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In this post, An Inherent Danger? , I mentioned in passing that if you wanted to know why I considered myself to be an evangelical Christian, you'd have to email and ask. Surprisingly, someone did! And I thank them for it because it made me think about it.

First off, what is an evangelical Christian? There are many definitions published in theological dictionaries, I like this one:

Evangelical

(noun) Member of a Bible-based Protestant church emphasizing personal salvation solely through being born again and through uncompromising commitment to the person of Jesus Christ.

(adjective)

1. Of or relating to the gospel.
2. In the spirit of New Testament Christianity.
3. Belonging or relating to a Bible-based Protestant church emphasizing personal salvation solely through being born again and through uncompromising commitment to the person of Jesus Christ.
4. Emphasizing the doctrine of sin, repentance, grace, salvation, and saving faith.
5. Lutheran, as opposed to Reform.
6. Generally, Protestant, as opposed to Catholic.

 

Kurian, George Thomas: Nelson's New Christian Dictionary : The Authoritative Resource on the Christian World. Nashville, Tenn. : Thomas Nelson Pubs., 2001

Evangelicalism One of the main strands of Protestant Christianity. Its distinguishing marks are acceptance of scriptural authority as binding on Christians, personal commitment to Jesus Christ, and adherence to historic Trinitarianism. In almost all countries, Evangelicals are pitted against the liberals, and there are divisions between conservatives and liberals even within Evangelicalism. The Laodicean character of the liberal churches, as contrasted with the earnestness of the Evangelicals, has helped the latter gain an edge in terms of converts and growth.

Evangelicals have been in the forefront of the missionary movement. The Church Missionary Society in England and the British and Foreign Bible Society owe their origin to Evangelicals. In the nineteenth century, Evangelicalism received a boost from the revivalist movements and from the Keswick Convention. With Evangelicalism’s twin focus of world missions and personal consecration, the social gospel has disappeared from its horizon. In the post-World War II period, the conservative Evangelicals have spearheaded a revival under the leadership of John Stott, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Carl Henry, and others. The crusades of Billy Graham, the Charismatic movement, the impact of Inter-Varsity Fellowship among students, the popularity of theology as an academic discipline, and experiments in new forms of worship and evangelism have contributed to the phenomenal growth of Evangelicalism.

Evangelicals and Catholics Together Initiative begun in the United States in 1994 by Evangelicals led by Charles Colson and Roman Catholics led by Richard Neuhaus. Its initial joint statement, subtitled “The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium,” was followed by a volume of essays (1995) and a second statement, “The Gift of Salvation.” It was born out of a growing recognition of the importance of forming a common front against liberalism.

Kurian, George Thomas: Nelson's New Christian Dictionary : The Authoritative Resource on the Christian World. Nashville, Tenn. : Thomas Nelson Pubs., 2001

So, I think if you read both of those definitions, you can get a pretty good idea of what an evangelical is (at least what they are supposed to be) and why I claim that label.

The problem is that evangelicals have decided to stray from that definition over the years and by so doing, have seen the term become a derogatory one by many people. Why? Here is an excellent explanation from John MacArthur, one of my favorite Bible teachers, in one of my favorite books, ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL, When the Church Becomes Like the World.

The Inferiority of Human Wisdom

Remember that Paul was ministering in a civilization that had been brought to the pinnacle of glory under the Greek empire and was now enjoying a revival of high culture under Roman government. The ancient Greeks viewed philosophy as the highest of human attainments, and they built their whole society around it. Educated Greeks took their philosophy very seriously. There were at least four dozen distinct philosophical systems that competed with each other for influence and acceptance. Many of them were overtly religious, explaining human origin, morality, social relationships, and human destiny in terms of a pantheon of pagan gods. These Greek philosophies were very sophisticated and were the basis of all social, economic, political, and educational relations. Most if not all of them were totally at odds with the revealed truth of Scripture.

In short, Greek society worshiped human wisdom. The very word philosophy means “love of wisdom.” Unfortunately, some of the Corinthian converts held on to their love of human wisdom and tried to import it into the church. Evidently they thought human wisdom could enhance divine revelation or add to what they had in Christ. Paul set out in the above passage to correct them.
Paul included a similar admonition in his epistle to the Colossians: “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ” (2:8). His point was that Christians have no business pursuing human wisdom. It does no good spiritually for the unsaved, and it can add nothing to the believer. In fact, human wisdom has nothing to offer but confusion and division.

It is important to note that Paul’s argument was not against natural facts or rational truth. He was not taking a mindless, anti-intellectual stance. On the contrary, Paul himself usually appealed to the minds of his disciples: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom. 12:2); “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Eph. 4:23); “Set your mind on the things above” (Col. 3:2); “Be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (Col. 1:9, emphasis added). He was no anti-intellectual. For Paul, all truth was objective, fixed, revealed infallibly by God through His Word. Knowing the truth required study, diligence (2 Tim. 2:15). It was a matter of understanding, not feeling (1 Cor. 14:14–20). Truth, he emphasized, is something to be understood rationally, not discerned by mystical intuition (cf Job 38:36; Luke 24:45). Don’t get the idea Paul depreciated the importance of the mind.

