Spirit, Word and World: Evangelical Christianity in Australia

Commendations for earlier editions of Spirit, Word and World

The approach is novel, very effective and well sustained. It is right up-to-date, and probably has no peer, nor anything like it. Nor is there anything so comprehensive at this stage in the writing of Australian church history.

Sir Marcus Loane, Archbishop of Sydney, 1966 to 1982

Understanding the variety and impact of Australian Protestantism since 1788 is a task historians have scarcely begun. Evangelicalism has been one of the most formative influences on Protestant culture, not least because of its strong lay leaders. This welcome and important study of Dr Piggin makes an invaluable contribution to a neglected part of our history. He offers many thought-provoking perspectives.

Ian Breward, Professor of Church History, United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne

This book restores evangelicals to general Australian history. Unfairly excluded from other narratives, they here regain their place as a dynamic element in the dialogue between Christianity and Australian society. From a wealth of personal accounts and out-of-the-way sources Stuart Piggin has written a book which challenges readers to rethink their national history.

Edmund Campion, Catholic Institute of Sydney

A liveliness in his thought, a freshness and stimulation in his style all exercise one’s mental faculties … The book is very nicely written with a judicious mingling in of the colloquial style … you must admire the keen edge to the writing which keeps you alert from page to page.

Above all he shows the importance of evangelicalism to the emerging colonial and national culture in this country, to political liberalism and economic enterprise. He wants to make historians reposition the achievements that have been seen in Australia as triumphs of secularism were as much products of evangelical zeal: the state school systems, for example.

What Stuart is getting us to do is to think again about where and what the mainstream is, at least in the Australian experience, and, in particular, to ask about the centrality of evangelicalism in the Australian religious experience.

The book has an argument addressed to the heirs of evangelicalism and summed up in its title, Spirit, Word and World. Evangelical Christianity, he says, is robust, creative, socially and culturally constructive only when the three strands of word, Spirit, and world, or, if you like, mission to the world, are strong individually, and, more important, are intertwined with one another. He calls this intertwining the evangelical synthesis … This argument gives this book its originality and its power. It will make it an influential book. It must become the centre of discussion and controversy.

… He has chosen in three of his chapters to deal with three episodes which illustrate this point. Reading these chapters will have an electric effect on many people in the evangelical camp. The chapter on sinless perfectionism is a compelling narrative and a sharp analysis.

Bruce Mansfield, Emeritus Professor of History, Macquarie University

Publicity on the back of Evangelical Christianity in Australia claims it is about ‘one of the most formative and least acknowledged movements’ in the nation’s history. You may find this statement surprising if you are not an evangelical Christian, but you probably won’t have to read for long before beginning to give it, and its author, some credence.

Steven Packer, Macquarie University News

Evangelical Christianity in Australia heigtens the debt which historians everywhere owe to Australia, for the book’s combination of forthright theological opinion and energetic research is just the sort of engaging, even cheeky, history that few of us non-Australians have yet dared to attempt.

Mark Noll, Professor of History, Wheaton College, USA

Evangelical Christianity in Australia, for its detail as much as for its arguments, will become a valued source for historians of religion in Australia

Shurlee Swain in Australian Historical Studies

It is a clever idea, and it is cleverly worked out through this fascinating study of Australian church history, which emphasises the contribution of evangelicals.

Peter Barnes in Australian Presbyterian Life

Dr Piggin is to be commended for working carefully through the vast amount of researched information and writing this extremely valuable work covering 200 years of Australian evangelicalism with its influence on Church and Nation and beyond.

Will Renshaw in Melbourne Notes and Comments

… always readable, frequently controversial and in many ways highly original … This is an important, exciting and most timely book.

Ken Manly, Baptist historian, Whitley College

It is wonderful to read, love the humour and the asides which pepper it, and can only be in awe of the work and scholarship put into it.

Catherine Bartho, Beecroft

… the book is an invaluable tool in helping Christians to understand the evangelical contribution to our shared heritage. The literary style has an energy which seeks to reflect the purposeful dynamic of Evangelicalism. The many individuals and movements are presented with clarity and appeal … It deserves to be read and analysed as a significant milestone in Australian historiography.

