Customer Reviews

Discovering an evangelical heritage

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I heard Dayton speak in September at Wesley Theology Seminary here in Washington DC. Dayton was the guest pastor at chapel (something about a 30-year anniversary of the book and an award from the seminary). His address focused on the many faces of John Wesley--something new and interesting to me. His talk prompted me to buy the book, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage, and another of his books, The Theological Roots of Pentecostalism.

The book is interested me because he dials back to the period of Charles Finney during the second Great Awakening. Finney was the Billy Graham of his day. Unlike Graham, Finney was both a great revivalist and a social reformer. Apparently, early evangelicals were at the forefront of the campaigns to abolish slavery, promote woman's rights, and advocating temperance. While I knew some of the history of this reforms, I did not specifically associate these reforms with 19th century evangelicals and the Second Great Awakening--until reading Dayton.

Dayton's historical review includes chapters on abolition of slavery, womens rights, and temporance. Key personalities and financial supporters of these movements were discussed. The roles of Oberlin College and different seminaries (Princeton, Gordon-Conwell, and others) in social reforms (or not) of the 19th century were especially interesting to me.

So why did American Evangelicals come to focus on evangelism and less on social reform? Dayton explains the difference in evangelical attitudes about social reform to a number of things. Among these were disillusionment following the Civil War, a less optimistic view of the impact of sin, and a switch from post-millennial to pre-millennial eschatological views. According to Dayton, if you believe that Christians will be raptured the moment Christ returns rather than after a thousand years of Christ's rule, then evangelism takes a higher priority and social reform goes down in priority.

I found Dayton's analyses of these events credible, informative, and insightful--much like his talk. I can see why Wesley TS presented Dayton with an award.

Stephen

In Donald Dayton's "Discovering an Evangelical Heritage," Dayton sheds light on an oft-avoided side of the history of evangelical Christianity: its social reforming roots. Dayton traces the development of evangelical Christianity through much of the 19th and the early 20th centuries via key figures in evangelicalism. Dayton demonstrates how Evangelicalism's roots are inextricably tied to social justice issues, contrary to contemporary expressions of the same.