Turnbull goes back to the Eclectic Society, founded in 1783, and looks at the notes on their discussions later published by John Henry Pratt in 1858. This he sees as illustrating ‘the emergence of Protestant evangelicalism’, emerging, that is, from the Arminian-Calvinist controversy.
Certainly important issues are raised by these notes. Turnbull emphasises the essential unity based on the doctrines of atonement and justification, and the absence of extensive discussion of church and sacrament. The atonement was absolutely central, with a stress on sin and depravity and the work of Christ on the cross. Evangelicals were ‘united in affirming that Jesus dies for our sins as a substitute’. This meant they could preach assurance, certainty of the forgiveness of sins – my sins, not just sin in general. ‘It is the specific nature of the atonement which came to mark out evangelicals’. Penal substitutionary atonement was effective, satisfying divine justice.
Turnbull goes on to discuss National Protestantism, the way in which Britain was seen as fundamentally Protestant, and how that impacted debates such as Catholic Emancipation, the Test Act and the Reform Bill in the nineteenth century. This is, indeed, an area that many evangelicals need to be more aware of, as it led directly into the rise of the Oxford Movement, primarily (its adherents thought) a movement to protect the church, although in a way (and with a theology) that evangelicals radically disagreed with. The Oxford Tractarian movement, however, was massively successful. Evangelicals responded with an increasing emphasis on the authority of Scripture; also with a new discussion on church, ministry and sacraments, in response to Tractarian claims.
Turnbull’s article summarises for us various other aspects of nineteenth-century evangelicalism, both in response to the growing Tractarian influence, and also driven by the evangelical sense of mission. His conclusions are to do with who can claim the ‘core’ of the evangelical tradition; this probably needs more than a discussion of the nineteenth-century developments to answer. However, he is right that we need to understand history to understand what we believe today. If we want to be evangelicals within the Church of England, or indeed within Britain at all, we need to know where the structures and beliefs we encounter today came from.
Turnbull, Richard. “The Emergence of the Protestant Evangelical Tradition.” Churchman 107/4 (1993): 339–50.