Digging into pop-Protestantism

We Are All Non-Denominational Now Part Three

This post is part three of a series of friendly critiques of Gavin Ortlund’s book What It Means to Be a Protestant. You can read the first post here and the second post here.

I have met Glen Scrivener and have interviewed him before for an online church event. He is kind, pastoral, and thoughtful. I listen to his podcast often and came across this video¹ a few days ago. You should definitely watch it. He is one of the first people I have heard address why some evangelicals are struggling in their churches and I wish more people would talk about it with as much detail and care as he shows.

I think he is missing a few things which I want to address, but I also want to build on his categories because I think they’re really excellent and very helpful. As we go, I’ll throw in a few connections with Gavin Ortlund’s book as well.

In the podcast, Scrivener creates a new label called pop Protestantism², describing it as “a kind of paperback Protestantism that sells in the millions. The kind of Protestantism that many people leave behind either in order to deconstruct their faith entirely or to jump ship to Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy.” But the next part of the point he makes is worth quoting in full.

It is very popular at the moment to be an ex-vangelical. It’s very popular to deconstruct the Protestantism of one’s youth. But then usually what happens is you compare the worst of your teenage appreciation for the evangelical past that you once had and you compare that to the great tradition of the eastern or western fathers of the church and you find pop Protestantism to be wanting. Well, quelle surprise, as the French say. Of course, if you are going to compare your teenage appreciation for what your youth pastor said on a Friday night, if you’re going to compare that with what St. Athanasius said, you are going to find your experience of Protestantism to be lacking. But I do think that there is a real thing that you can experience.

That is not what many of the people leaving Protestantism for Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy are doing. They are not comparing what their youth pastor said to St. Athanasius. They are comparing St. Athanasius to their current church experience and formation. The churches they attend on the ground are at worst the prime example of pop-protestantism or at best, heavily influenced by it.

They cannot escape the characteristics Scrivener lists³ and they cannot influence their leadership to not continue to hold or enforce them. Many of their leaders simply do not see these deviations as something to hate, but as a good to be embraced. There is nowhere for them to go without variations of those influences existing in their current church or following them to their next church, often regardless of it being confessionally Protestant or not.

I would guess, many of them, including myself, are in agreement with Scrivener’s pop-Protestant categories, but many have begun to see those characteristics as Protestantism itself, because functionally, the street-level experience is varying shades of exactly what he describes: anti-catholic⁴, ahistorical⁵, memorialist⁶, conversionist⁷, pragmatic⁸, splintered⁹, reductionist¹⁰, rife with individualism¹¹ and the prosperity gospel¹², and layered in enthusiasm¹³.

Even the description of what Scrivener points to as his own experience in church doesn’t reflect the majority of church experience in America. It just simply doesn’t. The inheritance of American evangelicalism comes from people like Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, Charles Hodge, Billy Graham or Rick Warren. Are there people like Phillip Schaff, John Nevin, Thomas Oden, and others? Yes, of course. But the influence of someone like Schaff isn’t as prevalent as someone like Warren or Graham. Scrivener is articulating an Anglican expression of Christianity that would be soundly rejected by many quarters of American evangelicalism as too-Catholic.¹⁴ What he is advocating for almost no one can have without having to heavily supplement from outside their own church and even then, one has to intentionally work to undo that kind of pop-protestant formation in other ways.

If one begins supplementing their own church experience from the outside, doesn’t it just fuel discontentment? Doesn’t it, in some way, also subvert church authority? Are our Christian practices really just another form of choose-your-own spiritual adventure? Can I choose to ignore what my pastor says about key theological issues we don’t agree on? Isn’t that a way of succumbing to expressive individualism and remixing my own brand of Christianity to suit my personal tastes?

