Evangelicalism

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evangelicalism. Based on the ‘evangel’ or gospel message, evangelicalism is the generic term for a wide‐ranging religious movement that transcended national, denominational, and theological boundaries. It was most often characterized by an emphasis on justification by faith, the Bible as the chief source of religious authority, the centrality of conversion and the New Birth, the importance of religious experience, and the doctrine of assurance of sins forgiven.

Perhaps the most important factor in evangelicalism's international spread in the 18th century is the way in which its formidable religious activism and organizational pragmatism could be adapted to different social and political conditions in a variety of geographical locations. Its roots in Ireland go back to the voluntary religious societies created by committed Protestants in Dublin and elsewhere in the early 18th century. But it was in the 1740s, with the arrival of itinerant evangelists such as John Cennick, John Wesley, and George Whitefield, that its conversionist zeal was first manifested. Thereafter, the story is a complicated one, for evangelicalism had the capacity to revive old settlements of European pietists, such as the Palatines, stimulate missionary zeal among the established Protestant denominations, act as the catalyst in the formation of new religious movements such as Methodism, and bring forth a vast array of voluntary religious societies for the proclamation of the gospel and the reformation of manners.

Evangelicalism benefited from the political uncertainties of the 1790s and through the socalled Second Reformation launched a sustained offensive in the 1820s to convert Irish Catholics. But over the course of the 19th century its greatest gains were confined to the north of the country, where conversionism produced a great religious drama in the form of the Ulster revival of 1859. Evangelical religion undoubtedly played a part in stiffening the anti‐Catholic resolve of a significant proportion of Irish Protestants and has contributed much to the distinctive religious and political culture of Northern Ireland from 1920 onwards. Although the religious zenith of evangelicalism is probably past, new forms of enthusiastic popular Protestantism, from pentecostalism to charismatic renewal, continue to enliven the religious landscape of early 21st‐century Ireland.

There is a sense in which ‘evangelicalism’, as opposed to ‘evangelicals’, is a potentially misleading term, for its adherents are not easily reduced to a particular religious typology. Its boundaries include bellicose, anti‐Catholic pulpit politicians as well as pious dispensers of manifold charities: some evangelicals were ardent Calvinists, others were equally ardent Arminians; some were hard and sectarian, others were inclusive and internationalist; and some were rigid denominationalists while others thought denominationalism to be the scourge of ‘vital religion’.

Evangelicalism, among contemporaries and historians alike, has evoked strong opinions. Opponents throughout its history have claimed that it elevated enthusiasm far above reason and that it disturbed churches, communities, and families with fanciful notions and socially divisive doctrines. Some historians, equally, have seen it as a pernicious religious movement of counter‐enlightenment, while others have drawn attention to its influence in expanding the sphere of religious activity open to the laity, including women and children, and to its admirable, if selective, social conscience. What is not in dispute is its characteristic activism, which reshaped the lives of those who committed themselves to it and led to the expansion of a zealous form of Protestantism throughout the North Atlantic world and beyond in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the words of Francis Newman, himself a committed evangelical with Plymouth Brethren associations in Dublin in the 1820s, though later a freethinker, religious enthusiasm may be despised, but few dispute its power.

Bibliography

Bowen, D. , History and the Shaping of Irish Protestantism (1995)
Hempton, D., and and Hill, M. , Evangelical Protestantism in Ulster Society 1740–1890 (1992)

