Mark Noll Interview

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2 verse 5 where the

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Apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry.

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Thanks for tuning in today. Today we have a special guest on the line, Dr. Mark Noll, and the wonderful thing about the format of the show,

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I think, is sometimes we deal with issues in the local church, sometimes the church at large, sometimes theological issues, sometimes church history issues, and sometimes they all intersect.

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And so Mark Noll is the author of The New Shape of World Christianity, How America Experienced Reflects Global Faith.

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And Mark, thank you for being on No Compromise Radio. Well, it's my privilege. I got your new book and read it.

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Tell the lay people who are listening, or give our listeners an overview of what the book is about and why you were motivated to write it.

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The motivation for the book had a very practical beginning. For many years at Wheaton College, I taught a one -semester course that tried to cover the whole history of Christianity from the days of the apostles to the present.

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That became increasingly ridiculous in trying to do that, and so a decision was made.

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We should have a two -semester course, and the second semester should treat more modern things. Who would volunteer?

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No one else volunteered. I volunteered. I enjoyed teaching that, and then the book came from that experience.

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Its argument is that changes in the world church have been so dramatic over the last century or century and a half that Western Christians need to pause and to look around and to be aware of the new world circumstance.

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So that's the title, The New Shape of World Christianity. But then the subtitle takes up the argument that the history of Christianity in the

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United States is surprisingly relevant for the rest of the world, not primarily in terms of direct influence, but because of what the

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United States itself went through in its own Christian experience. I noticed in your book, you wrote a

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Christian Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep under a tree midway through the 20th century and then woke up this past week to the sound of church bells or a synthesizer with drums on a

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Sunday morning would not recognize the shifted shape of world Christianity. What an excellent way to start the book in that chapter two.

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Well, yes, and this was one of the facts that was borne in upon me in trying to teach the course.

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You look back to, say, 1970, and you look at Asia and say,

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Christianity really seems to be in dire straits in the People's Republic of China. That communist regime in 1970, there was,

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I believe, one legally open church in the whole of the nation.

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And it was a church primarily for expatriate Africans who were studying in Beijing. Today, last

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Sunday, no one knows for sure, but it's possible that more Chinese were in churches publicly, some recognized by the government, some not, but more

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Chinese were in church publicly than in all of so -called Christian Europe. That kind of dramatic change over a relatively short period is almost unprecedented in the whole history of Christianity.

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Well, Dr. Noll, you've got wonderful bullet points in your book, The New Shape of World Christianity, regarding those, and you call those the magnitude of recent changes this past Sunday, more

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Presbyterians were at church in Ghana than in Scotland. And usually when I think of Scotland, I think of Presbyterians.

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Right, exactly. And it's the same for the Church of England and the Anglicans. It's the same for Lutherans, where Tanzania has probably as many

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Lutherans as the United States. Clearly, it's that way for the Roman Catholic Church, with now many places in Africa and Asia, Latin America, having more people active in church than in traditional heartlands of these older denominations.

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So what has happened is a movement around the world that fulfills what

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Christian believers have always thought about the worldwide potential of the Christian faith.

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Now, of course, it's not a simple story because once the Christian message is rooted in another place, it takes on flavoring and coloring from that place, just as when it was rooted in Europe, it took on flavoring and coloring from that place.

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So my own conclusion is that this is, in some ways, the most exciting time to be aware of the spread of Christianity around the whole world ever, and the most confusing time, both at the same moment.

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Absolutely. When you say the book's major argument is in its American form, Christianity has indeed become, excuse me, that Christianity in its

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American form has indeed become very important in the world, you don't go on to bash

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Americanism and American theology so much, do you? How do you see

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America influencing? I mean, we've got the pros and cons, but it's not an anti -American theology. No, definitely not.

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If there is an argument that I'm trying to set up against something, it would be the notion that, two things, actually.