Grant Maple, Anglican Board of Education

… this is a great mine of information from an author who has a real heart for the people of God. It is not only attractively and lucidly written; the author has allowed his prejudices to show far less than I could have achieved.

Noel Weeks, Senior Lecturer in History, Sydney University

This is a stimulating read with ample evidence of extensive research conducted over many years. It’s written in a lively, accessible, and engaging way with memorable flashes to introduce many significant personages named and to capture snapshots of important movements and phases. The account is thought-provoking yet gracious in tone with the implicit invitation to be like the Bereans of old to see whether these things be so.

Tony McCarthy, Chair of Tear Australia

It has various claims to be special, not least that it is the first comprehensive attempt to fill a major gap in Australian church historiography … For evangelicals it has great encouragement as well as warnings and cautionary tales, and for others a lot of enlightenment and appreciation of the openness of the account.

Professor Bruce Harris, historian, Adelaide

It is … an enjoyable read, as Piggin’s writing is clear and compelling. Readers are tantalised to read further, and the narrative force of the human drama that is religious history rarely slackens.

Judith Godden in The Journal of Religious History

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© Stuart Piggin 2012.

First published as Evangelical Christianity in Australia: Spirit, Word and World by Oxford University Press, Melbourne and Oxford, 1996.

Second edition published as Spirit of a Nation: The Story of Australia’s Christian Heritage by Strand Publishing, Sydney, 2004.

Third edition published as Spirit, Word and World: Evangelical Christianity in Australia by Acorn Press, Brunswick East, 2012.

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For

Harry Goodhew,

Archbishop of Sydney,

in whom is personified so graciously

the evangelical synthesis of

Spirit, Word and mission

Contents

Preface to Earlier Editions: The Evangelical Synthesis

Preface to the Revised Edition

List of Tables

List of Abbreviations

1. Going into all the World, 1788–1835

2. Identifying with the Liberal World, 1836–69

3. The Spirit and Protestant Culture, 1870–1913

4. The Word Challenged, 1914–32

5. Holiness above Word: Sinless Perfection in the 1930s

6. Word and Spirit, 1933–59

7. The Evangelical Synthesis Attained: Billy Graham in Australia, 1959

8. Word or Spirit, 1960–93

9. Word Rather than Peace: The Fight over the Ordination of Women in Australian Anglicanism, 1992

10. Canterbury Down Under: The Word Goes Out to All the World, 1993–2011

Conclusion

Suggestions for Further Reading

Index

Preface to Earlier Editions

The Evangelical Synthesis

This is a study of Australian Christianity from an evangelical perspective. Evangelicalism has been the commonest expression of Protestantism in Australian history. It is a conservative Protestant movement which grew out of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, the English Puritanism of the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Continental Pietism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the revivals of the 1730s and 1740s in Britain, Europe and America. Evangelicalism is concerned to foster an intimate, even intense, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The creation and development of this relationship is understood as the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who converts and regenerates believers and gives them the desire for personal holiness. Consistent with the Reformation, evangelicalism holds salvation by faith alone (sola fide) as its central doctrine and the Bible, understood as the Word of God, as its sole authority (sola scriptura). The evangelical faith is crystallised in the gospel which the early generations of evangelicals understood not only as the divinely given instrument for the rebirth of the individual soul, but also for the renovation of society and culture. Evangelicalism, then, is experiential, Biblicist, and activist. It is concerned with the Spirit, Word, and world. It aims to produce right-heartedness (orthokardia), right thinking (orthodoxy), and right action (orthopraxis). It calls for the consecration of heart, head, and hand. All Christianity is, of course, concerned with Christ, but evangelicalism is passionate about three of Christ’s concerns: his Word, his Spirit, and his mission.

How these three concerns worked themselves out in the history of the Church and society in Australia is the theme of this book. It is here argued that where these three concerns were held together in synthesis, evangelicalism was strong in itself and made a significant contribution to the shaping of Australian society and culture: ‘a cord of three strands is not easily broken’ (Eccl 4:12). But where one was promoted to the neglect of the other two, or even two at the expense of the third, the movement lacked vitality and was even divided against itself. The vicissitudes of the evangelical synthesis are here traced through six periods of Australian history (chapters 1 to 4, 6 and 8). Three case studies explore in greater detail what can happen when the Spirit strand dominates (chapter 5), when the Word strand dominates (chapter 9), and when the synthesis is actually achieved (chapter 7).

