Evangelicalism

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Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian theological movement, that began in Great Britain in the 1730s,^[1] and whose most important characteristic is a high view of Scripture, in contrast to either reason or the authority of the church. To this, Bebbington adds three other key ideas: conversionism, activism and crucicentrism, saying "Together they form a quadrilateral of priorities that is the basis of Evangelicalism."^[2]

Contents 1 Other usage 2 Current usage 3 History 3.1 Protestant Reformation to World War II 3.2 Post WW II to Present 3.3 North American perspective 4 Global demographics 5 Evangelicalism in the United States 5.1 Demographics 5.2 Evangelical politics in the United States 6 Conservative evangelicalism 7 Evangelical left 8 Post-evangelicalism 9 See also 9.1 Publications 10 Further Reading 11 External links 12 Notes

Other usage

There are a number of other ways in which the term "evangelical" can be employed outside of its usage in naming this particular historical movement. Firstly, (with a lower case "e") it can refer to the belief that Jesus is the Messiah. The word comes from the Greek word for "Gospel" or "good news:" ευαγγελιον evangelion, from eu- "good" and angelion "message." In that strictest sense, to be evangelical would mean to be a Christian; that is, someone whose life is founded upon and motivated by the message of the New Testament.

Secondly, the term can refer to the distinction between the Roman Catholic Church and movements of the Protestant Reformation (referred to by Martin Luther as the evangelische Kirche or evangelical church).^[3]

Thirdly, the term is also used by some Protestant mainstream churches, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America which, confusingly, does not consist entirely of evangelical churches. See also the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and similar churches in several other countries.

Fourthly, from the 17th century onward the Puritan party in the Church of England, which sought to identify that church with the Reformed movement of the Reformation, was also called the evangelical party. Some evangelicals withdrew from that Communion and became known as "Non-Conformists" and "Dissenters". The more radical of the Non-Conformist evangelicals were known as "Separatists" or "Independents".

Current usage

The contemporary North American usage of the term is influenced by the evangelical/fundamentalist controversy of the early 20th century. Evangelicalism may sometimes be perceived as the middle ground between the theological liberalism of the Mainline (Protestant) denominations and the cultural separatism of Fundamentalist Christianity.^[4] Evangelicalism is therefore described as "the third of the leading strands in American Protestantism, straddl[ing] the divide between fundamentalists and liberals."^[5] Whilst the North American perception is important to understand the usage of the term, it by no means dominates a wider world view, where the fundamentalist debate was not so influential.

History

Protestant Reformation to World War II

In the 18th century the Wesleyan revival in the Church of England influenced the formation of a party of pietistic Anglicans, whose descendant movement is still called the "Evangelical party". In the United States, Jonathan Edwards and the "New Lights" (revival Calvinists) were opposed by "Old Lights" (confessional Calvinists). George Whitfield, a Methodist, continued and expanded this pietistic "New Light" revivalism together with the non-Calvinist, Arminian Methodist movement. This broad movement became known as the First Great Awakening, which is the foundation of what is most commonly called "Evangelicalism" in the United States today.

In the 19th century evangelicals were the supporters of the Revival and the social activism that arose from it ("Second Great Awakening" in the United States) everywhere that Protestantism had taken root.

From the late 20th century such conservative Protestant Christians, and their churches and social movements, are often called evangelical to distinguish them from Protestants who have a tendency towards more liberal Christianity.

Post WW II to Present

The term neo-evangelicalism was coined by Harold Ockenga in 1947, to identify a distinct movement within fundamentalist Christianity at the time, especially in the English-speaking world.

There was a split within the fundamentalist movement, as they disagreed among themselves about how a 'Christian' ought to respond to an unbelieving world. The evangelicals urged that Christians must engage the culture directly and constructively,^[6] and they began to express reservation about being known to the world as fundamentalists. As Kenneth Kantzer put it at the time, the name fundamentalist had become "an embarrassment instead of a badge of honor."^[7]

The fundamentalists saw the evangelicals as often being too concerned about social acceptance and intellectual respectability, and being too accommodating to a perverse generation that needed correction. In addition, they saw the efforts of evangelist Billy Graham, who worked with non-evangelical denominations, such as the Roman Catholics (which they claimed to be heretical), as a mistake.^[8]

The self-identified fundamentalists also cooperated in separating their opponents from the fundamentalist name, by increasingly seeking to distinguish themselves from the more open group, whom they often characterized derogatorily, by Ockenga's term, "Neo-evangelical" or just Evangelical.

