Encore: Evangelicalism from 2000–2020
In November, Christ Over All offered a decade-by-decade engagement with evangelicalism. We would encourage you to go read many of those fine essays. In this two-part “Encore Essay” by Mark Devine, we return to our November theme, Engaging Evangelicalism, because of its many applications for our January theme: Roe v Wade after Dobbs.
While Evangelicals should not define themselves by politics, they have had an outsized role in political affairs throughout America’s history. Therefore, to understand evangelicalism one must grapple with the various ways politics, and especially the Pro-Life movement, have intersected with one another. To that end, Mark DeVine follows the last twenty years of evangelicalism to show the cross currents which have blown through our country.
Picking up a theme introduced by Jeff Robinson in his two-part narrative, the most significant movement among young evangelicals in North America between the years 2000 and 2020 was the resurgence of Reformed theology. Heading into the 2000’s Mark Driscoll and his Mars Hill Church and the Acts 29 church planting network influenced a broad swath of young evangelicals with Reformed theology. On the other coast, it was New York City pastor and The Gospel Coalition co-founder Timothy Keller who greatly influenced the Reformed resurgence among young evangelicals—what Colin Hansen called the “Young, Restless, and Reformed”—penetrating even the largest evangelical denominations and publishing houses. In the middle of the country were streams identified with the preaching of John Piper in Minneapolis, Don Carson’s writing and scholarship in Chicagoland, and Albert Mohler’s institutional leadership at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Perhaps the most surprising development in these yearly years of the Reformed Resurgence was its embrace by entity heads from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).[1] Likewise, representing the rising generation of multi-site church pastors, Matt Chandler understood and shared with younger SBC-ers the staying power of institutions. At a 9Marks at 9 event, he said, “movements come-and-go, but institutions stay.” In this way, the staying power of this Reformed resurgence would occur largely within the safe harbor of larger denominations such as Keller’s own Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) the immense SBC.
1. Despite an abundance of anti-Calvinists present at all levels of the Southern Baptist Convention, Keller’s gospel-centered appeal to a rising generation of Calvinists in SBC seminaries and other institutions led to an ever-widening embrace of the Keller movement.
In what follows I will give a broad brushstroke of this movement along with some of its key thought leaders.
Making Calvinism Cool
The Reformed Resurgence found rich soil in the theological ground cultivated for decades by bestselling theologians John R. W. Stott, J. I. Packer, R. C. Sproul, John MacArthur, and John Piper—men who led movements of their own. But by the mid 2000s, Driscoll—who also gained notoriety for his work in the emerging church—was arguably the face of the burgeoning recovery of Calvinism among young evangelicals sweeping the country. One impressive feature of the movement was its effective targeting of notoriously resistant contexts for gospel advance—the great cities of America. 20- and 30-somethings in skinny jeans were in cities across the nation, by the tens of thousands, happily sitting under candid preaching about sin, hell, and predestination. Through his nationwide reach, Driscoll helped make Calvinism cool.
Multiple scandals that eventually came to a head in 2014 led to the demise of Mars Hill and the dimming of Driscoll’s once bright and rising star. But other Calvinistic preachers continued preaching and leading, and one of them rose to greater prominence: Timothy Keller.[2] Keller had amazed church planters across the evangelical world by his success in Manhattan, and once The Reason For God appeared in 2008, Keller emerged as a nationally recognized star, a uniquely gifted apologist for the faith, and a church planting guru. With keen cultural awareness, Keller’s engagement within the context of a metropolitan city not only opened doors to share the gospel in New York—and in The New York Times—but it also resonated with Christians across the country hungry for a doctrinally-based approach to evangelism.
2. While it’s difficult to assess popularity, a rough metric in google trends (which shows how often certain terms are searched for by millions of people online) shows the general rise of Driscoll and then his eclipse by Keller after 2014—as measured by search results of “Mark Driscoll” and “Tim Keller.”
Indeed, both Driscoll and Keller sought to advance a robust Reformed theology in urban settings. But Keller’s strategic posture could hardly have contrasted more sharply with Driscoll’s. Driscoll assaulted Seattle audiences with an at times in-your-face, confrontational brand of preaching. Keller’s relaxed, open, comforting dialogical style prioritized the approach commended under the “About Us” tab on The Gospel Coalition website. What is true of the organization he co-founded is also true of himself—Keller strives to provide resources that are “winsome and wise, and centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
When Cool Begins to Freeze Evangelical Light
By 2016, the Keller movement—at least in its theology of a sovereign God, its church planting philosophy, its Christocentric preaching method, and its apologetic posture toward the culture—found itself deeply ensconced within both the PCA and the SBC and many other centers of evangelical influence. Keller had released one bestselling book after another and had become for evangelicals something of a national sensation. Yet in 2016, Keller and his movement found itself the subject of unrelenting and withering criticism, not from the politically progressive communities they served, but from their conservative theological siblings who charged them with accommodating their message to the progressive urban cultures they inhabited.