What, then, is the real thing that I can experience in Protestantism if there are so many barriers in place to prevent it? How is an average church member supposed to approach such issues with their leadership? Hold their own mini-Reformation? Attempt to humbly address them with a thoughtful letter outlining their concerns? What is one supposed to do if their legitimate concerns are labeled as preferences?¹⁵

If true Protestantism is the antidote to pop-Protestantism, as Scrivener claims, why do our churches not reflect that version of Protestantism? I can understand why some people are left wondering if pop-Protestantism is exactly where always reforming leads. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

Ortlund admits that many contemporary Protestant churches have drifted from historic expressions of worship, sacraments, views of church membership, the nature of preaching, and the relationship between faith and works. He stresses that his argument is not focused “on the outward form or appearance of the church, but more on her essential faith and doctrine. ” He says that even though many people have seen the historical, liturgical, and sacramental shallowness within Protestant churches, we need to have greater charity and carefulness and that “any reasonable appraisal of a tradition must distinguish between street-level and official representation” as it is unfair to judge otherwise. ¹⁶

I think this is an outrageous claim. Is there not a direct correlation between what we say and what we do? The outward form and appearance of the church have a direct relationship to what the church says. If someone treats us terribly but says verbally that they love us, we immediately doubt their sincerity, as we should. Our street-level Protestant churches are a reflection of what we believe about God regardless of what our essential faith and doctrine are. The loss of our historic expression of Protestantism demonstrates visibly the poverty of our theology.

These deviations come from somewhere. They don’t just develop overnight or suddenly appear. There are, of course, cultural forces at play, but I think we often focus on cultural issues when we should be looking at ourselves. I want to focus particularly on the theological connections with these ideas from church history.

What are the roots of anti-catholic bias? Doesn’t it start with some of our confessions? For example, the historical Westminster Confession¹⁷ directly states that the Pope is “that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself, in the Church, against Christ and all that is called God,” implies that the Roman Catholic church is a “synagogue of satan,” and calls the Catholic mass a form of idolatry.¹⁸

Two of the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles state:

XXII. Purgatory

The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping, and Adoration, as well of Images as of Reliques, and also invocation of Saints, is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.

XIX. Of the Church

The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.

As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred; so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith.

And Martin Luther himself writes this about the Catholic church:

Even if we were stones and wooden blocks, we could see by your works throughout all the world that you are lost, desperate children of the devil and also mad, crude asses in Scripture. Someone probably would like to curse you so that you might be struck down by lightning and thunder, burned by hellish fire, have the plague, syphilis, epilepsy, the plague of St. Anthony, leprosy, carbuncles, and all the plagues - but these are all caresses, and God has long ago punished you with greater plagues, just like God’s despisers and blasphemers should be punished.¹⁹

But in his book, Ortlund says that “Protestantism denies the claim that any one institutional hierarchy constitutes the “one true church.²⁰” Fair enough. But if our confessions are condemning Catholic worship practices as “repugnant to the Word of God” and claiming that “their living and manner of Ceremonies” and “matters of Faith” are in error, might that be easily misconstrued as advocating for a true church that excludes them? Or if you were to assume that Luther is talking only to the leaders of the Catholic church when he says they are “lost, desperate children of the devil,” might someone wonder if that is meant to apply to anyone worshipping in those churches?

What about the destruction and plundering of images and art in medieval churches and monasteries in the Reformation in regions under Zwingli and Calvin as well as during the English Reformation?²¹ Or the polemics against the Oxford Movement by people like Charles Hodge and William Goode? Are those historical anomalies?

What about current Protestant thought-leaders, podcasters and pastors (I am not including Glen here) who consistently throw suspicion and disapproval at congregants who have left evangelicalism for Catholicism or Orthodoxy, publicly questioning the legitimacy of their choice? Is that not in some way an anti-catholic bias? Can we not charitably disagree with someone while hoping for universal catholicity, a reconciled unity of the church and rely on God’s providence?²²

Do we believe that there are real Christians in the Catholic and Orthodox church or that people can experience God there, or not? I think our language communicates that we really don’t. I think it more often communicates that we see them as apostates, or if not an apostate, in danger of becoming one. For example, check out this website advertising a course to “explain the beliefs, worldview, and cultural background of Eastern Orthodox people in order to clearly share the Gospel with them. It offers practical strategies for meaningful conversations and Bible studies that help challenge Orthodox people with the Gospel.” Anti-catholic indeed.