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One is that American influence is the key matter for the good of the Church around the world, but the other one is that American influence is the key matter for the detriment or the bad of the

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Church around the world, and there would be proponents of both these ideas. In the churches, some people still might talk about the

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United States as being able to control things around the world. Outside of the churches, there's often criticism that sees

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Christian activity in the United States as ruining the rest of the world. My effort is really not along either of those lines, but it is to say, if we look at the history of Christianity in the

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United States, what we see is the first world experiment for Christian development without a whole lot of involvement from government, from overarching authorities, but much more,

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I don't wanna say democratic, exactly, but much more voluntary, self -starting, self -organizing

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Christianity. At the end of the 18th century, when the United States was formed, we had the separation of church and state, and Europeans knew that this would be disastrous for the churches because, time out of mind, thousands of years, the churches in Europe had been supported by the state, had been cooperated with by the state, had been a function of state activity.

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It just wasn't gonna work, they knew. But what happened, in fact, was that in this more freeform, more voluntaristic kind of Christian faith, the churches expanded.

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In the world today, while there are still some places where you have formal relationships between church and state, mostly, the world is much more like the

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United States in 1800 than it is like Europe was in 1600.

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So if you're a Christian believer in China, most of the time, you're respecting your nation, but you're not looking to China to give you guidance and how to organize the church.

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In most of the places of Africa where Christianity's expanded so rapidly, it's the churches organized for themselves, not as part of a church -state organization, that is the key thing.

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When I was in Germany, Dr. Knoll, it was interesting that many of the evangelical churches, what

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I would consider evangelical, the state, the nation of Germany, would consider those some kind of sects or some kind of cults.

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Right. Whereas, once United States history was underway in 1800s, if you were a state church in Germany, Catholic or Protestant, you came to the

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United States, you might have that tradition of what we would call Christendom, but you had to mix it up with the

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Baptists and the Methodists and the Disciples of Christ and the Assemblies of God, eventually, and all the other churches that were on a level playing field.

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So even where you came from a church -state background, when you came to the United States, you were playing by a different set of rules.

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Dr. Knoll, I'd be interested in your analysis of Episcopalians, for instance, in Africa, who seem to now be more conservative, they're more conservative than the

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Episcopalians in the U .S., specifically related to the issue of homosexual marriage. It seems like the

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Africans now are the ones who are saying, this is what the text says. Yes, and this is certainly one of the most important, certainly one of the most visible manifestations of the new shape that Christianity has come to around the world.

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As a preliminary word, it's interesting to note just where the bodies are, how many

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Anglican or Episcopal adherents there are. And many African countries, certainly

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Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, would have more active Anglicans in church every

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Sunday than Anglicans, Episcopalians in Britain, Canada, the United States combined.

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And then if you looked in Nigeria, you have several times more Anglicans in church in Nigeria than all these

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Western countries. So simply in terms of the outgrowth of evangelization and family nurture of Christianity, the heartland of the

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Church of England is East and West Africa. And to get to the question you ask, that the

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Christianity that has flourished as Anglicanism in Africa tends to be more traditional in its theology, not always in its liturgy and music, but more traditional in its theology, more traditional in its morality, more traditional in its interpretation of the

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Bible. So in the worldwide Anglican communion, the voices for traditional orthodoxy, traditional morality are overwhelming from the non -Western world.

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And of course, these are contested issues in the Western world. To what degree, Dr. Knoll, does the

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English language in particular and the theologies that are written by great Englishmen throughout the years, and now we have the internet and all kinds of other ways to get information, to what degree is language, the

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English language, still being used of God to direct or influence the culture and theology around the world?

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Right, that's actually a very important question just because of the fluidity of communication, the fluidity of book translation.

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English is obviously very important and probably without doubt, the world language.

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In 20 years, 25 years, it might be Chinese, but now it's English in the same way that French was the world language probably in the 18th century.

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That fact means that much of the world's

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Christianity has some kind of connection to English. Just in the last year or two, a group of all

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African Bible scholars produced a one -volume, very substantial commentary on the

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Bible for Africans. I think it's called the African Bible Commentary published by Zondervan in the

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United States. Those contributors were all Africans. Some had been trained in the

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United States, some elsewhere, but they wrote in English. I know the plan was to also have a French translation, but English was the common language that could draw together the different tribal groups and national groups in Africa.

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So on the one hand, English remains very important around the world as a lingua franca, as a general language that allows for communication.

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But on the other hand, one of the great facts of modern Christian history is translation.

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The presence of, first, the Bible and then Christian literature and then Christian visual materials in native languages.

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Campus Who Stayed for Christ has sponsored the Jesus film, which now has been translated into over 1 ,000 languages.

