Evangelicalism

The word evangelicalism usually refers to a traditional tendency in diverse branches of Protestantism, typified by an emphasis on evangelism, a personal experience of conversion, biblically-oriented faith, and a belief in the relevance of Christian faith to cultural issues. In the late 20th century and early 21st century, Protestant people, churches and social movements were often called evangelical in contrast to Protestant liberalism.

Development

19th century

Evangelical Christians were a diverse group; some were at the forefront of movements such as abolition of slavery, prison reform, orphanage establishment, hospital building, and founding educational institutions.

Related Topics:
Abolition - Prison reform - Orphanage - Hospital

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In 1846, eight hundred Christians from ten countries met in London and set up the Evangelical Alliance. They saw this as "a new thing in church history, a definite organization for the expression of unity amongst Christian individuals belonging to different churches." However, the Alliance floundered on the issue of slavery. Despite this difficulty it provided a strong impetus for the establishment of national and regional evangelical fellowships.

Related Topics:
1846 - Evangelical Alliance

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Evangelicals, along with trade unionists, Chartists, members of cooperatives, the self-help movement and the Church of England were involved in setting up the temperance movements in the U.S.A., Ireland, Scotland and England.

Related Topics:
Chartists - Temperance movement

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William Booth, a Methodist minister, founded the Christian Mission in London, England on July 5, 1865. This became The Salvation Army in 1878 as it took on a quasi-military style.

Related Topics:
William Booth - Methodist - Minister - London - July 5 - 1865 - The Salvation Army - 1878 - Military

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20th century

The World Evangelical Fellowship (now Alliance) (WEA) was formed in 1951 by believers from 21 countries. It has worked to support evangelicals to work together globally.

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Active involvement in secular society is a characteristic of modern evangelicals, who attempt to navigate between the dangers of withdrawal on the one hand and, accommodation on the other. Their guide is the biblical injunction to be "in the world yet not of the world". Evangelicals are highly active in social causes.

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Evangelical activism might be expressed in literacy training, inner-city relief and food banks, adoption agencies, marriage counselling and spousal abuse mediation, day-care centers for children, and counsel and care for unwed mothers, or any number of other help and advocacy works. The popular perception seems to locate all of evangelicalism on the Right side of political controversies, such as abortion, or the liberalizaton of the legal definitions of "family", "marriage", or "civil union" to include same-sex couples. This supposed uniformity is not actually the case; however there is some correspondence between theological and religious conservatism, and social conservatism, for obvious reasons.

Related Topics:
Abortion - Family - Marriage - Civil union

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Within the broad denominations (often called "mainline denominations") evangelical movements are organizing within various structures, which are often referred to as the Confessing Movement. The theological call for the mainline churches to return to their evangelical roots is known as Paleo-Orthodoxy, especially within Methodism, where Thomas Oden is one of its best known spokesmen.

Related Topics:
Confessing Movement - Paleo-Orthodoxy - Thomas Oden

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The movement represents a range of Protestant understandings of the Bible, liturgical forms, and church traditions - some of which are very non-traditional, and artistically conceived or innovative. On the average, evangelicals tend to be distrustful of reliance upon historical definitions of belief, if they are not qualified as being subordinate to the Bible; and yet, they may be inclined to refer to these documents of faith in defense of their understanding of the Bible. In controversies with those who favor a more highly structured liturgy, the evangelical party is usually the one in favor of a relatively more simple, casual and participatory form of worship, centered on preaching and the Lord's Supper (Eucharist), rather than more elaborate ceremony.

Related Topics:
Lord's Supper - Eucharist

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Especially toward the end of the 20th century, the secular media tended to describe traditional Christian believers as fundamentalists, including most evangelicals. However, in both movements, these terms fundamentalist and evangelical are not synonymous; the labels represent differences of approach which both groups are diligent to maintain.

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Fundamentalism

At the turn of the 20th century, in light of modern scholarship gaining the majority view, Modernist Christianity in the Protestant denominations was producing novel understandings and/or interpretations of the role of the Bible for a Christian, and the Bible's teachings. These trends were seen by their opponents as a threat to Christian faith and the welfare of society, as accommodations to the Enlightenment and an abandonment of the principles of the Protestant reformation.

Related Topics:
Modernist Christianity - The Enlightenment - Protestant reformation

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The Fundamentalist Movement was a conservative Protestant response, to liberal trends in their churches. It was a movement to preserve what they saw as being a minimum orthodoxy, a fundamental Christianity, over against the liberals' abandonment of such basic features of a traditional understanding of the faith as, the inerrancy of the Bible, the virgin birth of Christ, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the authenticity of his miracles, and the belief that his death on the cross takes away sins. This defense of fundamental Christian tradition was called Fundamentalism, though in fact it was little more than orthodoxy as found in the official statements of faith of Protestant denominations.

Related Topics:
Fundamentalist - Conservative - Liberal

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Some Fundamentalists strongly advocated separation from those denominations and institutions in which modernism was dominant. Many of these identified the Fundamentalist cause with certain specific doctrines, approaches to culture, and styles of worship, preaching, or plans of church governance, which were not shared by their fellows - some of which, in fact, had only arisen in the previous century. Others strongly reacted against separatism and exclusiveness. They sought to distinguish their agenda to defend the fundamental orthodoxy familiar to their forebears, from the Fundamentalists who sought to establish a new orthodoxy. Some of the leaders of this broader party called themselves 'neo-evangelicals'.

