Who are the "Evangelicals"?

[Hestha]

What does it mean when people say "Evangelical" and "Mainline"? Why do Lutherans call themselves "Evangelical Catholic", and does this suggest that Roman Catholics do not evangelize? Roman Catholics do perform missionary work; how is that not evangelism? Is there a difference between evangelism and missionary work? Perhaps, evangelism can be done by a layperson, while a missionary work must be done by a professional, voluntary missionary or clergyman and -woman who visits a non-Christian place and tries to proselytize that group? Do Evangelicals work with apologists? How are Evangelicals different from evangelists? If evangelism is more about declaring the "Good News", does this imply any intention to proselytize or trying to win over the potential convert by persuasive rhetoric, even if it means that rhetoric implies that the evangelical or evangelist is scientifically illiterate and therefore would not work among a scientifically literate but "unsaved" crowd? Why are Christians so open about their faith? Do you think this openness can bring in false converts? Perhaps, it would be better to make the conversion procedure harder. I think Catholics require potential converts to become a catechumen, taught by a catechist, in order to be fully admitted within Christendom. The catechumen are treated as if they have not been baptized, if they are from a Protestant church (similar to how Orthodox Jews view Conservative and Reform Jews as not part of the church), so the catechumen is indoctrinated in the Catholic faith - the One True Faith - about Christianity, right? This long, difficult process would force the individual to think critically and sincerely whether the Catholic faith is right for him; however, it may be worth it, as that person may be more sincere about his commitment to the faith versus a person who belongs in a Protestant or Evangelical church, right?

 

[ebia]

What does it mean when people say "Evangelical" and "Mainline"? Why do Lutherans call themselves "Evangelical Catholic", and does this suggest that Roman Catholics do not evangelize? Roman Catholics do perform missionary work; how is that not evangelism? Is there a difference between evangelism and missionary work? Perhaps, evangelism can be done by a layperson, while a missionary work must be done by a professional, voluntary missionary or clergyman and -woman who visits a non-Christian place and tries to proselytize that group? Do Evangelicals work with apologists? How are Evangelicals different from evangelists? If evangelism is more about declaring the "Good News", does this imply any intention to proselytize or trying to win over the potential convert by persuasive rhetoric, even if it means that rhetoric implies that the evangelical or evangelist is scientifically illiterate and therefore would not work among a scientifically literate but "unsaved" crowd? Why are Christians so open about their faith? Do you think this openness can bring in false converts? Perhaps, it would be better to make the conversion procedure harder. I think Catholics require potential converts to become a catechumen, taught by a catechist, in order to be fully admitted within Christendom. The catechumen are treated as if they have not been baptized, if they are from a Protestant church (similar to how Orthodox Jews view Conservative and Reform Jews as not part of the church), so the catechumen is indoctrinated in the Catholic faith - the One True Faith - about Christianity, right? This long, difficult process would force the individual to think critically and sincerely whether the Catholic faith is right for him; however, it may be worth it, as that person may be more sincere about his commitment to the faith versus a person who belongs in a Protestant or Evangelical church, right?

Just to note before anyone begins that the word is used someone differently in different places. Particularly, it seems to imply a lot more of an extreme position in N America than elsewhere. In England and Australia a large proportion of Anglicans regard themselves as Evangelical.

 

[Hestha]

Just to note before anyone begins that the word is used someone differently in different places. Particularly, it seems to imply a lot more of an extreme position in N America than elsewhere. In England and Australia a large proportion of Anglicans regard themselves as Evangelical.

What do you mean by 'extreme'?

 

[ebia]

What do you mean by 'extreme'?

Ill leave it to others to describe the characteristics of American evangelicals. The point is a lot of evangelicals here would be considered mainline there.

Here it's characteristically:
An emphasis on scripture rather than liturgy and tradition
An emphasis on word rather than sacrament.
An emphasis on the cross rather than the life of Jesus
An emphasis on Paul rather than the Gospels
An emphasis on orthodoxy over orthopraxy
An emphasis on telling the gospel more than living it
...

