evangelical 360°

Ep. 34 / The Evolution and Global Impact of Evangelicalism ► David Bebbington (Part 2)

• Host Brian Stiller • Season 1 • Episode 34

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David Bebbington, the world's foremost scholar on evangelicalism, returns for a second illuminating conversation that dives deep into the global evolution and remarkable growth of the evangelical movement.

Starting with his observations on evangelicalism's consistent characteristics worldwide, Bebbington explains how the movement maintains its core identity across vastly different cultural contexts. He makes a compelling case for retaining the term "evangelical" despite political associations in America, arguing this centuries-old religious identifier serves a crucial function for believers worldwide who share common theological commitments.

The conversation explores evangelicalism's extraordinary numerical expansion from approximately 90 million adherents in 1960 to over 600 million today. Bebbington attributes this unprecedented growth primarily to evangelicalism's emphasis on personal evangelism, reinvigorated by Pentecostal and charismatic movements that have injected fresh spiritual dynamism across denominations and borders.

Yet alongside this expansion, Bebbington identifies serious challenges facing evangelicals today. External persecution threatens believers in many regions, while internally, he warns against "therapeutic evangelicalism" - a shallow, psychologically-oriented approach lacking doctrinal substance. His concerns about declining biblical literacy and the rise of Christian nationalism reveal the tensions within modern evangelicalism as it navigates contemporary cultural pressures.

Drawing from his extensive publication history and research spanning Baptist communities, Methodism, and denominational studies, Bebbington demonstrates why historical understanding remains vital for evangelical identity. His insights on colonialism's complex relationship with evangelicalism and the increasing collaboration across denominational lines provide essential context for anyone seeking to understand this global religious movement.

Whether you're a scholar of religious history, an evangelical believer seeking deeper understanding of your tradition, or simply curious about one of the world's fastest-growing religious movements, this conversation offers invaluable perspective from one of Christianity's most respected historians. 

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 and on YouTube, please subscribe. My guest today is David Bebbington. This is the second in our podcast with him. Bebbington is this is the second in our podcast with him.

Brian Stiller:

Bebbington is 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 worldwide. Beyond the sheer numerical growth over the past few decades, there have 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 second podcast with David Bebbington. Now, david, you've written out of your United Kingdom experience and your location, but in your travels, in your studies globally, does the evangelical faith manifest itself differently in places, for example, outside of Europe or North America into the global South Africa, latin America and Asia. Is there different manifestations of evangelicals or is the characteristics that you've identified consistently identify those groups, regardless of where they are.

David Bebbington:

It is very remarkable that those characteristics do seem to be global over space, just as they have been consistent over time Enormous.

David Bebbington:

Lots of other things about the evangelical movement have changed, but there is that remarkable degree of consistency. For example, a few years ago there was a conference that I had a hand in organizing at Baylor University in Texas on evangelicalism in Latin America, and lots of the contributors said we are talking about the same thing that exists in the United States, and that is a marked feature of much Latin American evangelicalism that it does identify with the same movement of the United States. Now, it's not surprising. Many of the churches created in Latin America had their roots in North America. So they're simply being consistent over time and call themselves evangelical. So they're simply being consistent over time and call themselves evangelical. It's interesting, though, that in Spanish, as I understand it, in Latin America, where evangelical is the common word now for virtually all Protestants, the word Protestant never really became an important one. In many Latin American countries, evangelical has taken its place. That's not surprising, because the vast bulk of Protestants in Latin America are indeed evangelical Protestants. So, yes, the movement is global with the same characteristics, notwithstanding local distinctives.

Brian Stiller:

Tim Keller, former pastor in New York, was asked the question given that the evangelical world has been associated, at least in the US, with a certain social political movement, is it time to change the name? And his line was why should the rest of the world allow 10% of its church community to find what they call themselves of its church community, define what they call themselves? So out of that, I guess the question that some of my colleagues ask is it time to change the name?

