evangelical 360°

Ep. 33 / The Evangelical Quadrilateral and the History of a Movement ► David Bebbington (Part 1)

• Host Brian Stiller • Season 1 • Episode 33

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What exactly makes someone an evangelical Christian? Dr. David Bebbington, whose work has become the definitive framework for understanding this global movement, joins us to unpack the rich history and defining characteristics of evangelicalism.

Prof. Bebbington's "quadrilateral" – emphasizing the Bible, the Cross, conversion, and activism – has become the most widely cited definition of evangelical identity since its introduction in 1989. In this illuminating conversation, he traces how evangelicalism emerged in the 18th century, drawing from Puritan theology while incorporating Anglican and continental influences. Far from being static, the movement constantly evolved in response to cultural shifts from the Enlightenment through Romanticism and beyond.

We explore fascinating questions about evangelical boundaries: Are Pentecostals evangelical? What about fundamentalists? Can Roman Catholics be evangelical? Bebbington provides nuanced answers that challenge simplistic categorizations, revealing the movement's theological flexibility despite its clear core commitments.

The conversation also addresses how evangelicalism catalyzed modern missions through voluntary societies that transformed Christianity's global footprint. While acknowledging the political associations that have become attached to the evangelical label in countries like the United States and Brazil, Bebbington reminds us that these alignments are not universal – in Britain, for instance, evangelicals have historically spanned the political spectrum.

For anyone seeking clarity about evangelical identity amid today's complex religious landscape, this conversation offers rare historical perspective from the scholar whose insights have shaped our understanding of a movement that has grown from approximately 90 million believers in the 1960s to around 600 million today. 

You can learn more from Dr. David Bebbington through his scholarship and publications. 

And you can share this episode using hashtag #Evangelical360 and join the conversation online! 

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Brian Stiller:

Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360. I'm your host, Brian Stiller, and I'm pleased to share with you another conversation with leaders, changemakers and influencers impacting Christian life around the world. We'd love for you to be a part of the podcast by sharing this episode, use hashtag Evangelical360, and join in the conversation on YouTube by subscribing. My guest today is David Bebbington, a professor, author and renowned scholar on the history of evangelicalism. Bebbington's work is the most cited source for understanding this global Protestant movement, from its earliest influences, when evangelicals were estimated to be about 90 million believers back in the 1960s, to its latest developments and growth to approximately 600 million. Beyond the sheer numerical growth over the past few decades, there's been significant challenges and changes within the evangelical movement, which is why it's important for us to take the time to hear from an invested scholar and expert. Join me as we listen to this, the first podcast with David Bebbington.

Brian Stiller:

David Bebbington, welcome to Evangelical 360.

David Bebbington:

Nice to see you. Thank you for having me.

Brian Stiller:

david. I've had in my library your 1989 book. I suppose I was one of the first in Canada to buy it A remarkable introduction to evangelical history. Imagine that when you were writing this book, that you would end up as, in my experience, the most quoted historian in evangelical history of any other scholar or researcher to the world today? Did you realize that this was going to take off the way it did?

David Bebbington:

I had no idea. I thought that in discussing evangelicalism, I was following the steps of other writers and I thought that in discussing evangelicalism, I was following the steps of other writers and I thought that what I was saying was what most people knew already. I'm still very amused when I pick up a book and flick to the index and find that the entries there have John Calvin three entries, david Bebbington four. And that's an astonishingly frequent happening. It shouldn't be, but that is, you're right, what tends to happen. People will be very generous in citing me.

Brian Stiller:

Well, it's been an enormous gift to us all and I think we'll note those as we proceed. I think we'll note those as we proceed. David, we all know Christianity in its fullest extent. So of the two and a half billion Christians, about half of it would be within the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox. And so, in the 1500s, martin Luther comes along, we have the Reformation, john Calvin arises and begins to write his institutes, and then Wesley comes along with the revival in the beginning of the Methodist Church, baptists come along, and so you have Catholics and Orthodox, you have Protestants. Now, where do evangelicals fit within that broader sphere of Christianity, and how did it emerge?