 

[Hestha]

An emphasis on telling the gospel more than living it
...

So, are you implying hypocrisy?

 

[ebia]

So, are you implying hypocrisy?

No. At least, not necessarily.

 

[Hestha]

No. At least, not necessarily.

Then what do you mean by "An emphasis on telling the gospel more than living it"? Does that mean "practice not what they preach" or what? How do you live the gospel? I thought you would say that the gospel was an announcement during biblical times made by an ancient Roman herald to the public about some change in reality.

 

[ebia]

Then what do you mean by "An emphasis on telling the gospel more than living it"? Does that mean "practice not what they preach" or what? How do you live the gospel? I thought you would say that the gospel was an announcement during biblical times made by an ancient Roman herald to the public about some change in reality.

Perhaps it would have been more precise if I had said:
An emphasis in proclaiming the gospel rather than living the kingdom life.

We're called to do both, but inevitably (like all my dichotomies) all of us end up concentrating on one more than the other.

 

[Hestha]

Perhaps it would have been more precise if I had said:
An emphasis in proclaiming the gospel rather than living the kingdom life.

We're called to do both, but inevitably (like all my dichotomies) all of us end up concentrating on one more than the other.

How do you proclaim the gospel? Engage in humanitarian activities and donate to charities and proselytize the ones you have helped so that they can convert to your religion?

 

[ebia]

How do you proclaim the gospel? Engage in humanitarian activities and donate to charities and proselytize the ones you have helped so that they can convert to your religion?

Eh?

 

[Hestha]

Eh?

How do you proclaim the gospel? Proclaiming the gospel means to evangelize, right? And that means ultimately to proselytize openly, right? So, how do you proselytize?

 

[ebia]

How do you proclaim the gospel? Proclaiming the gospel means to evangelize, right? And that means ultimately to proselytize openly, right? So, how do you proselytize?

Me personally?

 

[hedrick]

ebia is doing OK, but I have a couple of comments:

1) Evangelical was originally a term used for Protestants. In much of the world it still is. it was given a special meaning in the US, I believe during the 20th Cent, as a "softer" replacement for fundamentalism. I.e. it still meant conservative in doctrine and Scriptural interpretation, but fundamentalists tended to reject "the world" more radically than evangelicals. In the last couple of decades we've started seeing liberal evangelicals. As far as I'm concerned they are pretty much identical to the mainline, except that they developed from evangelical churches. They often retain some features of evangelicalism, such as a greater concern for evangelism.

2) The "mainline" churches are the churches that go back most directly to the original 16th Cent Lutheran and Reformed movement. During the late 19th and 20th Cent, these churches were strongly influenced by recent trends in theology and Biblical interpretation, as well as science. Fundamentalism, and later evangelicalism was a reaction against this by people who wanted to maintain the original 16th Cent beliefs.

This mainline and evangelicals both go back to the Reformation of the 16th Cent. But they embody different values from it. Evangelicals continue the beliefs, while the mainline continues the methodology. What I mean by the latter is that the Reformation was to a large extent caused by new trends in scholarship in the late medieval and renaissance period. In continuing this, you have your choice: do you continue the same beliefs, or do to continue to follow current scholarship as it comes up with new ideas? Mainline and evangelicals make different choices.

3) How do you evangelize? Door to door calling, though that's actually not that common. Finding new members in the community and inviting them. Inviting friends to church. There are lots of approaches. Mainline Christians use some of them as well. One of the biggest differences is that evangelical churches tend to change their worship services to styles that are attractive to new Christians. Mainline sometimes do as well, but are more likely to maintain traditional services. To be honest, these are averages only. Everything evangelicals do is also done by mainline, just not as commonly.

4) The point about practice vs belief is emphasis. It's not that evangelicals don't practice what they preach. It's that historically they were less likely to be in involved in service projects for the community, and less likely to be involved in political action favoring the poor, etc. They were more likely to maintain in sermons that being saved required fairly well-defined orthodox beliefs. Mainline are more flexible in allowable beliefs, and tend to emphasize political action and to some extent service.

