The "Old" Evangelicalism and musing on my own evangelical experience
See here I was lamenting that I lacked a topic of discussion to occupy my brain. The discussion of the St. Alban's Psalter had fizzled on the 12th Century Garb List, Kjell hadn't responded to my remarks about pre-Inuit Dorset/Thule culture in Greenland and Labrador on the Old Norse Net and no one (except forest_lady) seemed interested in my signal-boosting about the on-going destruction of Appalachia.
Then I found this in a book review linked from my weekly "Books and Culture" newsletter:
By the end of the 18th century, the "old" evangelicalism had disintegrated because of the rejection of Paracelsianism and the collapse of the mystical tradition. (Ward claims that mysticism was killed not only by papal persecution but also by routinization. When universities began to create chairs in mystical theology, mysticism lost its appeal as a spontaneous movement offering a direct experience of God.) The decline of Paracelsianism was especially damaging because evangelicals were unable to find an adequate substitute for it. Without an understanding of the universe that was both religious and scientific, evangelicals lost their intellectual depth and coherence. In response, Friedrich Cristoph Oetinger (1702-82) tried to create a new religious system that was inspired by mysticism and alchemy, but he failed. "Parts of the evangelical mix were pulling apart," Ward writes, "going overboard on this or that item, and losing that mutual respect which had been one of the better features of the movement in its earlier days."
[Ward] believes that evangelicals' failure to create a new "system" deprived the movement of its intellectual coherence. For example, he complains that Wesley's rejection of Paracelsianism did not lead him to develop a new, more compelling view of the relationship between nature and revelation. Focusing single-mindedly on redemption, Wesley never explained how it related to God's work in creation. "Wesley exemplified what came to be a characteristic of Western evangelicalism," Ward writes, "an inability to place the drama of redemption within a larger framework of thought."
Future evangelicals would be quite successful in spreading the gospel around the world, but the "new" evangelicals shared little with the old. Taking the movement in new directions, they destroyed the former unity of the movement by organizing themselves around "fragments of the evangelical past."
(from The "Old" Evangelicalism, a review of W. R. Ward (emeritus professor of Modern History at Durham)'s Early Evangelicalism: A Global Intellectual History, 1670-1789 by Catherine A. Brekus)
Having grown up myself in an Evangelical tradition which was supposed to be a "unity movement" and yet finding myself at odds with much of what goes under the banner of "Evangelicalism," I found some of these statements quite intriguing.
My evangelicalism, while toeing the party line of "preaching only Christ and him Crucified" was strongly tempered with a dose of Scottish rationalism and Lockean self-awareness. "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it" dovetails nicely with a conception of "first marks on the tabula rasa."
My issues with Evagelicalism have stemed primarily from what I see as the Baptist strain of it and the coupling of a kind of emotionalism with literalism that has intellectually rubbed me the wrong way. I don't know why I chose Baptists to pick on - maybe it's because ex-Baptists seem just about as bitter about their upbringings as ex-Catholics (or "recovering Catholics" as many style themselves). I just haven't encountered the same level of animosity from those who have left Christianity via, say, the Methodists or the Mennonites.
Having been raised in an Evangelical tradition, but with a respect for both systematic theology, philosophy, and science, it then annoys me to see congregations in "my" fellowship taking a more "mainstream" evangelical route, which I fear panders to an LCD. It also may be a large part of my trouble with "contemporary" worship. The sarcastic part of my brain says, yes, I know we were founded on principles of unity, but what are we, the Borg? Take what seems to be "working" for someone else and strip it down until it's un-pretty? Ironically, the part of my soul that longs for a larger Christian experience sees this move as limiting. In embracing the Baptist element more strongly, we, in a way shun, the rich heritage other, more liturgical Protestants have fostered - including their intellectual heritage. And that anew destroys potential unity.
Then I found this in a book review linked from my weekly "Books and Culture" newsletter:
By the end of the 18th century, the "old" evangelicalism had disintegrated because of the rejection of Paracelsianism and the collapse of the mystical tradition. (Ward claims that mysticism was killed not only by papal persecution but also by routinization. When universities began to create chairs in mystical theology, mysticism lost its appeal as a spontaneous movement offering a direct experience of God.) The decline of Paracelsianism was especially damaging because evangelicals were unable to find an adequate substitute for it. Without an understanding of the universe that was both religious and scientific, evangelicals lost their intellectual depth and coherence. In response, Friedrich Cristoph Oetinger (1702-82) tried to create a new religious system that was inspired by mysticism and alchemy, but he failed. "Parts of the evangelical mix were pulling apart," Ward writes, "going overboard on this or that item, and losing that mutual respect which had been one of the better features of the movement in its earlier days."
[Ward] believes that evangelicals' failure to create a new "system" deprived the movement of its intellectual coherence. For example, he complains that Wesley's rejection of Paracelsianism did not lead him to develop a new, more compelling view of the relationship between nature and revelation. Focusing single-mindedly on redemption, Wesley never explained how it related to God's work in creation. "Wesley exemplified what came to be a characteristic of Western evangelicalism," Ward writes, "an inability to place the drama of redemption within a larger framework of thought."
Future evangelicals would be quite successful in spreading the gospel around the world, but the "new" evangelicals shared little with the old. Taking the movement in new directions, they destroyed the former unity of the movement by organizing themselves around "fragments of the evangelical past."
(from The "Old" Evangelicalism, a review of W. R. Ward (emeritus professor of Modern History at Durham)'s Early Evangelicalism: A Global Intellectual History, 1670-1789 by Catherine A. Brekus)
Having grown up myself in an Evangelical tradition which was supposed to be a "unity movement" and yet finding myself at odds with much of what goes under the banner of "Evangelicalism," I found some of these statements quite intriguing.
My evangelicalism, while toeing the party line of "preaching only Christ and him Crucified" was strongly tempered with a dose of Scottish rationalism and Lockean self-awareness. "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it" dovetails nicely with a conception of "first marks on the tabula rasa."
My issues with Evagelicalism have stemed primarily from what I see as the Baptist strain of it and the coupling of a kind of emotionalism with literalism that has intellectually rubbed me the wrong way. I don't know why I chose Baptists to pick on - maybe it's because ex-Baptists seem just about as bitter about their upbringings as ex-Catholics (or "recovering Catholics" as many style themselves). I just haven't encountered the same level of animosity from those who have left Christianity via, say, the Methodists or the Mennonites.
Having been raised in an Evangelical tradition, but with a respect for both systematic theology, philosophy, and science, it then annoys me to see congregations in "my" fellowship taking a more "mainstream" evangelical route, which I fear panders to an LCD. It also may be a large part of my trouble with "contemporary" worship. The sarcastic part of my brain says, yes, I know we were founded on principles of unity, but what are we, the Borg? Take what seems to be "working" for someone else and strip it down until it's un-pretty? Ironically, the part of my soul that longs for a larger Christian experience sees this move as limiting. In embracing the Baptist element more strongly, we, in a way shun, the rich heritage other, more liturgical Protestants have fostered - including their intellectual heritage. And that anew destroys potential unity.