Evangelicalism was the official Christianity brought to Australia with the First Fleet (chapter 1). It was the product of that synthesis of Word, Spirit and concern for evangelism and social reform embodied in William Wilberforce¹ and the coterie of well-connected, influential, mainly lay (including a woman!) evangelicals known as ‘the Clapham sect’. Wilberforce’s evangelicalism was a step removed from the doctrinaire Calvinism of some of the previous generation of evangelical Anglicans. It was a warm, practical, humanitarian movement which focussed on commitment to the world with Word and Spirit to energise that commitment. The evangelical presence with the First Fleet was an early expression of that commitment. The vision of a reclaimed criminal class, a converted Aboriginal race, and the islands of the South Seas evangelised from an Australian base was large, even grand. How to reproduce vital religious experience and cover the southern world with Christian nations were the high aspirations of the first generation of evangelicals in Australia. Word and Spirit were made to subserve an experiment in social reform, the nobility of which has been obscured by the harsh realities of ruling class culture and convict counter culture.

From the 1830s, in response to the Catholic revival in Britain which appeared to put the Church before the gospel, and tradition on an equal footing with the Bible, evangelicals were compelled to stress ‘Word’ and the Reformation doctrines of sola scriptura and sola fide. The evangelical synthesis was threatened, and the evangelical program for the renovation of society more diluted than it might have been. Nevertheless, evangelicals remained committed to the construction of a Christian nation and, for that purpose, made common cause with the political liberals (chapter 2).

The evangelical synthesis was threatened towards the end of the nineteenth century by a preoccupation with the ‘Spirit’ strand (chapter 3). Evangelicalism came under the sway of an energetic holiness movement, compounded of personal piety and millennial doctrines. Both elements in this compound tended to shift the focus of Australian evangelicals away from action in the world towards devotion in private and fellowship in the Church. But again the ‘world’ strand was sufficiently strong to hold evangelicals to their vision of social reform, and the last quarter of the nineteenth century saw both a concerted effort to create a culture in Australia consistent with Protestant values and the emergence of a strong commitment to overseas missions. It was also a period of increasingly well-organised evangelistic campaigns.

In the first third of the twentieth century, the unravelling of the three strands continued apace. Evangelical spokespersons were driven by the forces of theological liberalism and secularisation to defend the Bible and doctrinal fundamentals (chapter 4). Devout evangelicals withdrew further into the solace of ‘second blessing’ spirituality. In disconnecting themselves from the constraints of Word and rational action in the world, one small group of evangelicals were wrecked on the unforgiving rocks of perfectionism (chapter 5). During the first third of the present century the strand of action in the world was seriously weakened, not only by default, but by a concerted attack on the ‘social gospel’ and ‘liberal evangelicalism’. The evangelical appetite for activism was channelled into missionary work, especially overseas missions and Aboriginal missions which began to work for the first time since white settlement.

The two surviving strands of ‘Word’ and ‘Spirit’ became more tightly intertwined in the middle third of the twentieth century (chapter 6). The Bible was studied and the spiritual life cultivated, not only in evangelical churches and fellowship groups, but also in that institutionalisation of ‘Word’ and ‘Spirit’, the ‘Quiet Time’, the daily duty of private prayer and Bible reading. The achievement of the evangelical synthesis was rewarded with the effectiveness of the Billy Graham crusades in 1959 (chapter 7) when Australia came closer to a general religious awakening than at any other time in its history. In the final period of our history (chapter 8), attempts have been made to recover the social activist strand of the evangelical trinity, but this enterprise has been overshadowed by dramatic developments in the other two strands. A resurgence of strongly Reformed theology has so strengthened the ‘Word’ strand that its adherents have sought to monopolise evangelicalism for themselves, while the even more remarkable flowering of Charismatic Christianity has tempted many Christians to put experience before the ‘Word’, and to seek to disentangle themselves altogether from traditional evangelicalism. A particularly instructive manifestation of the dominance of the ‘Word’ strand was the opposition of powerful Sydney evangelical Anglicans to the ordination of women (chapter 9).