What are the roots of the ahistorical and reductionist view of Christianity? I had to research this,²³ but I’m guessing it was the Stone-Campbell movement of the nineteenth century that began on the American frontier during the Second Great Awakening (1790-1840). Their goal? To reform the church from within through “the unification of all Christians in a single body patterned after the church of the New Testament.” ²⁴ After the American Revolution, the ideal of restoring a “primitive” form of Christianity grew in popularity in the U.S…

What were some of their slogans and key principles?

“Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent.”

“No creed but Christ, no book but the Bible, no law but love, no name but the divine.”

“In essentials, unity; in opinions, liberty; in all things love.”

1. Christianity should not be divided; Jesus intended the creation of one church.

2. Creeds divide, but Christians should be able to find agreement by standing on the Bible (from which they believe all creeds are but human expansions or constrictions)

3. Ecclesiastical traditions divide, but Christians should be able to find common ground by following the practice (as best as it can be determined) of the early church.

4. Names of human origin divide, but Christians should be able to find common ground by using biblical names for the church (i.e., “Christian Church”, “Church of God”, or “Church of Christ” as opposed to “Methodist” or “Lutheran”, etc.).

5. Thus, the church “should stress only what all Christians hold in common and should suppress all divisive doctrines and practices.”

Returning to the early church sounds like a good idea, but which early church? What standard practices? How will you determine what theological ideas they should be developed from if you are ignoring their history and context? What’s to prevent one from falling prey to the same heresies that the early church councils addressed?

How can I read the Bible without the historical context, historical traditional interpretations of passages vs. novel interpretations or even without considering how paratexts (things like the notes in the margins, titles of passages, appendices, etc) ²⁵ shape our practices, interpretations and ideas about scripture?

It’s also interesting to think of the connection here between the slogan above “In essentials, unity; in opinions, liberty; in all things love?” and the idea of theological triage²⁶ popularized by Al Mohler. He frames his concept by admonishing

Today’s Christian faces the daunting task of strategizing which Christian doctrines and theological issues are to be given highest priority in terms of our contemporary context…theological seriousness and maturity demand that we consider doctrinal issues in terms of their relative importance. God’s truth is to be defended at every point and in every detail, but responsible Christians must determine which issues deserve first-rank attention in a time of theological crisis.²⁷

Why do we need to rank theological ideas? Doesn’t ranking them communicate they could be seen as propositional and therefore expendable? How do we discern what their ranking should be when we disagree and who has the authority to decide their proper order? Or does that matter? Is there a sense in which our need to reduce theological complexity to something we can easily categorize is just disguised pragmatism?

What about memorialism? Scrivener explains this well, identifying Huldrych Zwingli, the Reformer who originates the position noting Martin Luther’s firm condemnation of a memorialist position on the sacraments. But why is memorialism now the majority view of Baptist, Pentecostal and most non-denominational churches? Almost two hundred years ago, John Nevin (German Reformed) accused Charles Hodge (Presbyterian), of leaning into the memorialism of Zwingli and away from Calvin’s definition of real presence.²⁸ Is it that many see any hint of sacramentalism as too-Catholic and therefore suspect? This is ironic considering the laity of the Catholic church during the Reformation didn’t celebrate communion regularly and what Calvin was actually calling for was a return to a higher view of it. The primary barrier to Calvin in instituting what he saw as necessary? The Genevan city council feared it might lead the city back to Rome.²⁹

