Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism

of the 16th century,” and in the 18th century the Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists, and their offshoots in the United States, the mainline Protestant churches were called ‘evangelicals.’ The term ‘Evangelical’ was generally used to refer to the Protestants who had concern for reading of Scripture and took the Great Commission seriously for world evangelization. However, Webber brings another view of evangelicalism, he says, modern evangelicalism is a phenomenon of the last four centuries-that twentieth-century evangelicalism is, as a matter of fact, a reflection of modern culture, shaped by Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the romantic era, the industrial age, and modern technology.

According to John Mason the roots

The term ‘Ecumenical’ was seen as synonym to liberalism. In the early 20th century when many Evangelicals did not feel comfort with the usage of the term in 1916 another term “pan-Protestant” was used contesting the term “ecumenical,” and further in 1919 the Faith and Order conference’s invitation to the Patriarchate of Constantinople coined another term for ecumenical council calling as “pan-Christian.” According to Archbishop Nathan Soderblom the term ‘ecumenical’ refers to the work of reconciliation and building of fellowship between the Churches. In 1920, the Life and Work preparatory committee called the naming of the conference, “Universal Christian Conference of Life and Work” and resisted to use the term “ecumenical” in official records. However in 1925 it retained the term “ecumenical,” only in 1929 French and German versions of English title “Universal Christian Council for Life and Work” used oikoumene to organization of the Church. In 1937 at the Oxford Conference a new meaning was defined: “The term ecumenical refers to the expression within history of the given unity of the Church. The thought and actions of the Church are ecumenical, in so far as they attempt to realize the Una Sancta, the fellowship of Christians, who acknowledge the one Lord.” After the formation of

When Christianity was undergoing a sharp decline during the Middle Ages, it demonstrated the survival power through Christian thinking, religious regeneration, literature, art, architecture and education that marked a transition from ancient to modern times. When “the Middle Ages came to an end with the movement known as the Renaissance, or ‘rebirth’ of learning and study,” Protestantism began to find its fulfillment through the development of humanistic spirituality in the early 16th century. Prior to Protestant Reformations, Petrarch (1304-1374), Erasmus (1466-1536), Francisco Ximenes (1436-1517), John Wycliff (1325-1384), John Huss (1373-1415) and Sanonarola (1452-1498) all tried to reform the Church and Ximenes said that the lasting reform could come only when an atmosphere of freedom gave men full opportunity for the rediscovery and application of long-neglected religious truths. Gonzalez rightly pointed out that at the end of the 15th century the new learning had opened the minds of people who rose against the corruption in the Church and its leadership, papal infallibility claims, violation of celibacy laws and monastic vows, selling of ecclesiastical positions and sale of indulgences for forgiveness of sins, misinterpretation of the Word of God, and at the same time seeking freedom for individuals and the end of feudalism and change in political powers, all culminated