own missionary action is always and necessarily prior to our being “church.” That seems to be the gist of your post.

Anonymous

Incidentally the three response videos came out this time all on the more critical side. We usually try to have a mix of agreement and disagreement in our videos, but in the past Doug and I have always been able to count on Nick to be the cheerleader while we behave in a more curmudgeonly fashion. What happened Nick?

http://twitter.com/dwcongdon David Congdon

Haha. No problem, I appreciate the push back. This was all a bit experimental on my part, so I expect to have to revise and clarify things.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Douglas-Hagler/848645164 Douglas Hagler

My bet, honestly, is that we just have some triggers, like everyone else does. One of those is “evangelical”. As I type it I can feel the spines on my dorsal side rising up in an aggressive posture. I think we skewed critical because of the topic. Our gut reaction to something about “evangelicalism” is something like “The Hell you say! Have at you!”

Which is funny to see in effect, and good to know. We’re no more ‘objective’ than most other people.

http://twitter.com/dwcongdon David Congdon

Trust me, the spines on my dorsal side rise up as well! Honestly, I write positively about something called “evangelical” because it’s part of my own healing process. I grew up fundamentalist (and proudly so), had a violent wake-up call in college and turned against my family and my tradition, and now (thanks ironically to quote-unquote liberals like Bultmann) I’m coming back around to speaking positively, albeit radically and idiosyncratically, about evangelicalism again. So this is all part of a larger journey.

http://www.facebook.com/nlarson417 Nick Larson

I actually don’t typically have that strong of a reaction. But see Aric you can’t always count on me to be positive I just think I misunderstood your intent the MOST out of all of us.

Anonymous

The universe might end. Nick just commented on a post the day it went up – TWICE.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Douglas-Hagler/848645164 Douglas Hagler

Either that, or he’s found a good baby-kennel out there in MO.
Brad Anderson

Gents, this is the first time I’ve paid concentrated attention to your blog, and I appreciate this discussion and the ways in which you’re engaging. I would ask, though, that in your video responses you briefly state your names at the beginning so those of us new to you know who’s saying what. Thanks!
Anonymous

You mean we aren’t instantly recognizable international celebrities? Hmm.. fair point. Maybe we could put our name in the corner for the first few seconds of the video to keep our intros from bloating.
http://twitter.com/reflectant Nick Larson

Thanks for the suggestion Brad. We should totally be doing that…Doug and I used to do it more, but have gotten out of the habit. I’ll work on a little name box for the vids.

http://www.facebook.com/nlarson417 Nick Larson

Ok First off. Sorry David. I did indeed misread your article and should pretty much retract my video response. I want to be helpful in this process so let me unpack for you where I wandered off your path. I feel I heard everything you were trying to avoid saying. Sorry about that. I think I was the most off track with your concepts out of all our responses.

The first way that I went wrong was when you stated you were not giving definitions. I think my assumption after that point was that you were operating WITHIN existing definitions. Hence my assumption that you were more comfortable with the current operating ideas than I now clearly understand from your comments.

The second is that you say that you want to define the “idea” that comes from the evangelical mode of Christian faith. This is the second place you lost me, and I probably should have stated this in my video. I just don’t think I understand what you are getting at here. Is this your way of saying I want to uncover the universal behind the particular?

–

But enough with the past misunderstandings and onto the relevant comments about your thoughts…

I think my underlying issue to your statement of “mission without churches” is not that I think it’s a bad idea but because I don’t. In your striving to describe something along the lines of “politics without parties” you seem to want to define the work of God outside any structure (not that they are unnecessary or undesirable just inherently more complex and can be mislead). I think your point is that (a) the gospel is multi-contextual at all times and (b) that faith is independent from those forms that it takes on in local contexts. Then I agree with A and disagree with B.

I think that faith is only relevant in a local expression. I think that Christ is the ultimate example of the purity of an incarnational localized revelation of God. This was (to the best of my understanding) the most useful thing that comes from God incarnate — a localized God. A God who was no longer inaccessible but one that was in our midst. I think it is rather meaningless to define something outside of it’s context. So we must continually strive to embrace the localized way that faith is playing itself out.

In fact I think this is the heart of my understanding of what the postmodern paradigm shift is truly about… I think it destroys the concept that we can objectively separate ourselves from our own context to formulate an idea. So for me you can’t have mission without churches. To me it sounds like you would be like saying you can have “meaning without content.” Is this tracking with you at all?

