The term "evangelical" has become code for a rabid political and social agenda that builds on fear and has sold its Christian soul for short-term political gains. Evangelicalism today has little to do with the basic beliefs of Christianity and an adherence to the Gospel. Instead it has become a political movement founded in fear and hostility. "Evangelical" is a label which has brought Christianity into disrepute and which many Christians disown.
There was a time when the term "evangelical" had very different connotations. More than 40 years ago, Donald W. Dayton wrote a short book that outlined a different evangelical heritage. I remember reading the first edition of this book and being astonished at the substance of evangelicalism in the 19th century. Since its first publication in 1976, Dayton's book has gone through a few revisions and now has been published in a revised and expanded form under a modified title, Rediscovering an Evangelical Heritage: A Tradition and Trajectory of Integrating Piety and Justice (Baker Academic, 2014).
What Dayton traces in this book is a history of evangelical Christianity which stood at the forefront of efforts to reform society to more closely resemble the values reflected in the biblical tradition. Thus he chronicles a number of 19th century reform movements and the roles played by leading evangelical figures in the anti-slavery movement, the right of women to full participation in the life of the Church and society, and efforts to transform the systemic and real-time poverty of the marginalized. Dayton's basic argument is that evangelical Christians were at the forefront of these movements.
For Salvationists, it is worth noting that due respect is paid to the importance of Catherine Booth in the movement toward the rights of women to be leaders in the Church and the role that the Booths and the Salvation Army played in the movement alleviate the suffering of the poor. Yet Dayton also points out that the Booths and Salvationists were not the only ones who were engaged in these efforts. Dayton shows that our Salvationist ancestors were not alone; they were part of a larger movement among evangelical Christians to change the world through an aggressive and progressive agenda.
According to Dayton, as the subtitle of this edition of the book suggests, a key trait of evangelicalism in the 19th century was its question to integrate vital Christian piety with justice.
What I find most interesting is Dayton's assessment of what went wrong in the evangelical experience. Why has evangelicalism lost this integration of piety and justice and lost its vision? Why has evangelicalism become so entrenched in a stunning separation between piety and justice? The answer Dayton provides has stood the scrutiny of the past 40 years and may well help us to understand why the evangelicalism of the 19th century is a suppressed memory for most who would today self-identify as evangelicals. To find out what he says, you will have to read the book!
This book is a relatively easy and short read (less than 200 pages). But it tells a gripping story of a brand of evangelical Christianity that stands in stark contrast with the truncated and compromised evangelicalism of today.