In terms of the postmodernism, I guess I am allergic to some of the semantics to that whole issue, particularly with the “modernist epistemology” which I just don’t tend to buy. But overall I suppose that is right. In terms of tribalism and globalism I just don’t see how that isn’t just cultural shifts rather than a shift in epistemology. Although I tend to think “postmodernism” basically means the right to make up funny words. But that might just be me!

I’m just playing around with the idea of revivalism, but I think it has some legs. My generation is the postmodern generation, and to be honest, all they seem to be doing is the same thing the last generation did, but the cultural issues and realities have changed. Instead of being influenced by Microsoft and Motorola they are influenced by Bono and Starbucks – hence, instead of seeker sensitive we have living rooms with couches.

Forgive the length of this missive in response to your comments, Kyle, but I think we still have some major differences that warrant deeper exploration. And how can you keep any discussion of “postmodern influence” down to a short “blurb”?

I agree that revivalism is a “disposition” more than a series of historical events; I just don’t share your sentiment on the relative influence it still has on “the present mindset and categorization of evangelicalism.”

I would agree that “packaging” has a lot to do with the mechanics of recent developments in evangelicalism, but I think it is rooted more in the wandering search for a solid ecclesiology, which we’ve never had, than in the ongoing influence of revivalism, though the latter does play a role, certainly. If we can successfully “package” something sexy, new, or different, then we legitimize maintaining the distinctions that keep us apart from other bodies and “stunted” in our ecclesiological development as a body, because the ecclesiology all too often collapses into the “packaging,” especially when busy Americans have so little time or emotional energy left to do “real church.”

Regarding postmodernism, I see both positive and negative influences playing deeply significant roles. Positively, I think that shaking up our categories (“deconstructing”?) in the area of inerrancy, for example, has been a long overdue corrective for our excessively modernistic epistemology (hence, our impoverished hermeneutics), as James has picked up in his recent threads on Bovell and Sparks. I’m anxiously awaiting his continued exploration(s) in that area.

However, this ongoing “deconstruction” has come with a high price in the erosion of the sense of “absolutes”—to say that “inerrancy (as classically defined) is a mischaracterization of biblical truth” is very different from saying “there is no absolute truth,” and younger evangelicals are now highly susceptible to this overcorrection. This epistemological erosion has increasingly alienated a whole generation (from twenty-somethings all the way to late thirty-somethings) from active participation in local evangelical bodies where some attempt is still made to maintain at least a semblance of explicit adherence to the notion of absolute truth.

Beyond these epistemological concerns, two seemingly opposed “pillars” of postmodernism have made some serious inroads into modern evangelical ecclesiology; these are globalism and tribalism. The disposition of “tribalism” has fit very well into historical evangelicalism’s mentality of seeking “birds of a feather” with whom to flock, initially on the basis of the most subtle differences in doctrine and generating varying degrees of “separation” of these various “tribes.” This has been and continues to be extraordinarily damaging to evangelical ecclesiology.

At the same time, globalism has created whole new communities where, for example, internet “fellowship” and text messaging have arguably all but replaced genuine biblical koinonia. The thoroughly individualistic tendency in our culture to avoid intimate relationshipwith those with whom we don’t agree—or who, quite frankly simply rub us the wrong way—has received overwhelming reinforcement by the positive strokes we get from “birds of a feather” on the internet, or even on the foreign mission field. (Should I wash my mouth out with soap?)

Finally, Kyle, I think you grossly underestimate the ongoing influence of culture on ecclesiology. I am increasingly aware that we can operate according to the flesh both individually and corporately. The problem is that there is both “bad flesh” and “good flesh,” and evangelicals have typically prided themselves on having “grade A, USDA-inspected good flesh.” (Brits probably won’t get the North American significance of the acronym, Kyle and Kent, so I rely on you to help explain.) Once we choose flesh, bad or good, the World has a field-day and is having a field-day with contemporary evangelicals of many stripes.

In terms of postmodernism, in what sense has it been influential in evangelical ecclesiology? I am, as an evangelical, very interested in ecclesiology, partially because we don’t seem to have one (or any for that matter). My worry is that the approach to ecclesiology by my generation has been short on theology and long on sociology.

