What Is an Evangelical?

The term “evangelical” has meant different things to people at different times. In this brief clip, W. Robert Godfrey explains where the word comes from and how it was used from the 16th to the 20th century.

[reformedcatholic]

Lutherans were the first Evangelicals since Luther used the term first, but it was originally used first by St. Cyprian mid 200's AD.

[wretch]

Here's a good way to look at it.
Bearing in mind that the modern use of the term 'Evangelical' is not necessarily historical or biblical.

Catholic:
1. Universal beliefs

Enter the protestant reformation.

Catholic/Evangelical (ex. Lutheran).
1. Universal belief.
2. Rescue of gospel
Solar fide
Sola scriptura

Catholic/Evangelical/Reformed (ex. Calvinist).
1. Universal belief.
2. Rescue of gospel
Solar fide
Sola scriptura
3. Covenants
Redemption- works - grace
4. WCF/HEIDELBERG CATECHISM etc
5. Tulip

[rogermetzger]

For a few decades now, I’ve been trying to understand how people in the United States use and understand the word “evangelical”.

The first use of that word (or an equivalent in other languages than English) seems to have been in the sixteenth century when it was considered synonymous with “protetant” or maybe even “Lutheran” because of the protestant emphasis on justification by grace alone through faith alone. There is much more to the gospel, of course, than the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone but, because that emphasis came to be known as “the gospel” the promulgation of that doctrine came to be considered “evangelism” and the people who promoted it were called “evangelical”.

Soon thereafter - maybe even in the sixteenth century - people who considered themselves “evangelical” began to focus more on the story of Jesus as told by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John than on the Epistles and that emphasis, too, seems to have come to be associated with the word “evangelical”. Some people took that emphasis one step farther by encouraging a focus on the words of Jesus himself. (Does anyone know when “red letter Bibles” were first published?)

For as long as there have been protestants, some of them have undoubtedly tried to interpret the Bible as “literally” as possible and Biblical literalism has undoubtedly been associated with the word “evangelical”. The decade that saw the greatest (or the first major) emphasis on Biblical literalism was the 1920s.

I was born in the 1940s. I considered my parents protestant and I knew they tried to interpret the Bible as literally as they could but I’m almost certain that they never referred to themselves as “evangelical”.

Sometimes in the 1980s or ‘90s, I started hearing the word “evangelical” often enough that I started asking people how they understood it. After asking maybe a dozen people - and getting no answers I could understand - I made telephone calls to the headquarters of several denominations to ask that same question.

Most of the answers I got from those theologians were nearly as ambiguous as those I had received from laity but an administrator of one of those denominations (who obviously didn’t consider himself evangelical) said he thought of the word as a code word for people who imagine that their theology is better because it is based on an ostensibly literal interpretation of the Bible.

Over the last two decades, however, (at least in the United States) the word, “evangelical” has come to be understood as meaning “politically conservative”. While I agree with many aspects of conservative political philosophy, I’m diametrically opposed to the use of tax money to promote my Christian beliefs or practices (in public schools, for example), opposed to legislating my Christian concepts of morality and opposed to the use of civil government to enforce my Christian prohibitions (or anyone else’s).

Do you (anybody) know of a denomination that avoids both the tendency to promote a liberal/progressive political philosophy AND the tendency to encourage the use of civil government to promote ostensibly Christian “values”?

If not, do you think it would be worthwhile to try to create an evangelistic association (not “evangelical” by the currently-popular definition) that avoids both of those things?

[theTavis]

This didn't help me. He's all hurt about the label but I still don't understand the distinction between mainline and evangelical. I don't see any churches in my area identifying as either. How am I to tell if a church is "mainline" vs "evangelical"?

[ecotricity]

Why most evangelicals in America haters and Donnie supporters!

[noneofyourbusiness]

Giving man’s definition and Eurocentric history has nothing to do with God and his Kingdom. Evangelist is just and angel (ministering spirit) in God’s army.

Hebrews 1:14 (KJV)
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

2 Corinthians 10:4 (KJV)
(For the weapons of our warfare [are] not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

Ephesians 6:17 (KJV)
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

I know this doesn’t help perpetuate the lie of the Trinity and a chosen race, but the truth hurts