We must also mention the somewhat unusual structuring of Lutheran conceptions of Sola Scriptura - something a lot of people are unaware of. As already mentioned, it's largely confined to gospel-related questions - an issue itself not always easy to categorize. But in addition, the Lutherans have (historically) a two-tiered concept of Scripture. Following Eusebius, there are the New Testament Homologoumena - the undisputed books, and the Antilegomena which were disputed in some quarters for a time - a list that would include the Epistle of James along with Hebrews, 2 Peter, and Revelation.
Lutherans treated the Antilegomena akin to the Old Testament Apocrypha - as Deuterocanonical, books to be read and used as supplemental works, but not given stand-alone authority in the formation of doctrine. As such, it was common (at one time) for Lutherans to refer to New Testament Antilegomena as the New Testament Apocrypha. It even appeared as such in many Lutheran Bibles.
It's a canon-category that doesn't exist in the Reformed world and as such their conceptions of Sola Scriptura are in fact different - something to keep in mind when listening to appeals made to the Reformation and its Scripture Alone battle-cry. It's a little more complicated than some realize.
This framework explains how Luther could refer to James as 'Scripture' and yet also denigrate it as an 'epistle of straw'. Basically it's a canon within the canon model in which the Gospels and Paul are given priority, and other New Testament works are embraced, but functionally held at arm's length depending on (or to what degree) they can be harmonized with the authoritative Homologoumena.
This brings us to a view that I would simply call Generic Evangelical. The first wave of contemporary Evangelicalism emerged after World War II and was a response to Fundamentalism and its tendencies toward doctrinal reductionism and cultural separatism. Evangelicalism as a term had existed for centuries and yet this was something new - and for a time was known as Neo-Evangelicalism. Within a couple of decades this new category had become mainstream and thus in the American context was simply 'Evangelicalism'. Sometimes you will even see people refer to the newer style mega-church, seeker, and celebrity movement that emerged in the 1990's as 'Neo-Evangelicalism'. But given that its worship practices and style are now the Evangelical norm, this second iteration of the 'Neo' label no longer has any real meaning. I now encounter Evangelicals who think praise teams, bongo drums, and screens are 'traditional' and 'conservative' and as such when I bring up the question of liturgical novelty, they literally have no idea as to what I'm talking about. And that's another hallmark of Evangelicalism - a near complete and even deliberate ignorance of Church History and Historical Theology. If it's older than Rick Warren, they've probably never heard of it.
I had a recent encounter with a visitor to our church and he referred to our worship with its piano, some Scripture readings (some in unison), corporate prayer, and other basic structures, ending with a benediction as 'high church'. It's nothing of the kind I can assure you. He called himself 'Reformed' but only seemed familiar with screens, guitars, drum kits, and song services (called 'worship'), followed by a sermon. In other words, he's a modern Evangelical who thinks he's Reformed because he's latched on to Todd Friel and the Five Points of Calvinism or something. But I digress.
The Evangelical movement that emerged in the late 1940's wanted to maintain Biblical fidelity along with the so-called fundamentals of the faith, but with a different kind of style and relationship to the world. They did not like the way Fundamentalism had retreated and cordoned itself off from mainstream institutions. The Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy had resulted in various denominational schisms and splits within institutions of higher learning. The Fundamentalists were forming new denominations (that eschewed the Mainline) and new schools and seminaries - resulting in (as the Evangelicals saw it) a kind of Christian ghetto. The Evangelicals wanted to see Christians have a place at the table, to hold positions of respectability, and to possess social standing. The Fundamentalists came off irascible, uncharitable Pharisees that were rapidly becoming socially irrelevant.
As such, when it comes to the question of Scripture and Scriptural Authority, the Evangelicals had to forge a compromise - retaining fundamental doctrines and a conservative view of the Bible even while giving credence to the secular academy and playing the scholar's game according to its rules.
Evangelicals softened doctrine wherever they could and compromised on cultural issues - to a point. They still saw themselves as holding the line while Fundamentalists saw them as self-deceived sell-outs.
They embraced textual criticism and the academy's view of archaeology. They began to embrace a lot of sociological concepts which would lead in later decades to the full incorporation of psychology, feminism, and divorce. These all worked within the matrix of theology as well, leading to liberalisation often disguised as scholarly nuance. They did end up with some of their own schools but interestingly these institutions (once considered solid) are now compromised and increasingly given over to mainstream academic assumption - in other words, they are becoming close cousin to the Mainline, or at least where the Mainline churches were seventy-five years ago.
The line between Fundamentalist and Evangelical was often blurred - something I've written about on numerous occasions. My wife and I both grew up in the context of churches that in the 1970's and 1980's were something of a hybrid - Fundamentalist in doctrine and yet increasingly (if by small increments) Evangelical in ethos and style. The doctrine was strict but some of these churches began to break with Fundamentalist legalism. Young people (to the chagrin of their elders) began to embrace Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) and attitudes shifted about things like dancing, dress, money, women, and even alcohol.
There was a sharp reaction in the 1980's and 1990's over the Bible. The proliferation of new translations, and especially the New International Version (NIV) in the late 1970's generated alarm - in part due to some sensationalist and misguided works critiquing it. There's plenty to critique about the NIV or even the Critical Text of the New Testament, but Gail Riplinger and Peter Ruckman were not the ones to do it.
As the Fundamentalists struggled to hold to a consistent position and further one that could readily be understood by the people in the pews - many were drawn to King James Onlyism - which itself is nuanced. The practical advantage is that (regardless of the nuance) it ends the debate. It's the King James or nothing. It becomes a gospel-marker, a line of delineation that separates faithful and even true churches from those that are wayward or functionally apostate.
