What is (or who is) an evangelical? The previous definitions and characterizations resonate with me in various ways, particularly David Koyzis’s confessional core contra pragmatism and especially the “essence” offered by the inimitable John Stott (as shared by Justin Taylor).
My own desperate clinging to the tattered label evangelical has less to do with any political or cultural uniformity as it does to these core convictions, or rather, the core conviction that the good news of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection for sinners and a broken world is the mightiest power set loose in the history of the world. As a word it has likely lost its flavor, and clearly its clarity, but I love it and I gladly apply it to myself (and to others) because of what it can mean and what I hope it will mean again.
I have been accused of wishful thinking, fiddling while Rome burns (or the Titanic sinks, as it were), but I just don’t want to let evangelical go the way of fundamentalist (which is not a very good word anyway). For better or worse, I am not a “post-” anything.
So I define evangelical as “person of the gospel.” I know that in seeking to get back to this essence of the evangel, the Christian’s atomic structure, I probably only succeed in making the dividing lines more fuzzy (and letting all kinds of people inside the circle), but I’m cool with that. I’ll preach it and live it, draw somewhat tighter circles of systematic theology and doctrinal confession around the church I pastor, and just let the Holy Spirit sort out the rest. I am just young and naive enough still to think Lewis’s “mere Christianity” a viable option for unity.
The result is that I end up identifying strongly with the so-called “young, restless, and Reformed” and have joined the Gospel Coalition, etc., yet still have my Calvinist credentials questioned by those outside these groups (though strangely not any inside that I know of (yet?)) because I refuse to equate the gospel with a particular brand of Calvinism or cultural movement or what-have-you. (My book on Jesus, which was released this last summer, draws equally from John Piper and N.T. Wright, for instance.) The gospel has my loyalty and therefore so do all who love it. It is the power of salvation for all who believe, whether Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, Arminian or Calvinist, Baptist or Presbyterian, Methodist or Lutheran, high church or low church, mini or mega, traditional or emerging, iMonk or TeamPyro.
I do track quite closely with this newfangled push for “gospel-centrality,” and that is, I think, the hope for the future of evangelicalism and even the word evangelical. I know more than a few of those gospel-centered ambassadors spend more time blogging than they do helping people die, but that’ll work itself out in sanctification, good mentoring, and the tried-and-true antidote of just growing up. In the spirit of semper reformanda, I stick doggedly to the gospel — revel in it, gnaw on it, savor it, teach it and live it, find it versatile and resilient, highlight the many notes of its one song, bang it into my head continuously — and believe that Christ is building his church and that his church will be a people shaped by the gospel.
So yeah, that’s how I define evangelicals: a people who once were not a people (1 Peter 2:10) but who will be a people shaped by the gospel.
October 19th, 2009 | 10:29 am | #1
Jared –
I’ll ask you what I asked Joe Carter in his originating post and let’s see if you can clear up my confusion for me.
Why should someone call himself an “evangelical” or “evangelical Christian” and not simply a “Christian”? What’s the distinction that makes “evangelical” a suitable and useful modifier for who you are and what you believe? And I ask for one reason only: it seems to me, as it did in Joe’s opening statement, that you mean “evangelical” to mean “inside orthodoxy” in the same way C.S. Lewis means “mere Christianity” — and if that’s the case, doesn’t that sort of trap us into calling “christian brands” outside of orthodoxy “christian” in a sense which would make J. Gresham Machen flip over in his grave?
October 19th, 2009 | 11:08 am | #2
Frank, the difference shakes out in the practice or in the confessionalism, I think. Evangelicalism is an amorphously “Protestant” movement, I know. I didn’t get historical or cultural in my piece, but I would say the difference between the subset evangelical and the set Christian is probably something like the five solas. Those who currently identify as evangelical are going to end up rallying around necessary and common denominators like justification by grace alone through faith alone, the authority of Scripture, etc. But I think these essentials are shaped by the truth of the evangel.
For example, if the gospel is the power to save, it rules out the works of the church, tradition, clerical absolution, the sacraments, etc.
But what I mean is, those conclusions are the outworking of the essential gospel truth. In that sense, it is understandable that they can get fuzzier at different points along the evangelical circumference.
What I mean to say is, an evangelical is — or actually should be — shaped by the essence of the gospel itself, while a run-of-the-mill Christian may grasp the gospel but is not seeking shaping by the gospel. They identify, even if implicitly, with something else: Jesus as moral exemplar, the traditions of the church, cultural Christianity, what-have-you.
One thing I didn’t elaborate on — but hinted at in my final restatement of definition — is how I think the eschatological implications of the gospel shape “true” evangelicalism (to risk accusations of TR’ness or some kind of waffly gnosticism). There will be a people shaped by the gospel because God will make sure of it.
I think this may include a unity many of us cannot fathom right now, but will come about through the Spirit’s sanctifying work and the church’s continuing reformation.
October 19th, 2009 | 11:45 am | #3
I love the optimism of the second-to-last paragraph — even if it encourages sin in our post-mil brothers. :-)
I’d be careful about your idea of “run-of-the-mill” Christianity. You seem to be implying that the “evangelicals” are the ones who are “really committed”, but that distinction isn’t in the NT, is it? If it was valid, wouldn’t it be?
Glad to see someone here who has a complete buzz about the Gospel, and I hope we find ourselves ultimately like-minded about Jesus and His plan to give life to dead and dry bones.
October 19th, 2009 | 1:40 pm | #4
You seem to be implying that the “evangelicals” are the ones who are “really committed”, but that distinction isn’t in the NT, is it? If it was valid, wouldn’t it be?
1 Corinthians 3 may apply.
I don’t believe I came awake to the glory of the gospel and really began enjoying it until about 4 years ago. But I do believe I’ve been a beneficiary of gospel salvation since I was about 6 years old.
I am only trying to say that trusting Jesus will save men with varying degrees of enjoyment of the good news. I once considered the gospel my entry fee but now see it as the currency for life. But it was the currency for my life all along. Because it is the good news that has the saving power, not our affections. (I think that’s pretty good Calvinism, actually.)
I would like to see evangelicals typified by greater gospel wakefulness — to be, as the word suggests, people of the gospel.
I don’t know if this implies people who are ‘really committed’ as opposed to those who aren’t, or if it just implies people who are committed because of their affection for the gospel as opposed to those who are “working hard for Jesus.”
October 19th, 2009 | 1:46 pm | #5
That is good Calvinism. May its tribe increase.
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