TheBolgBlog: Evangelicalism: An Americanized Christianity -- Book Review

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June 09, 2008

Evangelicalism: An Americanized Christianity -- Book Review

Here is a book review I recently completed...Some of the details: Evangelicalism: An Americanized Christianity. By Richard Kyle. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 2006. Pp. xiv, 337. $34.95.

Richard Kyle is professor of history and religion at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas. He received theological training at both Baptist and Presbyterian divinity schools. His church membership has been a part of the Mennonite Brethren.

Kyle writes a brief history of popular evangelicalism in the United States, giving two chapters to 18th and 19th century evangelicalism. His main focus, however, is Twentieth-century evangelicalism, writing two chapters dealing with the first half of the century, and three chapters on the second half.

Kyle’s evaluation of popular American evangelicalism is, with rare exception, entirely negative. “There is only a fine line between being relevant to its surrounding culture and being absorbed by that culture. American evangelicalism has stepped over this line (2).” Much of Kyle’s critique regards the accommodation of evangelical faith to popular culture. He laments the loss of expository sermons, four-part harmony choirs, the organ, and the pastor as shepherd. He decries the use of guitars and drums, personal stories on relevant topics, and big screen monitors in worship. He praises high culture, with its focus on objectivity, the timeless, and the transcendent, and he decries popular culture as trivial, new, and spectacular.

Any missiologist will benefit from Kyle’s close look at the relation between church and culture in America. However, Kyle sees the relation of church and culture as a zero-sum game – more of one equals less of another – they are always at odds. From Andrew Walls, we know that one cannot have too much of either gospel or culture – just too little. Rather than abandon popular culture and embrace high culture as Kyle prefers, what American evangelicalism needs is more gospel.

09:21 AM in Books | Permalink

Comments

I particularly agree with your last sentence. Some time ago I wrote a post entitled "Can you be too incarnational" with the suggestion that the answer was no, that "properly understood that's akin to asking whether you can be too Christlike." Arguing over whether electric guitars or pipe organs are more biblical is an adventure in missing the point - both have to do with cultural identity. But we are called to a higher identity, to identity with Christ, the one who identified with the marginalized, who met people wherever they were at but did not leave them there. It strikes me that what we should be offering our culture is a "contextualized challenge". To say the gospel should be captive to any culture, high or low, is a shift away from salvation by Christ alone. To say the gospel should be disengaged from any culture is a step away from what Christ actually practiced.

Posted by: Matt Stone | June 13, 2008 at 07:48 AM

I'm not sure how Kyle has discerned which culture or western era is most holy. Is it better to be Roman, Hellenist, or American? Medieval, Enlightened, or Modern?

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Welcome

Hi, welcome to my former blog! My name is Ryan Bolger, and this is where I posted my thoughts on Jesus, culture, new forms of community, among other things. Come visit me at my new blog: http://www.ryanbolger.com. I still teach at Fuller Seminary in Southern California where I'm doing some writing as well. Feel free to bounce around the new or old website -- I hope it might stir your imagination -- feel free to stir mine as well by leaving some comments, preferably at the new site... Peace...