It will be evident to the reader that this book is an extended exploration of an idea. The idea is that evangelicalism is best understood, not as a theology, a party, or an ideology, but as a movement concerned with three major elements – Spirit, Word and world – and that when these three are synthesised the movement is strong and when they are separated, the movement is weak. There are clearly problems with the idea. The historian will want to argue that it is an idea which gives far too much weight to the movement’s capacity to control its own destiny. Other, external factors – for example, secularisation or persecution – could determine whether evangelicalism is weak or strong, independently of whether the strands of Spirit, Word or world are bound strongly together or unravelled from each other. David Bebbington, for example, in a recent study,² argues that British evangelicalism has been shaped chiefly by prevailing cultural norms. The eighteenth-century enlightenment shaped the surprisingly strong emphasis of Wesley and Jonathan Edwards on reason in religion. The Romantic movement of the nineteenth century was the primary factor in the development of a Pietistic movement in evangelicalism most popularly identified with the Keswick conventions. Finally, since the 1960s, modernism has forged the Charismatic movement, the most conspicuous expression of modern evangelicalism. I think such an interpretation does explain a lot about evangelicalism, but it does not explain its essence – a commitment to the gospel – which has been surprisingly tenacious since the 1740s revivals. In any case, giving due weight to factors external to the movement is not incompatible with my hypothesis. I would want to argue that the difficulty which the movement too often experiences in achieving the desirable synthesis can reflect the impact of such forces. For example, whenever the authority of the Bible is questioned, the Word strand can become so self-absorbed that, for a time, it can ignore its responsibility to the world. In any event I think my idea deserves a sustained treatment. To my knowledge understanding evangelicalism as a movement synthesising Spirit, Word and mission has not been used in any other studies of the history of evangelicalism either in Australia or elsewhere. More importantly, it is the only single hypothesis which to me makes sense of the vast and variegated data which the movement has produced. I can only trust that my readers will give the idea a fair hearing.

§

The foregoing survey of evangelicalism in Australia in six periods over 200 years would be similar to a history of the movement in a number of Western nations. The Australian context, however, has presented the evangelical synthesis with unique opportunities and challenges. Hence this study is not concerned primarily with the evangelical movement in its own right, but in the wider context of Australian social and religious history. There is a great need for a study of Australian religious history from an evangelical perspective. A significant minority of Australian Christians are evangelicals, and evangelicalism has made a considerable contribution to the shaping of Australian history, as we shall see.

A second justification for writing a history of Australian Christianity from an evangelical perspective is that hitherto studies of Australian Christianity have been biased towards the Catholic Church,³ while general studies of Australian society have been biased against all religion. It is a concern that hitherto evangelical Christians have not reflected more on Australian history. Most have believed that they did not need to do that. That we need only the Bible, not history, parallels the Reformation emphasis on the Bible only (sola scriptura), not tradition. The very lack of interest in history is evidence of the dominance of the ‘Word’ strand in Australian evangelicalism. The ‘Spirit’ and activist strands have not been so happy with this neglect. The European Pietists, who were the immediate forbears to the evangelicals of the eighteenth century, were fascinated by the leadings of God’s Spirit in history and in the present world and collected vast archives of source material which contained evidence of the activity of God in the world.⁴ The Pietists, of course, were in the ‘Spirit’ strand, but they fostered a much greater activism, social and intellectual, educational and cultural, than the orthodox who confined themselves to the ‘Word’ strand. Not surprisingly, therefore, the first generations of evangelicals – Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, John Newton, Joseph Milner, and Thomas Haweis⁵ – all reflected extensively on the history of the Church and rewrote Church history from an evangelical perspective.⁶ In Australia, it was the Methodists, the most Pietistic of Australia’s evangelicals, who were most conscious that, in extending Christ’s kingdom in Australia, they were part of God’s plan of redemption. Hence, among evangelicals, the Methodists have written most on the history of their movement.⁷

