The Rise and Demise of Evangelicalism

In My Lifetime:The Rise and Demise of Evangelicalism - A Grief Deserved

James W. Gustafson

I came of age spiritually about 1950. My father had been awakened from his dogmatic slumbers in the church his father had helped to found upon his emigration from Sweden—the church in which I was baptized as an infant and dedicated to God. Regardless of what you may think of infant baptism, in this case it held. I drafted in the wake of my parents’ coming in to the light of a spirited evangelical faith in Jesus Christ—an awakening that would take them from the Swedish Congregational Church to Boston’s Park Street Church. In those days there was preaching from Park Street’s outdoor balcony to passers-by on the Boston Common, just a block from the golden-domed Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill. Reverend Harold John Ockenga or one of his associates would preach a ten-minute Gospel message.
Though still in high school (The Roxbury Latin School founded by the sainted John Eliot, Apostle to the Indians in 1645), I attended classes at Park Street’s Evening School of the Bible, under teachers from Providence Bible Institute and Gordon Divinity School. Dad and Mom and I would drive from the suburbs every Monday evening to drink in the fine teaching of scholarly men of God.
This trek toward evangelical fervor had begun under the interim ministry of George E. Ladd, professor of New Testament at Gordon Divinity School and later Fuller Theological Seminary. Dr. Ladd had a depth and urgency to his messages, delivered each Sunday in the formal attire of “tails”—a version of the tuxedo—that was still in style in those days. Dad said he “saw the light,” becoming dissatisfied with the more opaque orthodoxy of the Mission Covenant ministers. He also dropped membership in the Masonic Lodge due to conscience about secret societies. He joined the Gideons and soon was giving their “pitch” in Boston churches on Sunday mornings. Dad was good at speaking for them and was appreciated for keeping within the five to ten minute time slot. He was helping spread God’s Word to servicemen and in hotel rooms.
When the neophyte Billy Graham came to Boston in 1950 hopes for revival began to soar. Mechanics Hall, that had hosted Billy Sunday and other evangelists, was soon too small for the crowds. Boston Garden and the Boston Common would be needed for the last several meetings. It was under the penetrating yet un-theatrical preaching of Graham that God spoke to my heart.
I had always believed Jesus was the Savior through his death and resurrection. I believed every article of Luther’s Shorter Catechism, which we studied for a year before I was confirmed at age 11 in the Swedish Congregational Church. But now I felt a burning in my mind that transferred to sweaty unease of conscience. I knew I needed to make a decision to give my life completely to Christ, confessing my sins and offering myself for His service. The tug-o-war ended when I said yes. There would be no turning back.
In the 1950s we were heartened by new movements that showed promise of turning the tide of modernism in the church toward a more biblical evangelicalism. This term distanced us from the fundamentalists of the previous generation who had become insular, drawing into a fortress that defined the boundaries negatively. “We don’t drink and we don’t chew; and we don’t go with girls who do,” was one caricature of the efforts of those who fought off modernist denials of biblical truth in the 1920s and 1930s. Evangelicals wanted to engage the culture. We wanted to show we could argue the faith in the public square and perhaps win back America for Christ.
The National Association of Evangelicals was new then—bringing a lobbying presence to Washington under Dr. Clyde Taylor. Chaplains of the Senate were evangelicals, such as Peter Marshall. In New England vibrant life came into the New England Fellowship of Evangelicals under Charles Campbell, maintaining a Christian bookstore with yards of the State House on Park Street, along with the Evangelistic Association of New England with headquarters downtown in Tremont Temple Baptist Church.
We had a vital youth ministry in Youth for Christ, led by two Gordon students, Tal McNutt and Doc Murdock, presenting the challenge of the Gospel call to teens from many Boston area churches.
My father, Walter A. Gustafson, was on the board that founded the Boston Christian High School (now Lexington Christian Academy). Dr. Ockenga helped found Fuller Theological Seminary. Soon other seminaries would come to life, more faithful to the orthodox tenets of biblical Christianity than the old schools that had drifted into liberalism and some eventually into an anti-Christian stance—most notably the first American Protestant school for the training of ministers, Harvard Divinity School.
Scholars of the first rank unashamedly called for a return to biblical moorings. Carl F.H. Henry, Edward John Carnell, George Ladd, Merrill Tenney, Francis Schaeffer and a host like them.
We soon had new translations and paraphrases of the Scriptures. J.B. Phillips translation, the Amplified Bible, The Living Bible and the New International Version among many others.