David Bebbington:

Evangelicals emerged in the 18th century and they definitely come from the Protestant tradition. A very deep influence over them was the Puritan movement, very strong in the previous century, the 17th century. The early evangelicals of the 18th century commonly read books by the leading Puritans, devoured them and very commonly identified with their theological position. However, there were other influences over the origins of evangelicalism too.

David Bebbington:

There were high church influences from within the Church of England, for example, and John Wesley, whom you've mentioned, was himself a very stout Anglican, the son of an Anglican clergyman, and wanted to remain so and wanted his Methodist movement to remain in the Church of England. He did so partly because he inherited his father's very high church doctrinal position, emphasizing the church, the ministry and the sacraments more than many other evangelicals did. So there's influence from circles other than the Puritans that swayed the movement, and there were even continental influences. The Moravian movement from the continent was an exemplar to Wesley, and indeed Wesley met Moravians and was influenced by them in his early quest for saving faith, and it's through them that he came to the experience of committing himself as a Christian in the first place. So Puritan was the most important influence. High church influence is very important too.

David Bebbington:

It was also the injection of influences from the continent

Brian Stiller:

in England, or was there a division within Protestantism from which evangelicalism emerged, or was it a gradual?

Brian Stiller:

evolving.

David Bebbington:

It was a gradual evolution. There were people who were called serious Christians or sometimes simply Methodists, even if they weren't strong followers of Wesley, in the 18th century, who are identifiably evangelicals the actual word only emerged as the standard label for the movement. At the very end of the 18th century, magazines start to be published with evangelical and the title showing their constituency, but before that the label was not there. People who identified with revival, identified with the other emphases of the evangelical movement, had all sorts of names, and the evolution, however, was a steady one towards a greater sense of the unity of the movement and the common emphases that they professed.

Brian Stiller:

And what did this rising evangelical group, or their theology? How did it contribute to the development and the growth of the church overall?

David Bebbington:

It actually produced, on the one hand, a lot of fresh denominations. Methodists that we mentioned most obviously didn't exist at all before Wesley gathered his followers in the 18th century, and Methodism in the 19th century became by far the largest Protestant denomination in many parts of the world, most notably in the United States of America, so that there was fresh denominations that were created. Some of the other Protestant denominations that were begun in the 17th century were hugely increased in numbers. The Baptists most obviously, especially in the southern United States, grew enormously in the 19th century. But they are the product of the same evangelical revival of the 18th century and often called the Great Awakening of the United States.

David Bebbington:

But it's not just new denominations. There's a great deal of interdenominational activity that is clearly the result of the revival. Especially in the 1790s and onwards, people who had the same experience of their hearts being strangely warmed by the experience of conversion joined together to spread the gospel, so that interdenominational gospel effort became a hallmark of the movement from then onwards. And I want to say there's another feature of Christendom that sprang from the movement is a huge emphasis on the voluntary Christian missions, overseas missions, home missions too. In the 16th century, the 17th century, there were state-sponsored missions in Catholic denominations in Catholic countries. But in this new evangelical age there were voluntary societies spreading the gospel and that is a huge contribution to the overall Christian presence in the world.

Brian Stiller:

So, as a historian, would you see the rise of the evangelical movement within Protestantism as being catalytic in terms of mission activity globally?

David Bebbington:

Oh, very much so. The figure who is most commonly mentioned is William Carey, the great Baptist shoemaker. A very humble figure who was self-educated to a large extent. Maker a very humble figure who was self-educated to a large extent. He actually was the person who proposed the creation of the Baptist Missionary Society in England in 1792. And his example was followed by other denominations in Britain and by denominations in the United States. So he is a central figure, although it has to be said that he was following the example of the Moravians who, from the 1720s, had already been engaging in foreign missions. It's interesting that the first periodical of the Baptist Missionary Society chose to have the same title as the periodical of the Moravians. They call them periodical accounts. That's because the Baptists were copying the Moravians in that respect. But certainly, yes, this is the rooting of the modern missionary movement, with its enormous effect in beginning indigenous churches in almost every land throughout the world.

Brian Stiller:

What would you say were the major changes that evolved in evangelicals from its inception to today?

