Evangelicalism: 
The Next Generation
by James M. Penning and Corwin E. Smidt, Baker Academic, 2002, $22.00p, 203 pages (#6339) |  buy the book

These timely books deserve more space than we are giving them here but I trust this will not distract from their value to you. They both are the kinds of books that Christians, particularly those in leadership roles, should be familiar with because they help us understand our world. 

Both books have interesting histories. The Gallup Guide is really a follow-up to an earlier book Surveying the Religious Landscape: Trends in U. S. Beliefs, printed in 1999. This latest book has a different format because it not only updates and summarizes their conclusions, but also provides resources to help you “understand the times and what Israel should do,” to quote 1 Chronicles 12:32. 

The book picks up issues and trends that require our careful attention. For example: there is an explosion of interest among U. S. populace in spiritual matters but what does that mean? They underscore that major surveys have shown there are three felt needs in those surveys concerning spirituality: a need for deeper, more meaningful relationships with other people, a need for spiritual moorings, and a need to reach out to hurting people. They also conclude that American churches are “wonderfully positioned to respond to these three deep needs as we move through the twenty-first century.” 

I appreciate the overall emphasis that where applicable, churches should move from maintenance to mission. But they suggest that whatever is done to revitalize religious faith in our churches, “should be considered with some urgency…that the church is only one generation from extinction applies today as perhaps never before.” Although they are referring to the visible church, their warning must be heeded. The Gallup Guide contains several reproducible surveys to help a church glean helpful data in planning its ministry with an intentional, missional focus. As one reviewer stated, this book could be a “comprehensive and compelling resource guide to diagnosing a church and a community.” These resources can help you diagnose such things as: “what values shape your community, what problems impact families, and what people expect from your church.” The book also puts you in touch with a protected website where you can download the surveys.

Evangelicalism: The Next Generation is of a different nature though it also with surveys a specific situation that sheds much light on what is happening. The authors, Penning and Smidt, have taken the basic format of Evangelicalism, The Coming Generation, written about 16 years ago by James Hunter. Similar questions were raised with two somewhat similar but different audiences considering the fifteen-year time interval between the two studies. Whereas, Hunter’s conclusion was a bit more troubling regarding students and their commitment to Christian orthodoxy and moral boundaries, this latest study focuses on seven evangelical Christian colleges and universities. This study concludes that college students “provide reassurance to many in the evangelical world, particularly leaders of evangelical institutions of higher education, in that it finds considerable stability in student attitudes over time. The theological views of evangelical college students today are virtually identical to those expressed by evangelical college students nearly two decades ago. Moreover, the theological views of evangelical college students tend to mirror the theological views of similarly educated evangelical adults—both today and in the early 1980s. Likewise there has been little erosion in the moral boundaries of students attending evangelical colleges,” p. 165.

The book deals with areas such as secularization and modernity, moral boundaries, social theologies, political philosophy, as well as religion in general. An example of the conclusion is “while they express serious concerns about the direction in which the country is going, they are nor bent on imposing their perspectives on the rest of society, at least not in a heavy-handed fashion.” One could conclude that these younger evangelicals are orthodox in faith but more open to political diversity and expression of social concern. Unlike the older evangelicals there appears to be more of an emphasis on decentralized, voluntary associations such as those in many denominational and para-church organizations.

Based on these studies, the authors conclude, “It is likely that American evangelicalism will exhibit even greater diversity than in the past.” Some of this is attributable to the passing on of older evangelical leaders such as Billy Graham who influenced so much of traditional 20^th century evangelicalism. The question this poses for the church is what should we be gearing up for as a result? We have to face that we are living in a pluralistic culture where we as evangelicals are merely one among many. What does that mean for developing and feeding a subculture of evangelicalism that will not foolishly further alienate us from the world around us?

Both of these books are thought provoking, well researched, and clearly written which enables Christians, particularly those in leadership position and discipling making roles, to frame the Gospel and all of God’s truth in the context of this generation to whom we are called to minister.

 -Charles Dunahoo

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