The fact is, these are all a matter of averages. There's overlap in all areas. But mainline are more likely to be democrats, and more likely to follow current approaches in Biblical scholarship and science. The differences are tending to narrow, however. I believe the more liberal half of the evangelical movement will become nearly identical to the mainline. It may well be that soon the main difference will be that evangelicals will retain their prejudice against the mainline (as rejecting the Gospel because insufficiently orthodox theology), even while being nearly identical to them.

 

[Hestha]

Yes. You.

 

[ebia]

Yes. You.

What have I got to do with it?

 

[Hestha]

ebia is doing OK, but I have a couple of comments:

1) Evangelical was originally a term used for Protestants. In much of the world it still is. it was given a special meaning in the US, I believe during the 20th Cent, as a "softer" replacement for fundamentalism. I.e. it still meant conservative in doctrine and Scriptural interpretation, but fundamentalists tended to reject "the world" more radically than evangelicals. In the last couple of decades we've started seeing liberal evangelicals. As far as I'm concerned they are pretty much identical to the mainline, except that they developed from evangelical churches. They often retain some features of evangelicalism, such as a greater concern for evangelism.

2) The "mainline" churches are the churches that go back most directly to the original 16th Cent Lutheran and Reformed movement. During the late 19th and 20th Cent, these churches were strongly influenced by recent trends in theology and Biblical interpretation, as well as science. Fundamentalism, and later evangelicalism was a reaction against this by people who wanted to maintain the original 16th Cent beliefs.

This mainline and evangelicals both go back to the Reformation of the 16th Cent. But they embody different values from it. Evangelicals continue the beliefs, while the mainline continues the methodology. What I mean by the latter is that the Reformation was to a large extent caused by new trends in scholarship in the late medieval and renaissance period. In continuing this, you have your choice: do you continue the same beliefs, or do to continue to follow current scholarship as it comes up with new ideas? Mainline and evangelicals make different choices.

3) How do you evangelize? Door to door calling, though that's actually not that common. Finding new members in the community and inviting them. Inviting friends to church. There are lots of approaches. Mainline Christians use some of them as well. One of the biggest differences is that evangelical churches tend to change their worship services to styles that are attractive to new Christians. Mainline sometimes do as well, but are more likely to maintain traditional services. To be honest, these are averages only. Everything evangelicals do is also done by mainline, just not as commonly.

4) The point about practice vs belief is emphasis. It's not that evangelicals don't practice what they preach. It's that historically they were less likely to be in involved in service projects for the community, and less likely to be involved in political action favoring the poor, etc. They were more likely to maintain in sermons that being saved required fairly well-defined orthodox beliefs. Mainline are more flexible in allowable beliefs, and tend to emphasize political action and to some extent service.

The fact is, these are all a matter of averages. There's overlap in all areas. But mainline are more likely to be democrats, and more likely to follow current approaches in Biblical scholarship and science. The differences are tending to narrow, however. I believe the more liberal half of the evangelical movement will become nearly identical to the mainline. It may well be that soon the main difference will be that evangelicals will retain their prejudice against the mainline (as rejecting the Gospel because insufficiently orthodox theology), even while being nearly identical to them.

So, if evangelicals keeps the 16th century beliefs but mainline keeps the methodology, that would mean evangelicals would be closer to the teachings of Jesus, right? Or forget about evangelicals and mainline, and go with Mormonism? Mormonism claims that it holds a restorationist theology. It restores the teachings of Jesus rather than add the teachings and philosophies of humans. Though, from an atheistic perspective, all religious philosophies are human-made, not divine, and God is created by humans, not the reverse.

 

[hedrick]

So, if evangelicals keeps the 16th century beliefs but mainline keeps the methodology, that would mean evangelicals would be closer to the teachings of Jesus, right? Or forget about evangelicals and mainline, and go with Mormonism? Mormonism claims that it holds a restorationist theology. It restores the teachings of Jesus rather than add the teachings and philosophies of humans. Though, from an atheistic perspective, all religious philosophies are human-made, not divine, and God is created by humans, not the reverse.