To rewrite Australian religious history, then, from an evangelical perspective is to follow the precedent of the first evangelicals. In 1987 the Evangelical History Association of Australia was launched. I had the honour of delivering the inaugural address and of being appointed its foundation president. The enthusiastic response with which the association has been received by some academics, clergy and church members has demonstrated a dissatisfaction with the way religious history has been written in Australia. On the one hand the older triumphalist histories of the clergy are considered by professional historians and informed laity to be too narrow in their enthusiasms, whereas the secular insistence on leaving God out of the reckoning, failing to address as important the issues which Christians consider indispensable, and the overwhelmingly negative treatment of Australian Christianity have attracted strident condemnation from nonprofessionals. There is undoubtedly now a need, perceived since the bicentennial of Australia in 1988, for a new Australian Church History.⁸

A revealing attempt to fill the vacuum was made in 1987 by Dr Graham McLennan, a dentist from country NSW. McLennan compiled a catalogue of extracts from the first two volumes of Manning Clark’s A History of Australia to illustrate such themes as the providence of God in the settlement of Australia, the land dedicated to the Holy Spirit, concern for spiritual welfare, the faith of early governors and settlers, and the formation of Bible and missionary societies in Australia.⁹ In 1994 he published Elizabeth Kotlowski’s Southland of the Holy Spirit: A Christian History of Australia.¹⁰ She analyses the religious motivation of missionaries, governors, explorers, and pioneers. Keith Cole is another Australian evangelical who has written extensively on aspects of the history of Australian evangelicalism. His research and writing has been largely devoted to recording the history of Australian evangelical Anglican missions.¹¹

To date, however, only one Australian evangelical has written histories which are a sustained celebration of the triumph of grace in the lives of Australian Christians. Marcus Loane, Archbishop of Sydney from 1966 to 1982, has written a large number of biographies of Protestants in the evangelical tradition, both in Australia and beyond, which have fashioned the understanding of Church history of Australian evangelicals, especially Anglicans. Loane’s writing¹² is in the best tradition of evangelical history writing: it makes the heart glow, nerves the will, and stores the mind with useful truth. It deals with biography, and evangelicals – like most people – love reading about people more than about movements and concepts. It is based on a genuine love of history, for, if its author loves the gospel most, it is a love which demands a close and penetrating study of the fruits of the gospel throughout history. It is not just academic, but has heart.

A new religious history is required, however, to supplement Loane’s perspectives. Loane is reluctant to explore weaknesses and mistakes. His writing is too clerical, since the clergy are the ones he has known best, and he rightly feels that it is far more difficult to find information on lay people. Furthermore, Loane is more concerned with the incubus of evangelical tradition than with the constraints of Australian culture. The new evangelical history writing will have to deal with structures and movements as well as people, lay people as well as clergy, mistakes as well as successes, and the specific Australian cultural context as well as the international evangelical tradition. Furthermore, since evangelicalism is concerned to do two things with the ‘world’, namely to evangelise and reform it, the new evangelical history writing will have to treat not only the evangelist and the reformer, but the groups and people whom they were attempting to evangelise and reform. So, for example, in the first chapter in this book the story is not so much the familiar one of chaplains and missionaries, but is organised around the four groups who were the object of the evangelicals’ mission, namely convicts, the South Sea islanders, free settlers, and Aboriginal people.

§

The subject matter of this book is based partly on a survey of most Australian theological colleges conducted in 1993. We asked them what they would like to see in a history of Australian Christianity. Among the topics specified were women and Aboriginal people in the Australian Church, missions, both at home and overseas, revival, student work, theological education, regional differences in Australian Christianity and the relation of evangelicals with Catholics and Anglo-Catholics. We received many requests for an account of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, and I am grateful to Mark Hutchinson, Director of the Centre for the Study of Australian Christianity (CSAC) at Robert Menzies College, who wrote a survey history on these movements which I have drawn upon extensively in this study. Our survey of theological colleges also revealed a demand for an account of Catholic and Anglo-Catholic Christianity. Catholicism has not been treated extensively here because it has been so well done already, and interested students should look at the works of O’Farrell, Campion, and Collins.¹³ The history of the Anglican High Church in Australia is covered helpfully in a recent study made by David Hilliard.¹⁴

