Last week someone in the congregation asked me a great
question that I thought would be good to answer in this week’s Pastor’s
Pen. You will notice that each
week we pray for a nation of the world.
This week we are praying for Nigeria. Added in the information given are the population numbers
for “Christians” and “evangelicals.”
The question I received had to do with the definition of “evangelical”—“What is the definition of an evangelical
in distinction from Christian?”
The word “evangelical” is derivative from the word “evangel”
(from the Greek word euangellion)
which is the gospel. British
theologian Alister McGrath helpfully notes:
Evangelical is thus the term chosen
by evangelicals to refer to themselves, as representing most adequately the
central concern of the movement for the safeguarding and articulation of the
evangel—the good news of God which has been made known and made possible in
Jesus Christ.
The book Operation
World and its smaller, abridged version Pray
for the World are resources used to reference the population numbers in our
“Pray for the World” section in our bulletin. There is also an online listing of the nations to pray for
everyday at http://www.operationworld.org/. The Operation
World website has the following definitions which are used to inform their
work:
Christian
Anyone who professes to be
Christian. The term embraces all traditions and confessions of Christianity. It
is no indicator of the degree of commitment or theological orthodoxy. The
primary emphasis utilized is that of recognizing self-identification as well as
accepting the Scriptural principles illustrated in Matt 10:32 and Romans 10:9.
Evangelicals
All who emphasize and adhere to all four of the following:
•
The Lord Jesus Christ as the sole source
of salvation through faith in Him, as validated by His crucifixion and
resurrection.
•
Personal faith and conversion with
regeneration by the Holy Spirit.
•
Recognition of the inspired Word of God as
the ultimate basis and authority for faith and Christian living.
•
Commitment to biblical witness, evangelism
and mission that brings others to faith in Christ.
•
Evangelicals are largely Protestant, Independent or Anglican,
but some are Catholic or Orthodox. It is one of the TransBloc movements in this
book.
This definition is very close but not identical to the
definition introduced in David Bebbington’s Evangelicalism
in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s as the Bebbington
Quadrilateral, which offered crucicentrism, conversionism, biblicism and
activism as the four qualities of evangelicalism.
Evangelicals are enumerated in Operation World as:
•
All affiliated Christians (church members,
their children, other participants of the faith community) of denominations
that are definitively evangelical in theology as explained above.
•
The proportion of the affiliated
Christians in other denominations (that are not wholly evangelical in theology)
who would hold evangelical views, whether Western in origin or otherwise.
This is a theological and not an
experiential definition. It does not mean that all evangelicals as defined
above are actually born-again. In many nations, only 10-40% of evangelicals so
defined may have had a valid conversion and regularly attend church
services. However, it does show how many people align themselves with churches
where the gospel is being proclaimed as such.
In the above mention was made of the “Bebbington
Quadrilateral.” In that a number
of researchers use this definition it is important to know its content. Here are the four points with some
brief definitions.
1.
Biblicism: a
particular regard for the Bible (e.g., all spiritual truth is to be found in
its pages.
2.
Crucicentrism
[cross-centered]: a focus on the atoning work of Christ on the cross.
3.
Conversionism:
the belief that human beings need to be converted.
4.
Activism:
the belief that the gospel needs to be expressed in effort.
There are, of course, others definitions of
“evangelical.” For example,
Francis Schaeffer wrote that to be evangelical was to be:
Bible-believing without shutting
one’s self off from the full spectrum of life, and in trying to bring
Christianity into effective contact with the current needs of society,
government and culture. It had a
connotation of leading people to Christ as Savior, but then trying to be salt
and light in the culture.
John Dickerson, in his book The Great Evangelical Recession, comments on Schaeffer’s
description (which is primarily given for American evangelicals):
Schaeffer emphasizes the
“full-spectrum” of living in the culture.
Here, Schaeffer points out the practical distinctive of American
evangelicals. We have a heritage
of intentionally interacting with the culture in a positive way, rather than
isolating and reacting or submitting and capitulating to it. This “engaged orthodoxy” stands
noticeably apart from the spiritual bunker mentality that defined American
fundamentalism. It also stands
apart from the spongy plurality that defines theologically liberal Protestants.
Defining and describing “evangelical” can be difficult but
hopefully the above helps us better understand some of the defining
characteristics of what it is to be “evangelical.” Ultimately, at the theological level, evangelicals are
concerned about the gospel—the good news—of Jesus Christ!
* Quotations from Dickerson, McGrath, and Schaeffer all come from John S. Dickerson The Great Evangelical Recession (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2013)--Appendix C "Defining 'Evangelical'" pages 229-232.
**Also of interest may be J. P. Moreland's brief essay Defining "Evangelical" in Public Discourse.
