A History of Christian Doctrine #3 - Online Christian Library

Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism
movement include F. F. Bruce, Carl F. H. Henry, George
Eldon Ladd, Harold Lindsell, James I. Packer, Bernard
Ramm, and John R. W. Stott.
In a class by himself is C. S. Lewis (1898-1963).
Although he was not strictly an Evangelical—he did not
uphold the infallibility of Scripture, for example—he is
one of the most widely read and beloved authors among
Evangelicals. A classics scholar and Christian apologist,
Lewis was born in Northern Ireland. He converted to
Christianity in 1931 while a professor at Oxford, and he
later taught at Cambridge. Lewis wrote lucid, logical
defenses of classic Christian positions for a lay audience.
His seven-volume Chronicles of Narnia is an outstanding
work of children’s literature that incorporates important
theological concepts.
In the latter part of the twentieth century, some
Evangelical churches grew rapidly by structuring their
services in a contemporary, nontraditional format specifically
for the unchurched. This “seeker sensitive”
approach was pioneered by Pastor Bill Hybels and Willow
Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago, where
the weekly attendance grew to 14,000.
Exemplifying the growth of Evangelicalism, in 1970
the Southern Baptist Convention surpassed the United
Methodist Church to become the largest Protestant
denomination in the United States. It now reports over
40,000 churches in the U.S. with a constituency of 15 million.
In 1976, a Southern Baptist was elected as president—Jimmy
Carter—and he popularized the term “born
again.” In 1992 and 1996 Southern Baptists were elected
as president and vice president—Bill Clinton and Al
Gore—although their political, social, and moral views
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