Special thanks are due to Mark Hutchinson and my loyal co-workers at Robert Menzies College, Macquarie University. No one could hope for a better team. Mark, Director for the Centre for the Study of Australian Christianity (CSAC), has worked over most of the chapters in this book. The rest of the team – Richard Quadrio, Geoff Chubb, Graham Banister, Janine Steele, Geoff Treloar, Sue Bartho, Tim Abbey, Dianne Parkes, and Sue Paul – have tried to safeguard my time to allow me to bring this book to completion. Phillip Bell, Richard Hughes and John Russell of the Board of Robert Menzies College have also given themselves unstintingly to keeping the ship on a straight course during those intervals when I was not on the bridge – and, more particularly, when I was! I am very grateful to them all. My thanks, too, to Jill Lane of Oxford University Press for her encouragement to write a book on Australian Christianity which advances some new themes. Jill wanted me to get away from the intricacies of academic debate and bring some freshness to the picture. She also prevailed upon me to write the book around the central thesis which I have enunciated here so that we might produce a book ‘which is more than the sum of its parts’.

Another way in which this book is different from most on Australian religious history, is that it relies heavily on the over 300 interviews with prominent Australian evangelicals conducted primarily by Margaret Lamb and which are housed at CSAC. My thanks to Margaret for this great labour. Oral history has its own problems, and many will disagree with the opinions expressed in this book – but they are fresh! Thanks are due, too, to the Fairfax Family Trust for the generous grant which has enabled Mark to be employed as CSAC Director. The Centre seeks to promote scholarly enthusiasm for this neglected subject which promises so much benefit to our Church and nation.

This book is the forerunner to a much larger work which I am writing in conjunction with Mark Hutchinson and with Bob Linder of Kansas State University, an authority on evangelicals in politics and in wartime. That book will seek to redress the balance which this one so conspicuously lacks. This study is centred on Sydney and Anglican evangelicalism. The fuller study will give greater recognition to regional differences and to the evangelicalism of other denominations.

Preface to the Revised Edition

The first edition of this book was published in 1996 by Oxford University Press, the second in 2004 by Strand Publishing. The first edition was entitled Evangelical Christianity in Australia: Spirit, Word and World which was too narrow a title; the second Spirit of a Nation: The Story of Australia’s Christian Heritage was too broad. Changing titles is not appreciated by the reading public as they may be misled into buying substantially the same book. This edition has an extra chapter, bringing the story up to date. But I think it most ethical to preserve in this edition substantially the same title as the first edition, changing it slightly into the title I always wanted to give it: Spirit, Word and World: Evangelical Christianity in Australia.

The first and second editions ended with the year 1993. This third edition brings the story up to 2011. In the second edition, pp. 291–4 were added as corrections to the first edition. Those corrections have now been incorporated in this edition. I am grateful to Acorn Press for accommodating these changes. Indeed, the late Bishop John Wilson, as Chair of Acorn Press, was eager for me to make more radical changes throughout, reflecting the extensive new research that has been done on Australian religious history since the first edition was published. But I am working currently with Professor R.D. Linder on a greatly expanded history of Australian evangelicalism, and we will address that need there.

The story of Australian evangelicalism since 1993 has been full of drama. It needs to be acknowledged that there have also been dramatic changes in the way historians of evangelicalism want to tell the story, and indeed a dramatic increase in the number of scholars who want to tell it.¹ There have been two major developments in the study of evangelicalism, one analysing division within the movement, the other analysing the movement’s resilience in a secular age.

Before 1990 it was common to conceive of evangelicalism as a fairly unified movement distinguished by four emphases: the Bible, the cross, conversion, and evangelism. This has become thoroughly entrenched in histories of evangelicalism as the Bebbington quadrilateral: Biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism.² But recently historians have observed that these characteristics are rarely held in harmony, that it is more common for a particular branch of the movement to stress one or more of these at the expense of the others. This has created divisions between the different branches within the evangelical movement. In particular, it has been observed, a marked division has developed in recent decades between those who focus on doctrine and those who focus on action. The former emphasise the cross and the Bible; the latter focus on conversion and evangelism. The crucicentric/Biblicist axis is favoured by those in the Calvinist, reformed branch of the movement. Their emphasis on doctrinal purity fosters conservatism and exclusivism: they are sometimes caricatured as RDPs (Right Doctrine Protestants). Those who in the interests of effective mission align with the conversionist/activist axis, are more inclusive and progressive. They are not necessarily less interested in theology than the exclusives, but they may favour a more speculative, creative approach to it consistent with the broadening of interest in spirituality generally which has been documented in ‘post-traditional’ Australian culture.³ With most evangelicals eager to identify with either the exclusives or the inclusives, the centre of the movement is now in some danger of collapsing.⁴