More books were written on the Bible and on general subjects from an evangelical perspective—in psychology, church history, archeology, and general science. Magazines sprang to life: Christianity Today, Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation and dozens more soon to follow.
There was Mark Hatfield, Senator from Oregon who was not shy about his faith. In a later decade a born-again man would occupy the White House—Jimmy Carter.
We could feel the power returning to God’s side. Churches were growing if they preached salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ and asked for a conversion commitment.
Graduating from Wheaton College with a wife and son, I changed my plan to attend Gordon Divinity School. Dr. Ockenga had persuaded several of the Gordon faculty with whom I wanted to study (including George Ladd, who was by then a long-standing friend of our family in Boston) to join the Fuller faculty in Pasadena, California. After three years of study there I graduated and moved back to Boston to begin studying for my PhD in 1959.
That same fall I became student pastor of small congregational church in Haverhill, Massachusetts. I intended to stay until my degree work was completed and then move on to college teaching. The reason for following this career track was due to two occasions when I felt a strong call of the Lord.
The first came when I was sixteen. I remember the exact time and place when God spoke to me. At the time I was still thinking of a career in life sciences, even though the old ladies in the Swedish church had said many times, “Yimmy vill make a fine pastor some day.” I can still hear their Swedish accents as they struggled to express themselves in English. Until the end of World War II our evening service was conducted in Swedish. I didn’t like the prospect and vowed that was one vocation I would not pursue. But, as they say, you can make God laugh by telling Him your plans as to what you will or will not do with your life.
It was Halloween, of all days, when Mom and I had gone to Raymond, New Hampshire, to help my sister Lois and her husband, Robert Draper, in a youth night at the start-up church Bob was pastoring while he finished Gordon Divinity School. This was 1950. It was drizzling rain on our way home, autumn leaves coloring the roadside. We were talking of Bob’s ministry in this small town 50 miles north of Boston. It was low pay, small house, and lots of work. The Halloween program was fine – but nothing notable had happened. But when we were driving south through Chester, New Hampshire, on Route 121, I glanced up at the white steeple on the congregational church at the center of town and I had a distinct conviction that I was to go into the ministry. I mentioned it to Mom. She was pleased. Perhaps she had been praying for this, for all I knew. For my next birthday Bob gave me a Greek New Testament in anticipation of my studying Greek at Wheaton College.
At Wheaton a few years later I majored in philosophy and minored in biblical Greek as a preparation for seminary. I liked philosophy—studying the basis for different views of the world and what was the meaning of life. As a Christian I had my answer to those questions. God created the heavens and the earth and life meant glorifying him in whatever calling He gave. In my case it would be pastoral ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In a philosophy class with Dr. John Luchies the days’ discussion wandered into the condition of the culture and of the need for Christians to advocate the truth of God on secular college campuses. Once again, something in me sensed another call. God wanted me to take up that challenge. How it would all work out I had no idea.
But times were exciting. The evangelical movement was gaining ground. Many others my age had heard the call to serve the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. My first year in seminary saw a new start-up magazine in every mailbox at Fuller Seminary—Christianity Today. It was a plain back and white periodical with a paper cover. But the contents were wonderful. Scholarly articles, news of interest to Christians, and the column by Eutychus—the youth who fell out the window while listening to a really long sermon by St. Paul in the first century. (We learned years later that the author was Edmund Clowney.)
Beginning my pastoral ministry while starting my doctoral studies at Boston University was exciting even though difficult. The salary was meager and parsonage over 100 years old. But the congregation was for the most part open to biblical teaching. They had heard enough sermons on social affairs from previous student pastors who were influenced by teachers who denied the miracles of the Bible and reduced the faith to doing good works for the poor. The older members remembered the vigor of the Christian Endeavor Societies that had shaped their early thinking. The Lord began to repair the crumbling foundations of a church that had weathered two and half centuries , including the Revolutionary War, Civil War, and two World Wars. Ellie and I were working happily in the vineyard, seeing new life flow back into the body of Christ at West Congregational Church.
