David Bebbington’s characterization in 1989 of ‘the Evangelical version of Protestantism’ as ‘created by the Enlightenment’ has caught on so well, albeit comfortably simplified, in some influential quarters of UK Evangelicalism as to serve as a stick to belabor as ‘modernist’ their unfavourite varieties of the contemporary evangelical mainstream. Only the post-modernist brand, it seems, can hope to escape this baleful genetic identity. Since my (and David Bebbington’s) generation of Evangelicals grew up regarding ‘modernism’ as the rationalistic antithesis of classical biblical orthodoxy, there is urgent need for clarifying scrutiny of his thesis. This symposium, carefully contstructed by its editors, will prove a significant contribution to that task. The range and quality of its chapters and their authors will surely advance our historical understanding of the manifold matrices of what Bebbington also calls “an adaptation of the Protestant tradition through contact with the Enlightenment”.
David F. Wright
Edinburgh
Filed under: Academic, Review | Leave a Comment
Tags: 9780805448603, Academic, B&H, Endorsement
No Responses Yet to “Advent of Evangelicalism endorsement by David F. Wright”