In the “About” section of its website, the Evangelical Theological Society states that it is an organization “devoted to the inerrancy and inspiration of the Scriptures and the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Yet a compelling question necessary arises: What, exactly, constitutes “the gospel” for this society of scholars? ETS’s Doctrinal Basis affirms two articles—the inerrancy of the Bible and historic trinitarianism (Constitution, Article III)—but beyond those two assertions, what comprises the “evangel” for this evangelical academic organization? In 2008 Ray Van Neste and Denny Burk put forth an amendment to the ETS Constitution that would have expanded the ETS Doctrinal Basis from two points to eleven points, but the amendment failed (Van Neste 2004; JETS “Reports” 2009). Are there any historic global examples that could serve as a model for ETS in defining a core of evangelical essentials?
This paper argues that the Evangelical Alliance’s Doctrinal Basis of 1846 provides a theologically robust and historically rooted standard that could help ETS in defining its future evangelical identity. This doctrinal basis is a much-neglected statement of evangelical essentials consisting of nine brief articles agreed upon by a group of 910 international and interdenominational participants, including over 600 ministers, who met together in London in August 1846 (Randall and Hilborn 2001; Ewing 1946). This statement of faith avoids the Scylla of fundamentalist maximalism and the Charybdis of theological minimalism in establishing a doctrinal platform for evangelicals across denominational lines. The EA Doctrinal Basis’s nine articles address the categories of: (1) Scripture; (2) authority; (3) God; (4) man; (5) the person and work of Christ; (6) justification; (7) conversion; (8) future things; and (9) the church. Its articles were designed to include conservatives and to counter non-conservatives who were rising in prominence during the nineteenth century, including unitarians, Socinians, and universalists.