As we come to this subject, the Evangelical Cause from the Reformation to the Great Awakening, it would be right, firstly, to ask the question, why start with the Reformation and why end with the Great Awakening? Surely, Evangelicals existed before and after such great events. The answer is, of course they did and still do. So why these two as starting point and end? The answer is, because these two events (the Reformation and the Great Awakening) were events of such singular magnitude. There have simply been no other events like them in the history of the Christian Church. Second, why is it necessary to speak about the Evangelical cause? Surely, Evangelicals know who they are and what they believe. It is sad to have to remind ourselves that this is no longer true. Most Christians do not know who they are or what they believe or where they have come from. This was not the case during the Reformation, through the Puritan Age and on to the Great Awakening. The Christians of those times knew precisely who they were and what they believed. The word evangelical has come under scrutiny for good and for bad in recent times. In fact, more than any other time, Evangelicals themselves, do not seem to know what it means to be evangelical. If this is the case, and I am convinced it is, then this is a very important issue.
It is entirely possible that the future of the Evangelical Church depends on what we understand by this term: evangelical. In recent times, David Bebbington, has of course, argued that evangelicalism, containing four identifiable features (conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism – known as the Bebbington Quadrilateral) began with the Revivals of the 1730’s. If this is true, then, of course, we must say that prior to the 1730’s, we had something other than Evangelicals or evangelicalism, and frankly, I am not prepared to do that. I am not prepared to do that, because these features of Bebbington’s can be seen in other ages. Can they be seen in the Reformation? Who would doubt that the Reformation saw a return to the Bible (biblicism)? Who would doubt that the Reformation did not lay stress on personal conversion (conversionism)? Who would deny that the Reformation did not display and proclaim the centrality of the Cross-work of the Lord Jesus Christ (crucicentrism)? Who would deny that the Reformers did not communicate their faith actively (activism)?
Who then, could or would deny that prior to the 1730’s during the time of the Puritans, that they, the Puritans denied these things or that they understood them completely differently? We would argue for uniformity and continuity between the Reformers and the Puritans. The spiritual heirs of the Reformation, namely the Puritans, namely George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards and into the modern era, Charles Spurgeon (1834 – 1892), Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899 – 1980), along with all the Churches confessing themselves to be Reformed, and along with individual Christians confessing themselves to be Reformed – all surely stand together with the Reformers.