Where does enthusiasm, conversionism, and pragmatism come from? Maybe a little more complicated but I think there are three significant strands. The first starts with Phillipp Jocham Spener (1635-1705), the founder of pietism.³⁰ In Pia Desideria he proposes six measures for revival in the German churches, which he thought had failed to complete the Reformation and fallen into “irrelevance and quarrels.” His measures included the organization of small groups for mediation and Bible study, emphasizing the priesthood of all believers. He stressed “the practical rather than theological and intellectual Christianity, the abandonment of argument with other churches, a reorganization of the training of future ministers at universities, and an increased emphasis on preaching.³¹” Pietism focused on the inward posture of the heart and the centrality of Scripture. Puritanism and pietism, although separate movements, were influential on each other and I think you can clearly see some evidence of this if you read some of the Puritan prayers, particularly Arthur Bennett’s Valley of Vision. Cotton Mather even corresponded with Spener.³² Who does Spener inspire? Many, but specifically John and Charles Wesley in England, who founded Methodism and between them, go on to write many of the favorite hymns of Protestantism.

Keep this in mind while we return to Ortlund in his chapter on recovering sola fide.³³ Ortlund includes a really beautiful passage from Catherine Parr, sixth wife of Henry VIII of England, where she writes about Matthew 11:28, “Come to me all you that labor and are burdened, and I shall refresh you.” What gentle, merciful, and comfortable words are these to all sinners?....By this faith I am assured: and by this assurance I feel the remission of my sins. This is it that maketh me bold…comforteth me…quencheth all despair…Thus, I feel myself to come, as it were, in a new garment before God, and now by his mercy, to be taken as just and righteous.³⁴” Ortlund proclaims after this quote “These are the words employed by a heart that has been touched by the gospel! ³⁵” And perhaps it is. I don’t want to completely discount our emotions; they are important! But is it possible we fall into the trap of equating salvation with a particular feeling? If I don’t feel a certain way, does it mean I’m doing it wrong? Is there an influence of pietism here and does it matter? What is the role of our language in articulating theological ideas?

From here, the second strand is revivalism. Charles Finney (1825), a charismatic pastor who was part of the Second Great Awakening (1790-1840) “turns the legal logic he had developed, and his courtroom skills, to the use of the pulpit. ³⁶” Finney introduces “New Measures” for revival which include

(1) basing sermons on sound oratorical and psychological principles, (2) protracted meetings, (3) securing decisions by the use of the “anxious seat, ³⁷” (4) using music to give the audience a sense of participation and to put them in the proper frame of mind,³⁸ (5) advertising the time and the place of the meetings, (6) allowing women to pray in public in the presence of men, and (7) praying for people by name in open meetings.³⁹

For Finney, preaching had to be exciting, for all ages, not too intellectual so it could be easily understood, and above all, crafted to get a response from the audience. He justified long meetings outside of Sunday saying “Their novelty excites and fixes attention. Their being continued from day to day served to enlighten the mind and has a philosophical tendency to issue in conversions. ⁴⁰” Arnold Kurtz,⁴¹ writing about Finney says,

An extremely important aspect of revival meetings (which Finney failed to discuss in his Lectures) was his use of music. The frontier camp meeting had strongly emphasized congregational singing, but the Presbyterian and Congregational churches were slow to abandon the old psalms and the stolid hymns of Isaac Watts. Finney did his best to promote good choir singing and introduced more modern music into his meetings.⁴²

Finney also marketed his revivals. Kurtz writes that Finney

carefully “trained” the members of his church in New York to “go out in the highways and hedges to bring people to hear preaching. When we wished to give notice of any extra meetings, little slips of paper, on which was printed an invitation to attend the services, would be carried from house to house in every direction” by both men and women of the congregation. By this method of advertising “the house could be filled any evening in the week. ⁴³”

The emphasis on the personality and charisma of the preacher, the shift from revivals being miraculous to being engineered, reliance on high production quality, emotional manipulation, activism, and marketing, are all introduced by Finney’s methods. ⁴⁴