David Bebbington:

A lot of factors impinged on the evangelical movement. Politics clearly did at various times. But I want to stress in a lot of what I write how important the cultural setting as it has evolved has had an impact on the evangelical movement. Modern Western civilization in the English-speaking world has gone through a series of phases, and these phases have marked the evangelical movement in changing ways over the years.

David Bebbington:

Enlightenment of the 18th century, far from being a simple opponent of the evangelical movement as it's often been portrayed, deeply influenced the early evangelical leaders. Again, let's take John Wesley as an example. He stressed the importance of reason, which is the hallmark of the age of the Enlightenment, and he did scientific things. It's the age of the Enlightenment and he did scientific things. It's often held that the Enlightenment is most important because of the scientific investigation it sponsored. Well, wesley actually invented an electric shock machine and told all his preachers to talk about it and indeed to sell it. Well, he believed in scientific investigation and discovery. So the Enlightenment shaped the way in which evangelicals thought. They too stressed the importance of reason in religion, and that helps explain the early impact of the evangelical movement. It tied in with the emphases that people had at the time and, in their view of the future, had at the time and in their view of the future, they shared the Enlightenment's typical idea of progress.

David Bebbington:

In their particular form of eschatology, the early evangelicals were most always post-millennialists, being the besteaded progress of the gospel and that would bring blessings over the whole world before the return of Jesus Christ, so that his return would be after the millennium, post-millennialism.

David Bebbington:

However, that's the phase that is strong in the early 19th century and remains so, but then is gradually superseded by another phase, which is really a cultural reaction against the Enlightenment.

David Bebbington:

It's usually labeled romanticism, with a stress not on reason but on will and emotion, on nature, and that had an enormous impact on the evangelical movement. Some people picked up its emphases on the dramatic, for example, and, reading the dramatic bits of the Bible more closely, adopted a very different eschatology, believing that in the future Jesus would come and he would come soon. There were pre-millennialists believing that Jesus' second coming would be before the millennium, and so there was a movement towards conservative theology associated with pre-millennialism in the late 19th and early 20th century, the evangelical world, which again can be linked with the cultural phase that was developing. Conversely, some people picked up liberal trends within the Romantic movement and adopted a more liberal theology, believing that there should be more emphasis on human relations, feelings, natural families, so that some theology became vaguer. So those two movements are enormously important and I can point to subsequent movements too that had an impact on the evangelical mood. It was never static. It actually shared in the development of Western civilization.

Brian Stiller:

David, let's come back to something that you are so famous for and that came out of this book in 89 called Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, and you helped the evangelical world and those beyond to give parameters to what evangelicals believed and did. It's famously called the Bebbington quadrilateral, a fairly much of a tongue twister, but something that is very elementary in construct but very important for evangelicals for their self-definition and for others outside of the evangelical world to help understand who we are. So, first of all, what is the quadrilateral and where did it come from? And then, if you could walk us through these four essential, not milestones, actually guardrails that help bring definition.

David Bebbington:

That book that you point to does indeed start by trying to say what the subject of the book is the evangelical movement in Britain. So it tries to describe what evangelicals have been like over the whole period of their existence, from the early 18th century right through to the late 20th century. And what I came up with was what I thought everybody knew already, which was that evangelicals laid particular emphasis on four things. Other people hold these things but don't necessarily emphasize them. Evangelicals emphasize the Bible. They believe that the Bible is authoritative. They believe the Bible should the Bible. They believe that the Bible is authoritative. They believe the Bible should be studied. They believe the Bible is the word of God that should be honoured and should be transmitted to others. They believe in the atonement of Jesus Christ, his work upon the cross, where he actually achieved salvation for humanity, where he actually achieved salvation for humanity. And that emphasis on the cross is not the only emphasis that people can make when they want to talk about the importance of Jesus. People can talk about his example, people can talk about his leadership. Well, evangelicals didn't want to deny that, but have always wanted to emphasize the cross as the time when Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice to bring sinners to God. So Bible and cross, but then conversion. Evangelicals, in every period and in every place, have wanted other people to become Christians and have urged upon them the experience of being converted, being born again, and many people have very vividly expressed their experience of that process. Indeed, not necessarily be it one particular juncture. Some evangelicals have insisted that it can be gradual, others have stressed more that it should be an immediate juncture when it takes place.

