David Bebbington's Curriculum Vitae

I had second thoughts about publishing this post. The reason being that David does not like to advertise his achievements. In a world where self-promotion is second nature to most of us, David does not like to attract attention to himself.

This post, however, should be viewed as an aide to our own historical and theological research, not as an advertisement for David's achievements. So, please see Bebbington's curriculum vitae here.

Congrats to Cullen Clark

Congrats on the completion of your MRes dissertation!

Young, Restless and Reformed: A British Perspective--Guest Blogger

Dr. David Ceri Jones, lecturer in History at Aberystwyth University in Wales, has kindly agreed to be a guest blogger for us. His post is a reflective piece on Colin Hansen's book Young, Restless and Reformed: A Journalists Journey With the New Calvinists (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008). David is a contributor to the Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism in Britain Project, and is currently writing a history of Calvinistic Methodism in England and Wales during the eighteenth century which will be published by the University of Wales Press in early 2010.

In addition, David is working on a critical edition of Whitefield's correspondence with Dr. Bruce Hindmarsh. This work is being undertaken with the help and partnership of IMEMS and The Jonathan Edwards Centre at Yale University.

Collin Hansen’s Young, Restless and Reformed: A Journalists Journey with the New Calvinists (Wheaton, Ill; Crossway Books, 2008) has already generated considerable debate and discussion on the blogosphere. Charting the resurgence of Reformed convictions in the United States associated with names such as John Piper, the Calvinist Charismatic C. J. Mahaney of Sovereign Grace Ministries, Al Mohler the President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Mark Driscoll of the phenomenal Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Hansen has written a wonderfully evocative and sympathetic portrayal that disabuses readers of many of the popular misconceptions of Calvinism. The emphasis throughout the book is on the life-transforming impact that the discovery of Reformed theology has had on a whole range of individuals. While John Piper is very much the father-figure of the movement, he’s the one individual that links all of the others, Jonathan Edwards, is never far away either! The New Calvinists are predominantly young, passionately committed to Scripture and the centrality of preaching; they are thorough-going five-point Calvinists, embrace the best of modern worship music, are culturally engaged, missional and socially aware.

However, the book has received a relatively lukewarm reception in Britain. Apart from Erroll Hulse’s hope that the resurgence might be the precursor to another Great Awakening [Evangelicals Now, (October, 2008)], most British commentators have bemoaned the movement’s almost exclusive focus on the Five Points; the Calvinism of this new generation is not yet your grandfather’s Calvinism as one British reviewer has put it [see here]. Another reviewer [see here], with a complete lack of historical nuance, has gone so far as to claim that this is actually the third wave of Calvinist renewal in the twentieth century; the first being associated with the founding of Westminster Seminary, the Grand Rapids publishers, the Free Church of Scotland and the irascible practically Hyper-Calvinist A. W. Pink of all people! The second wave was that led by Jim Packer and Martyn Lloyd-Jones. In one of the most revealing comments from a British perspective, Jim Packer comments that the Reformed recovery during the 1950s and 1960s was something of a false dawn, swept away by the charismatic renewal with its emphasis on experience rather than theology. Those who carried on the legacy of Packer and Lloyd-Jones tended to lack their breadth of vision and personal magnanimity, and their positive work was hi-jacked by those who made commitment to Calvinism a badge of honour and retreated to the kind of Reformed ghettos that John Piper talks about in this book.

Some of the individuals which figure in this book are becoming better known on this side of the Atlantic. Despite receiving a frosty reception from some at the Banner of Truth conference in the early 1990s, John Piper is now a frequent visitor to Britain. C. J. Mahaney’s Sovereign Grace Ministries have outposts in Britain, and are in some respects closely akin to the New Frontiers Churches. Mark Driscoll has recently visited Britain, although it maybe that many from the Reformed community would find his style of preaching off-putting, which would be a great pity. But over and above this the American New Calvinists have much to teach Reformed Christians in Britain, and a sober consideration of some of the reasons for their success might pay dividends for Reformed Churches in Britain. One of the most remarkable features of the churches which Hansen visits is their sheer size. Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis having over 4,000 members, Mars Hill, 6,000, Mahaney’s Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, 3,000, to say nothing of the 6,000 15-24 year olds who attend the New Attitude Conferences or the 40,000 students who gathered in Memphis to listen to Piper on ‘Don’t Waste Your Life’. By contrast most Reformed churches in Britain are small and embattled. Many either hark back to a perceived golden age, whether that be the 1950s, 1859, the 1730s or even further back. Others have circled the wagons in the hope of revival and better days ahead.

The genius of the Reformers was that they were always reforming, and it may be that some of these new vibrant and culturally relevant expressions of reformed theology in the twenty-first century are actually much more faithful to the spirit of the Reformers and Puritans than many of their latter day champions in Britain would care to admit! The challenge of the New Calvinist resurgence in the United States is that many are looking for something deeper than the personality-driven, entertainment-obsessed faddishness that blights much contemporary evangelicalism. Reformed Christians in Britain could do worse than follow Mark Driscoll’s example and become missional Christians, taking their Calvinism and dressing it in new twenty-first century clothes, not to make Jesus relevant, but to show he is already relevant’. Who knows, there might then be a Reformed resurgence on this side of the Atlantic as well.