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And reports coming back from the showing of the Jesus film in the native languages are amazing for how much this film, if you just analyze it as a film, that isn't really real spiffy or outstandingly dramatic, but because it is dubbed into the local language, it has a tremendous effect as individuals hear in their mother tongues the gospel.

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So languages like English, Spanish, French, for Russian in different parts of the world, Italian for the

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Catholic Church, all have a universalizing, connecting power, but the

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Christian faith remains a faith that works best when people hear it and absorb it in their own native tongues.

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Excellent response. We're talking to Dr. Mark Noll, author of The New Shape of World Christianity, an

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IVP academic book. I think my favorite book, Dr. Noll, of yours is Turning Points.

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And I love the book Turning Points and how you describe several key turning points like the destruction of Jerusalem, the

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Diet of Worms. Tell our listeners a little bit, since you're an expert in history and Christian history, are there trends that are going on now in evangelicalism that you've seen before with a different livery or a different dress that we should watch out for in the next decade or so?

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Yes, that is a good question, and I will try and answer, but only by saying first that historians are much better looking backwards than looking forward.

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I'll try. It's kind of like the providence of God. Well, what will God do in the future? I don't know, but if you look back, we see his hand.

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Well, we can indeed. Yes, certainly from an evangelical

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Christian point of view, there's always been, in evangelical movements, a desire to connect for evangelistic purposes and purposes for influencing the surrounding society, and there's always been a desire to preserve the essence and the heart of the gospel message.

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Given the dramatic changes that have taken place in the United States and elsewhere around the world, economically, in terms of education, communications, there are just a lot of centrifugal forces, a lot of forces that are pulling groups apart, pulling them into new areas.

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I actually think that some of the evangelical groups are doing a good job at taking advantage of new media, new forms, new music, new books, new kind of preaching to reach new circumstances.

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The danger in such circumstance is that the grip on the heart of the gospel will be loosened.

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Now, the opposite danger is that you can be so concerned about maintaining the historic faith that you are oblivious to new conditions, new opportunities, new populations.

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My judgment, I think, would be that in the decade or so to come, maybe even longer to come, the greater danger might lie with the push toward innovation because there's so much new that is there.

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There's so many populations that are now open to the gospel. There's so much energy and money devoted toward reaching out, and all of this can be entirely good, that maybe the desire to maintain the heart of the faith might receive somewhat less attention than it deserves.

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Now, that's a very tentative prophecy made by someone who could tell you more than probably you want to know about the 18th century, but I think that's,

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I would say, looking forward. Well, I had to ask because in 2005, you were named by Time Magazine one of the 25 most influential evangelicals, so I thought

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I'd have to ask. Well, I've tried to forgive Time Magazine for that misstep. When you went to the

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White House to receive the award from President Bush, the National Humanities Medal, what was that like?

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And I'd like to know what you think about George Bush's faith, if you know anything at all about that.

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Well, it's obviously a person in that circumstance is always humbled. It was a group of about 15 people, and I knew the work of some of them.

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For example, the historian of the state of California was part of this group, a man who'd written tremendous, long set of five or six really fine books on the history of that state.

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I think maybe I had the sense that the honor was coming not so much just to me, but to the whole cohort of evangelical, or not just always evangelical, but Christian historians who in the last maybe 30 years have done a better job,

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I think, at communicating to the general public and communicating to the historical profession, but also maintaining a very distinct

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Christian faith. So I was honored and humbled. President Bush, I wouldn't pretend to speak as an expert.

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I've had occasion to talk with him on just a couple of brief occasions. He clearly is a person of faith.

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I think sometimes the press and the evangelical world overstressed and overemphasized his evangelical faith.

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He's not a person who's learned it in theology, never pretended to be. Very, very faithful churchgoer.

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I believe in a Methodist church when he was in Texas and then active with Bible studies and things when he was in the

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White House. I'm actually a person who has some serious doubts about some of the policy activities of the

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Bush administration, but as a person, I certainly always respected George W. Bush and felt that he was trying as a

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Christian layman to do the right thing. Interesting. Dr. Knoll, let me ask you this question.

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I live in New England and so close to Harvard and not too far from Princeton, very close to Yale. As these schools, as these schools that started off as seminaries and training men for theological education, very

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Calvinistic, have gone more liberal. Could you speak to that and then also the opposite that happened at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary with Dr.

