Class Matters: On a Christian Mission to the Top
Posted by tom | May 23, 2005A key assertion of this piece w/regard to evangelical campus mission is "What has changed is the class status of evangelicals." As we briefly discussed at GCF last night, this ignores the presence of evangelicals in the 'mainlines,' the presence of institutions such as Calvin College (founded in 1876), and the cultural dominance w/which evangelicals founded the Ivy League Schools in the first place. The popular media's definition of evangelicalism is too broad. As the Santorum piece The Believer and the Time's 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America include Roman Catholics such as Santorum and Neuhaus among evangelicals. On the other side fundamentalists also find their home among evangelicals. The Time piece opens: "There is no pope, no central ruling body. American Evangelicalism--with its home-schooling Fundamentalists and PTA-attending megachurch moms, its neo-Calvinists and Pentecostals, its multiple denominations and thousands of unaffiliated churches--seems to defy unity, let alone hierarchy. Yet its members share basic commitments: to the divinity and saving power of Jesus, to personal religious conversion, to the Bible's authority and to the spreading of the Gospel. Those same understandings unite the generation of influential leaders who channel conservative Christianity's overflowing energies." Maybe the term is being applied to those in the Christian community which frame their action in religious language.
Although, as Marsden and Noll have pointed out a large segment of fundamentalists/evangelicals for the most part willingly disengaged from the university between 150-100 years ago (when control slipped from their grasp and spiritual concerns received more attention), not all of evangelicalism took that direction. We do have examples individuals, denominations, and institutions which remained a part of higher education and/or created viable counter-cultural institutions which engaged the larger culture and continue to do such today (more in a future posting).
In addition, fundamentalism and evangelicalism have parted ways, see Stott's Evangelical Truth for more elaboration, with evangelicalism giving redemptive space/value for all of life as part of following Christ even thought/research/deeds beyond evangelization, an interpretative framework for Biblical interpretation which involves a number of literary forms beyond stark literalism, the tool of re-contextualization before application, an open-ness for shared ministry w/in the Body of Christ (w/demoninations, ethnic groups, etc), and freedom w/regard to how 'the end times' will pan out. Stott asserts:
"in the two fundamental duties of pleasing God and loving one another there must be no complacency. On the contrary, we are to be constantly growing. For although our justification is hapax (once and for all), our sanctification is to be mallon (more and more). Thus the essentials of evangelicalism may be encapsulated in the combination of the two adverbs hapax and mallon. God has spoken hapax in Christ (including the biblical witness to Christ), revealing himself and committing his revelation to the church. Yet our responsibility is to delve ever more deeply (mallon) into what he has revealed. Similarly, God has acted hapax in Christ, giving his Son to die for us. Yet our responsibility is to enter ever more fully (mallon) into the benefits of his death. God has no more to teach us than he has revealed hapax in Christ; but we have much more to learn, as the Holy Spirit witnesses to Christ, not least through the multicultural fellowship of the church, and so enables us to understand God's revelation ever more fully (mallon). And God has no more to give than he has given us hapax in Christ; but we have much more to receive, as the Holy Spirit enables us to appropriate God's gifts ever more fully (mallon) . . ."
To sum up, the evangelicalism is at its core trinitarian, focusing on "the gracious initiative of God the Father in revealing himself to us, in redeeming us through Christ crucified, and in transforming us through the indwelling Spirit . . . This is why evangelical Christians place such emphasis on the Word, the cross and the Spirit." By this definition, maybe we do include Santorum and Neuhaus.
As many of you know, I find it a privilege to be a member of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's Graduate and Faculty Ministry. We are part of an international movement, that includes evangelical leaders such as John Stott. The work began at the U. of Cambridge in 1877 and ever since have been led by God to come alongside followers of the Christ in the University, together listening to God and the campus culture in order to be used by the Spirit of God to be about the long, messy process of delving into and re-contextualizing the Gospel in daily life, witness, and devotion. Our work began in the United States as the Canadian movement crossed the border in the late 1930s and we have had an active ministry of engaged presence . . . even with the schools which form the Ivy Sports League. And by God's grace, may we continue to have the opportunity to til the soil and sow the seed of the Gospel not only in these places of power, but also the Carnegie Mellon's and University of Pittsburgh's of the world which also span many classes, cultures, and ethnicities.