David Ceri Jones

Aberystwyth University

More on the Emergence of Evangelicalism

John Wolffe, Professor of Religious History in the Open University, weighs in (Tell Me, Where Was Evangelicalism Bred?) on The Emergence of Evangelicalism: Exploring Historical Continuities edited by Michael Haykin and Kenneth Stewart.

Wolffe's thoughts: the main argument of the book is overstated. He writes,

'As Bebbington points out, despite its length, the book’s coverage is limited in its denominational range, being focused on Presbyterian and Nonconformist dimensions, and giving relatively little attention to Methodism, which was a central expression of Evangelicalism. Indeed, the treatment of Anglican Evangelicals is also skewed, more attention being given to Calvinists such as Newton and Toplady than to Arminians such as Wesley, who was surely far too pivotal to early Evangelicalism to be dismissed as a "deviation"'.

Beyond Bebbington: The Quest for an Evangelical Identity

The title of this post is also the title of a recent article written in the autumn 2008 edition of the quarterly journal Churchman. The author, Brian Harris, principal of Vose Seminary (formerly the Baptist College of Western Australia), has written a piece concerning the relevance of Bebbington's quadrialteral for the twenty-first century context. He asks several interesting questions, the central one being:

'is contemporary evangelicalism characterised by the priority placed on conversionism, activism, biblicism and crucicentrism, and if so, is this a valid characterisation of both belief and practice?'

B. Harris, who recently completed a PhD interacting with the thought of Stanley Grenz and the nature and future of evangelical identity, believes that other descriptors might prove more accurate and desirable for contemporary evangelicalism. He argues that contemporary evangelical communities 'might be better characterised as being a community of "passionate piety"'. I will leave the reader to assess whether or not his argument is persuasive in applying that particular descriptive term to contemporary evangelicalism.

My reason for writing about this article by B. Harris is because I think his title is misleading. His real difficulties concerning the Bebbington quadrilateral appear to be with the way in which others apply it to contemporary evangelicalism. The quadrilateral is a combination of priorities which _have been_ the special marks of evangelical religion. Claiming, therefore, that we need to get beyond Bebbington needs to be qualified or rewritten. One alternative title for his article might be: 'Getting Beyond the Application of Bebbington's Quadrilateral to Contemporary Evangelicalism'.

Bebbington's quadrilateral has its difficulties (see an earlier post here), but one of the things that The Emergence of Evangelicalism has shown is that the quadrilateral remains relevant to the interpretation of evangelical religion in the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. Whether or not this is true for the twenty-first century context remains to be seen.

Thoughts?

Recent Publications by (a few of) Bebbington's Students

The most recent edition of the Evangelical Quarterly journal (July 2008) has an excellent article by Jon Yeager titled: 'Puritan or Enlightened: John Erskine and the Transition of Scottish Evangelical Theology'.

Perhaps Jon will grace us with his presence on this blog by answering any questions that arise after everyone rushes out to read his article--which everyone should do!

On another note, Lionel Young has a review of Todd Magnum's The Dispensational-Covenantal Rift (Paternoster, 2007) in the winter/spring 2008 edition of Fides et Historia.

Congrats fellas.

Absence of Blog Posts and John D'Elia

My apologies to those who tune in to this blog. My wife and I have relocated to the US (from Edinburgh) where we have taken up jobs for Wheaton College in Illinois. My wife will have teaching duties in the department of anthropology and I will be working with the fine folks at the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals (ISAE). Both of us will continue to work on our phds while returning to the UK every so often for research.

While packing and unpacking I happened to come across a blog which had a nice post on John D'Elia's new book on George Ladd. There are several interesting (and perhaps uninformed) comments at the end of the post as well. You can read about it here.

I hope to be able to blog a bit more in the coming weeks. As always, feel free to make comments or update the readers on how your own research is progressing.

Cheers.

Andy

New Books on Evangelicalism

Here are a few books that have appeared recently which might be of some interest to all of us:

The Surprising Work of God: Harold John Ockenga, Billy Graham, and the Rebirth of Evangelicalism by Garth M. Rosell

Evangelical vs. Liberal by James K Wellman

Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to the Passion of the Christ by Stephen J. Nichols

A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in America by John A. D' Elia (one of David's former students)

Fundamentalism and Evangelicals (Oxford Theological Monographs) (New Paperback Edition) by Harriet A. Harris

Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know--And Doesn't by Stephen Prothero

Early Evangelicalism: A Global Intellectual History, 1670-1789 by W.R. Ward

Reinventing English Evangelicalism, 1966-2001: A Theological and Sociological Study by Rob Warner

The Making of American Liberal Theology: Crisis, Irony and Postmodernity: 1950-2005 by Gary J Dorrien

The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America by Thomas S. Kidd