到底谁是福音派？（中英文）

寻找同路人

到底谁是福音派？（中英文）

                             

似乎一个新的暴风雨，或至少是暴风，最近在“福音派”这个词的周围聚集环绕。越来越多自认为是福音派的人士正意识到，不是每个人都拥有相同的信念，甚至核心教义方面也是如此。作为回应，一些人已经开始写信仰宣言，尝试重新声明福音派的身份特征。其他一些人则著书并且举办大型会议，为了要使整个运动重新定位。而另一些人则决定最好把他们统称为“后福音派”。

但是这个问题并不是最近才有的。要确认谁是福音派从不是件容易的事，因为福音派一直是一个多样化的运动。路德想让他的跟随者被称为“福音派”，意思是属福音的人（其实是他的敌人给他的跟随者取“路德宗”的称呼）。宗教改革其它支流也很乐意共享福音派的称谓（正统的路德宗创造了“加尔文主义者”这个词，作为他们区分与改革宗在圣餐礼上的不同观点的途径）。随着敬虔主义与奋兴主义的出现，“福音派”的标签开始到处被使用。今日，福音派成为了一个模糊不清的头衔，以至于一些教会历史学家，诸如乔治·马斯登，所给出的定义竟然是：“任何像葛培理这样的人”。

然而倘若我们稍微带一些历史的视角看这个问题，就不难发现为何这些风暴经常出现：福音正与福音派永久地分离，这就是为何人们很难知道谁是福音派。

敬虔主义与奋兴主义

“福音派”这个术语在宗教改革时期被广泛使用，为了要澄清和宣扬福音。圣公会，长老会，以及那些布赛尔、加尔文、诺克斯和贝扎等欧陆改革宗的追随者们也喜欢“改革宗”这个词，因为他们的目标并非是要建立全新的教会或宗派，而是要改革历史上传承下来的教会。然而，尽管路德宗和改革宗有些重要的分歧，他们仍然肩并肩捍卫福音，抵挡罗马天主教和重洗派。

然而，敬虔主义与奋兴主义的出现，使得情况变得复杂。起初，敬虔主义是在路德宗与改革宗内部的改革运动，鼓励教义与敬虔之间更深的联合。然而，敬虔主义最终开始变得像重洗派一样。奋兴主义（英国和美国）将敬虔主义推离宗教改革的根基。

甚至在第一次大觉醒期间，进入福音派阵营的关键要素是支持复兴。许多路德宗和改革宗牧师在预期复兴的时间上显得矛盾不已，并对教会的日常事奉存有很低的看法。但是在第二次大觉醒时期，问题显露无疑。焦点从对神透过预定的方式在基督里的拯救工作转移到透过实用主义的方法和“奋兴”强调人的决定。第二次大觉醒的主要人物，查尔斯·芬尼（1792-1875），甚至否认原罪、代赎、唯独因信称义、以及重生的超自然本质等教义。

第二次大觉醒以芬尼为代表，创造了一套以信心与实践整合的系统给自我依靠的群体。福音派—也就是十八世纪晚期的更正教—其实是所谓创新的源头。教义方面，它臣服于现代主义者对人的本质与进步的乐观倾向。敬拜方面，它把道与圣礼的事奉转变成娱乐、社会改革，以及在名流文化中创造“上等”的制度。在公共生活方面，它模糊了基督的国度与世上的国度，并且幻想基督的统治可以透过基督徒在道德、社会以及政治方面的活动被世人看见。除了他们短暂的宣扬以外，对于整个运动的约束，对于“企业家名流倾向”的惩戒，亦或是对其“复兴”的质问，几乎没有任何严肃的探讨。

在这条路上，福音与福音派渐行渐远；信息屈从于方法。美国人的宗教变成朋霍费尔所描述的：“没有宗教改革内涵的更正教。”

“两个极端在此汇聚”，普林斯顿神学家B.B.沃菲德对十九世纪末的保守敬虔主义与自由派理性主义者做出评价。“敬虔主义者和理性主义者看上去‘道不同不相为谋’。他们也许有不同的原因轻看神学，并且有远见的牧师也不会花时间在这个上面。他们其中一方如此爱神，而另一方并不爱神，并不想要认识他。”

