1. 1,000 Splinters
A. Scott Moreau

2. Thesis
Roughly one century ago Christians in the United States walked through a battle about orthodoxy known as the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy. Eventually, out of the Fundamentalist side of the debates over cardinal doctrines, arose the streams of evangelicalism we find today in the United States.
As I look at where American Evangelicals are today, I see shadows of the century-old controversy that are being worked out in 21st century ideology and framed in contemporary vehicles of public discourse (blogs, tweets, soundbites, rants, and so on).
We are not wrestling with the five fundamentals identified during the earlier era, but new fundamentals—such as gender role and identity, power differentials, environmentalism and social justice.
These have become the 21st century battle-grounds pitting evangelicals against each other, splintering us in a thousand directions rather than two or three.

3. Historical Paths: Early Schisms
Philosophical and scientific challenges to (and assaults on) faith
Fundamentalist/ Modernist schism
WW I
Social Gospel
Presbyterian Split
Scientific revolution
Industrial revolution
Enlightenment
Modernism
Reformation Pietism Great Awakenings
“Protestants”
World Missionary Conference
Enlightenment
Romanticism
Modernism

4. Historical Paths: Mid-Century Shifts
Ecumenical Movement
Fundamentalist/ Modernist schism
WW II
WW I
“Neo” Evangelicals
Engagement or not?
World Missionary Conference
Fundamentalists
Modernism

5. Evangelicals in 1975 (Martin Marty)
Evangelicals Cannot expect a serene life as they try to remain a ‘cognitive minority’ while they have become a kind of social behavior majority far beyond the borders of middle America. (170)
If evangelicalism has drifted, perhaps irretrievably, into much affirmation of and some accommodation to culture-as-it-is, its future life will also be complicated by the presence of vital critical groups within it. These are counterparts to the liberals’ social gospel Voices [of the early 1900s] (174)
Marty, Martin “Tensions within Contemporary Evangelicalism: A Critical Appraisal.” In The Evangelicals: What They Believe, Who They Are, Where They Are Changing, Edited by David Wells and John Woodbridge. Nashville: Abingdon.
If, in effect, [evangelicalism] is turning out to be the Protestant mainstream, it will increasingly take on the burdens of typicality and of cultural predominance. Marty (1975, 174)
Most of the energies expended recently by evangelicals have been directed chiefly to the cause of demarking or delineating boundaries between themselves and American Protestant liberals on one hand or fundamentalisms on the other. Marty (1975, 170)

6. Historical Paths: 20th Century
Charismatics
Pentecostals
WW II
WW I
Post-conservative
Ecumenical Movement
Open Theism
Centrist Evangelicals
Third Wavers
Lausanne Congress (1974)
Conservative Evangelicals
World Missionary Conference
“Neo” Evangelicals
Reformed Fundamentalists
Fundamentalists
Independent Fundamentalists
Modernism Postmodernism

7. Splinterings: Preliminary Examples
Theological
Missiological
Triple Bs (Barth, Brunner, and Berkouwer)
Inerrancy
Post-Conservative Evangelicals
Progressive Evangelicals
Seeker orientation
Hell—no
Post-Modernists
Open Theists
Love Wins
Church Growth movement
Bounded and centered sets
Excluded vs expanded middle
Third wave
What type of critical realism?
Gospel and our culture
Missional church framing
Holes in the Gospel
“To be or not to be” bringers of justice
Translation orientation (DFT)
If present trends continue, evangelical theology will further fragment so that, if it is not already the case, there will be no such thing.
Roger Olson, 2016 (119)

8. Battle Grounds General assemblies (Presbyterian)
20th Century
21st Century
General assemblies (Presbyterian)
Public statements (the “Fundamentals”)
Court of public opinion (especially newspapers)
Courtrooms (Scopes Trial)
Scholarly debates in schools
Schools
Schools (Fuller vs TEDS)
Public statements
Lausanne Covenant
Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy
Micah Declaration on Integral Mission
Organizational churn (from ETS to Moral Majority)
Political infighting (SBC)
Social media
Blogs (Gospel Coalition)
Twitterverse

9. Impact on North American Church Planting
Cooperation or competition
Denominationalism in church planting
Non-denominationalism in church planting
Cooperative
Divisive
Bounded or centered-set churches
Contemporary seeker-orientations
Missional fragmentations
Messianic Synagogues, Christian Ashrams, Jesus Mosques
Discussion . . .