Page 6

assurance of salvation was different

in kind from that of previous Protestantism, though it may have

differed in the degree of

emphasis given to it.

Other Writers in Support of the Bebbington Approach

There are three which deserve to be mentioned. One, to which we have already alluded is John

Walsh, who argued effectively in 1966 that there was, within England, no unbroken theological thread

joining 17

century Puritanism to 18

century Evangelicalism; at very least the origin of the Evangelical

Revival was

not to be understood as a direct resurgence of the Puritanism of old. A second is that of

Richard Turnbull, author of a 1993 essay "The Emergence of the Protestant Evangelical Tradition". The

author maintained, without making any explicit reference to Bebbington or his book, that what today

passes for the Anglican evangelical tradition was largely forged in the last decades of the 18

century

and the first of the 19

The third author worthy of mention is Robert Letham, who wrote fully cognizant of the

Bebbington hypothesis, and essentially endorsed it though in pursuit of an entirely distinct objective.

The article was the more remarkable when one considers that the writer is himself a conservative and

confessional Presbyterian. His 1995 essay posed the issue in stark terms: "Is Evangelicalism

Christian?".

Whereas Bebbington had aimed primarily to demonstrate the distinctiveness of the

developments in 18

century Christianity, Letham went beyond discussing this distinctiveness to contend

that Evangelicalism was a movement extensively frivolous in tendency. In contrast to the great

consensus building story of Christian theology from Patristic to Reformation times,

"Evangelicalism is essentially man-centred. Human spiritual experience, in regeneration and

sanctification, is dominant. In short, soteriology is in centre-stage. Because personal individual salvation

is at the heart of evangelicalism, it follows that evangelism and world mission share the centre of

attention....God and the holy trinity is not a dominant focus any more" . Further..... " Evangelicalism as

such is based on the individual and his or her spiritual experience and is decidedly not a churchly

phenomenon. The sacraments are, if anything, even lower on evangelicalism's scale of values."

See the "Decree on Justification" item 15 as printed in Henry Bettenson and Chris Maunder, editors, Documents

of the Christian Church, (Oxford, The University Press, 1999) p. 277.

The Westminster Confession teaching on Christian assurance is found in chapter xviii. Calvin's strong emphasis

on the witness of the Spirit within the believer is evident in his Institutes III.ii. 39

Richard Turnbull, "The Emergence of the Protestant Evangelical Tradition" in Churchman, Vol. 197 (1993)

pp.339-50.

The essay was published in The Evangelical Quarterly Vol. LXVII (1) 1995 and was presented with a rejoinder

by Scottish evangelical theologian Donald MacLeod.

Letham, "Is Evangelicalism Christian?" p. 12.