North American perspective

Evangelicals held the view that the modernist and liberal parties in the Protestant churches had surrendered their heritage as Evangelicals by accommodating the views and values of the world. At the same time, they criticized their fellow Fundamentalists for their separatism and their rejection of the Social gospel as it had been developed by Protestant activists of the previous century. They charged the modernists with having lost their identity as Evangelicals and the Fundamentalists with having lost the Christ-like heart of Evangelicalism. They argued that the Gospel needed to be reasserted to distinguish it from the innovations of the liberals and the fundamentalists.

As part of this renewal of Evangelicalism, the new evangelicals sought to engage the modern world and the liberal Christians in a positive way, remaining separate from worldliness but not from the world — a middle way between modernism and the separating variety of fundamentalism. They sought allies in denominational churches and liturgical traditions, disregarding views of eschatology and other "non-essentials", and joined also with trinitarian varieties of Pentecostalism. They believed that in doing so, they were simply re-acquainting Protestantism with its own recent tradition. The movement's aim at the outset was to reclaim the Evangelical heritage in their respective churches, not to begin something new; and for this reason, following their separation from Fundamentalists, the same movement has been better known as merely, "Evangelicalism". By the end of the 20th century, this was the most influential development in American Protestant Christianity.

Global demographics

On a worldwide scale evangelical churches (together with Pentecostals) claim to be the most rapidly growing Christian churches. The two often overlap, in a movement sometimes called Transformationalism. Churches in Africa exhibit rapid growth and great diversity in part because they are not dependent on European and North American evangelical sources. An example of this can be seen in the African Initiated Churches. The World Evangelical Alliance is "a network of churches in 127 nations that have each formed an evangelical alliance and over 100 international organizations joining together to give a worldwide identity, voice and platform to more than 420 million evangelical Christians" ^[9]. The Alliance (WEA) was formed in 1951 by Evangelicals from 21 countries. It has worked to support its members to work together globally.

Evangelicalism in the United States

Demographics

The 2004 survey of religion and politics in the United States^[10] identified the Evangelical percentage of the population at 26.3%; while Roman Catholics are 22% and Mainline Protestants make up 16%. In the 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States, the figures for these same groups are 28.6% (Evangelical), 24.5% (Roman Catholics), and 13.9% (Mainline Protestant.) The latter figures are based on a 2001 study of the self-described religious identification of the adult population for 1990 and 2001 from the Graduate School and University Center at the City University of New York. ^[11]

The National Association of Evangelicals is a U.S. agency which coordinates cooperative ministry for its member denominations.

Evangelical politics in the United States

Main article: Christian right

Evangelical influence was first evident in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century movement of prohibition^[12].

Ironically Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision rendered in 1973 preventing states from making laws that prohibit abortion, was not the most significant landmark of a new era of conservative evangelical political action. It was not until 1980 that the evangelical movement came to oppose abortion.^[13][14] In reality, it was Green v. Connally a.k.a. Coit v. Green, (and President Jimmy Carter's support of the decision), which ruled any segregated institution was not charitable and thus not tax exempt, that galvanized conservative evangelicals.^[15]

The mass-appeal of the Christian right in the so-called red states, and its success in rallying resistance to certain social agendas, is sometimes alleged as an attempt to impose theocracy on an otherwise secular society.^[16] There are indications that the belief is widespread among conservative evangelicals in the USA that Christianity should enjoy a privileged place in American public life according its importance in American life and history.^[17] Accordingly, those evangelicals often strenuously oppose the expression of other faiths in schools or in the course of civic functions. For example, when Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala became the first Hindu priest to offer an invocation before Congress in 2000, the September 21 edition of the online publication operated by the Family Research Council, Culture Facts, raised objection:

While it is true that the United States was founded on the sacred principle of religious freedom for all, that liberty was never intended to exalt other religions to the level that Christianity holds in our country's heritage. The USA's founders expected that Christianity--and no other religion--would receive support from the government as long as that support did not violate peoples' consciences and their right to worship. They would have found utterly incredible the idea that all religions, including paganism, be treated with equal deference.