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Progressive Legalism & Postmodern Chaos in the PCA
When will the postmodern conception of language cease to be tolerated in the PCA? Words don’t get to mean what one wants them to mean. The doctrines in Scripture or our Constitution or AIC Reports don’t get to be so nuanced until they mean the opposite of what they intend. The law of non-contradiction might not hold for Derrida, and maybe not in the PCA anymore, but it does to our Lord.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word with With God, and the Word Was God. – John 1:1
God is not a God of confusion but of peace. – 1 Corinthians 14:33
Much ink, um, keystrokes has been typed regarding the source of the divide in the PCA. We have been told by Progressives (in the Bryan Chapell sense of the term) that we are just misunderstanding each other and that we actually agree. All of these never-ending disagreements are actually agreements. We supposedly agree on what the Westminster Standards mean as well as the AIC Report on Human Sexuality and the one on Women in Ministry also. We supposedly agree to follow the BCO. That does of course depend on what you mean by the word “agree.”
We don’t even agree on what words mean, let alone complex systems of doctrine or AIC reports that simply provide guidance. The two wings of the PCA are completely divided on women deacons, women preachers, human sexuality as it relates to identity, appropriate missional posture, Revoice, CRT, Side B Gay Christianity, and clarity of speech. You object? It all depends on what one means by preaching, deacon, corporate worship, and every other word in this article.
This whole thing is reminiscent of when Bill Clinton uttered the brilliant words “it depends on what the meaning of the word is is” nearly 25 years ago. It would be funny if it weren’t so serious. Playing fast and loose with words and clarity in our Lord’s Church is no laughing matter. Quite frankly it’s sad.
How long before “Let your yes be yes and your no be no” becomes “well that depends on what you mean by yes and no. In one sense it is yes and in another sense it is no.?” Brothers and sisters, sadly, we are already there.
It is Pharisaical Legalism at Its Core
Seeing the letter of the law in our Standards, the BCO, AIC Reports, and Scripture itself then looking for ways to do what one wants to do is Pharisaical legalism. It is legalistic to look for workarounds, loopholes, and wiggle room to do mission. No amount of law or guidance will prevent a legalist from pursuing these things. No language will either.
It is Pharisaical legalism to put women in the roll of Deacon with the only difference being that hands were not laid on her and then say she is not a Ordained Deacon.[1]
It is Pharisaical legalism to not have the office of deacon at all, but to have another made up board of men and women doing everything the diaconate is supposed to do.[2]
It is Pharisaical legalism to have women teaching and/or preaching assembled Christians but say that she didn’t teach or preach because it wasn’t at a Worship Service or we didn’t call it a sermon, but rather she exhorted at a study.[3]
It is Pharisaical legalism to host a Transvestite Celebration on property that is owned by the church through a ministry run by church leadership/members but say it was separate from the Church because the building it was held in was “decommissioned” and the organization that runs the ministry is separate from the Church.
It is Pharisaical legalism to plant non-PCA churches or start para-church ministries that are overseen by PCA churches, officers, and members that do all the things we aren’t allowed to do.
It is Pharisaical legalism to look at the AIC Report on Human Sexuality and say we agree with it, but then ignore all that it advises against because it doesn’t say “shall not” or “shall,” thereby justifying the wholesale use of what the spirit of the report calls unwise and must be rejected.
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Tension in Our Polity: A History of the Assistant Pastor
In all the debates that took place on this topic, it does not appear that any of the polity tensions with BCO 17-2 inherent in the office of Assistant Pastor identified by the Ad Interim Committee were ever resolved. If we are to be a denomination who are Reformed and “always reforming,” perhaps it would be healthy for us to continue to wrestle with this initial question that earlier generations raised: is it truly congruent with our polity for a man to serve as pastor of a congregation in all the above-mentioned ways if that congregation has no opportunity to vote on him? Why should the PCA revisit this question?
