On Attempting to Define an Evangelical

In a blog posted on the Sojourners site, I read Jim Wallis commenting about “The New Evangelical Agenda.”

I forwarded Wallis’s article to some friends and colleagues with this comment:  “You need to read this. Pass it on to anyone who thinks “evangelical” means “conservative white male Fox News hound.”

(Before you go on, it would be wise to look at Wallis’s essay.)

One of my friends responded: “Very interesting. Just how large is this liberal evangelical movement?”

Welcoming the opportunity to clarify, here’s what I told him [slightly edited]:

Here's my take on answering the “how big” question:

It's probably better described as “moderate” and falls into many classifications with labels such as, “new-evangelicals,” a late 20th-century group that deliberately sought to move away from the anti-intellectualism of Fundamentalism, to a later iteration of “progressive evangelicalism,” which often gets confused with the more theologically liberal “progressive Christianity.” Another label is “post-evangelicalism.” There's also a group referred to as “Red Letter Christians” that expresses many moderate evangelical views.

The best representatives of a more “liberal” (another catchword) evangelicalism seem to be people with a concern for social justice: Jim Wallis, Ron Sider, Tony Campolo, Brian McLaren, come to mind, along with popular writers such as Peter Yancey, Eugene Peterson, Frederick Buechner, Donald Miller, Walter Wangerin, Lauren Winner, and Anne Lamott, though she would probably eschew such a label, as would several of the others on my informal list.

Among theologians, the most representative among the living would be N.T. Wright, Donald Bloesch, Miroslav Volf, D.A. Carson, Clark Pinnock, Ben Witherington, and J.I. Packer (Wright and Packer are Anglican priests). Here, too, some would probably demur from being so listed.

There's also a host of Roman Catholics or Catholic sympathizers who probably fit the evangelical mode: Brennan Manning, Thomas Howard, Kathleen Norris come to mind.

Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye and most of the TV evangelists who like to use the term evangelical because of its historic connection with “proclaiming the gospel,” would not fit any of the categories mentioned above, and, in fact, are guilty, I think, of being among those whom Wallis in the article refers to as having “co-opted” the term evangelical by re-uniting it with the “Fundamentalism” from which it was intended to distinguish itself. Politicians come to mind--Rick Santorum (Roman Catholic) and Mike Huckabee (Southern Baptist)--who seem to fit this pattern.

Clearly, few journalists and media people (and politicians) are alert to the distinctions, especially when referring to the evangelical right voting bloc.

Here's the three I suggest you read to get a taste of clearly defined moderate evangelicalism:

--Jim Wallis, Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It.

--Miroslav Volf, A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good.

--Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

There are many others. My recommended shortcut to these thinkers is to read the Wikipedia articles (or the Theopedia articles) about them. The writings of moderate evangelicals are enough to keep you busy for years.

By the way, I could continue for pages on the subtleties of thought that make the term “evangelical” a philosophical and religious morass. I’ll stop here for the time being.