Nor was Paul on the offensive against technology and science. Medicine, architecture, engineering, mathematics, and other sciences had made great advances in Paul’s day, just as they have in ours. Paul was not condemning any of these fields of knowledge per se. He was not opposed to learning and applying the God-given benefits of the scientific disciplines. Nor would he have objected to new areas of learning such as electronics or automotives. Christians can and should thank God for the blessings we enjoy from these sciences. As long as they are used properly—that is, as long as they don’t become a basis for speculation about God, right and wrong, good and evil, or the spiritual meaning of life—the true sciences pose no threat to the truth of the gospel.

What Paul opposed was the human wisdom behind worldly philosophy: “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor. 1:20). In another place Paul wrote, “Our proud confidence is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you” (2 Cor. 1:12, emphasis added).

In contrast to Paul, contemporary evangelicalism has elevated human opinion and worldly, fleshly wisdom to an undue level. For most of the past century, evangelical theology has bowed at the shrine of academia, attempting to assimilate secular theology, philosophy, politics, psychology, moral relativism, evolutionary theory, and every other academic fad. Finding those things incompatible with the Bible and the simplicity of the gospel, Christians have too often been willing to twist and shape divine truth to try to make it fit. Multitudes have thus been drawn away from singular devotion to biblical doctrine to embrace human wisdom.

The desire for intellectual acceptability has undoubtedly steered more Christian leaders and institutions onto the down-grade than any other single force. In pursuit of that misguided goal, the worldly church has dutifully stayed one or two steps behind the world in its fashions and thinking. Bible-believing evangelicals have therefore had to wage a continual war against current human opinion.

The will to carry on that battle may be waning as more and more churches conform to the world. It is now standard practice among core evangelicals to borrow psychology and methodology from the world. Some think they can simply add human insights to Scripture and thus baptize worldly wisdom to make it “Christian.”

Paul, on the other hand, was completely unwilling to incorporate human wisdom into the church. Instead he attacked it head on as a despised enemy: “For Christ [sent me] to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made void” (1 Cor. 1:17). “Cleverness of speech” is from the Greek expression sophia logou—literally “wisdom of words.” Paul’s task was to preach God’s Word, not man’s wisdom.

It might be fair at this point to ask if it is always wrong to appeal to human wisdom, even in evangelistic contexts. After all, if our task is to reach the world with the gospel, why not try to express it in ways that appeal to the human mind? Paul answers that question by saying such an approach makes the cross of Christ void. There are two reasons why this is so. First of all, the message of the cross “is to those who are perishing foolishness” (v. 18). There is no way to make it otherwise and be faithful to the message. And second, it is impossible to elevate human wisdom without lowering God’s truth. Human wisdom caters to self-will, intellectual and social pride, fleshly lusts, and the desire for independence from God. Human wisdom and the gospel are therefore constitutionally incompatible. Try to combine the two, and Paul says you render the gospel null and void.

The very reason people love sophisticated religion and highbrow morality is that those things appeal to the human ego. At the same time, worldly wisdom scoffs at the gospel precisely because it confronts human conceit. The gospel demands that people acknowledge their sin and spiritual impotence. It humiliates them, convicts them, and calls them sinners. Moreover, it offers salvation as a gracious work of God—not something people can accomplish on their own. In every way the cross crushes human pride.

MacArthur, John: Ashamed of the Gospel : When the Church Becomes Like the World. Wheaton, Ill. : Crossway Books, 1993, S. 108

Basically, as we have become more like the world, we have lost our relevance to it. We have many pretenders but few true believers. In Warren Wiersbe's study of Jeremiah, he reminds us of this:

Instead of rejecting His people, however, the Lord patiently called for them to return and be restored as His wife. What grace! God had even caused a drought in the land, and the people had called out to Him for help (Jer. 3:4–5), but they had not really repented of their sins. Because of their covenant relationship with God, Judah called Him “Father”  and “guide,”  which were titles Jewish wives sometimes used in addressing their husbands. But how could God give them covenant blessings when they were violating covenant commandments?

When Assyria conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C., the Southern Kingdom of Judah witnessed this divine judgment. Nevertheless, the Judahites refused to learn from Israel’s destruction and turn from their sins (vv. 6–11). God had “divorced”  Israel and put her away; Israel became a part of Assyria, and the Northern Kingdom was never restored. Having seen this judgment, the Judahites persisted in their sins as though it would never happen to them, and because of this arrogant attitude, Judah was even more guilty than Israel. Judah should have been “put away,”  yet God graciously invited His adulterous wife to return home to Him.

In obedience to the king, the people had cooperated with Josiah’s reformation and outwardly put away their idols, but what they did was “only in pretense”  (v. 10, NIV). God was “near in their mouth but far from their mind”  (12:2, NKJV; see Ezek. 33:31). Even today, when political leaders claim to be born again and are willing to promote evangelical causes, going to church and reading the Bible become the “in”  things to do, but you wonder how sincere these people really are. True Christian faith has never been popular, and the road that leads to life is still narrow and lonely (Matt. 7:13–23).

Wiersbe, Warren W.: Be Decisive. Wheaton, Ill. : Victor Books, 1996, c1995 (An Old Testament Study), S. Je 3:1

I realize that is a lot of reading for a blog post but to understand why I say I'm an evangelical Christian without hesitation, I think it is important to understand that I'm not afraid of the derogatory connotation that the term has taken and why it has taken it.  The road is truly narrow if you choose to follow it.

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Shannon  - Evangelicalism Today   |2007-12-10 08:18:15 I referred to this article recently on LST. It has now become available online. I thought you might find it interesting. http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=20-09-016-o Reply | Quote

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