Amen, Migraine. That’s my thoughts about a person that’s an evangelical. S/he’s a born again believer.
Amen, Migraine. That’s my thoughts about a person that’s an evangelical. S/he’s a born again believer.
That's the problem.
When everybody and his dog, inside and outside of Protestantism, and Christianity itself, has their own different definition of "evangelical", the term looses any precision it might have had.
From the original piece:
Further, it’s not at all clear what it means to say that one is “an evangelical” any longer. ..... Consider that one can be an “evangelical” and affirm inerrancy in the traditional sense or deny it. One can hold to divine sovereignty or deny it. One can hold to the historic doctrine of the Trinity or deny it (via social Trinitarianism). One can affirm the historic Protestant doctrine of justification sola gratia et sola fide or deny it (via NPP or FV). One can affirm an open canon or deny it and be an evangelical. Today there are Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic evangelicals. Perhaps the greatest difference between the old definition of evangelical and the modern is that to be a modern “evangelical” is to deny the doctrine of the church—which follows from the pietist/QIRC trajectory of evangelicalism since the 18th century.
"Evangelical" as a term has a history that dates back at least to the beginning of the Protestant movement in Christianity.
Part of it is an inside/outside problem. Those on the inside of whatever, here conservative Protestants, will make distinctions those on the outside will not. Thus, to the TeeVee, anybody who talks about Jesus and isn't Roman Catholic, uberliberal liturgical mainline or in an overt cult, is evangelical.
Todd Bentley is an evangelical, did you know that? So sayeth that font of truth, Nightline, in their story on him. Thus, my current tagline.