David Hempton

evangelicalism. A predominantly Anglican movement stemming from the mid-18th cent., originally with links to Whitefield and methodism, and led by John Fletcher, Henry Venn, and others, its characteristics have been calvinistic with a literalist interpretation of the Bible, sabbatarianism, conversion-preaching, reform of the heart, human sinfulness, and personal salvation. The second generation was wealthy and close to political power; William Wilberforce, a Yorkshire county MP, his cousin Henry Thornton, John Venn, vicar of Clapham, and Charles Simeon formed the Clapham sect, whose aims were the reformation of manners and the abolition of slavery (see anti-slavery). The slave trade was abolished (1807) and slavery itself (1833). Fear of the French Revolution intensified the Clapham sect's attack (1797) on the moral laxity of the privileged as a poor example for the lower orders, and on the weakness of the church and its message. Hannah More, a great propagandist with her Thoughts on the Manners of the Great (1787), and Wilberforce's Proclamation Society called not only for a moral reformation, but respect for government, orderly society, and hard work as part of the moral law. Evangelicalism in achieving increased sobriety by the 1820s anticipated ‘Victorianism’ and also deflected political radicalism. Evangelicalism offered an anchor of stability in a world of turbulence. World-wide mission was another aim, for which the Church Missionary Society (1799) and the British and Foreign Bible Society (1804) were founded. With its best disciples leaving to evangelize overseas, evangelicalism's success in thus promoting 19th-cent. foreign mission, associated with Victorian imperialism, enfeebled it at home, so that by the 1920s, unlike Anglo-catholicism, it lacked its earlier vigour and became narrowly moralistic, conservative, and upper middle class. The Cambridge Christian Union (CICCU), founded 1876 as the watchdog of evangelical orthodoxy, was weak in the 1920s, but revived and spread throughout most universities in the 1930s. Further revival accompanied the visit of the American evangelist Billy Graham (1954). Under John Stott's leadership, its emphasis rather surprisingly changed at Keele (1967) and Nottingham (1977) to embrace ecumenism, increased social responsibility, and greater emphasis on sacramental life.

Revd Dr William M. Marshall

Evangelicalism.
1. The term ‘Evangelical’ has been applied since the Reformation to the Protestant Churches generally because of their claim to base their teaching preeminently on the Gospel.

2. In Germany and Switzerland ‘Evangelical’ was long used of the Lutheran group of Protestant Churches as contrasted with the Calvinist (‘Reformed’) Churches.

3. In the C of E the term is currently applied to the school which lays special stress on personal conversion and salvation by faith in the atoning death of Christ. The group originated in the 18th cent. and had points of contact with the Methodist movement. C. Simeon made Evangelicalism a force at Cambridge and indirectly at other universities and prepared clergy and laity for work in the parishes and overseas. Dislike of their religious earnestness led to opposition, but the piety and humanity of the Evangelicals gradually won them a large following.

From c.1830 Anglican Evangelicalism narrowed and there were divisions, especially over belief in the return of Christ before the millennium. There was, however, general acceptance of belief in the verbal inspiration of the Bible and resistance to the findings of science and biblical criticism. With the stress on personal consecration and world evangelism, social and political reform disappeared from the Evangelical programme.

In the 20th cent. there was a deep division between Liberal Evangelicals, who accepted the findings of biblical criticism, and Conservative Evangelicals who stood firm on the verbal inspiration of Scripture. The latter group experienced a revival in the latter half of the century. The first National Evangelical Anglican Conference at Keele in 1967 broke the isolation of a century. Since then Conservative Evangelicals have taken a full part in the General Synod and other councils of the C of E, often working with Anglo-Catholics to oppose liberalism. There has been new concern for politics and social justice and a more positive attitude to the enjoyment of culture.

evangelicalism A predominantly Anglican movement stemming from the mid‐18th cent., originally with links to Whitefield and methodism, its characteristics were Calvinistic with a literalist interpretation of the Bible, sabbatarianism, conversion‐preaching, reform of the heart, human sinfulness, and personal salvation. The second generation was wealthy and close to political power; William Wilberforce, his cousin Henry Thornton, John Venn, vicar of Clapham, and Charles Simeon formed the Clapham sect, whose aims were the reformation of manners and the abolition of slavery (see anti‐slavery). Hannah More, a great propagandist with her Thoughts on the Manners of the Great (1787), and Wilberforce's Proclamation Society called not only for a moral reformation, but respect for government, orderly society, and hard work. World‐wide mission was another aim, for which the Church Missionary Society (1799) and the British and Foreign Bible Society (1804) were founded.

Evangelicalism. See Fundamentalist Movement; Missionary Movement; Protestantism; Revivalism.