Journal: Central Bible Quarterly
Volume: CENQ 07:2 (Summer 1964)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

Book Reviews

THE NEW EVANGELICALISM, by Ronald H, Nash (Zondervan Publ. House, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1963, 188 pp., $3.95).

Here is the first full-length defense of the contemporary theological movement known as the “new evangelicalism.” Such a movement was necessitated, according to the author, by the failures of fundamentalism in areas of science, social responsibility, and general scholarship. The leaders of this current movement, men such as Carl Henry, Harold Ockenga, Vernon Grounds, and Edward J. Carnell, are lauded as rescuers of the evangelical testimony whose banner had been dragged in the dust by the “fighting fundamentalists.”

Author Nash endeavors to show conclusively that the new evangelicals are not modernists, are true to all the great doctrines of historic Christianity, and are very Scriptural in their approach. He holds that modern fundamentalism is not a true continuation of either Reformation theology or the older fundamentalism as represented by such men as James Orr, but an aberration, “a new fundamentalism,” an embarrassment to men of culture and scholarship. The old fundamentalists, says he, lost the great centers of culture and learning, abandoning them to the modernists, and the new evangelicals intend by thorough scholarship, which is already being recognized by their contemporaries, to recapture a place of respectability in the modern religious and academic world. The reader is so overwhelmed with awe at the very prospect, he is scarce left with the breath to ask, “Did the Apostle Paul attempt to gain acceptance for his writings among the intelligentsia of the day, and with what success?” Of course, in the light of the grandiose objectives of the new evangelicals, this would be a rather impertinent question.

In his discussion of the new evangelical position on the Scriptures. Nash finds that they are as orthodox as other evangelicals before them have been and encourages his readers by reminding them of such evangelicals as Henry Preserved Smith and James Orr, who did not accept the verbal, plenary inspiration of the Bible as fundamentalists do today. He admits that there is considerable discussion over this doctrine in the new evangelical camp but utterly bypasses important witnesses to the fact that many of these new evangelicals are quite shaky at this point, and some have tottered toward neo-orthodoxy. The evidence he does not cite in his book is more important than the evidence he cites.

In a chapter on the question of ecclesiastical separation, the new evangelicals are found, by and large, to be opposed to the separatist position as such. Theirs is a program of “infiltration,’’ but the chapter and verse supporting such a program apparently escapes “the author momentarily. No doubt further “dialogue” will uncover it. It is a certain thing that ...