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WHAT IS AN EVANGELICAL?

When, in the movie “The Princess Bride”, Inigo Montoya hears Vizzini use the term “inconceivable” for the umpteenth time, he says, “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.” “Evangelical” is a word something like that; it is often used by people to mean something that it does not mean.

First of all, being evangelical has nothing to do with politics. Contrary to the media’s reporting, evangelicals are found in all political parties and also in no political party.

Neither does evangelicalism represent a particular Christian denomination. There are Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, Episcopalian, free church, Lutheran, etc. evangelicals. Rather, “evangelical” is an overarching term that applies to any Christian who professes historic and theologically orthodox Christianity.

The term evangelical comes from the Greek word euangelion meaning Gospel or good news or joyful tidings. The noun and verb form is used nearly 100 times in the New Testament and came into modern languages through the Latin equivalent evangelium.

The Apostle Paul defines the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4:

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures...

Historically, the word evangelical was used in reference to the gospel and true Christian doctrine by the early church fathers (Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Augustine, Chrysostom, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, etc.). The term was taken up by the Reformers during the late 1500s as they battled for a return to a Biblically grounded faith. In the 1940s influential Christian thinkers and ministers like Harold J. Ockenga, Billy Graham, E. J. Carnell, and Carl F. H. Henry were concerned that the church in the West had not adequately responded to secularism. They rejected the retreat mentality of much of Fundamentalism and called for a renewed vigor in Biblical orthodoxy and ethics that was unafraid of interacting intellectually with the rival worldviews of the predominate culture. These were the pioneers of the present evangelical movement.

The historic hallmarks of evangelicalism are:

1. An acceptance of and commitment to Jesus Christ, His Person and Works. Understanding that,

a. Jesus is God, the Son; second person of the Trinity.

b. Jesus is Savior.

c. Jesus is Lord.

d. Jesus’ death and resurrection are an atonement for sin.

e. Anyone who accepts Jesus is saved from their sin and brought into an eternal relationship with the living God. Jesus alone is able to bring a person to salvation.

2. The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the inerrant and infallible Word of God, true in all that it affirms when rightly understood. The Bible is total truth, addressing issues of faith and practice, science and history. The Bible is the “owner’s manual” and if we want to live a healthy life of meaning and purpose we’ve been told how in God’s Word, the Bible.

3. True Christians everywhere and at all times have expressed an orthodoxy of doctrine derived from Scripture; the core tenets of which are summed up in the three great historic creeds of the Christian Church: The Apostles, Nicene, and Chalcedonian Creeds.

4. It is the responsibility of all Christians to seek to persuade others of the truth of Jesus Christ and lead them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and a personal faith in Him.

See 

> Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology

> Pearcey, Total Truth

> Writings of David Wells, Francis Schaeffer, Os Guinness, Carl F.H. Henry.

> The Evangelical Theological Society (organized 1949) and their publication The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. [200 Russell Woods Dr, Lynchburg, VA 24502-3574]

Chris Raker 2009