This new development in the way evangelical history is understood actually brings it into alignment with the thesis of this book, which is an analysis of what happens to the evangelical movement when one feature of the movement is stressed at the expense of others. The three characteristics of evangelicalism which ought to harmonise, but which too often compete for attention, are identified throughout this book as Word, World, and Spirit. By ‘Word’, I mean the Bible and doctrine (what Bebbington called Biblicism and crucicentrism). By ‘World’, I mean attempts to engage the community through evangelism, mission, and involvement in welfare and the formation of social policy (what Bebbington called conversionism and activism). The two axes, found now in recent histories of evangelicalism, have already featured in the argument of this book. To these two axes I have added a third, the ‘Spirit’ axis. Bebbington would argue that this is covered by his quadrilateral. But I believe that it better illuminates an aspect of evangelicalism if it is given particular emphasis, and that the failure to understand this has impoverished the movement. By the Spirit strand, I mean three things. First, the personal experience of Jesus Christ in the heart by the power of the Spirit was the most characteristic fruit of the eighteenth-century revivals which made evangelicalism a mass movement. Second, the consciousness of supernaturalism, for evangelicals understood that they were responding to God’s initiative and were not just reverting to a more spiritual manifestation of church tradition. Third, evangelicals reflect on what God’s Spirit is doing in the world in the present and what his intentions are for the future. That is to say, they have a philosophy of history, which is expressed in a concern to understand the role of the Spirit in bringing in the millennium and in the end times. Evangelicals are not fixated on either the millennium or the eschaton, but they are very interested in the process which takes us there. That is, they are interested in history.

Both the first and second editions of this book sold out quickly. The book was extensively reviewed. Gratifyingly, it was well received, including by secular reviewers outside the religious history sub-discipline.⁵ But it received two critical reviews, both from churchmen. Phillip Jensen, now Dean of Sydney, argued that the key terms of my argument (Spirit, Word, world) are insufficiently defined to be useful, that the argument is circular, and that the book does not succeed in what it attempts to do.⁶ Bishop Tom Frame, from 2006 Director of St Mark’s National Theological Centre, Canberra, gave a measured welcome to the book, and rejected Jensen’s review as dictated by theological rather than historical criteria.⁷ But he has since agreed with Jensen that the book had failed to achieve its objective and he was ‘glad that it failed.’⁸ He alleges that I am not only an historian of evangelicalism, but that I am also an evangelical historian. In his first review he characterises my book as ‘clearly a committed work written by a committed historian and all the better for it.’⁹ But he has since charged me with the solecism of seeking ‘to apply theological ideas to the interpretation of history in an attempt to observe where, when and how God had apparently intervened in human history.’¹⁰ As to the Jensen charge, the book seems to have been deemed to have succeeded in its purpose judging by the demand for it, resulting in the publication of three editions, unusual in Australian book publishing. As to Tom Frame’s allegation, I do not think anywhere in the book do I assert a divine ‘intervention,’ and Frame does not give any examples. I accept that most of my academic colleagues who are Christians, Tom Frame among them, want to write about religious history in purely secular terms so that they will be taken seriously by secular historians. I think I know how to do that, and I think I do it most of the time. But I do not accept that there is no such thing as an evangelical philosophy of history, or that it has no implications for the way history might be written. I am an evangelical and an historian, and I am happy to be identified as an evangelical historian, rather than as an evangelical and a secular historian. I believe that we need both types of historians.