Is it possible that the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) has had, since its inception, provisions in its Book of Church Order (BCO) which violate its own Preliminary Principle (#6) regarding the rights of congregations to consent to those who serve as their pastors? I suspect that most members and officers in the PCA do not know that early on in the history of the denomination, a study committee that at one time included such men as R.C. Sproul, Don Clements, J. Ligon Duncan Jr., Kennedy Smartt, Michael Schneider, Morton Smith, and others, recommended that the PCA remove this element from the BCO, and the committee made this same recommendation year after year from 1974 to 1979. That element in question: the position of Assistant Pastor, which the committee insisted could not be squared with the fundamental tenets of Presbyterianism.There is a longstanding principle in Presbyterian polity that says, in essence, that no one may be placed over a church without the consent of a congregation. This principle applies to elders, to deacons, and even to pastors. The 1898 version of the BCO puts it this way:“Since the government of the Church is representative, the right of the election of their officers by God’s people, either immediately by their own suffrages, or mediately through church courts composed of their chosen representatives, is indefeasible. Nor can any man be placed over a church, in any office, without the election, or at least the consent of that church.”F.P. Ramsay, that great commentator on the BCO put it this way at the time:
“The sole authority is Christ, and from this point of view the Church is a monarchy. But he administers the government solely by his Spirit working in all his people, and from this point of view the government is representative; for if the Holy Spirit calls any man to an office, he also calls the people to elect him thereto.”[1]
James Bannerman, in his 1868 book The Church of Christ, points out that a minister’s ordination does not depend upon the consent of the local church, but on his calling by God, and its recognition by the presbytery. However, his becoming pastor of a particular church does require their consent:
That pastoral relation necessarily implies the election, or at least the consent, of the people, in order to make the formation of the tie lawful; and this element therefore enters as an essential one into the title to the pastoral office. In addition to the joint call by Christ and the Church, which is necessary to give a right to the exercise of the ministerial office, there is also the consent or election by the people, which is necessary to constitute, over and above the ministerial, the pastoral character. The pastor cannot properly discharge the duties of the pastoral office without the consent of the people over whom he is appointed.[2]
The modern version of the PCA BCO calls the right of congregations to vote on those placed over them “inalienable,” making the congregation’s vote, in other words, an essential element in the call of Christ to a particular work in a particular church. Presbyterians have fought and died for the right of congregations to only be ruled by those they consent to. And yet there is a curiosity in the polity of the PCA when it comes to the above principle and the office of Assistant Pastor. The office of Assistant Pastor is enumerated in the PCA BCO, chapter 22-3, which says the following (as of 2023):
An assistant pastor is called by the Session, by the permission and approval of Presbytery, under the provisions of BCO 20-1 and 13-2, with Presbytery membership being governed by the same provisions that apply to pastors. He is not a member of the Session, but may be appointed on special occasions to moderate the Session under the provisions of BCO 12-4.
The PCA is in the notable minority when it comes to Reformed Churches on this subject. Just a sampling of Reformed denominations shows this to be the case:The PCUSA ceased allowing anyone to serve as “Assistant Pastor” after 1984.
The URCNA has no office of “Assistant Pastor.”
The OPC has no office of “Assistant Pastor.”
The Presbyterian Reformed Church has no office of “Assistant Pastor.”
The ARP has no office of “Assistant Pastor.”
The RPCNA has no office of “Assistant Pastor.”
The EPCEW has no office of “Assistant Pastor.”
The RCA has an office of “Assistant Minister.” “An ordained minister serving a congregation under contract and providing assistance for its installed minister. The assistant minister may be commissioned by the classis as a minister under contract, but shall not be ipso facto a member of the church or the consistory.” (1.I.2.8; see also generally 1.II.7.9)”
The EPC has an office of “Assistant Pastor” who is called by the session. However, the Assistant Pastor is called for a definite period of time that is renewable. The call may be terminated prior to that time (if the presbytery agrees). (EPC BCO 10-6)
ECO has what it calls “Assistant Pastors.” However, they have a provision that allows the Assistant a vote on session if the congregation votes to allow it (see 2.04c of the ECO BCO).The truth is, many of us in the PCA may today take for granted the office of Assistant Pastor. “Of course,” we think, “there can be a type of pastor in the church that is chosen by sessions but that the congregation doesn’t vote for or consent to.”However, in studying the history of this position in the PCA one cannot help but be provoked to the same question that the early generations within our denomination wrestled with: “Is it really consistent with our polity for a session to place someone as pastor over a church that the congregation has no vote on?”To pose this question, it is worth considering where this section of the BCO and the office of Assistant Pastor originated in the first place. The PCUS (from which the PCA was birthed) had no office of Assistant Pastor in its 1933 BCO. The 1933 version of the BCO formed the template from which the PCA’s own BCO would be formed in 1973. Where, then, did the office of Assistant Pastor even come from?There has always been a need in the church for men to be eased into the work and responsibilities of ministry, of course. The Scottish