The Jesus Movement soon added vibrancy to the evangelical movement. New styles of music began to enliven worship services. Para-church agencies brought vitality to college campuses, missions, and church culture, ministering to men and women and youth with conventions and conferences such as Urbana, Promise Keepers, and Women of Faith. Television brought sophisticated programs into the homes of millions of Americans. Christian radio stations blossomed. Habitat for Humanity was but one of many agencies ministering to the disadvantaged, the sick and elderly, the single mother-to-be. Soup kitchens, shelters, clinics. Short-term mission efforts built houses and churches and schools in many parts of the world.
During these decades my own church, under the leadership of Dr. David M. Midwood, expanded five-fold. Attendance doubled and tripled. But most of this was due to deadly conflict in other churches that drove out good people who couldn’t take the endless quarreling and who came to us. Under godly pastors who took up the work after I moved on to fulltime college teaching, our church built additions for worship, fellowship and pre-school. Our labors were not in vain. We were a healthy church with a positive spirit, constantly stretching to become more effective for the Lord.
And along with this soon came the Christian resorts and retirement communities so there could be ease in Zion for those wanting a respite from the incessant activities and programs that were touted in churches across the land.
A march on Washington flew the flag for God and country. I attended. Evangelical ministries were in the pages of newspapers, magazines and TV shows. While some were good, others were about scandals. Sex and money, mostly.
Mega-churches flourished due to great preaching, polished musical offerings, and state of the art technology. Budgets grew to enormous proportions in many cases.
The evangelical church had arrived.
But….
The viruses of double-mindedness, materialism, and method-madness has now set in. The body of Christ shows symptoms of disease that will likely lead, not to death, but to amputations. Having worked toward the rise of evangelicalism for so many decades, I wonder how can this be?
Looking for answers, I went to house of the Lord. This is what I have seen.
Very little is now wrong in and of itself. But our successes are becoming our downfall. Our strengths are becoming our weaknesses.
The great God Mammon has corroded our hearts.
To my shame I recall the times I have pursued a money-making venture, whether in housing, stocks, or sales. Nothing bad in itself. In fact this can be good for many people. As prospects looked favorable, I said to God that I would have that much more in resources to give to Kingdom causes. But there was also the lure of what I could do with my ten percent after giving a reverse tithe to God. For me, I now know this was sin even though I did not know it at the time. Or did I? How closely was I listening to the still small voice within? God did not prosper me in these efforts.
And how many times have I held back on speaking the full truth in some context because I was bowing to the god of peer approval. “You get more traction with a witness that shows a life lived in grace, and if people basically like you as a reasonable fellow,” I often said to myself. Wordly acclaim is so seductive—and I have bent the knee at the altar. Of course, I have not outright denied my Lord! Or have I?
In studying various Scriptures lately old truths have been hovering in front of my mind in a new way. I don’t know why they haven’t convicted me before. I have always understood them. In my head at least. Now they are disturbing my soul.
Just check the many times Jesus spoke of the world hating his followers. Persecution and rejection were to be the lot of those who truly walk with Him and speak for Him.
There are those frightening passages that no longer frighten us as we rationalize our way around their stinging rebuke. “Those who walk the godly walk will suffer.” On the final Day Jesus will question us. “Lord, didn’t we build churches in your name? Go overseas to share your love? Sing new songs of praise and go to seminars and festivals? Didn’t we go to endless Bible studies and leadership retreats, reading books galore and being fed by silver-tongued people of God? Didn’t we give our money and time serving those who are indigent?” And the Lord Jesus will say to many of us, “Depart from me—I don’t know you as one of mine.”
“But we were born again when we said the sinners prayer, were we not?”
Consider also the latest texts to hit me between the eyes—even though I have taught and preached them many times.
Hebrews 12.
Here we find one key ingredient to a culture-changing work of God, one that is lacking in most of our congregations—persecution.
We have prayed faithfully, haven’t we? Yes but it’s usually 5% praise and thanksgiving and 95% asking for our needs and desires. Nothing we shouldn’t pray about, I agree. For the lost, the sick and sorrowing. For our families and churches. Our friends and sometimes enemies. For health and jobs and the hurting people around the world. For government leaders and missionaries.
But how much have I prayed for the courage to speak the word of God boldly to those I work with, go to school with? Or for courage to stick my head out of the foxhole and rush through enemy fire to take ground for the King?