However, the Christian Right is not made completely (or even a majority) of Evangelical Christians. According to an article in the November 11, 2004 issue of The Economist, entitled "The Triumph of the Religious Right", "The implication of these findings is that Mr. Bush's moral majority is not, as is often thought, composed of a bunch of right-wing evangelical Christians. Rather, it consists of traditionalist and observant church-goers of every kind: Catholic and mainline Protestant, as well as evangelicals, Mormons, and Sign Followers. Meanwhile, modernist evangelicals tend to be Democratic." Although evangelicals are currently seen as being on the Christian Right in the United States, there are those in the center as well. In other countries there is no particular political stance associated with evangelicals.

According to recent reports in the New York Times, some evangelicals have sought to expand their movement's social agenda to include poverty, combating AIDS in the Third World, and protecting the environment.^[18]

Conservative evangelicalism

Main article: Conservative Evangelicalism

Especially toward the end of the 20th century some have tended to confuse evangelicalism and fundamentalism, but they are not the same; the labels represent very distinct differences of approach which both groups are diligent to maintain. Both groups seek to maintain an identity as theological conservatives; evangelicals, however, seek to distance themselves from stereotypical perceptions of the "fundamentalist" posture, of antagonism toward the larger society, advocating involvement in the surrounding community rather than separation from it.

In North America, evangelicals tend to be perceived as socially conservative. For instance, based on the view that marriage is defined as only between one man and one woman, many evangelicals oppose same-sex marriage and polyamory. Also, based on the view that the life of a child begins at conception and that a baby's right to live takes precedence over the legal right to terminate an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy, evangelicals tend to oppose laws permitting abortion (See below for more details).

Evangelical left

Main article: Evangelical left

Typically, members of the evangelical left affirm the primary tenets of evangelical theology, such as the doctrines of Incarnation, atonement, and resurrection, and also see the Bible as a primary authority for the Church. Unlike most evangelicals, however, the evangelical left is generally opposed to capital punishment and supportive of gun control. In many cases, evangelical leftists are pacifistic. Some promote the legalization of gay marriage or laws protecting abortion on demand.

Evangelicals of both the right and left often utilize modern Biblical criticism, most commonly textual criticism.

Post-evangelicalism

British author Dave Tomlinson characterizes post-evangelicalism as a movement comprising various trends of dissatisfaction among evangelicals. The term is used by others with comparable intent, often to distinguish evangelicals in the so-called emerging church movement from post-evangelicals and anti-evangelicals. Tomlinson argues that "linguistically, the distinction [between evangelical and post-evangelical] is similar to the one that sociologists make between the modern and postmodern eras."^[19]

See also

• Anglo-Catholicism
• Bible believer
• Broad Church
• Conservative Christianity
• Conservative Evangelicalism
• Evangelical Catholic
• Fundamentalism
• Green Christianity
• High Church
• List of evangelical Christians
• List of evangelical seminaries and theological colleges
• National Association of Evangelicals
• Neoorthodoxy
• New Monasticism
• Oxford Movement
• Ritualism
• Summary of Christian eschatological differences

Publications

• Christianity Today
• Sojourners Magazine
• The Christian Post

Further Reading

• Carpenter, Joel A., "Fundamentalist Institutions and the Rise of Evangelical Protestantism, 1929-1942," Church History 49 (1980) pp. 62-75.
• Freston, Paul (2004). Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052160429X. 
• Marsden, George M., Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism, William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1987.
• Pierard, Richard V., "The Quest For the Historical Evangelicalism: A Bibliographical Excursus," Fides et Historia 11 (2) (1979) pp. 60-72.
• Price, Robert M., "Neo-Evangelicals and Scripture: A Forgotten Period of Ferment," Christian Scholars Review 15 (4) (1986) pp. 315-330.

External links

• Institute for the Study of American Evangelicalism - Wheaton College

Notes