沃菲德的荷兰同僚赫尔曼·巴文克观察到：“诸如德国的敬虔主义和英格兰和美国的循道宗这类大的运动有个共同点，就是将信仰的客观中心性变为主观。而神学方面因为追随这个传统而产生了康德、施莱尔马赫以及他们的学派。”在美国的更正教敬虔派受过良好教育的分支倾向于融合进现代主义，然而其基要主义的分支则产生了愤世嫉俗、不抱幻想的年轻人，他们认为前者更吸引人。不管是现代主义者，比如哈里·爱默生·福斯迪克，还是基要主义者，比如鲍勃·琼斯，我们都可以从他们回朔到芬尼以及他留下的遗产。

宗教改革支流

然而，美国福音派里的宗教改革分支并没有消亡。老普林斯顿是一个尤其富有生命力的源头，来更新和保卫福音派的遗产。路德宗里有C.F.W.沃尔特，长老会里有阿奇巴尔德·亚历山大，公理会有提摩太·德怀特，圣公会里有威廉·怀特，浸信会里则有以撒·巴库斯，他们都共同拥有宗教改革的信念，对抗不信的潮流。在福音派合作的宣教领域、事工领域、以及忠心的学术界，越来越多好的现象已经（并且正在）发生。

像沃菲德和贺智这样的教会领袖把自己特别看做继承宗教改革的福音派，并且努力把美国的更正教带回这个支流。他们也坚定委身于自己宗派许多国内或海外的宣教事工，同时也使他们与其他宗派的福音派人士一起有稳固的团契与合作。

然而，沃菲德已经看到福音派身份的矛盾张力使得自己无法再成为福音派阵营的支持者。1920年，一群福音派人士推动一个“福音派教会联合的计划”。沃菲德评论他们的“信条”说，作为一个长老会人士看了这些内容，只能说这份新的信仰告白虽然“没有包含任何福音派否认的”，但是“也没有包含任何天主教信徒会否认的”。

这份信条里没有因信称义。并且这意味着所有宗教改革以及继承者们都被排除在外了……信条里也没有基督宝血的赎罪祭。这也意味着中世纪教会也被排除在外……信条里没有罪和恩典的教义……我们不再需要认罪；我们不再需要承认有罪这样东西的存在。我们只需要相信圣灵是“引导者和安慰师”—理性主义者不也是这么宣称的吗？并且这也意味着伟大的奥古斯丁与伯拉纠异端争战而赢得的胜果都一起被排除在外……同样，早期教会倾力争辩的基要真理—三位一体，基督的神性都在这份信条中被抛弃。没有三位一体，没有基督的神性，也没有圣灵的教义。

如果因信称义是福音的中心，沃菲德想知道，“福音派”是如何从他们共同的信仰告白中略去这一点的？他问道：“二十世纪的长老会是否认为这种信条对于福音派事工的合作来说足够了？那么这样的福音派事工丢失了福音。这个信条所忽略的恰恰就是福音本身。”我们再一次看见，福音与福音派分离开来。沃菲德总结道：“‘相交’是一个好的词汇，而且是巨大的责任。但是按照保罗的说法，我们的团契相交必须坚固福音。”

朋霍费尔在结束其在美国的演讲之旅后对美国基督教的诊断（没有宗教改革的更正教）似乎是合理的。他写道：

美国的基督教已经失去了宗教改革的继承。他们有著名的奋兴布道家，牧师和神学家，但是教会没有神的道，没有耶稣基督，也没有宗教改革精神……美国的神学和美国的教会从没有明白被神的话语归正的含义和重要性。到最后他们也没明白，神的标准规范基督的教会以及基督徒的成圣，并且神把他的教会建立在远超过宗教与道德的基础之上……在美国的神学里，基督教本质上仍然不过是宗教和道德…….基于这个原因，对于他们的神学而言，基督的位格和工作就变成他们的背景，并且一直被误解，因为他们没能发现其实这才是审判与赦免的基础。

今天的福音派在哪里？

今天，敬虔主义和奋兴主义的恶果仍然存留。许多人想当然认为那些最在乎教义的人一定对得着失丧人群毫无兴趣（或者也被成为“未在教会里的人”）。福音派常常被挑战要在固守传统与重视宣教中二选一，这两方常常被矮化。早期的福音派将福音教义的纯正与福音事工的向外拓展紧紧联系在一起，而今天的福音派却渐渐为形式（“当代的”与“传统的”）、政治性（“具有同情心的保守主义”或是最近进程神学家对奋兴主义的重新发现）以及明星领袖所定义，而不是其对神论、人论、罪论、救恩伦、历史目的以及末日审判等教义的确信。

