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Page 3 of 5 But if today’s modern "evangelicalism" is not evangelicalism in the classic or traditional sense of the word, we need to understand what characterizes historic or classical evangelicalism. The term "evangelical" was first widely-used during the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther insisted that the light of the gospel teaching of justification by faith had been too long hidden by the teaching of Roman Catholicism. Luther’s teachings, of course, were viewed negatively by Catholics such as Erasmus, Thomas More, and Johannes Eck, even though Erasmus had sympathy for some of Luther’s criticisms of Catholicism. These leaders in the Roman Catholic Church used the term "evangelical" to refer to those who accepted and followed Luther’s teachings. Luther reacted negatively to this label, primarily because he felt that "evangelical" could be used of all Christians who simply accepted the biblical teaching of God’s free grace. Eventually, "evangelical" did come to be broadly used of all the Protestant churches. Later, the Methodist revival under John Wesley in England was characterized by the term "evangelical."But the term was given more specific content when the Evangelical Alliance was formed in London in 1846. The Alliance was a voluntary association of "evangelical" Christians of different Protestant churches (including Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, Reformed, and Moravians) and countries (including Great Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland and the United States), who came together to manifest and promote the union of Christians and advance the cause of religious liberty. The Alliance adopted a set of nine doctrines as representative of their understanding of the meaning of "evangelical." These were: 1. the divine inspiration of the Bible
2. the right and duty of [informed] private judgment in the interpretation of Scripture
3. the unity of the Godhead and the Trinity of the Persons therein
4. the depravity of man in consequence of the Fall
5. the incarnation of Christ, the Son of God, His work of substitutionary atonement for the sins of mankind, and His mediatorial intercession and reign
6. the justification of the sinner by faith alone
7. the work of the Holy Spirit in the conversion and sanctification of the sinner
8. the immortality of the soul, the physical return of Christ, the resurrection of the body, the judgment of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, with the eternal blessedness of the righteous and the eternal punishment of the wicked
9. the ministry of the word (the divine institution of the Christian ministry) and the perpetuity of the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper In the time since this more narrow definition or description of "evangelicalism," it has broadened in both Europe and America, on the one hand being used to refer to neo-orthodoxy at one end of the theological spectrum, and to fundamentalism on the other end, with its more specific teaching on items such as the timing of Jesus’ second coming. In his book, The Evangelical Renaissance (Eerdmans, 1973), Donald Bloesch defines the hallmarks of evangelicalism as being ten in number: 1. the sovereignty of God
2. the divine authority of Scripture
3. the total depravity of man
4. the substitutionary atonement of Christ
5. salvation by God’s grace and
6. salvation through faith alone
7. the primacy of preaching/proclaiming the gospel
8. Scriptural holiness
9. the church’s spiritual mission
10. the personal return of Christ We might note at this point that the above items are yet very broad. For example, both Wesleyans and Reformed believers agree on the sovereignty of God, but each group would define that sovereignty differently, especially in terms of its outworking or implications. For this reason, many scholars speak about "evangelical essentials," that is, broad or general biblical doctrines on which all evangelicals can agree. We provided the table on the next page in a previous issue of the Bulletin many years ago. Since it is often still requested, and pertinent to this discussion, we print it here again.
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