Hebrews 12 tells me I am running a lung-bursting race. I must strip everything away—even good things that non-runners can enjoy—so as be unhooked from the weights that slow me down. And my eye is to be laser-locked onto Jesus on whom everything depends. I am to think of what he went through. He was hated by sinners. He was tortured and killed in a horrifyingly brutal fashion, enduring the shame of nakedness before his tormentors. Yet he laughed at all these because of the joy of doing the will of His Father in heaven. I am told in Hebrews 12 that the Father will put me through similar agonies in order to mold my soul after His will—punished so as to attain a righteous life that pleases God. This is the One I signed up to be like. To live as Jesus lived.
But I do not live as Jesus lived. I sit and watch TV and find happiness in the good life available to nearly every American. All the while, a cloud of witnesses who fought the good fight before me is watching me. They are cheering me on that I might become one of them. They are my role models—the people I want to be like.
How am I to achieve a place in heaven alongside of such giants? What did they do to win the approval of God?
Check back to Hebrews 11. Every one on this roll of honor was known for what they gave up. For the hardships they endured. It seems the only path to heaven is straight through hell. But I have nothing in my sheltered life like what they went through.
Catalog it. Abel was killed for his faith. Noah listened to the jeers of everyone in his city. Abraham left home with no idea how he was going to make it. Moses left his royal privileges to wander in the wilderness for most of his life. This crowd faced off with giants and with lions. They refused freedom from torture. They were whipped and mocked and thrown in prison. They were sawn in two while still alive. They wandered in the hills, living in caves as outcasts from society. What a record they set through faithful obedience to God.
And I am to follow Jesus and all these others down that trail of trouble, persecution and death? This makes signing up for the Green Berets and Navy Seals sound like the norm for every soldier of Christ. This is not a health and wealth program. This is death and destruction. But the meaning is clear. If I want to be among those who sit down at the victory banquet with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus, I must live my life with this kind of discipline.
God is merciful and understands our weakness, you say. Praise the Lord this is true.
But I have come to see that his tender compassion does not allow me to choose a less demanding regimen. It simply means that I get as many attempts as I need to pass the rigorous test outlined in Hebrews 11 and 12..
I recall going on a Hard Core program (a Christian version of Outward Bound) as a spiritual advisor in 1969. I would do everything the kids would do. Carry a heavy pack over the Adirondack mountains. Sleep in a piece of plastic and cook meals over stick fires. I would wash in cold mountain streams and spend three days alone on a “solo.” I would learn rock-climbing using my bare hands only. And the greatest challenge for many of us—I would rappel down a cliff over 100 feet high.
Being the oldest by a dozen years (35 at the time) I was chosen to go over the cliff first. Maybe they thought that they should sacrifice the person who likely had the least years to lose. I hooked on to the belay rope that would save me if something happened. It was about a thousand pound test Gold Braid. But it looked thin to me. I was hoping for a rope like they use to tie up aircraft carriers to the docks.
I stood on the lip of the cliff with my back to the precipice. I stood there for a long time. Why had I signed up for this madness? I am basically afraid of heights.
The leaders were patient. Take all the time you need to compose yourself. But—there was no way out of this. Screwing up more courage than I possessed, somehow, I leaned back and began banging off the face of the cliff as I let out rope a few feet at a time. I did it! Now I could encourage others just as scared as I now taking their first foray into danger. I was the first of that small “cloud of witnesses” to cheer the others on. Some were bold; some were near panic. But there was no second option. We all had to follow the program the leaders set for us.
Unfortunately the situation in the bible-believing evangelical community allows millions to seek some alternate to that one path Jesus and the faithful have set for us. We have dumbed it down. We have made it easy.
And now American culture is turning against us. Society is rotting before our eyes. The time of persecution is at hand. We are likely to suffer the loss of most of what we so long have labored for personally and as a faith movement. The law of entropy is sapping our energy.
Evangelicalism has risen and is now falling. It is a grief well deserved.
Suck it up. Put your armor on. Spend until you are spent. The kingdom triumphs in the end.
Pray God I may endure to the finish and somehow squeak into that crowd of witnesses.
It is going to be a close call.

