Modern challenges

Abstract ‘Modern challenges’ evaluates how modernity poses several key challenges to evangelical religion. These include Biblical criticism and liberal theology; science and secularism; imperialism and social justice; and other religious alternatives. As evangelicalism expanded, it did not always and everywhere thrive. Within Christian circles, in Western cultures at large, and in engagement with other societies around the world, evangelicalism faced indifference, resistance, persecution, and even the subversion of its most fundamental convictions. However, evangelicalism generally flourished as modernity advanced because its fundamental traits both reinforce and are reinforced by the fundamental traits of modernity. Modernity has nonetheless exacted a toll on evangelicalism and may yet co-opt or conquer it.