And so I now I think I understand your idea that you want to create a strong critique of the way the republican party and others have co-opted the evangelical movement and really Christianity (and I agree with that). I just disagree that we can ever have a post-religious Christianity. I think that whatever replaces the previous version of Christianity becomes the new version of the very structure it seeks to change. Period.
http://twitter.com/MickBradley MickBradley

Alright, now that I’ve read the comment discussion, re-read the original post, listened, pondered, re-read everything, and pondered some more, I’m rather feeling like this is one of the best entries ever on TFF.

Now that I think I have a better idea of what David was saying, I find so very much to resonate with. I, too, was put off by getting several of my buttons pushed and triggers pulled – because not only do I have the sensitivity to the word “evangelical” that other comments have mentioned, I am also overly-sensitive to the liberal use of academic/scholarly language. So yeah, I have baggage, and it turns out that most of what was in the way of my engagement with this discussion was my own baggage.

I think it’s fair to say, since I’m not the only one who got tripped up by some of the original terminology, it’s probably useful for David to take note of how much work he has ended up needing to put into making his point merely because of the cultural weight of those thorny terms. It’s probably not fair to ask a scholar to write something with other peoples’ personal cultural baggage in mind, but I might at least point it out for consideration. I don’t know if there’s a good way to fix the gap while remaining true to the author’s voice, but still, it is noteworthy that so much effort and clarification had to go into helping most of us realize what the main point was in the first place.

In any case, now that I think I get it, I really love it. So, thanks. I’m not sure I can add much to the actual discussion at this point, but I’m finding it very fruitful.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Douglas-Hagler/848645164 Douglas Hagler

One of us. One of us. One of us.
http://twitter.com/dwcongdon David Congdon

Thanks, Mick. I appreciate it.

Carol Howard Merritt

Alrighty…. I’m ready to jump in… although I must admit that I haven’t read all of the discussion. So, forgive me if my thoughts have already been discussed and dismissed…

I love this idea–and if Evangelicalism was akin to theological anarchism, I’d be all over it.

The problem is that it’s not any sort of anarchism. Though they may be working out their mission apart from “church,” they are bound by 1) cultural norms, 2) political/educational institutions, and 3) publishing strictures. The systems that govern Evangelicalism may not always be institutionalized by a church/denomination, but they are strongly controlled–often by political/market forces. There may be a handful of white men who can step out of its iron-clad fist of social/political/theological expectations and survive (i.e., Brian McLaren, Jim Wallis, or Shane Claiborne), but for most of us, we’re simply crushed by it.

First, the cultural norms are strong and the social shaming can be intense–most evangelicals are taught to never be “unequally yoked,” and so if your sister or brother does not believe the same things or in the same intensity that you believe them, you can suddenly find yourself removed from the Christmas card list.

Second, since I moved to DC, I’ve been amazed (and a bit jealous) at the amount of money, energy, and effort that evangelicals put into their think tanks, political movements, and educational institutions. They have talking points, beliefs and standards that a person must adhere to, or the money’s cut off and they’re ostracized. Among many evangelical educational institutions, academic freedom/questioning is strongly discouraged.

Third, the market drives a lot of this. Why does it matter that Piper tweeted “Farewell, Rob Bell”? Why would such a simple act start a firestorm that may even be written up in church history books? Because Piper sells a lot of books. He has power in the Evangelical structure because of it. Talk to any contemporary Christian artist and he (or the rare she) will tell you how much they live under strict evangelical expectations.

Historically, things may have been different and maybe the view looks different from a white guy’s standpoint, but with such a highly stringent culture, where women are rarely even allowed a voice, evangelicalism is far from anarchic.

Anonymous

I think adding in some consideration of gender/race dynamics here is extremely relevant.

Firstly, what David is doing in this article is more of a thought experiment, trying to uncover what he think the core “idea” of evangelicalism is and do some constructive imagining on that basis. So he knows and fully agrees that evangelicalism as it actually looks on the ground is VERY different from what he describes.

