Book Review: EVANGELICAL VS. LIBERAL

James K. Wellman, Jr., Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 306.

James K. Wellman, Jr.'s Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest is a fascinating read that should be of interest to evangelical Protestants, liberal Protestants, and Protestants in between. Wellman is "a liberal Christian" (284) and a Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor who teaches comparative religion at the University of Washington. The study he narrates in this book compared twenty-four growing evangelical Protestant churches with ten growing liberal Protestant churches, all of them located in the largely unchurched states of Washington and Oregon. (The churches were studied between 2000 and 2005 [45], making the book's findings a little bit dated.) Because of this region's progressive leanings, Wellman went into the study guessing that the liberal congregations would have an advantage; instead, he found that the evangelical congregations were growing more dramatically (numerically, at least) and that growing liberal churches were hard to find (xiii).

One possible reason for Wellman's difficulty is his narrow definition of liberal. To qualify as liberal for this study, a church had to see "Jesus [as] a model of radical inclusiveness," had to believe reason to be as authoritative as Scripture, had to leave "personal morality" up to "the individual," and had to support a range of positions that included a public pro-gay stand (5-6). Thus, a mainline Protestant church that saw Jesus as more than "a model of radical inclusiveness," that valued reason but that believed Scripture to have greater authority, that occasionally addressed "personal morality," that was pro-peace, anti-poverty, and concerned about the environment, and that practiced gender equality but had taken no stand on the subject of homosexuality would not be considered progressive enough to be called "liberal" in this book. The evangelical churches studied seemed to include greater variety, with everything from Pentecostal churches (six) to Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations (two) (48).

After noting that even evangelical Protestantism is declining overall (3), Wellman sprinkles many reasons for the evangelical advantage over liberal Protestantism--particularly in the Northwest--throughout his book.

• Evangelicals have more children and retain a higher percentage of these children than do non-evangelicals (6-8). As one evangelical pastor interviewed by Wellman put it, "We believe in out-reproducing the liberals" (278).
• In a reversal since the 1970s, evangelicals are now more public with their faith, and "[t]he public voice of liberals is now relatively mute" (19). Interestingly, evangelical activity in the public square seems not to have impacted the Northwest's politics; in fact, Washington and Oregon became even bluer in the 2008 presidential election than they had been in 2004. ("Of the 298 evangelicals [interviewed] in the study, only 7 claimed to be Democrats" [238].)
• Evangelicals nurture one another in "smaller religious enclaves" (32). "Forty-three percent of evangelicals talked about participation in a small group whereas less than one percent of liberals were active in a small group" (155).
• Consistent with their belief in hell, evangelicals emphasize evangelism; consistent with their belief in tolerance, liberals do not try to convert others--they "prefer everyone to be accepting as they are" (37). Interestingly, Wellman found that the evangelical churches in his study did no better than the liberal churches in true evangelism; rather, the evangelical edge was in recruiting churched people to their churches, taking advantage of the large number of newcomers to the Northwest in recent years (53-54). Evangelicals wanted larger churches; liberals did not (134). 
• Although the Northwest leans left in many ways, "the region is not liberal in the sense of being communitarian or devoted to larger public projects for the common good. It is fundamentally entrepreneurial and libertarian." The evangelical pastors interviewed by Wellman were the more entrepreneurial (43).
• Because of the Northwest's progressivism, people living there can find most of what liberal churches offer outside of these churches: "What do liberals add to the regional ethos? My conclusion is that...liberal theology mostly mirrors the egalitarian and inclusive nature of the regional moral landscape" (43). Offering little that is distinctive, liberal churches may seem unnecessary.
• Twenty of the twenty-four evangelical churches were suburban; seven of the ten liberal churches were urban (45).
• Evangelicals target young people, both families with children in the home and young adults, contextualizing their ministry with these groups in mind; most of the liberal churches studied by Wellman were making little if any effort to engage these groups (110, 158-159). The fastest-growing liberal church was an exception (131). All of "the [evangelical] worship services include[d] contemporary rock music" (15) and were informal (132-136); "worship in liberal churches...was relatively formal and traditional" (128). Tellingly, when Wellman sent students to observe churches, many of them returned describing the evangelical churches as "liberal" and the liberal churches as "conservative" (83).
• The evangelical churches in this study made more effective use of technology than did their liberal counterparts; for example, their Web sites tended (1) to have a more local focus, (2) to be more interactive, and (3) to be updated more frequently (148-151).
• The study's evangelical churches saw their service to their communities as a means to an end--a way to bring new sheep into the fold; the study's liberal churches saw service as an end in itself (212).

Wellman concludes:

Evangelical theology and organizational structures appeal to people in need of human connection. The PNW [Pacific Northwest] is a region that is entrepreneurial and respectful of a market mentality; evangelical leaders in particular resonate with this mentality of growth, expansion, and reward.... Liberals, on the other hand, appeal to the individualism of northwesterners, who value the freedom to think for themselves. Liberals, however, are less entrepreneurial, less interested in growth and expansion, and less organizationally dynamic, though they offer a religious ideology that is open and expansive, which northwesterners treasure and mirror. And yet, in this way, liberal religionists may be too much like the region. (282)

Can I have a third option?