Rob Warner, Revinventing English Evangelicalism 1966-2001: A Theological and Sociological Study (Paternoster, 2007), 284pp. (with thanks to Paternoster for a review copy)
Professor Andrew Walker and the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture at King's College London have been responsible for some important research into the charismatic / evangelical movement(s) in recent years. What is slowly emerging is a theological and sociological critique of what was happening amongst charismatics and evangelicals in 1980s and 1990s. This new book by Rob Warner is a welcome addition. (See also Worship in the Spirit by James Steven, Pete Ward's Growing Up Evangelical and Selling Worship and also Apostolic Networks in Britain by William Kay, along with Andrew Walker's own contribution Restoring the Kingdom).
I'll start with the only major shortcoming of this book, which is the copious amount of footnotes and in places too much sociology jargon. The introduction especially is very dense and doesn't work fantastically as an introduction to what follows. This is a PhD turned into a book and could in places be tidied up. However, this is a minor problem to an excellent and important study. Warner was a major 'player' in the recent period he writes about, being involved at a high-level in both the Evangelical Alliance and Spring Harvest. He remarks that he began this research as an 'observing participant', but during it transitioned to that of a 'participating observer' (32). This suggests that the Warner at the end of his research is much more critical - theologically and sociologically - than the one who began and suggests we should be too (if not already!).
Warner's thesis 'seeks to build upon Bebbington's Evangelicalism in Modern Britain', but identifies a rather more dynamic model of 'twin and rival axes within pan-evangelicalism that energise the dynamic of evangelical rivalries, experiments and evolution' (20). There are two things happening, firstly there are the group of active-orientated entrepreneurs, who make up the conversionist-activist axis - those who are engaged in Spring Harvest, March for Jesus, Alpha, and what was in the 1980s and 90s a growing worship industry. Secondly, there are the more theologically-orientated group, who make up the biblicist-crucicentric axis - those who are concerned with doctrine and often the 'formulating and guarding the doctrinal core of evangelical convictions' (20). The book is thus divided into two parts, exploring historically and theologically these two axes.
More to follow ... see also Jim Gordon's first part of his review of the same book here.
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