我知道并非今日所有的“信条”都像沃菲德所批判的那样简化。美国的基督教也并非没有真道的捍卫者。全美福音派协会的信仰告白确认三位一体、基督神性—透过他所流的血带来替代性和救赎性的牺牲、以及超自然重生的必要性。然而，其中并没有提到称义—没有地方教会的章节—关于教会的唯一认信是“在主耶稣基督里信徒的属灵合一“。洗礼与主餐甚至都没有被提及。

讽刺的是，今日真正的福音派信仰往往都存在于福音派运动以外，并且在福音派内部反而有许多争论。渐渐地，福音派更多质疑圣经的权威性（更不用说其充足性）以及其它不同福音派曾经一致认信的基要信仰。根据我所看到的资料，大多数美国福音派忽视许多基督教的基要真理。相反，到处是基督徒社会学家史密斯描述的“道德主义式的、疗伤式的自然神论”。事实上，在福音派教会成长起来的人们越来越拥抱这种无形的属灵观，反对那些帮助你区分真正福音派的基督教信条。你看到福音与福音派之间的分离了吗？

同时，我们却常常从一些意想不到的人那里发现他们对历史的基督教，包括宗教改革精神卓越的捍卫。

一个“绿色庄园”

行文至此，我依然相信“福音派”有其一席之地。为什么？很简单，因为我们仍然拥有福音。在我看来，福音派最好成为“绿色庄园”，就像传统新英格兰地区城镇中心的公园，以至于每个人都能认出福音。它应该成为不同教会的信徒聚集一处的地方，在那里他们可以讨论共同认信的真理，也可以探讨彼此的不同。他们帮助彼此持守正直。

在现有阶段，教会是一群天路客。我认为改革宗的信仰告白是对圣经教导最忠心的概述。然而透过与其他宗派传统的基督徒相交，透过他们挑战我更深、更全面地思考自己所忽略缺失的地方，我的信仰也更加扎根。

“绿色庄园”也提供一个共同的领域，以至于基督徒可以向非信徒见证他们共同的盼望，也提供一个共同的地方，以至于基督徒的爱可以在特定的社群中服侍我们的邻舍。真正的危险在于，“绿色庄园”被近乎伯拉纠式的潮流和自我依靠的幻想所取代，他们以为自己的教堂建筑物可以取代福音与教会的核心意义。

作者：迈克尔·霍顿

迈克尔·霍顿是加州威斯敏斯特神学院系统神学和护教学教授

【英文原文】

Who Exactly Are the Evangelicals?

It feels like a renewed storm, or at least a squall, has been gathering around the term “evangelical” lately. More and more self-described evangelicals are realizing that not everyone believes the same things, even about the core doctrines. In response, some have begun to write manifestos which attempt to re-articulate the characteristics of an evangelical identity. Others are authoring books and holding conferences which aim to re-center the movement as a whole. Still others have decided it’s best to pitch the term altogether and call themselves “post-evangelicals.”

But the problem is hardly new. It’s never been easy to determine who the evangelicals are because evangelicalism has always been a diverse movement. Luther wanted his followers to be called “evangelicals,” meaning gospel-people (it was his enemies who nicknamed his followers “Lutheran”). The other branch of the Reformation was also happy to share the evangelical designation (the orthodox Lutherans coined the term “Calvinists” as a way of distinguishing Reformed views of the Lord’s Supper from their own). Then, with the advent of the pietism and revivalism, the label “evangelical” went in all sorts of directions. Today, it’s such an ambiguous moniker that some historians find the best definition to be George Marsden’s: “anybody who likes Billy Graham.”

Yet with just a little bit of historical perspective, it’s not difficult to see why such storms, or squalls, are perennial: the evangel is forever becoming separated from the evangelicals, which is exactly why it’s so hard to know who the evangelicals are.

PIETISM AND REVIVALISM

The term “evangelical” moved into common use during the Reformation in an effort to clarify and proclaim the gospel. Anglican, Presbyterian, and Continental followers of Bucer, Calvin, Knox, and Beza also liked the term “Reformed” because their goal was not to start a new church or denomination, but to reform the historic church. Still, Lutheran and Reformed churches, in spite of their important differences, stood shoulder to shoulder in defending the gospel from distortions from both Rome and the Anabaptists.

The advent of pietism and revivalism, however, complicated matters. At first, pietism was a reform movement within these Lutheran and Reformed churches, encouraging a deeper connection between doctrine and piety. Eventually, however, pietism began to look more like Anabaptist spirituality. Revivalism (British and American) also pushed pietism further away from its Reformation roots.