But historians of whatever type do not make good prophets. I concluded the first edition with the observation that the strands which had made up evangelicalism were in some danger of going their separate ways and that this meant the movement would be weakened. It is true, I think, that they have gone their separate ways: the exclusive conservatives, the inclusive progressives, and the Pentecostals. If so, that means there may not be one evangelical movement any more, but three movements, and none of them is particularly insistent on being called ‘evangelical.’ But whether the three movements, when aggregated, are weaker than the one which they replace, I am not so sure. Maybe the conservatives have enough openness to the Spirit and compassion for the needy to retain their vitality. They would certainly believe so. Maybe the progressives have enough concern for biblical orthodoxy to retain their credibility. They certainly insist so. Maybe the Pentecostals are sufficiently dependent on the Bible, even if they do interpret it differently from the conservatives, and are now open to their responsibility to those in need to maintain their impressive rate of growth. They certainly advertise their ministries to the needy. Each strand has conspicuous vitality. Each garners sufficient support to encourage their leaders that they are on the right track.

Each strand has enjoyed some success in resisting the most powerful of its opponents, secularisation. This brings us to the second dramatic development in recent writing about evangelicals, namely the analysis of the movement’s resilience in the face of secularisation. Evangelical churches, the world over, are far more effective in holding their membership than mainline Protestant churches of a liberal persuasion. Remarkably, in recent decades they have been more successful in membership retention than Roman Catholics, who have begun to go the way of the liberal Protestants.¹¹ The verdict is still out on whether the perceived ‘resurgence’ in evangelical fortunes is only an Indian summer in the long winter of this secular age.¹² The relative success of conservative evangelical churches has been observed since the early 1970s. In 1972 Dean Kelley published his influential study Why Conservative Churches are Growing.¹³ In 1974 the National Council of Churches’ Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches showed that conservative, missionary-minded churches were the only ones enjoying significant membership growth. Analysis of this phenomenon has led sociologists of religion to the conclusion that evangelicalism is thriving not in spite of, but because of its confrontation with pluralistic modernity which is the commonest manifestation of Western secularised societies.¹⁴ The argument is that, whereas fundamentalists withdraw from the world, evangelicals remain passionately engaged with it, and it is ‘engaged orthodoxy’ which thrives in the modern, secular world. Evangelicalism has always felt the obligation to engage with the world redemptively.¹⁵ To an evangelical the world is oppositional but needy.¹⁶ The ‘key markers’ of evangelicalism are a personal relationship with Jesus, obedience to the Bible, and intense social engagement with a needy world.¹⁷ This sounds like Spirit, Word, and world to me. Thus recent sociological research, too, points to the validity of the main argument of this book.

More interestingly, it suggests useful criteria for evaluating Australian evangelicalism in recent decades. Has Sydney Anglicanism since 2001, for example, had a disappointing response to its missionary efforts because it is basically fundamentalist and insufficiently engaged with its host culture? Or has its growing influence on other denominations, other dioceses, and indeed, global Anglicanism prove that it is a highly successful expression of evangelical faith? Or, is it shaping all those whom it influences towards fundamentalism which is a self-sufficient subculture, but which has no impact on the wider culture? It is far too soon for historians to give fair answers to such questions, but in the new chapter to this book, the issues are at least canvassed.

I concluded the previous editions with the observation that it was not by focussing attention on any of the three elements in the evangelical synthesis (Bible, Spirit, or evangelism and mission) that would save the evangelical movement. It was focussing on Christ and his gospel that would do that. It is that focus which generates simultaneously the hunger for biblical knowledge, openness to the Spirit, and compassion for the lost and needy. I still think that is right. The churches which are growing most rapidly at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century are not those of any denomination and not even Pentecostal churches. They are non-affiliated, independent churches which have leaders who focus on Jesus and – it is true – teach the Bible.¹⁸ It is not the independency that matters there, but the effective leadership. It is not wearing the badge ‘evangelical’ that matters, but Jesus, his gospel and his Word taught in churches with effective leaders. I will probably be castigated for using a circular argument and for importing theology into history for saying so, but if history teaches us anything, it is that if any one of those elements is missing, churches are unlikely to thrive.

List of Tables

Table 1: Revivals in Australian colonies, 1834–1869

Table 2: Methodist Membership in Victoria 1841–1881

Table 3: Revivals in Australian colonies/states, 1871–1905

Table 4: Clerical Enlistment in World War I (Australia)

Table 5: Percentage of population who believe in God

List of Abbreviations

Chapter 1

Going into