David Bebbington:

Conversion is another of the four elements, and the final one is activism. If people are to be converted, then there has to be a preaching of the gospel, it has to be evangelism. So evangelism is the cardinal element in the activism. It is, I think, the fourth mark of evangelicals. But normally evangelicals have not restricted themselves to evangelism in their activism. They have believed also in various forms of social concern and often been very energetic. Most obvious instance is in the abolition of the slave trade, but in so many other ways they've been up and doing so. Bible, cross-conversion activism. They've been up and doing so. Bible, cross-conversion activism. These, I think, are the hallmarks that together have been what makes evangelicalism distinctive over time.

Brian Stiller:

Why do you think the rest of the world picked up so quickly on your definition? What was lacking that caused people to so enthusiastically embrace this as a definer?

David Bebbington:

I don't think most people had stressed the atonement before the doctrine of the cross.

David Bebbington:

Some people have mentioned it, but I don't think it had been seen as foundational.

David Bebbington:

And I think that's especially true in the United States by previous attempts to characterize the movement, especially true in the United States by previous attempts to characterize the movement.

David Bebbington:

And I remembered that in the church where I was brought up in Nottingham the pulpit had on it one text, one text only. We preach Christ crucified and I realized from very young that that must be central into what our church was about, which was an evangelical Baptist church. And I wanted to stress that because in the sources that I looked at on the movement in the 18th, 19th, 20th centuries there was a constant emphasis on the cross, on the work of Jesus Christ in atoning for our sins, and so I wanted to bring that in and I think that clicked with people, many people who were looking for a useful characterisation of the movement realised yes, that's what I believe, let's put that down as what we believe as our community. And in America it came to be selected by the National Association of Evangelicals as something they put on their website fairly early stage saying this is the common ground of evangelicals. It's useful also that it's brief and students can remember it for essays. I think that helps too.

Brian Stiller:

In a more recent book published with Baylor, you had this interesting line. You said that sin is central to the worldview of evangelicals.

David Bebbington:

Yes, One of the reasons why the cross is so important is because the cross deals with sin. When I was thinking about how to characterize the movement in the introductory chapter of the book you've displayed, I did wonder at one point whether sin was so important to evangelicals that it ought actually to be another characteristic. But I decided no, because the reason why the cross is so important in large measure is because it deals with sin. So in a sense, the engagement with sin is subordinate to the importance of the cross, and so I'm glad I didn't put it in, because I do know that the evangelical preachers nowadays who think that, because the word sin is so hackneyed in many circles that it can be misleading, they use synonyms such as brokenness. They mean the same thing, but they don't necessarily use the word sin, so I'm glad I didn't. However, undoubtedly, sin has been really important to evangelicals, and I think that it needs to be taken account of in any discussion of the work of Christ on the cross.

Brian Stiller:

Well, now we're four decades later and I'm wondering whether there are additions, whether you would add a fifth or a sixth to it. For example, I suspect we would agree that probably the most dynamic form or the element of evangelicalism that is growing globally is a result of the Pentecostal charismatic movement and their emphasis on the empowerment of the Spirit. Would that be something you would want to add, or do you feel that the quadrilateral is pretty self-encompassing?

David Bebbington:

I have friends who would indeed wish to add the Holy Spirit as a fifth hallmark of evangelicalism. Clearly, the work of the Spirit is central to the evangelical development, in the same way that sin is, and indeed the Holy Spirit is he who actually counteracts sin in bringing people to God and leading to people having the forgiveness of their sins. So the Spirit is central at many points in the movement's trajectory. He was very commonly referred to, by George Whitefield, for example, in the 18th century and, as you rightly say, 20th century. Pentecostals have emphasized his work and charismatics more recently have done so too. However, there have been fundamentalists who undoubtedly fall within the evangelical camp, who have wanted to down-stress the work of the Spirit, attract attention from Jesus Christ himself and his capacity to save, and it is the work of the Spirit to draw attention to Christ. So if you stress the Spirit, you're not doing what the Spirit wants you to do.