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Scientific Humanism

Scientific Humanism

Scientific humanism is an example of what philosophers term naturalism. This is the conviction that the natural universe of space and time is the only reality.

As we look at scientific humanism we encounter a worldview that makes a lot of noise in our society and influences our culture profoundly. There is a lot of confusion here, mostly between what science tells us directly and what people wrongly think science implies.

Science, in itself, explains nothing.

Science examines causal links between things we observe. Example: we observe the sun rising followed by the dew on the grass disappearing. Science tells us there is a causal link here. We take a pill; our headache goes away. We reasonably conclude that there is causal connection.

But what all the events science examines mean when taken as a whole, science can never tell us. Nor can it tell us the meaning of life or the ultimate origins of the universe. When we speculate about the ultimate origin and meaning of things we leave science as such. We are in the realm of philosophy.

Science can tell us what to do to live longer—eat right, keep your weight down, exercise a lot, don’t smoke, and so on. But science can never tell us what to do with our life or what to believe about our lives.

Many people are brainwashed by the educational system to think that we should only pay attention to what science can “prove.” So they make science into a philosophy of life without even realizing it. This belief is known as scientific humanism. Philosophers call it naturalism.
I say it is a pretty disappointing outlook on life.

For one thing, it affords no hope whatever. You do whatever you do for 60, 80 or 100 years—and what do you have to show for it in the end? Nothing. In a matter of years nobody even knows you existed unless you make the history books. That’s not likely.

Secondly, it provides no basis for how we should treat each other. Why be kind and good and honest? Really, there is no reason not to cheat and use people if that’s what pleases you.

Thirdly, it offers no convincing foundation for a stable society in which human beings can flourish. It all boils down to the survival of the fittest—those who can dominate others most successfully, even while perhaps using a cloak of altruism, will survive.

Why should anyone care about the unborn, the poor, the mentally ill, and so on? Why should anyone care about the environment? The whole solar system will melt down some day. The human race will go extinct like every other species. So why get so concerned about it? If it bothers you to think our great-grandchildren may suffer from environmental degradation, then go green if you want. But if you don’t give a damn who’s to say you are wrong? Go with your flow. Whatever floats your boat.

Now most people don’t think that way. My point is that scientific humanism has no way to convince anyone to “get with the program.” Naturalism ends up with idea that we should “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.” Get yours while you can. If you want to be like Mother Teresa, go for it. If you want to be like Osama Bin Laden, why not?

We need to ask ourselves this question. What is the most reasonable worldview in light of what we know from our own consciences, from history, from philosophy and religion, as well as from science?

My point is this. One cannot simply say: “go with what science proves.” Science proves nothing. It shows some useful causal connections but says nothing about the meaning of it all: where everything came from, where it is all going, and what makes for a meaningful and flourishing life.