David Bebbington:

My own conviction is that no, it is not because that label has become time-honored. It has been used consistently over more than two centuries and has a longer antecedent behind that too, and I would not wish to replace it. If we were to replace it, the word gospel could be used in many contexts. It's not necessarily going to be an obvious word to replace evangelical, but the word evangelical is derivation means of the gospel, so it's very close, and indeed in a series of volumes I've edited for Baylor University Press in recent years, in order to avoid having the same word in the title and subtitle, I've had evangelical in the subtitle, but in the title I've used the word gospel, and I do think that that is the most obvious candidate. However, my view would be that it's undesirable to replace it, because not everybody would replace it all over the world straight away. What needs to be done is to insist that it is a religious movement, not a political movement, and then to adopt it, say yes, we are evangelical, and I actually think that's important for its practical implications.

David Bebbington:

In some countries, evangelical Christians of various bodies can be regarded as cults. That's especially true in France, for example. If they can say we are not a peculiar hole in the corner, tiny group that you can call a cult, if they can say that no, we're not a cult because we're part of this broad global evangelical movement that has these characteristics. That's a very important defense that they have. Sometimes legislation can try to condemn or even ban cults that has been tried in France but because there is an overarching body that labels itself evangelical, that has enabled them to ward off the threat of anti-evangelical legislation. So I do think the word evangelical has a significant contemporary role in defending the interests of all those who fall under its umbrella.

Brian Stiller:

David, in 1960, the estimates were there were 90 million evangelicals in the world. That was 1960, so 90 million evangelicals then. Today there's about over 600 million evangelicals globally. So we've gone from 90 million to 600 million in just a few decades, historically. As you look at that over these last few decades, what would be the driving factors that would bring about this very remarkable growth that I don't think any other religious community has seen in the history of the world? What do you think are the drivers for that growth?

David Bebbington:

Well, the primary driver is the priority of evangelism.

David Bebbington:

Evangelical leaders in the 20th and early 21st centuries have emphasized that the gospel is there to be spread, not just to be enjoyed. So that conferences have been held with increasing global support, and those conferences have transmitted the message to church members. But there is also the personal drive when one does have the experience of coming to faith, one wants to spread it. So that spread is almost a spontaneous thing, encouraged by leaders, but spontaneous from within.

David Bebbington:

I think it's true to say that because Pentecostalism has been so powerful in the 20th and early 21st centuries, it has added fresh dynamic in churches that might otherwise have been fading in their enthusiasm for spreading the gospel and charismatic renewal, which I would see as something a bit different in its origins from Pentecostalism. That charismatic renewal has had a similar impact in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. There's a fresh spiritual dynamic that has moved the whole movement forward. When that's been said, one can point to other dimensions of the movement, such as the revival of reformed theology, the theology associated with Calvin, which have given backbone to other evangelical groups that have helped them to spread too. So there's this sense of the spiritual wellspring of experience and doctrine that still is flowing freely and has led to the growth you've spoken of.

Brian Stiller:

We have moved through the various periods of colonialism, post-colonialism, globalization and now we see emerging forms of nationalism. In that, those larger social economic moves, what do you think are the challenges that evangelicals as denominations, as churches, as congregations, as ministry agencies, as leaders, what do we face in the coming decades?

David Bebbington:

I think from without persecution is a major factor Various capable Christian organizations, which points to the extraordinary degree of persecution of Christians in many countries. Sub-saharan Africa has appalling experiences nowadays From within. I think there are other and in a sense more sinister threats. I think there are trends within evangelicalism which point to a thinning of its convictions. There's a phenomenon that in America has been labeled therapeutic evangelicalism, which is that evangelicalism is designed to meet your personal psychological needs, which is very, very shallow on doctrine, and I don't think any religion can flourish unless it has a pretty strong intellectual base. And if you turn evangelicalism to something that just meets your own personal needs in a psychological way, without doctrinal content, it's likely to last over many generations. People have real experiences through popular preachers of that style, but I don't think over the long term it's a very successful phenomenon.

