Some Remarks
I happen to teach at Moore Theological College in Sydney and the term “evangelical” is central to our identity. Our mission is to “provide an excellent evangelical theological education” and we stand on the shoulders of evangelical giants such T.C. Hammond (1877-1961) and D.B. Knox (1916-1994). Our students know that the word “evangelical” arises from the Greek word which is often translated as “gospel”. The words of Jesus recorded in the biblical gospel of Mark provide a good example of this: “Repent and believe the good news!” (Mk. 1:15). Our students are also taught about “Evangelicalism” as a movement which arose around the time of the First Great Awakening in the 1730s and spread around the world. We look at our library’s copy of Richard Johnson’s Cruden’s Concordance (1769) and see marginalia on the flyleaf which connects “Clapham” with “Richard Johnson” and “Mr [Samuel] Marsen”. The evangelical focus on conversion – “new birth” – is now felt around the world, carried along most recently and most significantly by the Billy Graham crusades, impacting Sydney in ways which still influence our evangelical leaders today.
But what is the relationship between the terms “evangelical” and “evangelicalism”? The first – an adjective – speaks of a kind of Christian. The second – an ‘ism’ – speaks of a movement in history. Often evangelicalism is understood to have begotten evangelicals. But as Rachel Ciano shows us, this is not so. For evangelicals existed before evangelicalism. And, not just in an anachronistic way, as if we can observe the same traits of evangelicalism in its precursors. This is not an exercise in trying to spot the four aspects of David Bebbington’s famous quadrilateral some centuries earlier. No, what we have are real flesh and blood people of the sixteenth century who self-identify as evangelicals. Sometimes they even like to call themselves “gospellers” which I find both etymologically and theologically pleasing.
There are more surprises to be found in Ms Ciano’s research too. That the first extant printed reference to “evangelical” seems to come from the desk of King Henry VIII himself is intriguing. Keen observer of Lutheran religion and statecraft that he was, one wonders when the term “evangelical” was couriered into his court. His, or Cromwell’s, various agents abroad would have been reporting the revolution for many years in hushed tones. Ms Ciano also raises the important presence of the spirituali. These Italian reformers before Luther were the circle gathered around Juan de Valdés who had his origins in the Spanish alumbrados. The most notable and proximate spirituali to the reformers in England were the celebrity Capuchin preacher Bernard Ochino (1487-1564) and heavyweight Florentine theologian Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562), both of whom Archbishop Thomas Cranmer imported under Edward VI. However, there were a coterie of these spirituali whose tentacles reached English shores in other ways. The Venetian Francesco Negri, for example, was writing about “il ministerio dell’ euangelica predicatione & dell’ amministratione de sacramenti” (the ministry of the evangelical preaching and administration of the sacraments) in 1546. This illustrates the point about the importance of the spirituali when exploring the origins of the English approach to the term “evangelical”. Negri was closer to Huldrych Zwingli than Martin Luther, so perhaps future researchers might pick up from Ms Ciano’s point and find alternative continental origins to the term?
This reminds us that terminology, as with theology, seems to cross countries and go beyond the seas in unpredictable ways. Who, as Ms Ciano shows us, would have predicted that the Wesley’s and Whitefield’s of the world would have taken up the mantle where the earlier reformers had left off. Although they took “Evangelicalism” in different directions and for changing contexts, others like Charles Simeon and William Wilberforce maintained reformation principles at the heart of this broad movement. After drawing together these threads, Ms Ciano enables us to see the connection between “evangelicals” and “evangelicalism” – but I shall not spoil the reader now. This book is well worth the while it takes to read. It is not long, but it is thought provoking. It not dense, but it is challenging. It raises questions, just as it answers others. English Reformation scholars have been banging this drum about “evangelicals” for decades – perhaps what we have needed is for accessible books like this to put it so effectively.
Rachel Ciano's booklet can be bought here.
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Mark Earngey is Head of Church History at Moore Theological College, Sydney. He is the co-editor of Reformation Worship: Liturgies from the Past for the Present (New Growth Press, 2018). He is married to Tanya and they have four young children. He has written several articles and books. Reformation Anglicanism co-edited wit Stephen Tong can be found here.
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