Most evangelicals do not know—and do not care–that the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) failed to expel a couple of open theists last week. Grassroots evangelicals do not read evangelical theology, and are not directly impacted by much that goes on in evangelical scholarship. Whatever evangelical scholars make think, these days an evangelical is not defined by whether one agrees with Millard Erickson or Stanley Grenz on the nature of divine revelation. Increasingly, an evangelical is defined as one who knows whether Bob is a talking tomato or a talking cucumber.
Thus, the real direction of evangelical theology is not shaped by what goes on at ETS, but by what goes on at CBA (the group formerly known as the Christian Booksellers Association). And so, the next generation of evangelical churches is finding its theology in the Left Behind series, the Purpose-Driven Life curricula, and the Prayer of Jabez fads.
And who can blame them?
We shouldn’t lament the fact that evangelical churches don’t listen to evangelical theology. Instead, we should lament that evangelical theology doesn’t listen to evangelical churches. Some evangelical academics turn up their noses at the concerns of the churches, professing a fear of “evangelical populism.” I have no such fear. “Evangelical populism,” after all, is the reason Norton 237 is occupied by Russell Moore rather than Molly Marshall. Southern Baptist churches revolted against the Southern Baptist academy—and it’s a good thing too. Now, the churches may not have always known exactly the extent of the problem, but their intuitions were informed enough by the Bible to know that something in the academy was off-kilter in a big way. If that’s populism, then here is at least one “Amen” for a biblically informed populism.
And that’s the way it ought to be. King Jesus delivered the keys to the Kingdom and the word of truth, not to the Institute for Septuagint Studies, but to the churches. Evangelical scholars must address the academy, but they must do so from the standpoint of the church and for the benefit of the church.
The stakes are high. Large numbers of the next generation of evangelicals are sensing the bankruptcy of evangelical ecclesiology, and leaving for Rome or Canterbury or Constantinople. Such may be because they have examined these traditions and come to believe, as did Walker Percy, that the claims the Catholic Church makes for itself are true.
But it may be that these expatriates have frustration with an evangelical theology that now lusts more for recognition at Yale, Princeton, and the breakout sessions at the AAR than it aspires to impact the theological and spiritual formation of local congregations.
It’s time for that to change.
