Re-Think: Evangelicalism

"Movements born in hatred very quickly take on the characteristics of the thing they oppose" (J.S. Habgood).

Trying to describe American evangelicalism is complicated. Let’s face it, placing Baptist, Reformed-Confessional, Pentecostal-Holiness, and Anabaptist traditions under the same umbrella wouldn’t be easy. Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, and Mennonites look very different from one another. I suppose in the broadest sense, evangelicals would agree on some of these basic points: the need for personal conversion (although with different understandings of what “conversion” is), the respect for biblical authority (although with different views on Scripture), the delivery of the message of the Gospel (although with different approaches), and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (although with slightly different theology). We’ll leave the narrower definitions to the fundamentalists. In general, however, “evangelical” is a term for anyone who agrees with biblical tradition and is committed to the good news that we can be participants in God’s redemptive grace in Jesus.


I believe that Christ calls us from our way of living into a new Way. I believe in expressing the good news of the Gospel of Christ, but I also think that expression must go beyond mere words. I believe in the authority of Scripture and particularly the teachings of Jesus whom I follow. I also believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and his great mission to redeem humanity.

I am evangelical.

While I identify with what it means to be evangelical, I have difficulty with evangelicalism and what the movement has come to represent in American life. I believe the impact of fundamentalism on American Christianity, coupled with our love of Civil Religion, has had a profound influence on what evangelicalism has become and the cultural context in which it has taken root. As an organization and movement, I believe it was hijacked by fundamentalism. While there are many other voices under the evangelical umbrella, the fundamentalist ideology is the voice that gets heard. Evangelical has come to be associated with a socially conservative, anti-Catholic, politically active, GOP supporting, pro-war, pro-capital punishment, red-white-and-blue, anti-anyone-who-doesn’t-think-like-us, defenders of the right wing movement asserting its “power and influence” in American political and cultural life. The movement has become political and has been an active participant in the American culture war.

The movement seems to have embraced a “message” that isn’t necessarily evangelical at all but is political and cultural. You might be hard-pressed to be able to see the difference between their political and spiritual agendas. In some circles, if one chooses not to engage in the culture war, he or she could be questioned as to whether they are even truly evangelical at all. I’m sure many of them are convinced that they are doing “God’s work” and standing up for righteousness…but I’m not convinced. I simply don’t see the correlation between Jesus and how the movement presents itself in American life.

Evangelicalism, as a movement, doesn’t look much different to me than the world that surrounds it. It’s as shaped by politics, culture, society, and consumerism as much as any other secular movement. The Kingdom of God should be different. While our governments and officials should receive my honor and prayers, my loyalty is to the Kingdom of God, not to a political or social agenda that wages war against my flesh and blood neighbors I am called to love.

One of the principal shapers of my Christian thought is found in the Anabaptists. Among other things, the Anabaptists possess an appreciation for the separation of church and state, nonconformity, simplicity, justice, and peace as well as personal discipleship. Unlike other Christian traditions that arose out of Europe, the Anabaptists did not inter-marry church with the state or advocate political power. Instead of pursuing political power or influence, they quietly lived out the Kingdom of God in the presence of their neighbors, expressing the Gospel in both words and with their lives. Their allegiance was to God’s Kingdom rather than to movements or political boundaries. Sounds of patriotic hymns were not heard in Anabaptist meetinghouses nor were their platforms decorated with national banners. They took great care not to blur the line between Civil Religion and the Kingdom of God.

Because I am deeply concerned with how the church behaves itself, I have been re-thinking what it means to be evangelical, and I am learning to distance myself from the movement that has moved from the message. Their war is not my war.