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Mohler? What do you think about those things in general? Well, institutions have their own life and character.

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I do know a little bit about the schools. You mentioned the East Coast, happened to have done actually some serious research and even a book on the history of what's now called

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Princeton University, but way back in the 1700s and 1800s. So at about a time when the most students on campus could have fit into one of the big classrooms now.

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Institutional life is dependent upon lots of things. The drift away from classical

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Christianity from those institutions took place over probably a hundred year period, was gradual, had a lot to do with what was going on in the

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United States. In a similar way, the firming up of orthodoxy at Southern Seminary in Louisville, I think had a long history.

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There was a Southern Baptist history that goes back to the founding of Southern Seminary, I think in the 1850s and 1860s.

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And a lot of influences that were local and in the Southern Baptist came together with a lot of controversy in the denomination over a

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Sunday school material treating the Old Testament that heightened strife and heightened contention.

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And then changes took place at the trustee level and on the boards that were appointed by the

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Southern Baptist Annual Convention and then the State Convention. I wouldn't wanna pretend to know a whole lot about the history of Southern Seminary, but it's obviously a case showing that it's possible to become more traditional and more orthodox as well as to become more liberal.

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And actually for some of the Ivy League institutions that you've mentioned, although as institutions, they certainly are no more, they're not moving back toward orthodox

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Christian faith. Everyone that you mentioned, you could add Cornell, you could add Columbia and New York City have today significant

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Christian witness on the campus that's probably brighter and stronger than 30 and 40 years ago.

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That's not a commentary in the whole institution, but it is a commentary on what is available if students and faculty are interested in traditional

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Christian faith. It is encouraging. We've got a few minutes left. I'd be interested, Dr. Knoll, to hear your historian's analysis of Together for the

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Gospel, Gospel Coalition. Have these kind of things ever popped up in church history?

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And if they haven't, how do you explain them? Well, again, this comes back in some ways to the material that's discussed in the book,

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The New Shape of World Christianity. There is a long history in church history for what we would call voluntary ad hoc movements, like the ones you mentioned.

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For a long, long time, they were a real important part of the Catholic Church where the different orders functioned under the general direction of the

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Pope and other Catholic officials, but had a kind of special purpose life. Beginning about 1800 in the

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United States, there's been a profusion of such groups. Some have been aimed at practical matters.

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Some have been aimed at evangelism. Some have been aimed at education. Some, like the one you've mentioned, have been aimed at Christian doctrine.

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In general, I think in the modern world, in particular, that these groups all have the potential for doing good.

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Because there are so many of them, because it's relatively easy in a day of fast communications to bring people together momentarily,

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I think myself that it's harder for any one of these movements to have the kind of impact that, say, the

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American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission had in the early 19th century, when there were only maybe three or four major mission -sending agencies in the

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United States. Today, we have dozens, if not scores, or hundreds of voluntary organizations that have been pulled together for specific purposes.

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I do think that we have one example that I would point to already as almost a contemporary turning point in the evangelical world outside of the

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United States, which is the Lausanne movement from the mid -1970s. I think that movement of worldwide evangelical

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Christianity has had a lingering and an enduring positive effect. Some of the other movements, like the ones you've spoken of, the wisdom probably is to say, well, let's wait and see.

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Let's wait and see how they survive and what kind of influence they have over time. Well, Dr.

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Noel, it's been a real privilege talking to you today. We're talking about the book The New Shape of World Christianity.

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You can go to our website, nocompromiseradio .com to order it there, or you can go to IVP Academic, I'm sure you can get one there, on Amazon.

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I wanted to have all kinds of other questions ready, and I had, does touchdown Jesus help the football team and things like that, but we never got to those,

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Dr. Noel. Just as well, just as well. I'd encourage our listeners to read Turning Points, Decisive Moments in the

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History of Christianity, Princeton Theology, Scripture Science and Theological Method from Archibald Alexander to B .B.

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Warfield and other books. I appreciate your time, your ministry, and your look at the world history, especially through a

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Christian lens. So, Dr. Noel, thank you for being a guest today on No Compromise Radio. Yeah, my privilege and all the best to your program.

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God bless. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.