Evangelicalism is best understood as a renewal movement within the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Across time, evangelicals have drawn deeply from four wells of Christian wisdom: the Christological and Trinitarian faith of the undivided church prior to 1054; the Protestant Reformation, especially its emphasis on the authority of the Bible and justification by grace alone through faith alone; the transatlantic awakenings exemplified by Whitefield, Edwards, and the Wesleys; and the missional stirrings of the Spirit throughout the globe inclusive of puritanism, pietism, and Pentecostalism.
Most American evangelicals are not aware of this rich heritage, and that makes them vulnerable to the idolatries of the present moment. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that "people who have no past, have no future." The thinness of American evangelicalism â?? short on doctrine, worship as entertainment, little or no catechesis â?? stems from spiritual amnesia ("we have forgotten who we are") and results in ecclesial myopia ("at least we're not like them!"). At a moment like this, when the ground once thought solid turns out to be cultural quicksand, what is needed is a back-to-the-future revival. I see the stirrings of such an awakening already. It will be decidedly radical, global, and ecumenical.
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