I heard and read John Stott in the 70s. Certainly one of the most important English evangelicals of his time. But how representative, I'm not so sure. Yes in UCCF / Inter Varsity circles (I'm a former UCCF staffer) less so in working class nonconformist settings (like the one I knew before uni).
There are two issues, though, to qualify what you say about evangelicals and Zionism: first, those who identify as evangelical in the US are overwhelmingly into dispensationalism. There is data on that one. Second, and this is just my impression: I was brought up on a kind of 'twin pillars' form of evangelicalism, which was common to Anglican / university / low-church settings: one pillar being the authority of scripture, the other being penal substitution .. itself resting on a 'biblical' base. I've been around evangelicals from the 70s to now and my impression is that evangelicals now overwhelmingly focus on penal substition and the notion of biblical authority has dropped away. I know fellowships where penal substition and a kind of Keswick spirituality is claimed as biblical, but there is very little exposure to the full extent of the biblical text, and a positive antipathy to any critical thinking about it. I'm sure John Stott, Jim Packer et. al. would be horrified by it, but that's what I now most often encounter. There always was an anti-intellectual streak in evangelicalism, but it's become the norm in the UK, and even more aggressively so in the US.
In my experience UK evangelicals decry US evangelicalism but have no clue how similar evangelicalism actually is either side of the Atlantic. You only have to look at the personalities, from Billy Graham onward, through to James Dobson and John Piper to Pete Greig, and at the publishing houses, and at the headline issues .. homosexuality, 'pro-life', etc. All transatlantic.
This will all seem irrelevant, I guess, to those who never knew the ecosystem, but for those of us who grew up in it, this stuff is pretty critical. And much as we might dislike him, Bannon is right, that culture is upstream of politics, and for many people theology is upstream of culture.
Well, John Stott thought for himself, so I guess he can't have been very representative. But yes - he obviously was influential in UCCF circles - which would explain why IVP published Stephen Sizer.
" . . . my impression is that evangelicals now overwhelmingly focus on penal substition and the notion of biblical authority has dropped away." Interesting comment. I'm guessing that it hasn't dropped away much in UCCF - but it is certainly true that for many people, theology is downstream of culture. (I am guessing that you meant to write downstream.) So I guess the question is "Whatever happened to evangelical theology?"
No, I meant upstream. The more Luddite the theology the worse the pollution downstream.
Whatever happened to evangelical theology is still a good question. There will always be slivers of light, but I think on the one hand there's the theobros / Reformed attack dogs, and on the other hand .. probably there are a lot of hands. It's a long time since David wrote that book.
UCCF is not what it was. I recall a Council strategy weekend in the mid 80s with a few of the older generation still around, Oliver Barclay and one or two older than him. They could recall the early ethos of trying to reclaim the universities intellectually. We all knew that was long gone. CUs were about evangelism. A few years later KLICE (Kirby Lang Institute for Christian Ethics) .. a UCCF-founded institution, detached from UCCF when UCCF refused to publicise KLICE events on the grounds that thinking theologically about ethics wasn't really what they wanted to encourage. Tyndale detached about the same time. So that's pretty clear-cut evidence of dumbing down. And now UCCF has its own scandals, HR abuses rather than sexual, which is some comfort .. they have a long, long track record of treating staff appallingly.
But we've drifted a long way from Caitlin's post and maybe should avoid a UCCF rabbit-hole.
I heard and read John Stott in the 70s. Certainly one of the most important English evangelicals of his time. But how representative, I'm not so sure. Yes in UCCF / Inter Varsity circles (I'm a former UCCF staffer) less so in working class nonconformist settings (like the one I knew before uni).
There are two issues, though, to qualify what you say about evangelicals and Zionism: first, those who identify as evangelical in the US are overwhelmingly into dispensationalism. There is data on that one. Second, and this is just my impression: I was brought up on a kind of 'twin pillars' form of evangelicalism, which was common to Anglican / university / low-church settings: one pillar being the authority of scripture, the other being penal substitution .. itself resting on a 'biblical' base. I've been around evangelicals from the 70s to now and my impression is that evangelicals now overwhelmingly focus on penal substition and the notion of biblical authority has dropped away. I know fellowships where penal substition and a kind of Keswick spirituality is claimed as biblical, but there is very little exposure to the full extent of the biblical text, and a positive antipathy to any critical thinking about it. I'm sure John Stott, Jim Packer et. al. would be horrified by it, but that's what I now most often encounter. There always was an anti-intellectual streak in evangelicalism, but it's become the norm in the UK, and even more aggressively so in the US.
In my experience UK evangelicals decry US evangelicalism but have no clue how similar evangelicalism actually is either side of the Atlantic. You only have to look at the personalities, from Billy Graham onward, through to James Dobson and John Piper to Pete Greig, and at the publishing houses, and at the headline issues .. homosexuality, 'pro-life', etc. All transatlantic.
This will all seem irrelevant, I guess, to those who never knew the ecosystem, but for those of us who grew up in it, this stuff is pretty critical. And much as we might dislike him, Bannon is right, that culture is upstream of politics, and for many people theology is upstream of culture.
Well, John Stott thought for himself, so I guess he can't have been very representative. But yes - he obviously was influential in UCCF circles - which would explain why IVP published Stephen Sizer.
" . . . my impression is that evangelicals now overwhelmingly focus on penal substition and the notion of biblical authority has dropped away." Interesting comment. I'm guessing that it hasn't dropped away much in UCCF - but it is certainly true that for many people, theology is downstream of culture. (I am guessing that you meant to write downstream.) So I guess the question is "Whatever happened to evangelical theology?"
By the way, what do you think of David F. Wells?
No, I meant upstream. The more Luddite the theology the worse the pollution downstream.
Whatever happened to evangelical theology is still a good question. There will always be slivers of light, but I think on the one hand there's the theobros / Reformed attack dogs, and on the other hand .. probably there are a lot of hands. It's a long time since David wrote that book.
UCCF is not what it was. I recall a Council strategy weekend in the mid 80s with a few of the older generation still around, Oliver Barclay and one or two older than him. They could recall the early ethos of trying to reclaim the universities intellectually. We all knew that was long gone. CUs were about evangelism. A few years later KLICE (Kirby Lang Institute for Christian Ethics) .. a UCCF-founded institution, detached from UCCF when UCCF refused to publicise KLICE events on the grounds that thinking theologically about ethics wasn't really what they wanted to encourage. Tyndale detached about the same time. So that's pretty clear-cut evidence of dumbing down. And now UCCF has its own scandals, HR abuses rather than sexual, which is some comfort .. they have a long, long track record of treating staff appallingly.
But we've drifted a long way from Caitlin's post and maybe should avoid a UCCF rabbit-hole.
Ahhh. I see what you mean by upstream.
And yes, I am sure enough has been said about UCCF.