Presbyterian tradition formerly had a practice of what they called “Probationers.” These were men who assisted the pastor and were given more responsibility than the average congregant. During this time, men are given opportunities to develop their gifts and to demonstrate their giftings in a congregational setting. They were permitted to read Scripture and preach in worship services. They were men who were in training to become ministers, and of course they served with the approval of the session, but not with a call from the congregation.Sometime between 1933 and 1973, the PCUS did introduce a provision for “Assistant Pastors,” making this a present and live reality when the time to form the new denomination had arrived. At this time, internship requirements did not exist as we have in our current BCO (those didn’t come into existence until the PCA’s Joining & Receiving (J&R) with the RPCES, which did have internships, in 1982). Until that time, men served as Assistant Pastors during their probationary period. A bit of a stigma was attached to a man if he served as an Assistant Pastor for longer than a year. Essentially, where the PCA has interns today, Assistant Pastors existed. Kennedy Smartt, in his book I Am Reminded, makes an observation during the 1970s that “more and more the roles of assistant pastor and youth minister were filled by seminary interns.”[3]The obvious advantage of the office of Assistant Pastor is that it allowed sessions of churches to add and remove pastors without the drama and trauma of a congregational vote. However, in the context of the liberalizing PCUS, the Assistant Pastorate sometimes served a more troubling function. In some cases the position of “assistant pastors” was used as a loophole allowing the introduction of female ministers into churches whose congregations might otherwise have opposed them if put to a vote.The first version of the BCO of the National Presbyterian Church (name later changed to PCA) was adopted in 1973. Though it was based on the 1933 PCUS BCO, it contained one reference to the “Assistant Pastor” which is to be “called by the session,” but “is not a member of the session” (13-5, 1973 edition). It appears that some churches coming into the newly formed PCA had Assistant Pastors already, and so the provision which included them had to be added in to account for their existence.In 1974 at the 2nd General Assembly, the barebones first draft of the PCA BCO adopted in 1973 underwent a series of drastic amendments. In the course of these amendments, the Assistant Pastorate in 13-5 was deleted and chapter 22 was created, which included provisions for the office of Assistant Pastor. From that point forward, it was not to be changed fundamentally from this form.Also at the 2nd General Assembly in 1974, an Ad Interim Committee to Study the Number of Officers of the Church was formed. The Ad Interim Committee at that point included TEs Don Clements, A. Michael Schneider II, and Kennedy Smartt. It also included REs William Borden, Murdock Campbell, and Thurston Futch. They were assigned the topic of the number of officers of the church (Are the offices “elder” and “deacon”? Or are they “teaching elder,” “ruling elder,” and “deacon”?). The committee was also “instructed to include the study of the office of assistant minister in its assignment” (2-70). Kennedy Smart offers his own self-effacing commentary on this development:“I was asked to serve as the Chairman and I was happy about that because I could hide my ignorance behind my presiding. Actually, Don Clements did most of the work. Don loves that sort of thing and he was a natural for it. We gathered a lot of material, did a lot of study and musing, and thanks primarily to Don, had our report ready by the next assembly.”[4]At the PCA’s 3rd General Assembly in 1975 Kennedy Smartt presented the report of the Ad Interim Committee. Included in the lengthy report from the Ad Interim Committee was its significant recommendation regarding the question of Associate Pastors.
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Let’s Study the Beatitudes! Part 2: The Poor
Being poor in spirit is being someone who knows that you have nothing, spiritually, to offer and therefore you stand completely dependent upon God—upon his grace, his mercy, his provision, and effort. Being poor in spirit is accepting that you are spiritually needy.
There’s a bright thread of connection between the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the way the sermon on the mount begins. The tree stood as a perpetual sign for Adam and Eve to rely upon and walk submitted under God’s word. God declared all that was good or not good and they, as His creatures and image bearers were to trust Him. Of course, that didn’t pan out and we’ve all, since Adam, placed more weight on our own perspectives and words than we have in God and His word. Utterly foolish. William Henley’s Invictus declares that we’ve become the “captain of our own fate”, when in reality we’ve become conquered (victa) by own fallen self-reliance. Utterly foolish because the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God and a true fear of God is essentially a radical reliance upon Him.
Our world today, like Cain and Lamech before us, is intoxicated in self-reliance and self-sufficiency. We pronounce blessings upon the rich and able, the well-to-do and confident, for theirs is the power of influence and the world’s applause. But Jesus, picking up a rather well-defined Biblical theme, starts off his famous sermon with a still more ancient promise – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). The idea of being poor, that is, materially destitute, is not a foreign concept. We understand poverty. And poor people are, more often than not, quite dependent upon others for any well-being. A beggar begs because he needs help from someone who has more than him. John Stott recognizes that within the Scriptures “gradually, because the needy had no refuge but God, poverty came to have spiritual overtones and to be identified with humble dependence on God.”[1] Hence Psalm 34:5-6, “Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.”[2]
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