The Profound & Tragic Shift Of New Evangelical Piety

Excerpt From:  Telling God's Story

John W. Wright

The profound shift entailed here is important.  The biblical story begins with God creating the cosmos from nothing and ends with God's restoration of this creation through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.  Its central actor is God; creation provides the setting for its story.  The plot is simple yet all-encompassing.  The scriptural narrative moves from creation in it primal harmonious goodness back toward nothingness through sin and into its final restoration in the second coming of Christ.  Within this story God per se does not act in history.  History, though distinct from God, nevertheless occurs in God.  God is the One in whom we "live, and move, and have our being."  (Acts 17:28)


In light of deep cultural and political changes, the Scriptures became read within a very different story line.  In this new narrative the interior life of the individual, not creation, provided the setting for the story.   Creation provides a context for God's acts in history, but history must therefore move outside of God, activated by it human or nonhuman actors.  A secular realm outside of God develops.


Each individual became the story's central actor; God may play a supporting role within the story of each--based upon the will of the individual.  God may be called on by faith to act within the life of the individual, but only to move the individual to the person's own end.  As a result, the movement of the story focuses on the life of the individual, as he or she moves from sin to awakening to justification to service and sanctification, and ultimately to heavenly glorification.  As Frei summarized, readers read Scriptures "to present experience in the history of the soul's conversion and perfection."


Instead of God's story of the redemption of all creation, the Bible is narrowed to the story of personal salvation.  In this new evangelical piety, "What is real, and what therefore the Christian really lives, is his [the individual's] own pilgrimage."  The individual turns to the Scriptures for assurance that he or she really is living within this spiritual path that leads to individual eternal bliss in heaven. The cult of the individual arises, now with full biblical warrant.