David Bebbington:

Fundamentalists were very hot on that in the 1920s. I have myself been to churches where popular choruses have been changed so that the appeal to the Holy Spirit is eliminated on that ground. The point of the Christian faith, some fundamentalists were told, is the work of Christ. The Spirit must be downgraded. I think that attitude was quite common in the 1960s and 1970s, when the charismatic movement was taking off and some more hardline fundamentalists in particular felt that this was at risk of detracting from the deposit of the faith in the evangelical movement, and so they tended to say let's not talk about the Spirit, let's talk only about Jesus Christ. So I don't think you can say that an emphasis on the Spirit has always been there in all dimensions of the evangelical movement. I'd want to argue that all the four characteristics of the quadrilateral have always been there and remain so.

Brian Stiller:

Well, are fundamentalists evangelicals.

David Bebbington:

Yes, but they're a particular type of evangelical. George Marsden, the celebrated evangelical historian in the States, has said that a fundamentalist is an evangelical who's angry about something, and I think there's a lot of truth in that. Fundamentalists tend to be militant. But fundamentalists also have another characteristic they want to lay such stress on the Bible that they want to insist that biblical criticism is a waste of time and could indeed be worse it could be a diabolical plot. Now, very rarely have evangelicals who do not want to call themselves fundamentalists taken that line.

David Bebbington:

Biblical criticism, according to most evangelicals, has to be appraised. Some of it seem to be helpful, some of it seem to be a bad thing in many ways. But fundamentalists have nothing to do with any of it. So fundamentalists tend to be militant and have that distinctive attitude to the Bible, but they are a subgroup within evangelicalism rather than something different. Billy Graham, for example, that great evangelical preacher of the last generation, was definitely part of a fundamentalist movement and always so called himself and was so called in his early days. But gradually he merged into calling himself an evangelical because he didn't want to dismiss the whole of biblical criticism. He didn't want to be angry with people either.

Brian Stiller:

David, are there groups that are evangelical by your definition but who wouldn't want to associate with the name?

David Bebbington:

Yes, I think, in for much of the 20th century, the Southern Baptist Convention, which became the largest Protestant denomination in the United States and was certainly evangelical in itself and was certainly evangelical in itself, emphasizing those four points of the quadrilateral and being very effective evangelistically. But the Southern Baptist Convention very rarely wanted to call itself evangelical. It was Southern Baptist. The evangelicals were dismissed. Indeed, one of the leading Southern Baptists at one point said we don't call ourselves evangelicals, that's a Yankee word. So they were very dismissive indeed. They were evangelicals but they didn't call themselves. So that's been true of a lot of Methodists too. Again, they had their own denomination, it was big enough to absorb their identity and yet, yes, they have been evangelicals. So I do think there are people who fit the characterization, do not call themselves so Are Pentecostals evangelicals.

David Bebbington:

Yes, definitely, and one can demonstrate that by the trajectory that leads to the emergence of the Pentecostal movement at the start of the 20th century.

David Bebbington:

If you begin with John Wesley, he was very much a preacher of holiness. His followers adopted his belief in entire sanctification and holiness groups sprang from those Methodist bodies. In the late 19th century, the holiness movement was the main focus that led to the creation of Pentecostalism at the very start of the 20th century. They wanted to seek holiness in the fresh experience after conversion, and then they began to think that there's another fresh experience after conversion, which is again the gift of the Spirit, which is not just sanctification but the empowering by the Spirit or even and this was very common the baptism of the Spirit. But that is the way in which Pentecostalism emerged, not its soul roots. There are other influences too, but that is the main tradition and therefore I do think that the Pentecostals and their origins were evangelical and remain so. It's interesting that when the National Association of Evangelicals was founded in America in the 1940s, some Pentecostals joined it right from the start.