A crucial price of admission to the evangelical camp even in the First Great Awakening was being pro-revival. Many Lutheran and Reformed ministers were ambivalent about the very idea of expecting seasons of revival, suspecting it of harboring a low view of the ordinary ministry of the church. But by the Second Great Awakening, there was no question. The focus shifted from an emphasis on God’s saving work in Christ through God’s ordained means to an emphasis on human decisions and efforts through pragmatic methods and “excitements.” The major personality behind the second awakening, Charles G. Finney (1792-1875), even rejected the doctrines of original sin, substitutionary atonement, justification through faith alone, and the supernatural character of the new birth.

The Second Great Awakening, represented by Finney, created a system of faith and practice tailor made for a self-reliant nation. Evangelicalism—which is to say, late eighteenth-century American Protestantism—was an engine for innovations. In doctrine, it served modernity’s preference for faith in human nature and progress. In worship, it transformed Word-and-Sacrament ministry into entertainment and social reform and created the first star system in the culture of celebrity. In public life, it confused the kingdom of Christ with the kingdoms of this world and imagined that Christ’s reign could be made visible by the moral, social, and political activity of the saints. There was little room for anything weighty to tie the movement down, to discipline its entrepreneurial celebrities, or to question its “revivals” apart from their often short-lived publicity.

Somewhere along the way the evangel became separated from evangelism; the message became subservient to the methods. American religion was becoming worthy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s eventual characterization: “Protestantism without the Reformation.”

“Extremes meet,” noted Princeton’s B. B. Warfield toward the end of the nineteenth-century about the conservative pietists and liberal rationalists. “Pietist and Rationalist have ever hunted in couples and dragged down their quarry together. They may differ as to why they deem theology mere lumber, and would not have the prospective minister waste his time in acquiring it. The one loves God so much, the other loves him so little, that he does not care to know him.”

Warfield’s Dutch colleague Herman Bavinck observed, “Powerful movements, like those that Pietism had called forth in Germany and Methodism had unleashed in England and America, all had in common that they shifted the center of gravity from the object of religion to the subject. Theology followed this track in the systems produced by Kant, Schleiermacher, and their schools.” The educated wing of pietistic Protestantism in America tended to become assimilated to modernism, while its fundamentalist wing provided an ever-fresh crop of cynical and disillusioned young people to find the former a more attractive option. Yet modernists like Harry Emerson Fosdick and fundamentalists like Bob Jones, Sr. could recall Finney and his legacy with fondness.

THE REFORMATION STREAM

However, the Reformation stream in American evangelicalism hadn’t dried up completely. Old Princeton was an especially fecund source for renewing and defending the legacy of true evangelicalsm. Lutherans like C. F. W. Walther, Presbyterians like Archibald Alexander, Congregationalists like Timothy Dwight, Episcopalians like Bishop William White, and Baptists like Isaac Backus could recognize a core of Reformation convictions that they shared in common, over against the rising tide of infidelity. Much good came (and still comes) out of evangelical cooperation on the mission field, in common diaconal ministries, and in faithful scholarship.

Churchmen like Warfield and Hodge regarded themselves as evangelicals in the distinctively Reformation sense and struggled to bring American Protestantism into line with this definition. They were also staunchly committed to and personally involved with the vast missionary endeavors of their denomination at home and abroad, bringing them into constant fellowship and cooperation with other evangelicals.

Nevertheless, Warfield was already beginning to see that the tension between competing visions of evangelical identity was making it more difficult to remain an unqualified supporter of the evangelical cause. In 1920, a number of evangelicals put forward a “plan of union for evangelical churches.” Warfield evaluated the “creed” of this plan, as it was being studied by Presbyterians, and observed that the new confession being proposed “contains nothing which is not believed by Evangelicals,” and yet “…nothing which is not believed …by the adherents of the Church of Rome, for example.” He wrote

There is nothing about justification by faith in this creed. And that means that all the gains obtained in that great religious movement which we call the Reformation are cast out of with window…There is nothing about the atonement in the blood of Christ in this creed. And that means that the whole gain of the long mediaeval search after truth is thrown summarily aside…There is nothing about sin and grace in this creed…We need not confess our sins anymore; we need not recognize the existence of such a thing. We need believe in the Holy Spirit only ‘as guide and comforter’—do not the Rationalists do the same? And this means that all the gain the whole world has reaped from the great Augustinian conflict goes out of the window with the rest…It is just as true that the gains of the still earlier debates which occupied the first age of the Church’s life, through which we attained to the understanding of the fundamental truths of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ are discarded by this creed also. There is no Trinity in this creed; no Deity of Christ—or of the Holy Spirit.