The third significant strand is Charles Hodge. One of Hodge’s main contributions was the science of theology, approaching the Bible for the data that could be gleaned from it, explaining “The Bible is to the theologian what nature is to the man of science. It is his store-house of facts; and his method of ascertaining what the Bible teaches, is the same as that which the natural philosopher adopts to ascertain what nature teaches. ⁴⁵” He combines “something akin to the inductive scientific methodology of Francis Bacon blended with the Common Sense philosophy of Thomas Reid.⁴⁶” What are these two things? Common Sense Realism “[an emphasis on] man’s innate ability to perceive common ideas and that this process is inherent in and interdependent with judgement” making “common sense…the foundation of philosophical inquiry. ⁴⁷” And Bacon’s methodology, which replaces “deductive reasoning (beginning with assumed truths) with inductive reasoning (beginning with experience and observation). ⁴⁸”

Hodge’s emphasis on common sense seems to me to inadvertently strip most of the allegory and symbolism out of how we read scripture, reducing it to facts and grounding it to be understood primarily in a literal, realistic way. He says later on in the beginning of his Systematic Theology:

“These facts are all in the Bible. This is true, because everything revealed in nature, and in the constitution of man concerning God and our relation to Him, is contained and authenticated in Scripture. ⁴⁹”

Hodge’s approach also seems to stunt any creativity that might allow the reader to see deeper connections between passages or even the nuance in translations. I know Ortlund asserts that in Protestant theology faith does not mean bare intellectual assent.⁵⁰ But I think Hodge and his common sense realism evolves into a type of pragmatism that disenchants our reading of scripture and results in a formation that begins to reflect a merely propositional faith. As a musician, it seems like Hodge is overly focused on labeling all the parts that make up a musical composition, talking about the inner workings and details of music theory, but unable to see and hear the whole piece of music as something beautiful to be engaged with and enjoyed.

Why do these three threads end up having the influence they have had? I can’t prove it, but I suspect it is their doxology. This spans the era where all of the great hymns are written that everyone knows. (Watts, Gadsby, Toplady, Wesley, Newton, Cowper, Steele, etc).⁵¹

So, in summary: An anti-catholic bias that existed in the Reformers along with continued arguments over the nature of the sacraments becomes a retrieval movement by Spener emphasizing a pragmatic theology over an intellectual one, disconnecting it from pre-Reformation history and refocusing faith on the internal heart as well as redefining sola scriptura, making it more individualistic and experiential. The Stone-Campbell movement reforms that further by abandoning creeds and confessions, redefining sola scriptura as exactly what Gavin Ortlund defines as caricatures or misunderstandings: the bible is the only authority and that every point of doctrine has to be explicitly taught in the Bible,⁵² therefore reducing all of Christianity into slogans like “No creed but Christ, no book but the Bible, no law but love, no name but the divine.” Finney takes those slogans and instrumentalizes them, turning the gospel into a sales pitch and the people into its consumers. Hodge creates a way for faith to become propositions and facts, diminishing the amount of wonder or resonance⁵³ a person might experience. And finally, all of it is embodied in the doxology of the church through its hymnody.

What does Protestantism become? pop-Protestantism.⁵⁴

And to prove my point further, look at this exchange on a leading Christian podcast in Australia called The Pastor’s Heart.⁵⁵ The host and three guests are exploring the data surrounding the quiet revival happening among young adults in England and France. About twenty minutes into the podcast, the host plays part of an interview from a previous episode with Glen Scrivener on the same topic.

In the clip, Scrivener makes the valid and correct point that what these young adults want “is something deep and rich and old and tethered and challenging. And the strangeness of Christianity…The ancientness of Christianity is actually an attractive thing.” He talks about the need to change the response from what he was taught at Bible college, which was “to get rid of anything challenging, to get rid of anything that was a barrier to faith, to get rid of anything that made Christianity look ancient…And do cafe style church, right? ….chairs in a circle rather than in rows. Let’s get rid of sacraments and we won’t do a weekly communion because that might not be good for mission.” But now he has people showing up asking about communion and kneelers and wanting more public Scripture reading.