I also don’t think consumerism is just an adoption of culture – although it is that – but I think it is ingrained in evangelicalism and has been since the revivals. Wasn’t it Spurgeon who said that if it takes a circus to get them there it will take a circus to keep them? The revivals were, in a sense, that circus evangelicalism bought into with the belief that culture should and actually will care about the mission and teaching of the church, as long as it is packaged the right way. Our “packaging” continues to change, but at its core, that is what I think has been going on with popular evangelicalism, call it emergent, missional or whatever else.

Kyle: Your characterization is too stuck in the history of the movement and fails to take into consideration the very potent influence of postmodernism. Further, it again reduces all evangelicalism to a caricature that does not reflect how much is in the process of changing at various levels within what is now a much more diverse collection of sub-movements than in the early 20th century.

Regarding your comments on a “house-of-cards” ecclesiology based on revivals, I would go even further to say that this ecclesiology is now much more deeply rooted in American individualism and the high value of autonomy, as well as the related “consumer mentality” that comes with that culture.

I speak from “within the camp” here, so I am simply calling for us to recognize the obvious and radically reorganize our approach to ecclesiology to take these factors into consideration and explore a more vital theory and praxis of “body life” to match our present circumstances at the level of both local church and the larger Body of Christ.

Likewise, thanks to Whitfield and crew, evangelicalism was forged in the ethos of individualism, offering the laity the opportunity to critique and criticise the church from their point of view, and giving them the power to judge religion for themselves (it was out of the revival era that we have “We the people…”). Whitfield, we must remember, empowered the people by suggesting (or downright saying) that many of their clergy were not actually regenerate. Also, people would, for the first time in their lives probably, choose to go to hear a sermon on their own terms, rather than a set sermon in their town at a set time with their set pastor. The freedom of choice here is interesting in light of the church hopping phenemon in evangelicalism. Could it be that an ecclesiology whose foundation stands on revivals actually undermines itself?

Broadly (and again, stereotypically speaking), popular Christianity, most obviously the seeker movement, has sought to institutionalize revivals, often times utilizing the tried and true mechanics of altar calls, emotional manipulation, rhetorical savvy, etc.

I just wonder if at the heart of what evangelicalism is we will find revivals – and if that is the case, evangelicalism will, it seems, necessarily be the group that funds entertainment venues (as church buildings) and a whole industry (if not industries) functioning to move people from one experience to another.

What I mean may sound rather crude and strange, but growing up I was taught that there was an “age of accountability.” What this meant in regards to abortion was that more people were going to heaven now than ever before! I found this to be quite odd.

According to this reasoning abortion should not be seen as bad. In fact, aught we not to consider it a very great thing?

I think it was when those of us who grew up/are growing up within this context are realizing that we need to fight against abortion because God has willed us to LIVE ON THIS EARTH.

In sum, I think the abortion issue, no matter how much it has united conservatives politically, has actually caused a great stir within the theological thinking of those of us growing up during the controversy.

Just some thoughts.

I went to retrieve my comments but find that WordPress only sends other people’s comments back to you when you subscribe to the post by e-mail. I’m used to Blogspot practice on this, so I never bothered to “store” my blog comments, thinking they would still be in my archived e-mail.

My thoughts are primarily along two lines:

1. When the Bible Church Movement began after the rise of fundamentalism around the turn of the 20th century, the ecclesially rallying or uniting issues seemed to be much more clearcut. Now that we are in many ways “beyond foundationalism” with regard to the doctrine of inerrancy and soteriological exclusivism as “defining characteristics,” this has led to increasingly prevalent “existential angst” among evangelicals in the 21st century, with a growing collective ecclesiological “identity crisis” with record rates of church-hopping.

2. Given the extant denominationalism and strikingly parochial and individualistic flavor that has largely characterized the “local church” in America—even apart from doctrinal distinctives, the effect of postmodern deconstruction on ecclesial structure, mission, and vision has only served to further erode this already weak ecclesiology with which the Bible Church movement was imbued and which provided much of the foundation for the rapid growth of evangelicalism in the 20th century.

I believe we are being called to a more “apostolic” flavor with respect to ecclesial structure and “strategy,” and this will challenge both the more loosely structured heirs of the Bible Church movement and stronger, traditional, more denominational churches.

Thus, James’ call for evangelicals to just “defect” (patently oversimplified, I know) to the more traditional, established denominational churches just seemed to me to ring hollow.