U.S. Evangelicals: Moving Again

UNTIL the end of the 19th century, evangelistic Christianity nearly always meant a heroic dedication both to spreading the Gospel and to helping one's fellow man. In England, Philanthropist William Wilberforce typified that spirit when, after his conversion, he led the fight for abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. In the U.S., too, evangelicals were involved in the abolitionist movement and in fights against civic corruption, poverty, prostitution and "demon rum." Only as the 19th century waned did the shock of the newly secular world and a creeping pessimism about man cause evangelical* churches to retreat into a kind of isolationism, stressing other-worldly concerns and a preoccupation with individual conversion. Last week in Minneapolis, at the first U.S. Congress on Evangelism, the nation's evangelical churchmen boldly broke out of that shell and challenged their churches to rejoin the battle for social reform.

The 4,600 delegates--from an Anglican archbishop to fervid Pentecostalists--had come to Minneapolis expecting something else. The six-day congress had originally been planned as a grass-roots session on evangelism, a follow-up to the more intellectual World Congress on Evangelism held in Berlin in 1966. But in his welcome, Honorary Chairman Billy Graham promised that the meeting "will affect every religious group in the country in the next decade." Keynoter Oswald C. J. Hoffmann (see box) continued the warmup, warning the delegates: "If the Gospel is demonstrated only vocally and not vitally in the everyday actions of Christ's followers, the whole thing becomes a farce." The next morning Graham's evangelist brother-in-law Leighton Ford roundly chastised the delegates.

Gaping Wounds. "When men of privilege abuse their power and refuse justice," Ford told them, "sooner or later violent upheaval is bound to come. If we do not seek to heal the gaping, rubbed-raw wounds of racial strife, then we shall deserve 'the fire next time.' It is to the shame of the Christian church that we have been so slow to face the demands of the Gospel in the racial revolution. What kind of Gospel are we preaching when a church sends missionaries to convert Africans, but suggests to the Afro-American that he go to church with his own kind?" Ford also attacked evangelical apathy (if not active opposition) toward social action in the U.S. "Christians have a stake in preserving historic truth," he acknowledged, "but since sin infects every man and institution, we need a holy discontent with the status quo. The Gospel calls for constant change. We cannot identify our Gospel with the past." On the other hand, warned Ford, the church should not be "the water boy of world revolution." Too many revolutions, he argued, "fail to grasp the heart of the problem, which is the problem of the human heart. They throw out one set of sinners and put in another."

Going to the Cross. As the week progressed, other speakers reiterated the theme that revolution must start from personal regeneration. Black Evangelist Tom Skinner reminded the delegates that "there are 25 million black people out there waiting," but cautioned them that to end racism "you yourselves must go to the cross in repentance." Senator Mark Hatfield urged a spiritual approach to the search for world peace. "Seeking peace requires witnessing to God's will," said Hatfield, "orienting one's life to the purpose of his peace, influencing the thinking of the public, acting in love towards our neighbors, and proclaiming the power of Christ to remake human life."

The congress itself displayed an edifying sense of community. After over-zealous ushers hustled a hippie couple from the auditorium (Graham's life had been threatened by phone and letter), Author Keith Miller stopped his address, noting angrily that "they just threw out the man who looks more like Jesus Christ than any man in the auditorium." The hippies were promptly readmitted, and Billy Graham later met with them and apologized. The participants sat listening earnestly while black delegates patiently presented a list of "recommendations," urging evangelical churches to make special efforts to open schools, better housing and better jobs to blacks. Many even stayed overtime one night to hear a delegation of Chippewa Indians urge evangelical action on behalf of Indians. Ralph Abernathy's invitational appearance at week's end came as something of an anticlimax, though delegates responded warmly to his plea to end "war, racism and poverty."

Verbal Currency. Unlike official church conventions, the congress had no money to vote for reform programs. Nor could it do more than urge evangelical churches and their individual congregations to take more specific action on their own. Yet urging, after all, is the evangelical way, and words, in a very real sense, are the evangelical's currency. To be sure, the words are not new in American Christianity; liberal theologians and mainstream Protestantism as represented in the National Council of Churches spelled out the social implications of Christianity years ago. Still, evangelicals could add a dimension of their own with their special religious fervor and their intense dedication to spiritual goals. If evangelicals will now take the exhortations to heart, the Minneapolis congress may well prove to be a landmark in the history of U.S. Protestantism.

Whatever effect the Minneapolis meeting may have on U.S. evangelicals, their growth in recent years has been extraordinary. Between 1950 and 1968, the population of the U.S. increased by nearly one-third. Five major U.S. Protestant denominations grew faster than the population in those years: the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the American Lutheran Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Churches of Christ and the Episcopal Church. Only the Episcopal Church is a member of the National Council of Churches. The other four have several things in common: they are all outside the N.C.C., all theologically conservative and all evangelical. They account for 19 million of the 27 million evangelical and conservative Protestants outside the National Council of Churches.

Hidden Majority. Moreover, within the National Council of Churches, at least one-third of its 39 million Protestant members, according to modest estimates, still maintain evangelical attitudes, forming strong blocs within their denominations. Add these evangelicals within to the 27 million* outside the N.C.C., and the total is 40 million Protestants with a distinctively traditional view of Christianity--a significant majority among 67 million U.S. Protestants.

The "outside" churches are the pacesetters of this hidden majority. They account for 68% of the Protestant foreign missionaries sent from the U.S. and Canada. They operate the only two interdenominational national campus religious organizations in the U.S.--the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and the Campus Crusade for Christ. They publish 165 periodicals, including the influential Christianity Today. Evangelical publishing houses account for at least half of all religious books sold, not counting the many evangelical titles issued by secular publishers. Evangelicals run almost all of the Protestant parochial schools and have produced such first-rate religion-oriented liberal arts colleges as Illinois' Wheaton College and such increasingly esteemed divinity schools as Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.

* Evangelism is the actual spreading of the "good news" of the Gospel, and an evangelist is one who does it. Though in Europe evangelical often means simply "Protestant," in the U.S. it more often means a particular kind of Protestant who puts strong emphasis on the central authority of the Bible, is conservative in theology, rejects notions of "new morality," and concentrates on individual salvation through God's grace and man's repentance.

* Not every one of the 27 million meets the full definition of "evangelical," since some "outside" denominations include a small number of theological liberals. But they are a tiny minority.

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