If justification through faith is the heart of the evangel, Warfield wondered, how can “evangelicals” omit it from their common confession? He asked, “Is this the kind of creed which twentieth-century Presbyterianism will find sufficient as a basis for co-operation in evangelistic activities? Then it can get along in its evangelistic activities without the gospel. For it is precisely the gospel that this creed neglects altogether.” Again, the evangel had become separated from the evangelicals. “‘Fellowship’ is a good word,” Warfield concluded, “and a great duty. But our fellowship, according to Paul, must be in ‘the furtherance of the gospel.'”

The diagnosis of American Christianity offered by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (“Protestantism without the Reformation”) after his lecture tour in the United States seems justified. He wrote,

God has granted American Christianity no Reformation. He has given it strong revivalist preachers, churchmen and theologians, but no Reformation of the church of Jesus Christ by the Word of God. . . . American theology and the American church as a whole have never been able to understand the meaning of ‘criticism’ by the Word of God and all that signifies. Right to the last they do not understand that God’s ‘criticism’ touches even religion, the Christianity of the church and the sanctification of Christians, and that God has founded his church beyond religion and beyond ethics….In American theology, Christianity is still essentially religion and ethics…Because of this the person and work of Christ must, for theology, sink into the background and in the long run remain misunderstood, because it is not recognized as the sole ground of radical judgment and radical forgiveness.

WHERE IS EVANGELICALISM TODAY?

Today, some of the ill fruit of pietism and revivalism live on. Many take it for granted that those who are most concerned about doctrine are least interested in reaching the lost (or, as they are now called, the “unchurched”). Evangelicals are frequently challenged to choose between being traditional or missional, two camps which are typically described with nothing more than caricatures. Where the earlier evangelical consensus coalesced simultaneously around getting the gospel right and getting it out, increasingly today the coalition is defined by its style (“contemporary” versus “traditional”), its politics (“compassionate conservatism” or the more recent rediscovery of revivalism’s progressivist roots), and its rock star leaders, rather than for its convictions about God, humanity, sin, salvation, the purpose of history, and the last judgment.

I realize that not all such “creeds” today are as minimalistic as the one evaluated by Warfield. Nor has American Christianity been without its own defenders of the faith. In its statement of faith the National Association of Evangelicals affirms the Trinity, the deity of Christ, “the vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood,” and the necessity of a supernatural rebirth. However, there is no mention of justification—the article of a standing or falling church—and the only conviction concerning the church is belief in “the spiritual unity of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Baptism and the Supper are not even mentioned.

Ironically, genuinely evangelical faith today is often found outside of the evangelical movement, and within evangelicalism it is contested on many fronts. Increasingly, it has become common for evangelicals to question the authority (much less the sufficiency) of Scripture and the basic tenets around which evangelicals of various stripes were formerly able to unite. According to every major survey I’ve seen, most American evangelicals are ignorant of many of the basic truths of Christianity. Instead, there is a pervasive “moralistic, therapeutic deism,” as sociologist Christian Smith has documented. The fact that people growing up in evangelical churches are as likely—and in some studies, more likely—to embrace this sort of amorphous spirituality over against the Christian creed makes you wonder what is “evangelical” about “evangelicalism.” Has the evangel left the evangelicals?

At the same time, one often encounters winsome defenses of historic Christianity, including the Reformation’s insights, from what might have seemed like the most unlikely sources.

A VILLAGE GREEN

For all of this, I remain convinced that there is still a place for being “evangelical.” Why? Quite simply, because we still have the evangel. In my view, evangelicalism, then, serves best as a “village green,” like the common parks at the center of old New England towns, for everyone who affirms this evangel. It’s a place where Christians from different churches meet to discuss what they share in common, as well as their differences. They help keep each other honest.

In its present phase, the church is a pilgrim people. I think that the Reformed confession is the most faithful summary of the Bible’s teachings. Yet my faith is enriched by encountering Christians from different traditions who challenge me to think more deeply and fully about emphases I might have missed.

The village green also provides a common area where Christians can witness to non-Christians concerning the hope that they share, and a common space where our neighbors in a particular community can be served by Christian love. The danger comes when the village green becomes dominated by a nearly Pelagian atmosphere and self-confidently imagines that its Big Tent is the cathedral that reduces actual churches on the green to mere chapels.




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