That said, I’ve tried to push him a bit that I think his idea of evangelicalism needs to be responsive to the empirical reality and one of those aspects is that evangelicalism has been universally opposed to women’s ordination. Women’s ordination has really only become a feature of the heavily institutionalized mainline denominations in the past 60 years and made almost no inroads into the more “anarchic” evangelical and pentecostal movements. I wonder what David thinks of this.

http://twitter.com/dwcongdon David Congdon

Well, it’s actually not true at all to say that evangelicalism has been “universally opposed to women’s ordination.” That’s a gross misunderstanding of evangelical history. For instance, feminism in its modern form basically originated within evangelicalism, specifically in the work of Charles Finney. (I highly recommend reading Ted Smith’s brilliant work, “The New Measures.”) Don Dayton has done excellent work in this, in his book “Discovering an Evangelical Heritage” and (as editor) “The Variety of American Evangelicalism.” Don’t be misled into thinking that the reactionary forms of evangelicalism in the U.S. today constitute the meaning of “evangelical.” Don’t forget that (e.g.) the peace churches, many of which are radically egalitarian, are part of the evangelical family.

I really do believe that evangelicalism was historically an implicitly anarchic mode of Christian existence, in that it was a novel attempt to figure out what it would mean to live wholly in obedience to the gospel — even if that means a complete rejection of the politico-religious status quo.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Douglas-Hagler/848645164 Douglas Hagler

I can’t buy that evangelicalism was a novel attempt to figure out what it would mean to live wholly in obedience to the gospel – unless you’re tracing what you mean by evangelicalism back to the early church or the disciples or something. I’d say tons of Christian groups have done that. Rejection of the politico-religious status quo is kind of there from the very beginning, in my view.

About feminism originating with evangelicalism, I definitely don’t know enough to comment, but if that is true, then we’re back to the problem the the evangelicalism you’re describing is not what self-identified evangelicals seem to be about now. It’s closer to the polar opposite.

Carol Howard Merritt

Re: feminism and evangelicalism. I’ve been trying to sort this out in the book I’m writing. Moody was started by Emma Dryer, in order to educate women to teach Sunday school (which looked a lot different back then) and to preach on the streets.

How did it go from being a women’s street preaching school to a place where women were taught “message preparation for women” while their male counterparts studied Homiletics? It’s a mystery….

Apart from theological ideals and thought experiments that are utterly devoid of reality, Evangelicalism as an anarchic movement has no resonance with me. Perhaps for a man it does, because men have much more freedom in the movement. But not for me, as a woman.

David, if you decide to write more on this, I urge you to listen to more women (not just histories on Evangelical women written by men). Perhaps you could talk to Diana Butler Bass–she taught feminist theology at Westmont.

But I also don’t think that we can separate the historic/theological meaning of Evangelicalism from our common understanding of it.

Anonymous

I should know better than to throw around words like “universally”.

That said, tracing the roots of ideas disconnected from practice can be misleading. For example, the suffrage movement and the prohibitionist movement were closely intertwined to the point that it could be argued they were one and the same in many places. That doesn’t mean that any contemporary feminist would identify teetotaling as having anything to do with the practice of feminism.

Moreover, I think in the interest of what you believe is a good idea, you seem to want to claim more for evangelicalism than I think is historically sustainable. Though it may be true that there was a lot of cross-pollination of the peach churches with the evangelical movement they have their roots in the radical reformation long before anyone ever thought to use “evangelical” as an identity.

Today people calling themselves evangelicals are embedded in many different traditions, including in the mainline denominations. That doesn’t make those denominations evangelical.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Douglas-Hagler/848645164 Douglas Hagler

What I’ve gotten from this conversation, thus far, is a strong sense of how popular American evangelicalism is not in any way evangelical. It is market-driven hegemony. The “good news” is “If you toe the line and obey, you will be rewarded.”

This was my intuition, on some level.

But then my push-back is – wow, am I being optimistic? – that there are also tons of members of popular American evangelicalism that are doing good things, that might even be Christian anarchists at heart. Because I have never been an evangelical insider, and never will, I can only guess what’s going on with them. Do they buy into the Christian trappings? Do they hope to do the good they can in a broken system (heck, that’s exactly what I’m doing right now)? Do they think it is the lesser of available evils?

I just can’t answer these things. To me American evangelicalism is like Scientology – it’s in the news a lot, some famous people are members, I’ve talked to people who are part of it, I can list weird things about it, but I don’t have any kind of insider’s view, and never will.

As time goes on, though, I become more and more something like what David is describing. Mission without legitimating hierarchies (what I take him to have meant by “churches”). Yes.

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