That's a matter of judgement. It's not necessarily the case that groups following nominally older traditions are closer to Jesus. The Reformation happened because the Reformers believed that traditions had accumulated over time, and had diverged from Jesus and the early church.

The mainline believes that while the Reformation made a lot of progress, it had some limitations, resulting in an incomplete restoration:

* Critical methods were still new. It took some time to apply them fully to Scripture. To complicate things, by the time that was done, the Enlightenment was in full swing, so a lot of the use of critical methods was done with the goal of discrediting religion (or at least orthodox religion).

* Much of the change in the last few decades comes from a number of discoveries in the mid 20th Cent of ancient documents, both Jewish and non-Jewish. These started a burst of scholarship that has ended up with a much better understanding of 1st Cent Judaism than the 16th Cent Reformers had available. That has had significant effects on understanding what Jesus and the various NT writers meant.

However it's not necessarily true that all changes are advances. I noted the problems with the Enlightenment. And of course recent scholars don't agree with each other. So a fair amount of good judgement is called for.

-----------------

You're right that the Mormons are part of the Restoration movement. However they're an odd part of it. The mainstream restoration was an attempt to get around the continuing bickering between denominations by starting afresh from the Scriptures. However the Mormons added to this a new revelation to Joseph Smith and his successors, contained in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. Many of us are not so convinced by that revelation.

One can well be sympathetic with the goals of the mainstream restoration. The problem is that they started from a fairly naive reading of the Bible, which didn't make use of the best scholarship even at that time. Furthermore, it's very hard to start from scratch and forget everything you've ever heard. It's not so clear that they guarded well enough against allowing then-current pop theology to creep into their reconstruction. These days the restoration churches tend to be very close to other denominations. One branch tends to be close to conservative Protestantism, and the other is really part of the mainline.

 

[salida]

Personally, I don't like the term because there are different definitions.

 

[Harry3142]

Hestha-

The christian community has 4 areas. These are the Roman Catholic Church, the protestant churches, the radicals, and the sects. You find evngelicals mostly in the radicals and the sects, rather than in the RCC or the protestant churches.

Certain of the radical denominations go back as far as the 17th century, such as the anabaptists. But the vast majority of them, as well as the sects, are no older than 200 to 250 years maximum. Some even began as 'slavery apologist' denominations, whose primary purpose was to put a divine mandate on slaveholding in the decades leading up to the American Civil War. The protestant church denominations include the Anglican communion, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians and the Methodists. The radical church denominations include the baptists (there are over 12 different denominations under the label 'Baptist'), the Church of Christ, The Assembly of God, and other denominations in that format. The sects include the Seventh Day Adventists, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Messianic Jews.

 

[Hestha]

Hestha-

The christian community has 4 areas. These are the Roman Catholic Church, the protestant churches, the radicals, and the sects. You find evngelicals mostly in the radicals and the sects, rather than in the RCC or the protestant churches.

Certain of the radical denominations go back as far as the 17th century, such as the anabaptists. But the vast majority of them, as well as the sects, are no older than 200 to 250 years maximum. Some even began as 'slavery apologist' denominations, whose primary purpose was to put a divine mandate on slaveholding in the decades leading up to the American Civil War. The protestant church denominations include the Anglican communion, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians and the Methodists. The radical church denominations include the baptists (there are over 12 different denominations under the label 'Baptist'), the Church of Christ, The Assembly of God, and other denominations in that format. The sects include the Seventh Day Adventists, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Messianic Jews.

This page lists the Christian denominations in detail. Too many denominations, way too many Christians.

Nowadays, I think Christians do not really care which denominational church they attend - as long as the church is friendly and welcoming, they can plop themselves comfortably in a pew and listen to a sermon or view a homily. If Christians want to join a church, then they choose the homeliest church and become a member of that church through baptism, which offers the benefit of entering leadership positions. By that, they begin calling themselves "Christian who goes to a Catholic Church" or "Christian who goes to a Presbyterian Church" and et cetera. No much difference, until one studies how Presbyterians separated themselves from the Catholic Church.