One of the guests has a rather visceral reaction. It’s worth quoting in full.

I think that’s nonsense actually ... .Glen [is presenting] a false dichotomy saying people are coming and in the past we did cafe church and we got rid of everything just to make it palatable and that didn’t really work now they’re looking for things that are ancient. I agree with that….but I don’t think we should change and pander to our culture and be cool…But the thing they’re looking for truly that’s ancient is not that we’re wearing dresses or lighting candles or reciting words. It is a living breathing word of God that transforms souls. So the battles that were fought here in Sydney to get rid of the trope of liturgical form which by the way is prevalent and present in every heretical denomination you can come up with. And not only that, if you look at the denominations and churches which see the least conversions and are responsible for the most people walking away, they are liturgy heavy to the max. So what are we actually saying? It’s not liturgy. It’s not liturgy people need nor want. It’s the word….what we have fought for so hard, I’ll use Sydney Anglicanism if I may, was to try and strip away unhelpful barriers to the living breathing word of God where people encounter the living breathing, ruling, reigning King of Kings and that’s only because the liturgical framework is so unhelpful in building false assurance of salvation…I’ll put it as plainly as I can. If we’re just to talk pragmatics about conversions, the churches in England, the United Kingdom, America, Australia, Canada, New Zealand that see the most conversions have almost no liturgical framework whatsoever. It’s fake news. And often, I’m not saying that because of Glenn, but unfortunately, it’s often driven by a confirmation bias that I like it. So, I’m going to make sure everyone else has to go through it because I like it. And so, I’m going to put on a collar and I’m going to light a candle. But it’s not shown by evidence whatsoever that it leads people to Christ or to conversion.

We have an anti-catholic bias that actually calls liturgical churches heretical because they build a false assurance of salvation. Liturgy was deliberately abandoned (ahistorical, enthusiasm). Why? Because it’s impractical for conversion and because I, the pastor, am instituting my own preferences (pragmatism and individualism), but it doesn’t convert people so we shouldn’t use it (conversionism). What theological reason exists here? It is a living, breathing word of God that transforms souls (reductionism). Isn’t that just a slogan? What is meant, that preaching changes souls? Or that the Bible changes souls? Or is it Christ that changes souls? It’s so vague as to be meaningless.

But also, isn’t it interesting that the overarching argument here is the same, even though the two positions are advocating for different methods. Either way, we are adopting new or old practices simply based on their attractiveness or marketability. Whatever theological reasons that may exist for those practices become arbitrary. For example, is liturgy in some way theologically mandated or not? Would it even matter if it was? When does contextualization become marketing?

I ask again, in light of all of this, what is a layperson supposed to do?

Who sets the vision for our churches? Who are the stewards of the theology, of its mission, of its purity? Who are the ones charged with the formation and discipleship of the flock? Who are the ones who are charged with caring for the souls of the congregation?

What will be the next phase of the reformation? Will it move us to set aside our anti-Catholicism, ahistoricism, and pragmatism and be re-grafted again into the tree of our ancient faith?⁵⁶ Or not?

1. 10 Reasons to Ditch Pop-Protestantism (and embrace the real thing), Glen Scrivener, SpeakLife

2. I think Glen’s version of pop-Protestantism equates to what I’ve been calling non-denominationalism.

3. Anti-Catholicism, Ahistoricism, Memorialism, Enthusiasm, Conversionism, Pragmatism, Splintering, Reductionism, Individualism, Prosperity Gospel

4. rejecting traditions and practices with no theological reason, but based on a vibe that they are too-Catholic

5. acting as if church history started with Martin Luther and the Reformation, and ignoring the rest of Christian history

6. having a low view of the sacraments, losing the liturgical, embodied and worshipful

7. making conversion experience the ultimate expression of faith

8. whatever works to serve the mission of conversion, even if its cringey or stupid

9. contributing to an endless cycle of splits and divisions

10. reading scripture only on one level and ignoring allegory, symbols, patterns

11. focusing on “me and God” instead of the corporate, communal body of Christ

12. where faith becomes a tool to gain health, wealth, and success.