David Bebbington:

They realized they were evangelical, and although some in some parts of the world would want to emphasize that Pentecostalism is distinctive and is not necessarily to be identified with evangelicalism, that's really similar to the attitude of the Southern Baptists in the 20th century. They were so big they didn't need to identify with a larger movement. Pentecostalism is now so big globally, that can be so too, but yes, the emphases are there. They're evangelical.

Brian Stiller:

David, let's jump into current realities. We know that in the US and places like Brazil and even Zambia, that the word evangelical has taken on a social, political, conservative definition, and so I'm wondering has the evangelical name being so politicized as to it not necessarily being definitive or useful?

David Bebbington:

I know that quite a lot of people believe that to be so. That's why some people who are definitely evangelical in convictions and behavior, have dropped the word. There are congregations that now call themselves a community church, which in the past would have called themselves an evangelical church, and that's because they don't want to be regarded as identified with a particular political stance, a particular political stance. It's interesting that that identification with a particular political stance is not universal in the world.

David Bebbington:

In Britain, for example, the world, the evangelical world I know best, there is no strong identification with the right in politics. Indeed, since the 1960s, if anything, I think, evangelicals have tended to be tied slightly left of center, although there has been an enormous range of political views. So it's not true that throughout the world there's been that shift towards a particular type of right-wing mobilization that has found expression in the United States as well as the global South countries you've mentioned. It needs to be insisted, I think, that although some evangelicals have taken on a political identity which they regard as rooted in their faiths, nevertheless evangelicalism is a religious movement, not a political movement, and other evangelicals would disagree with the political inferences that some people in our day draw from their faith. After all, over time, evangelicalism has generated more reform movements than most other agencies in the world, and I think that that reforming impulse is just as strong as the right-wing populist emphasis that you speak of in our day.

Brian Stiller:

The pollster Ryan Burge from the US has noted that even in the Jewish and Muslim community, in various polls a small percentage, but a definitive percentage of those groups would identify themselves as evangelical. Does this suggest the word has simply become political?

David Bebbington:

I'm sure that its political associations would have influenced some of those people to say, yes, that I am an evangelical. After all, people do tend to answer pollsters according to what they think the pollsters want them to say. If they think that that's so about the word evangelical, them to say, If they think that that's so about the word evangelical, they'll affirm it. There's also the more general point that a person of another religious faith might want to use evangelical in the common or garden way which is sometimes used. People talk of salesmen being evangelical, by which they mean earnest, insistent, clamant, and I think some people may feel that in their own faith they are wanting to be earnest and committed. A Muslim might say I'm evangelical in my faith, meaning simply, I want to spread it. I believe it's true. I want to commend it in the way that evangelical Christians do so. In a way, I'm not surprised, but it is something of a novelty.

Brian Stiller:

David. Here in Canada, George Rawlick, now deceased, who was professor of history at Queen's University, worked on a national poll on evangelicalism and defining who he is and who is not, and they learned about 15% of Roman Catholics self-identified as evangelicals. And they learned about 15% of Roman Catholics self-identified as evangelicals.

Brian Stiller:

Is this consistent with your understanding?

David Bebbington:

my conviction is that, although evangelicalism undoubtedly sprang from Protestantism and has remained Protestant in its affinities over time, nevertheless a lot of Catholics would be marked by the same characteristics that the quadrilateral points to. In Dublin, around about 1980, there was founded an organization called Evangelical Catholics, an organization, so people were prepared to define themselves as, yes, continuing Roman Catholics in their faith, but nevertheless wanting to affirm the evangelical priorities. They actually adopted the Lowe's Confession, the Lowe's Uncovenant, which was adopted by global evangelicals in the 1970s, as their own confession of faith. That means that in our day, some Roman Catholics feel that the evangelical expression of the Christian faith is theirs, and if so, then I'm very happy. They should be regarded as evangelicals they want to be. They are.

Brian Stiller:

Thank you, david, for joining us today and for sharing with us your expertise and insight into the history of evangelicalism, and thank you for being part of the podcast. Be sure to share this episode using hashtag evangelical360, and please subscribe on YouTube. If you'd like to learn more about today's guest, check the show notes for links and info, and if you haven't already received my free e-book and newsletter, please go to brianstillercom. Thank you, until next time.

Brian Stiller:

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