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Renewed Evangelicalism: Neo-evangelicalism

The Neo-Evangelical movement was a response among traditionally orthodox Protestants to fundamentalist Christianity's separatism, beginning in the 1920s and 1930s.

Related Topics:
Protestants - Fundamentalist Christianity's - Separatism

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Neo-evangelicals held the view that the modernist and liberal parties in the Protestant churches had surrendered their heritage as Evangelicals by accommodating the views and values of the world. However they saw the Fundamentalists' separatism and rejection of the Social gospel as an over-reaction. They charged the modernists with having lost their identity as evangelicals, and attacked the Fundamentalists as having lost the Christ-like heart of evangelicalism. They argued that the Gospel needed to be reasserted to distinguish it from the innovations of the liberals and the Fundamentalists; thus they coined the term, 'Neo-' (new or renewed) 'evangelicalism'.

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They sought to engage the modern world and the liberals in a positive way, remaining separate from worldliness but not from the world — a middle way, between modernism and the separating variety of Fundamentalism. They sought allies in denominational churches and liturgical traditions, among non-dispensationalists, and trinitarian varieties of Pentecostalism. They believed that in doing so, they were simply re-acquainting Protestantism with its own recent tradition. The movement's aim at the outset was to reclaim the evangelical heritage in their respective churches, not to begin something new; and for this reason, following their separation from Fundamentalists, the same movement has been better known as merely, "evangelicalism". By the end of the 20th century, this was the most influential development in American Protestant Christianity.

Related Topics:
Dispensationalists - Pentecostalism

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The term, neo-evangelicalism, no longer has any reliable meaning except for historical purposes. It is still self-descriptive of the movement to which it used to apply, to distinguish the parties in the developing fundamentalist split prior to the 1950s. The term is now used almost exclusively by conservative critics, to distinguish their idea of evangelicalism from this movement. Some liberal writers, speaking critically, might refer to neo-evangelicalism or, neo-fundamentalism, with comparably variable meanings.

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Evangelical politics in the United States

Evangelicalism in the United States was prominently active in political movements which are now popularly considered to be important social advancements, such as Women's Rights and Suffrage, and Abolitionism. Evangelical influence was also evident in past movements which are now unpopular, such as prohibition and anti-immigration. But Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision rendered in 1973 preventing states from making laws that prohibit abortion, is the most prominent landmark of a new era of conservative Evangelical political action, unprecedented in its intensity and coordination.

Related Topics:
Abolitionism - Prohibition - Anti-immigration - Roe v Wade - Supreme Court - 1973 - Abortion

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In the U.S. the Religious Right is influential especially in the Republican Party, and is often popularly perceived to be the political wing of the conservative Evangelical movement. The Bush Administration bases many of its policy directions on what it understands to be core conservative evangelical values. Consequently, criticism of controversial conservative political stances frequently falls on the evangelical movement as a whole, in the USA at least.

Related Topics:
Religious Right - Republican Party - Bush Administration

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The mass-appeal of the Christian right in the so-called red states, and its success in rallying resistance to progressive social agendas, is sometimes characterized by an otherwise unwilling, and secular, society as an attempt to impose theocracy on the country. While most who consider themselves evangelical oppose theocracy, there are indications that the belief is widespread among conservative evangelicals in the USA that Christianity should enjoy a privileged place in American public life according its importance in American life and history. Accordingly, those evangelicals often strenuously oppose the expression of other faiths in schools or in the course of civic functions. For example, when Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala became the first Hindu priest to offer an invocation before Congress in 2000, the September 21 edition of the online publication operated by the Family Research Council, "Culture Facts", raised objection:

Related Topics:
Red states - Theocracy - Family Research Council

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:While it is true that the United States of America was founded on the sacred principle of religious freedom for all, that liberty was never intended to exalt other religions to the level that Christianity holds in our country's heritage. The USA's founders expected that Christianity--and no other religion--would receive support from the government as long as that support did not violate peoples' consciences and their right to worship. They would have found utterly incredible the idea that all religions, including paganism, be treated with equal deference.

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Parachurch organizations

Parachurch organizations are a vehicle by which evangelical Christians work collaboratively both outside their and across their denominations to engage with the world in mission, social welfare and evangelism.

Related Topics:
Christians - Denominations - Mission - Social welfare

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Through many decentralized organizations, parachurch organizations function to bridge the gap between the church and culture. These are organizations "alongside" (Grk: para-) church structures, and often seek to be less institutional, however over time, with growth and success, and in response to environmental pressures they can become more institutional.

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Roles and organisations

Roles undertaken by parachurch organizations include:

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• evangelistic crusade associations (patterned after the Billy Graham Association)
• evangelistic and discipleship ministries (such as The Navigators, Campus Crusade for Christ)
• music and print publishers, radio and television stations, film studios, online ministries
• study centers and institutes, schools, colleges and universities
• political and social activist groups
• welfare and social services, including, homeless shelters, child care, and domestic violence, disaster relief programs, and food pantries and clothing closets, and emergency aid centers
• self-help groups
• Bible study groups
• house churches