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Page 2 of 5 So when we think of American evangelicalism and how it may be defined, whatever our definition, if it is based on those who profess they are evangelicals, it will necessarily be pluralistic, that is, not distinctively Reformed or Wesleyan, or even distinctively biblical. Even so, Collins argues that true evangelicalism, historic and modern, has at least four broad, enduring emphases:1. The normative value of Scripture in the Christian life,
2. the necessity of conversion (whether or not dramatic or even remembered),
3. the cruciality of the atoning work of Christ as the sole mediator between God and humanity, and
3. the imperative of evangelism, of proclaiming the glad tidings of salvation to a lost and hurting world. To these four, Collins suggests a fifth emphasis:
5. The cruciality of New Testament Christianity (Collins, The Evangelical Moment, 21). Collins then goes on to list seven movements in the church that are integral to evangelicalism’s identity. These are: 1. Historic Evangelicalism (the 1st century or New Testament Church, including the early church fathers)
2. Reformational Evangelicalism (the 16th century Protestant Reformation)
3. Puritan and Pietistic Evangelicalism (in England and America during the 16th and 17th centuries)
4. Awakening Evangelicalism (the 18th century Great Awakening)
5. Revivalistic Evangelicalism (the evangelistic efforts of 19th century America)
6. Charismatic Evangelicalism (20th century Pentecostals and charismatics, with roots in the 19th century American Holiness movement, though quite distinct from it)
7. Fundamentalist/Neoevangelicalism, as witnessed in 19th and 20th century dispensationalism; the fundamentalist movement beginning in the 1920s with its aggressive opposition to liberal theology, rejection of the social gospel, separation from the doctrinally unorthodox as well as those who associated with them, and emphasis on the doctrine of verbal inerrancy over against the "acids of modernity;" and followed in the early 1940s by key leaders within the fundamentalist movement discarding the label "fundamentalist" and opting for the more conciliatory term "new evangelical" or "neo-evangelical," which in time simply came to be known as "evangelicals," in contrast to liberals such as Harry Emerson Fosdick and fundamentalists such as Carl McIntire (Collins, 22-38). Regarding this last movement or stage (neo-evangelicalism), Collins observes that it was "a coalition within fundamentalism and informed largely by the Reformed tradition" (Collins, 37). Indeed, the fundamentalist movement had moved forward chiefly through the work of J. Gresham Machen, B. B. Warfield, and Charles Hodge, all Reformed professors at Princeton Theological Seminary. Thus, Collins comments: ...the fundamentalist movement played out principally in those churches that were tied to the Reformed tradition, such as the Northern Baptist Convention, and the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. And although Holiness groups, such as the Nazarenes and the Wesleyan Methodists, "found their distinctive emphases being reshaped by the fundamentalist-led movement" [George Marsden, Understanding Funda-metnalism and Evangelicalism, Eerdmans, 1991, 70], their Wesleyan tradition, rooted as it was in Anglicanism and soteriological concerns [the Wesleyan doctrine of salvation with its emphasis on making a "decision" for Christ], prevented them from becoming active participants in the movement itself (Collins, 36). Therefore, from the very inception of modern evangelicalism, there was a certain cooperative spirit and inclusiveness. Collins further observes: ...at the organizing conference of the National Association of Evangelicals held at the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago in May 1943, Harold Ockenga delivered the presidential address and thereby laid the groundwork by which the first three emphases of fundamentalism, noted above, would be basically repudiated. To illustrate, both J. Elwin Wright, who had been instru-mental in founding the NAE at a conference in St. Louis the year before, and Ockenga himself, rejected the militancy of the fundamentalists. Moreover, demonstrating a much more cooperative and less separatist spirit than the fundamentalists, Wright and Ockenga welcomed Pentecostals and Holiness folk into the new coalition [Donald Dayton claims that one-third of the member denominations of the NAE are "holiness," and another third are "Pentecostal" in an article appearing in Ecumenical Review, January 1988, 99. For an explanation of the distinction between Holiness and Pentecostal, see the July 2005 issue of the Bulletin of Evangelical Ministries on "The American Holiness Movement.]. Billy Graham, whose evangelis-tic career was to take off in 1949 when William Randolph Hearst told his reporters to "puff Graham," was equally eager to be rid of the bellicose and exclusive nature of the "fighting fundamentalists." In fact, during his crusade in New York in 1956, Graham welcomed the support of nonfundamentalists, a gesture that came with a price exacted by his con-servative critics. Yet Graham remained undeterred, for the key theme of the new movement was "cooperation without compromise" (Collins, 37).
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