David Bebbington:

There is a very strong risk too that Bible knowledge will become very thin. Up to the mid-20th century everybody in the English-speaking world knew what the Bible was. It was the King James Version and they learned to quote it and they internalized it. And it was a common part of the Christian and especially the evangelical evangelical experience to know the Bible's phrases. The multiplication of versions of the Bible in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, although it's been good in helping us to understand what the Bible really means, has led to a weakening of an actual capacity to memorize, to internalize bits of the Bible, and that, I think, means that the biblical foundations which are so important to the movement risk being undermined unless preachers take pains to encourage Bible knowledge in their congregations. So I think there are external threats. There are internal threats, as in every generation there are.

Brian Stiller:

Currently in North America there is a movement that has centered itself around the notion of Christian nationalism or dominion theology. Interestingly enough, that movement came out of my own life experience as the son of a bishop of Pentecostals in Saskatchewan. The movement was called Latter Rain in 1947-48, which focused on the, the five-fold gifts and the, the appointment of people as having those gifts and the use of those gifts in a kind of a top-down authoritarian management of church groups. This moved its way eventually into the states, was accepted by peter w Wagner under what's called the New Apostolic Reformation, found its way into Christian nationalism in various ways, as its moves about today, has branded itself around a political religious philosophy of America, god's call to be his messenger in the world, and it centers around, of course, the president and this notion that the seven mountains in the culture are to be taken over by evangelicals, by believers, and thus rule the nation. That's a bit of a mouthful, but, as a historian, as you look at that, how does that operate? Or does its over

David Bebbington:

the whole trajectory

David Bebbington:

of its

David Bebbington:

existence has been to reform things that are wrong. Now that doesn't normally lead to a sense of the capacity of the evangelical movement to be assertive in the way that the dominion movement you described does. It can lead in that way. One thinks in the 17th century of the predecessors of the evangelical movement in the fifth monarchy movement, of thinking the return of Jesus was imminent, king Jesus, his kingdom, what was about to appear. As his followers, it was their duty to ensure it came immediately. And they caused a considerable problem around about 1660, because they didn't approve of Charles II as an alternative to King Jesus. So there have been precedents, but they tend to pass In our day.

David Bebbington:

I confess that that movement is troubling because it is not just a movement that's come to expression in the United States but has been exported to other parts of the world. Most obviously, I think, latin America, where it has affected the politics of Brazil and affected the politics of Bolivia in quite strong ways, became evident from a book that I edited on evangelicalism in Latin America. And I think what is important is that in those countries there are other evangelicals who do not share that dominionist point of view, who say we are evangelicals too. Read your Bibles and see whether there are other cautions in the Bible about that point of view. I'd love to think that they became more eloquent over time and I think they might.

Brian Stiller:

The great gift that you have been to us as a historian. Did that come naturally to you, and what would you say to the rest of us, or to young scholars who are looking for areas in which they could devote themselves to serve the global witness of the church?

David Bebbington:

I do believe that being a historian can be a Christian vocation. In North America there is an organization which actually encourages younger scholars to be Christian historians. There's a sister organization in Britain, which is roughly 100th the size, which does the same, and I think that they are extremely important. Why? Because if one understands the past one can understand the present. And only if one understands the past one can understand the present. And only if one understands the past can one understand the present, not wholly, but in much greater measure. Themselves enjoying doing history as an academic discipline in their universities would see evangelical history as an enormously rich potential field to explore.

David Bebbington:

The 18th and the 20th centuries are pretty well populated by historians at the moment. The 19th century, when the evangelical movement in North America and the British Isles was at its strongest, remained relatively uncultivated, and there are enormously important topics to be studied on both sides of the Atlantic. There are therefore academic careers to be carved out. There are therefore academic careers to be carved out. I do think it's important that people who do study the evangelical past should be part of the broader historical community, seeing the evangelical movement, yes, as part of the Christian church's history, but see it also as part of the social, cultural and political history of the lands where the movement has spread. Only so could it be understood in its totality. I'd love to think that more members of ordinary university history departments would pay more attention to the work of the evangelical movement in the past in their studies. I think it may happen.