Some 'Onlyists' believe the King James Version is the best and most textually sound and faithful translation available. Others focus more on the Textus Receptus and would appeal to it as the historic ecclesiastical text. Some even within Confessional circles appeal to the Textus Receptus on the basis of their Confessions - and thus champion the Authorised Version. These are all positions that fall within basic orthodoxy.
But others took the King James Only notion in heretical directions and started advocating a Double Inspiration or Second Pentecost view, arguing the 1611 Anglican translators were divinely inspired, and that the English King James constitutes a new Autographa, and as such you can effectively throw away the extant Greek and Hebrew texts. Some extend this even to inspired chapter-verse divisions and will even preach numerologically oriented series on this basis. It is unfortunate, but this over-simplified understanding of the debates has appealed to many as again it shuts down any debate. You're either 'right' on this issue, or you're not. I've been around many such men that will turn off a sermon video if the preacher is using anything other than the King James Version. If the preacher is a Christian, he's not one to be listened to as he's lost his way.
As one who (following the Early Church and First Reformation) advocates the so-called (and misnamed) Apocrypha of the Old Testament, I find it more than a little ironic that the 1611 King James (as well as the 1560 Geneva) included these books - the translators saw fit to include them in their efforts. This point alone more or less demolishes the Double Inspiration view as it is unthinkable that these Fundamentalists would pick up Wisdom, Tobit, or Judith - books that were in the 1611 King James and many Protestant Bibles until the 19th century.
For the record, I primarily use a 1611 or on occasion a New King James version. I also appreciate the Third Millennium Bible (which is basically a King James) but I can only get my hands on a hardcover. I am not at all opposed to the Orthodox Study Bible which uses a New King James for the New Testament and a translation of the Septuagint for the Old. And yet I'm not so keen on the study notes, let alone the icons contained therein. If they ever release an edition without those 'extras', I would certainly purchase one.
Though many of the Fundamentalists lost their way on these Scripture-related issues and others were for so long dominated by legalism that they alienated so many of their own people and their numbers began to drop - in their assessment of Evangelicalism (and condemnations of its worldly character), they were not entirely wrong. The Evangelicals compromised left and right and functionally rejected Sola Scriptura in the realm of Ecclesiology - in terms of worship, Church government, and the nexus between Church and the Christian life. Paying lip service to Scriptural Authority, they rejected its Sufficiency as exemplified in their reliance upon innovation and Madison Avenue techniques in everything from church growth strategies, polity, and liturgy, to fad and psychology-driven piety, and overall syncretism with American culture
And this compromise with the academy in the realm of Scripture and theology would lead to further changes that began to really bear some harmful fruit in the 1990's and up to the present - another category I refer to as the Evangelical Academy view of Scripture.
This view (which we will get to momentarily) has also been given additional energy by (what I deem to be harmful) Fundamentalist tendencies within some quarters of Evangelicalism - especially in the realms of epistemology which in turn plays out in how these folks interact with revelation and Scripture in terms of logic and theological prolegomena, and in terms of science.
These Fundamentalist-inspired Evangelicals have often made strong claims in terms of how God reveals Himself and how revelation works. They demand (as did the original Fundamentalists) a strict kind of literalism (as they see it) which must conform to the dictates of Scottish Common Sense Realism and in some respects the Analytic philosophical tradition which emerged out of British Empiricism. This also ties in to the question of science.
They clash with the Evangelical Academy view over how Scripture is to be read. Scholars having studied the texts in detail and having familiarized themselves with the other literature of the period as well as other religious texts, can make a strong argument that no one in the ancient world read these texts in this kind of hyper-literalistic almost scientific way. In fact they would argue (with some justification) that the Fundamentalist approach is really more rooted in the Enlightenment. For some studying out these issues for the first time, this reality (and its great irony) is striking - almost suffocating in its magnitude.
But I would also add that a serious literal reading of Scripture allows for the typology and metaphor to work, and that doctrinal operations and interactions often transcend temporal logic and operate on a completely different level, necessarily resulting in the incorporation of limited (undeveloped) concepts and mystery - something we will return to later.
This is not the same view as the academy at all and yet it is starkly different from Fundamentalism's assumptions. It's actually a kind of Biblicist literalism but one that is willing to leave questions open and unresolved and to let dichotomies and tensions exist. It's a less systematic and (and by philosophical estimations) less than coherent approach to doctrine, but one that subjugates human reason and experience to Divine revelation in a way that Fundamentalism, Confessionalism, and the modern Academic varieties of Evangelicalism fail to do. We will return to this later on.
In terms of science, the Fundamentalist (and in some cases Evangelical) commitment to this epistemology fuels movements like the aforementioned Creation Science as well as (in more recent years) scepticism regarding medicine and other scientific fields as well. Like the debate over a 'literalist' read of Scripture, this line of inquiry can prove equally frustrating as we must reject certain Fundamentalist tendencies regarding epistemology, logic, and coherence, and yet at the same time (like them) we are driven to reject (at times) the claims of secular science and medicine - and often the materialist assumptions which drive them. We stand on the Bible as authoritative but unlike some who view the Bible as a starting point, we don't believe the purpose of Scripture is to provide a cipher for resolving all the problems of culture and society. It's purpose is redemptive and Spiritual - as in the realm of the Holy Spirit. It is covenantal and thus operates within the sphere of God's Kingdom people, the Body of Christ, or the Church.