Evangelical No More?

This morning as I was heading out the door to go fishing with my father my wife asked me:

"What’s the difference between evangelical and reformed?"

I wish my answer at the time was a bit more thoughtful, but I explained that evangelicalism is not a denomination but rather (and I got this from my professor, Derek Cooper) it's like water that can saturate any denomination. There are evangelical Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, and so on. It's basically an emphasis on personal conversion. That is, an evangelical would say that an individual must have a personal saving relationship with Jesus Christ, and would emphasis a "born again" experience.

Being the resourceful woman she is, Amanda looked up evangelical on Wikipedia while we were talking. Here is what she found: 

Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s^[1] and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.

Its key commitments are:

·         The need for personal conversion (or being "born again")

·         Actively expressing and sharing the gospel

·         A high regard for biblical authority, especially biblical inerrancy

·         An emphasis on teachings that proclaim the saving death and subsequent resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.^[2]

David Bebbington has termed these four distinctive aspects conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism, noting, "Together they form a quadrilateral of priorities that is the basis of Evangelicalism."^[3]

As she read the tenants of Evangelicalism I began to find myself feeling a bit pissey and dismissive. One, because I was heading out the door and two, because each point took me to either a memory I have or a quote I read about them all. If your brain is prone to over stimulation like mine is, this kind of rapid fire memory trip brings my brain awfully close to short-circuit.

She said...

"So are you reformed, or are you evangelical?"

To which I said something like...

"I'm both and I'm neither."

With this, my wife pulled out one of the greatest comebacks of all time:

"How am I supposed to follow you as the head of our home if you don't know what you are?"

As I left the house to go fishing with my dad I realized that my wife had just given me the perfect segue for expressing affirmation about my tradition of evangelicalism, but also to speak of how these four tenants have had some consequences. I will blog about each of these four points in the days to come. I am curious to see if anyone will relate to what I’m saying or will simply dismiss me as a fringe evangelical.

I’m not saying things just to be provocative or illicit a response. I take this seriously because I am fearful of where we are headed if we continue, and it is my hope that by honest and charitable dialogue we can change our course.