Brian Stiller:

You have written a number of publications. Can you take us through your publications and how those publications have been marks on your journey of understanding and of research?

David Bebbington:

Yes, with pleasure. I began being interested in history when I was a small boy. I had a very excellent primary school teacher who saw that I was interested in history and said why didn't I do a project on the history of the ancient world? So I did, and I produced four volumes and 120 pages altogether with footnotes on the history of the ancient world, with which is incorporated classical mythology. That was the title At the time. My age was nine. Therefore I was typecast from a very early age.

David Bebbington:

When I was in the final year at school, I went to the secretary of the local antiquarian society for the county and asked what topic should I study for fun before I went up to university? And I suggested one topic might be the history of my own Baptist church. He said yes, do that. That's not enormously well covered ground. So I went around asking all older members about the history of the church, went through the minutes and produced a little history of the church. That was an evangelical church in Nottingham and I realised that I needed to know more about the political engagement that members of this church would have had in the late 19th century. So I thought well, when I've been to university and done an undergraduate degree. Why don't I try to write a PhD on nonconformist evangelical churches and politics in the late 19th century? It turned out that it was possible to do that. I was very kindly supported by a state grant to pursue my hobby. So I wrote a book called the Nonconformist Conscience on the basis of my PhD. So the Nonconformist Conscience is about churches in Britain that were evangelical and their political engagement under the leadership of the liberal statesman William E Gladstone.

David Bebbington:

My subsequent work took two directions One to cover the evangelical movement increasingly becoming global. The other was to study the Liberal Party that Gladstone led and especially Gladstone himself. So on the Gladstone side I produced three books and that's obviously pretty mainstream history in the United Kingdom, a statesman with global reach, so very important, but nevertheless somebody who was a very significantly British figure. He never actually traveled across the Atlantic, for example. But also I pursued the evangelical movement in many dimensions, the book that you've spoken of and waved to us. Thank you very much. That is the foundation of my work on the evangelical movement.

David Bebbington:

Some of the articles have recently been gathered together in this volume, a two-volume collection of my articles called Evangelical Quadrilateral. What other title could be chosen? Those articles published over the years, gathered together 16 in each of the two volumes Bailey University Press. But I'm a Baptist and so I've naturally taken an interest in Baptist history too, within the evangelical movement, and I've written in several books on Baptists one on Baptists throughout the world, a global history that came out in 2010,. The second edition of 2018, again from Baylor University Press.

David Bebbington:

So I've tried to pursue Baptist history, as it were, as a case study within the evangelical movement, and at present, when I get around to doing it, I'm trying to work on Methodism in a similar way. I'm looking at Methodism in the Victorian period in Britain through two lenses the lens of an enormously strong city centre church in Leeds called Brunswick Methodist Chapel, which was enormously influential in the north of England, and also Methodism in the Shetland Islands off the north coast of Scotland, where there was no big church at all lots of scattered little churches, roughly the same number of Methodists trying to look how different they were in different situations. So seeing the interplay of local culture on these various bodies. My most recent book, which has not yet appeared but has been submitted to the publisher again Bailey University Press, is entitled Denominations. It's entitled Denominations and it is a book that attempts to provide a history of all the current denominations in Great Britain and North America.

David Bebbington:

Now, this ridiculously overambitious project I blame entirely on my wife. She says that friends of hers ask her why are there so many different churches, and she mistakenly thought I might know the answer and I should write a book. I didn't, so of course I had to do a lot of reading, but it did me a lot of good and I produced that book, which should appear in a couple of years time from Baby University Press. So that's the sort of trajectory of my publications. I've been very privileged to be able to pursue my hobby and get paid for it.

Brian Stiller:

David, I find it curious that you would come to this assessment of a definition of evangelicals and what is called your quadrilateral, but you did it in a place that is known for its colonialism. But you did it in a place that is known for its colonialism, the British Commonwealth of Nations, of which we in Canada were part and continue to be a part. But how might that analysis that you make in the UK, at the heart of this colonial enterprise, how could that be also a suitable and an accurate definition for those?

