This special bonus episode closes out Season One of American Evangelicals: A History Podcast by sharing the complete, unedited interviews behind Episode 4, “What Is an Evangelical?” Only excerpts of these conversations made it into the original episode — here, listeners get both interviews in full.

First up is Cory Marsh, Professor of New Testament at Southern California Seminary, who argues that the Bebbington Quadrilateral, while valuable, is theologically incomplete without local church fellowship and theological education — what he calls the “crucial X factor” of authentic evangelical identity. Marsh also lays out his own five-fundamentals model from his book Recovering a Vintage Faith, and delivers a pointed critique of Christian celebrity culture.

Second is Vincent Bacote, Professor of Theology and Director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton College, who affirms the quadrilateral as a kind of “Bible-centric ecumenism” while pressing the case — following historian Timothy Larsen — for adding a fifth mark centered on the Holy Spirit. Bacote closes with a searching reflection on Black evangelicalism and how the movement's own convictions call it toward a fuller, more consistent ethic.

Together, the two conversations offer a fuller picture of the theological debate that ran underneath Episode 4 — two scholars, considerable common ground, and real differences in emphasis.

OUR GUESTS

Cory Marsh, Th.M., Ph.D., is Professor of New Testament and Director of the ThM program at Southern California Seminary, where he also directs SCS Press. He earned his Ph.D. in Biblical Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary under Andreas Köstenberger. Marsh is co-founder and host of The Pastor-Scholar Podcast and Scholar in Residence at Revolve Bible Church in San Juan Capistrano, CA. He is the author of Recovering a Vintage Faith: Five Fundamentals of Evangelical Identity (Mentor, 2026), among other works.

Vincent Bacote, Ph.D., is Professor of Theology and Director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton College, where he has taught since 2000. He earned his Ph.D. in Theological and Religious Studies at Drew University. Bacote is the author of Reckoning with Race and Performing the Good News: In Search of a Better Evangelical Theology (Brill, 2020), The Political Disciple: A Theology of Public Life (2015), and The Spirit in Public Theology: Appropriating the Legacy of Abraham Kuyper (Baker Academic, 2005).

BOOKS MENTIONED

· David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (Unwin Hyman / Routledge, 1989)

· Cory Marsh, Recovering a Vintage Faith: Five Fundamentals of Evangelical Identity (Mentor, 2026)

· Vincent Bacote, Reckoning with Race and Performing the Good News: In Search of a Better Evangelical Theology (Brill, 2020)

· Vincent Bacote, The Spirit in Public Theology: Appropriating the Legacy of Abraham Kuyper (Baker Academic, 2005)

· Katelyn Beaty, Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits Are Hurting the Church (Brazos Press, 2022)

· Thomas Kidd, Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis (Yale University Press, 2019)

· Carl F. H. Henry, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (Eerdmans, 1947)

Timothy Larsen & Daniel J. Treier, eds 

PEOPLE MENTIONED

· David Bebbington — historian; originator of the Bebbington Quadrilateral

· Timothy Larsen — historian at Wheaton College; proposed a fifth, pneumatological mark (the “Larsen Pentagon”)

· Thomas Kidd — historian; also proposed adding the Holy Spirit to definitions of evangelicalism

· Katelyn Beaty — author of Celebrities for Jesus; source of Marsh's “power without proximity” definition of celebrity

· Carl F. H. Henry — theologian; author of The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, referenced in Bacote's discussion of the gospel's social entailments

· John Perkins — civil rights leader and evangelical minister, referenced by Bacote

· Sam Storms — theologian cited by Bacote as an example of continuationist, charismatic evangelicalism

· Andreas Köstenberger — Marsh's doctoral supervisor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

· John Wycliffe — 14th-century reformer, cited by Marsh on the supremacy of Scripture

🔗 LINK to Episode Four

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2610661/episodes/19217337