{"id":944,"date":"2019-10-01T08:00:36","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T08:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/?p=944"},"modified":"2019-09-27T09:57:19","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T09:57:19","slug":"quadrilaterals-in-waco-reflections-on-the-evangelicals-and-the-bible-symposium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/?p=944","title":{"rendered":"Quadrilaterals in Waco: reflections on the \u2018Evangelicals and the Bible\u2019 symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"

By John Maiden<\/em><\/p>\n

On 19-20 September I visited Baylor University in Waco, Texas, for a symposium on \u2018Evangelicals and the Bible\u2019 in history. The event was to honour the contribution of Professor David Bebbington to the historical study of evangelicalism following his \u201cretirement\u201d (inverted commas explained below). I studied my doctorate under Bebbington and his work has been an important influence on my research. He is particularly known for the \u2018Bebbington Quadrilateral\u2019 of the four characteristics which have marked evangelicals: Biblicism (emphasis on the authority of Scripture); Crucicentricism (centrality of the atonement); Conversionism; and activism (e.g. in evangelism; on issues of social justice). The quadrilateral, as Bebbington explained, was never intended as a wider \u2018definition\u2019 of evangelicalism, and it first appeared in the context of a book specifically on British evangelicalism. However, it has since been taken up by various scholars of North American evangelicalism, and even global evangelicalism. The symposium consisted of three plenaries (including one from the Man himself), various panels, tributes and a Q and A. During the latter, it was announced that Bebbington is to be Director of a new initiative for scholars of global evangelicalism, which will involve an annual conference at Baylor \u2013 next year, on evangelicalism in Latin America.<\/p>\n

\"George<\/a>

George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Waco (photo: J. Maiden)<\/p><\/div>\n

Not surprisingly, one theme was the \u2018state of the Quadrilateral\u2019 itself. Brian Stanley\u2019s excellent plenary on the applicability of the Quadrilateral to Global South evangelicalism in the twentieth century argued persuasively for its ongoing utility for researchers. In the discussion, though, I suggested that Pneumatism <\/em>(which I define as emphasis on the Spirit\u2019s post-conversion work and empowering presence, and the reality of a supernatural \u2018alive world\u2019) has been for many Global South evangelicals a \u2018fifth mark\u2019, as important as the other four. In my own paper on charismatic renewal and the Bible in Britain and New Zealand I argued also that pneumatism has commonly been a fifth important mark of post-1945 evangelical charismatics in the Global North. I suggested that pneumatism might be deployed flexibly as an alternative, additional fifth characteristic, one which is relevant not only to charismatics and Pentecostals, but also, for example, Holiness evangelicalism, and strains of more Reformed Calvinistic evangelicalism. But could the argument for a fifth characteristic be made even more widely? Is it applicable to early Evangelicalism? Bruce Hindmarsh\u2019s recent work may indicate that certain \u2018spirited\u2019 aspects of eighteenth-century evangelicalism deserve greater emphasis.\u00a0 That is, of course, a much bigger question!<\/p>\n

Bebbington\u2019s Quadrilateral, like so much of his work, continues to define the study of evangelicalism and the questions that people are asking about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By John Maiden On 19-20 September I visited Baylor University in Waco, Texas, for a symposium on \u2018Evangelicals and the Bible\u2019 in history. The event was to honour the contribution of Professor David Bebbington to the historical study of evangelicalism following his \u201cretirement\u201d (inverted commas explained below). I studied my doctorate under Bebbington and his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":946,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,51,36],"tags":[344,32,165,18,94],"class_list":["post-944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-and-conferences","category-contemporary-religion-in-historical-perspective-2","category-events","tag-bebbington","tag-charismatic","tag-conference","tag-evangelicalism","tag-john-maiden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":948,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions\/948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/religious-studies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}