Brian Stiller:

who are part of the colonial enterprise in Africa or Latin America or Asia, wherever, or countries that had nothing to do with your British colonial enterprise.

David Bebbington:

One of the more fascinating aspects of work I've done in more recent years has been to see how that the attitudes and activities of the evangelical movement in Britain has spread to other parts of the world. Now it is partly through the colonists themselves, people who went out as emigrants from Britain, immigrants to places like Canada, australia, new Zealand, south Africa, and, in smaller numbers, to other parts of the world, apart, of course, from the United States, which always took the largest number of immigrants but was not part of our empire after the 1780s. I have found it fascinating to look at the way in which the attitudes and activities of the evangelical groups that went out in that way were very, very similar, to a large extent identical to contemporary attitudes in Britain, and I'm illustrating that in the near future Next month, all being well I'm coming to Acadia Divinity School in Nova Scotia giving a lecture at a Baptist history conference on conservatism, liberalism and Canadian Baptists. Now that's about the conservative theological trends, the liberal theological trends and how they've impacted on Canada in that one denomination the Baptists over time but it's informed by the sort of experience I've had of exploring the sources on the British side. In the following month, in May, I'm going to do a paper at the Anglican Theological College in Melbourne, lidley College. I'm going to do a paper that I actually finished writing yesterday, intriguingly on the Melbourne General Cemetery and how that can be seen as a key to understanding the denominational pattern prevailing amongst colonists in the mid-19th century, and I've very much enjoyed it. It's been fresh. I depend on my personal library, of course, for doing this, but that's there, I'm glad to say, and it's been possible.

David Bebbington:

I've found that the british colonial experience has informed my understanding of the church history of much of the english-speaking world of the commonwealth. There's a downside as well, of course. The aborigines weren't treated very nicely in melbourne, for instance. That is to say, the indigenous Australians were neglected and sometimes treated with contempt. The efforts to spread the gospel to them were not as powerful as they ought to have been, partly because of the difficulty of translation of the Bible into a multiplicity of languages. So there is that downside. But in relation to the history of the british empire one must never forget the enormous contribution and enduring legacy of that great evangelical leader, william wilberforce and his campaign, the ending of slavery, greatest plot on the scutcheon of british history in the period in the 19th century. And there was that successful attempt to do away with the slave trade and subsequently the campaign against slavery too. These things must not be forgotten in our day.

Brian Stiller:

As you've looked at denominations, do you see much collaboration and if you do, what values do you see out of the collaboration the breaking down of denominational barriers so that groups can work together? Is there much evidence for that?

David Bebbington:

Definitely, I think since the 1960s there has been a marked weakening of denominational allegiance in many of the Western countries. That is partly because charismatic renewal created bonds between congregations that had experienced renewal. They had more in common with other congregations in other denominations that were charismatic, with congregations in their own denomination that were not, with congregations of their own denomination that were not. Also, in a period when in the West religion has not been as flourishing as it was before the 1960s the exception of parts of the United States that there's almost been a necessity for collaboration. Christians have been thrown together for common effort.

David Bebbington:

In the third world, the common enterprise of spreading the gospel has sometimes led to greater denominational identity. But even there, sometimes collaboration has been very marked. It can be a good thing. It can, however, lead to a loss of a blessing showered on particular Christian groups in the past. To have forgotten, for example, the legacy of William Wilberforce would be an enormous loss. To have forgotten the legacy of William Carey, the great missionary, founder, would be an enormous loss. And sometimes I think that a mixing together of groups in our day has led to the loss of the historical memories which could entrench and empower the church in our day. But there are remedies for that, and the chief remedy is reading more history books.

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 a 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 book and newsletter, please go to brianstillercom. And please note that this is the second podcast that we have done with David Bevington. You may want to go back and listen to the first podcast as well.

Brian Stiller:

Thank you, until next time, don't miss the next interview, be sure to subscribe to Evangelical 360 on YouTube.