As a historian of evangelicalism with an evangelical heritage, I take what I study fairly personally. Much of it leaves me quite ambivalent. For example, I've just been re-reading Roy Porter's book English Society in the Eighteenth Century - an excellent little introduction to the period. Porter has lots to say about the evangelicals, which is appropriate given how significant they were in England during the eighteenth century. He chronicles lots of things that make me wince. For example, in 1800 the Evangelical Magazine published a "Spiritual Barometer" that allowed you to measure your spiritual state (presumably against the spiritual state of others). Down at the bottom end near 'perdition' were such behaviours as 'Parties of pleasure on the Lord's Day', 'Love of novels, etc', 'levity in conversation' and 'family worship only on Sunday evenings'. How handy! In 1793 the same magazine assured its readers that 'Novels generally speaking are instruments of abomination and ruin. A fond attachment to them is irrefragable evidence of a mind contaminated and totally unfitted for the serious pursuits of study, or the delightful exercises and enjoyments of religion.' (p.309)
More serious, to my mind, was the paternalism of the evangelical reformers - their concern for the poor seemed so infected by a sense of their own superiority and a desire to control. As one reformer wrote: 'The labouring poor demand our constant attention. To inform their minds, to repress their vices, to assist their labours, to invigorate their activity and to improve their comfort - these are the noblest offices of enlightened minds in superior stations'. (p.292)
I am profoundly uncomfortable with the moralism and paternalism of my evangelical forebears. And I am profoundly uncomfortable with the extent to which the flaws in their approach to reform are swept under the carpet by modern hagiography. We must be able to analyse and critique them if we are not to repeat their mistakes. The self-righteous Christians in I heart Huckabees (whom I discussed in an earlier post) are the descendants of these evangelicals, and it is no coincidence that George W. is a Methodist. And yet, as Porter concludes:
'For all the self-congratulatory rationalism of the Enlightenment, it was Christian zealots who were the selfless reformers of abuses... What first galvanised large sections of the workforce into self-help and self-respect were not polite letters, Enlightenment rationalism or Deism, but Methodism and New Dissent.' (p. 183-184)
And for that, I am proud of my heritage.
4 comments:
The "Spiritual Barometers" are still there, of course. Whether it's how you interpret a statement of faith, your understandings of creation or eschatology, or even the way you dress, the books you read and the music you listen to.
Often though people don't realize they're being "evaluated" until they cross some invisible line they didn't realize was there and they get jumped on by the "gatekeepers" of the establishment.
Yes indeed. You can't read the history of evangelicalism without constant nasty little shocks of recognition! So how do we talk about Christian maturity meaningfully without creating such ugly and artificial barometers?
I wish I knew the answer to the last question. I really do.
I think Stanley Grenz is right that it's a matter of concentrating on renewing the centre rather than policing the boundaries... but this is one of the many things that's easier to talk about than do. And people just end up having fights about what the centre is anyway!
That sounds negative, and I don't mean to be. I've certainly had the privilege of knowing Christians who were able to concentrate on the centre, to the encouragement of all those around them.
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