13. inventing other sacraments, trying to stir up our own spirits through worship music, altar calls, where going through the motion becomes an anathema and emphasizing spontaneity is the norm.

14. I wonder sometimes if “too-Catholic” could also be understood as “too-liberal” in some places.

15. Want more reverence or a higher liturgical approach to worship? That’s just your preference. I might prefer buttered noodles, but I don’t go to a chef and tell him they are superior to his pasta dish cultivated under the guidance of a prestigious culinary school in Italy. All preferences aren’t equal and not everything can be boiled down to mere preference.

16. What It Means to Be Protestant, Gavin Ortlund p. 147-148

17. I know this has been removed in modern editions.

18. The Westminster Confession

19. Against the Roman Papacy, p. 288

20. What It Means to Be a Protestant by Gavin Ortlund, p.22

21. Iconoclasm and Reformation, DHM Journal. See also Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, or watch this video “Doors to Nowhere in English Churches”

22. Divided We Stand: On Denominations, Mere Fidelity Podcast

23. I’m limited to what I can find online; I don’t have access to the libraries needed in order to quote from scholarly articles or primary sources, so I know it’s not what it should be.

24. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_Movement

25. Words are Not Enough, Garrick Allen, On Script Podcast with Dru Johnson

26. Against Theological Triage, Chris Bolt American Reformer

27. A Call for Theological Triage and Spiritual Maturity, Albert Mohler (Thanks C.T. for your insight here!)

28. Real Presence or Real Absence, Linden J. DeBie and W. Bradford Littlejohn, Mercersberg Today

29. For Weekly Communion, R. Scott Clark

30. What is pietism’s greatest contribution? Hymns, who likely inspired some of the creations of J.S. Bach.

31. Pietism encyclopedia.com

32. Pietism: Did you know?, Christian History Institute

33. What It Means to Be a Protestant, Gavin Ortlund pg.

34. Ibid

35. Ibid

36. Charles Finney and the Second Great Awakening, Christian History Institute

37. Here begins the practice of the altar call

38. And here, I suspect, is where we start having music under prayers

39. Charles G. Finney: Prototype of the Modern Evangelist, Arnold Kurtz, PhD, Ministry Magazine Archives, 1976

40. Lectures on Revival, pp. 262-265. Charles Finney

41. Arnold Kurtz, Ph.D., is professor of church organization at Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan.

42. Charles G. Finney: Prototype of the Modern Evangelist, Arnold Kurtz, PhD, Ministry Magazine Archives, 1976

43. Ibid.

44. https://www.9marks.org/article/six-marks-of-revivalism/

45. Systematic Theology Volume 1, The Inductive Method, A. The Inductive Method as Applied to Theology

46. Hearts Aflame, Part 2 The Philadelphian, David Owen Filson, Westminster Theological Magazine

47. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_common_sense_realism

48. The Edge Behind the Glass (Part 5) Ed Gungor

49. Systematic Theology Volume 1, The Inductive Method, A. The Inductive Method as Applied to Theology

50. What It Means to Be Protestant by Gavin Ortlund p. 64

51. For example hymns that have pietist influences would be "And Can It Be,” “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” “Rock of Ages,” etc. Those with revivalist influences would be “Just as I Am,” or “Blessed Assurance.”

52. What It Means to Be Protestant by Gavin Ortlund p.74-75

53. I’m using resonance in the sense of how Hartmut Rosa defines it.

54. This doesn’t even include any engagement with the cultural forces which are at play: consumerism, expressive individualism, relativism, etc.

55. Riding the young adult revival- Dave Jensen, Sam Mahdavi & Pre Shunmugam, The Pastor’s Heart podcast

56. Thanks C.T. for this insight!