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Should we use the term "evangelical"?

Posted Sunday, December 23, 2007 by Charlie Trimm

A friend of mine asked me recently what I thought about the term evangelical. Is it still a useful term for us today? Does the older generation have a different idea of evangelicl than younger generations? Does evangelical create barriors when we talk to people? Here are a few thoughts.

There has been a fair amount of work recently on defining evangelicals. David Bebbington has done the most accepted work with a four fold definition. An evangelical is distinguished by one who emphasizes conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism: focuses on conversions, good works in the world, the Bible, and salvation through the work on the cross. This is an excellent start, but it does seem to be lacking. Timothy Larsen has presented his own definition which helps situation evangelicals in history. An evangelical is

1. an orthodox Protestant

2. who stands in the tradition of the global Christian networks arising from the eighteenth-century revival movements associated with John Wesley and George Whitefield;

3. who has a preeminent place for the Bible in her or his Christian life as the divinely inspired, final authority in matters of faith and practice;

4. who stresses reconcilation with God through the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross;

5. and who stresses the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of an individual to bring about conversion and an ongoing life of fellowship with God and service to God and others, including the duty of all believers to participate in the task of proclaiming the gospel to all people. (Timothy Larsen, "Defining and Locating Evangelicalism" in The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology)

The latest issue of Books and Culture has a review of a book which seeks to do some revisionary work on early evangelicals which looks rather interesting. Another definition of evangelicals comes from ETS (Evangelical Theological Society) which places their focus almost entirely on inerrancy, although that is beginning to change. But there is also a big-tent evangelicalism as represented by IBR (Institute for Biblical Research), which does not necessarily hold to inerrancy. To make life even more complex, evangelical in German just means Protestant. And finally, there is popular level perceptions of evangelicals, whether it be those people who are homophobic or Republicans or people who just love Jesus.

What do we do with the term evangelical? Personally, I do not mind the term. I call myself an evangelical, and I am happy in the evangelical world. I think that the term is helpful in identifying who I am and what others who hold to the term stand for. There are certainly fuzzy areas in using the term, but I think overall it is still helpful and one that we should be able to use for many years in the future. But then, it isn't a term that is essential either. I don't think we have to call ourself evangelicals. If someone doesn't like the word, then we don't use the word. I think that the problem is either with stances taken by evangelicals or bad attitudes taken by those called evangelics. If the problem is the former, then using a different word isn't going to make much difference. If the latter, then using a different word might help a little bit, but I'm not sure it would really take away the problem: they would figure out quickly that we are very similar to evangelicals even though we don't use the word. No matter how we define ourselves, we will have problems like these, whether we use evangelical or Christian or believer or even spiritual.

But then, I am rather stuck in an evangelical world and don't get out much. Do those of you who spend more time with non-evangelicals have any thoughts?

Friday, December 28, 2007 9:50 AM

Eric wrote:

I've asked my dad to respond to this article, so we will see if he has time to get to it, but I think that he can add a lot to your internal discorse on this. For my part, I suspect that much of the reaction you are percieving has as much to do with Christianity as anything else.

Is the term 'Christian' neccessary for your beliefs? I suspect your answer is a resounding, yes! And why is this? Because terms have meaning, and identification with the body of Christ is part of your Baptism, and one of the things we are willing to die for.

The term Evangelical seems to have evolved over time, but I think the historical definition is the one we must cling to, and for that discussion, well I'll leave it to dad. Unfortunately, like much of modern Christian terminology, the phrase has been hijacked as a synonym for those wacky out of control Christians that threaten freedom and the foundation of America.

I think what many are strugling with today is, how do we make Christianity inoffensive in the modern world? When pastors and teachers shy away from key terms like Baptist, Christian, Bible, Fundementalist and Evangelical, they effectively hide what they believe to be more user friendly. Can Christianity be made inoffensive and compatible with the modern metanarrative? My answer to you is, may it never be. Those who fall on the Stone are broken, those on whom the Stone falls are crushed. There is no way to make the great Offense, inoffensive.

Saturday, December 29, 2007 10:07 AM

Charlie wrote: I look forward to your dad's comments, if he has the time. Your comments made me think of my time in Israel, where terminology is rather complex. There is a specific modern Hebrew word for pastor/priest (komer), but evangelicals tend to use the word for shepherd. There is a word for chuch, but evangelicals use assembly instead, because church means a tourist place. Finally, evangelicals tend to not use the word Christian, not only because it isn't a Hebrew word, but because Christian brings up connotations of fights in the Church of Nativity and such (one just happened a few days ago when a monk started sweeping an area that wasn't his), not a love for God. So while I certainly agree that we need to identify ourselves with Christ, I am not so sure we have to call ourselves Christians. Note as well that the term Christian only appears twice in the NT (at least, that is what I remember off the top of my head). We need to stand for what we believe, but I think that the terms we use to describe ourselves can be tailored to our context.