From the Brain of Bart: Questioning Parachurch-ism

on May 16, 2013

I’ve started reading Deconstructing Evangelicalism for my commute. I enjoy perusing D. G. Hart‘s works not necessarily because I am a Two Kingdoms thinker but because he asks really good questions. Take, for example, this observation: evangelicalism lacks a common “church polity, creed, and worship.” Thus, it is “without a self-conscious notion about ministry, a common theology, and a coherent understanding of worship.” By the latter, Hart means the shape of service or liturgy–what may be called ordered worship. Though evangelicalism tends to avoid reliance on forms, it does not have any substantial, enforceable rules for worship practice. The issue of creed and church polity go hand-in-hand: “In effect, the evangelical movement of the late twentieth century replaced the church with the parachurch…”

As Hart proves through the historical record, before the 1940s, both fundamentalists and revisionists claimed the Evangelical title–it functioned almost the same way as “Protestantism.” Bear in mind that Hart is speaking here of what may be called neo-evangelicalism, which sought to extricate itself from any belligerent fundamentalist roots while retaining vibrant piety and eschewing liberal skepticism. The founding of this movement is marked in the 1940s and 1950s by the founding of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), Christianity Today, and Billy Graham’s rise to revivalistic ministry.  Those mechanisms necessary for authoritative creed (and in some Protestant traditions, confessions) simply aren’t there–instead, we are given coalition-building, big personalities, and a nebulous means of expulsion for those somehow dubbed heretics.

Question: What else is left for unity? What really does matter if not the nature of the Church, her beliefs, and her way of forming souls through worship? Are we really that surprised that the post-1940s Evangelical movement is unraveling and spiraling out of control in a matter of three generations or so? [Examples: NAE’s leftward trajectory, the hyper-politicization of Graham’s legacy for the GOP, the Driscoll/RHE divide, the various emergence/radical movements].

  1. Comment by Holgrave on May 16, 2013 at 4:52 pm

    This reminds me of Carl Trueman’s recent “What if Life Was Complex?”

  2. Comment by gregpaley on May 17, 2013 at 8:58 am

    Parachurch ministries aren’t exactly new. In the 1700s, John Wesley’s Methodist societies provided education and fellowship for the faithful, even though Wesley was technically an ordained pastor in the Church of England, the state church which was assuredly not meeting the spiritual needs of most English. Ditto for Pietism in the dead Lutheran churches in Germany in the 1600s. The devout are not going to be satisfied with a faith that is just a matter of showing up on Sunday morning. Speaking as one evangelical, I’m not bothered at all that parachurch ministries tend to flourish while churches decline. Parachurches function on the principle of “find a need and fill it.” This is America, we have a free market in religion, there is no established church, so let’s not grouse about the fact that the most dynamic Christianity may well be flourishing outside the walls of the church. No wonder so many independent (and lively) evangelical churches now choose to call themselves “Christian centers” or “Christian fellowship” instead of “churches.”

  3. Pingback by E Van Gel Ism | Unsettled Christianity on May 18, 2013 at 4:05 pm

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  4. Comment by ericvlytle on May 19, 2013 at 8:07 pm

    If I remember correctly, the YMCA was a parachurch organization that took its “C” mission very seriously before it turned into a secular health club. There were and are plenty of fine organizations that (to paraphrase George W Bush) “do the jobs churches won’t do.” I don’t think God relies solely on these burned-out secularized “churches” to get His work done, especially the churches that seem to be actively working to tear down faith instead of build it up.

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