This discussion is a bit periphery to the usual focus of this blog, but the term “evangelical” is being used regularly at the present time, including a new article published by the PC(USA) OGA, so I decided to make some comments and reference some recent internet items.

This month the PC(USA)’s Office of the General Assembly (OGA) has published in their on-line newsletter Perspectives an article by R. Milton Winter titled “Presbyterians and Separatist Evangelicals:  A Continuing Dilemma.”  [This is a 32 page PDF file which I have only skimmed.  I will post some comments on it early next week after I have a chance to read it this weekend.  However, I suspect that the title alone will raise the blood pressure of many Presbyterians reminding them of the labeling of the opposing faction recommended in the OGA’s legal memos the Layman refers to as the “Louisville Papers.”]

We are also currently seeing the use of the word evangelical in the movement of churches from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.  The online edition of USA Today has an article today entitled “Evangelical:  Can the E-word be saved?” which references an October Christianity Today Editorial entitled “Save the E-word.”  And last week the Barna Group released a survey on “Who qualifies as an evangelical.”  But more on that later.  I would also point out that the Witherspoon Society, in responding to the USA Today article, has invited an on-line discussion about who can claim the title, including progressives.

The point is that right now the term has become fluid and has sometimes been used as a badge of pride and sometimes a label to stigmatize.  It is being used in some cases as a synonym, or euphemism, for “conservative,” (although there are “social evangelicals” like Jim Wallace and Ron Sider among progressives) and it is probably being overused so that the word is losing its particular distinctives.  Of course in Europe, particularly Germany, it is synonymous with what the American’s call the Lutheran Church.

First some definitions:
From a purely etymological perspective, it is derived from the Scriptural Greek for good news or announcing good news.

As for traditional definitions, they usually involve spreading the Gospel, a personal relationship with Jesus, and maybe a conversion experience. (cf. definitions from Google) While this usually has been associated with a conservative view of faith, the formal definitions are neutral on social or political viewpoint.  From my skimming through the Perspectives article it has an interesting discussion of its author’s viewpoint of the history and evolution of the term in American Christianity.

This brings us back to the new Barna report.  In the study on which the report is based, they do not use whether an individual is self-defined as evangelical or being “born-again.”  Instead they have nine criteria that define an evangelical.  These nine points include an individual commitment and personal relationship to Jesus that is on-going and acceptance of the Bible as accurate.  The other seven criteria are more clearly defined doctrine, like salvation by grace and not works, the existence of Satan, the sinless nature of Jesus’ life, etc.  According to Barna, about one third of the population will self-identify themselves as evangelicals while the percentage that meet their nine point criteria is in single digits.  The Barna article says that they got these nine criteria two decades ago from a belief statement of the National Association of Evangelicals.  I have not found that particular statement yet, but the NAE web site has their current Statement of Faith that you need to subscribe to for membership.  So I guess the NAE over twenty years ago set the definition of an evangelical.

For the criteria on relationship and Biblical accuracy, what does Barna mean by these two points?  We are at a disadvantage since in their survey the Barna Group may have been much more specific in the questions they asked and they only summarized them for the article.  But, at least in my mind there is some flexibility in how I could interpret them as expressed in the article.

When you look at the commitment and personal relationship, does this mean a specific conversion experience, the typical “born-again” moment, or does a general life-long faithfulness of those of us who grew up in Christian homes count, especially if we can not put a finger on a point where we first accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  The current NAE Statement of Faith is not helpful here since since there is no clear point addressing this.  There is the point that “We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential” which could come close.  (As a note, the existence of Satan is not included in the current Statement of Faith either.)

Concerning the accuracy of the Bible, the NAE does help here: “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.”  But how closely does one need to believe the Bible to be an evangelical by either the Barna or NAE definition?  Is everything in the Bible absolutely and totally accurately correct?  While there is dispute over whether the world was created in six days or 4.5 Billion years and great effort is put into reconciling apparent contradictions between the Gospels or differences in the accounts of an event between two different Old Testament books or the P and J versions, let me ask a different question:  To how many decimal places should we consider the Bible accurate?  Consider I Kings 7:23 talking about Solomon ordering the furnishings in the Temple:

23 He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.

If the Sea was circular in shape it is pretty clear that the diameter is ten cubits and the circumference is thirty cubits.  Based upon basic geometry this gives a value of the constant Pi=3 while if the more accurate value of Pi=3.14 is used the line around it should have been closer to 31 1/2 cubits.  So, if I have a problem with one of these numbers does that mean that I don’t accept the accuracy of the Bible and am disqualified as an evangelical even if I fulfill the other eight or six criteria?

Well, this may be a bit of an absurd example, but my point is that depending on how the question is asked or how the point in the Statement of Faith is phrased you will get varying degrees of qualification.  While I have never been contacted by the Barna Group I have been a subject in other surveys where general questions are asked and when I ask for clarification the caller just tells me to answer as I understand the question.

S
o, what or who is an Evangelical?  No surprise, it depends on who you ask.  Most people today don’t know that there was a very specific definition of “fundamentalist;”  it was someone who subscribed to the doctrines in the series of books The Fundamentals. (Although I know this is not news to my knowledgeable readers.)  However, in the case of “evangelical” there is no clear cut history and probably the best definition was a self-description by the NAE.  A bit circular?

Well, personally, I would tend to consider a person to be an evangelical if they tended towards the Barna or NAE description, with the understanding that not everyone sees the statements in exactly the same way.  Not exactly scruples, but a bit of wiggle-room for interpretation.  And when it comes right down to it, I guess I mostly like the most basic version, someone who announces the good news of the Gospel.