What is an Evangelical?

Etymologically, the term evangelical is derived from the Greek word for ‘gospel’ or ‘good news’. Broken down into its constituent parts the word euangelion combines the words ‘good’ (eu) and ‘messenger’ (angel), with -ion being a neuter suffix. This gets to the heart of the meaning of evangelicalism as those who bear or tell ‘good news’ or ‘gospel’. In his study of evangelicalism in modern Britain, David Bebbington highlighted four distinctive markers of evangelical religion: conversionism or the belief that lives need to be changed and individuals need to be ‘born again’; activism or the belief that the Gospel must be expressed through social and evangelistic effort; biblicism or a high regard for Holy Scripture as the revealed word of God; and crucicentrism or a particular stress on the atoning sacrifice of Christ upon the cross for sin.[1]  Bebbington argued that evangelicalism is a popular Protestant movement that began in Britain during the 1730s.[2] Various historians have challenged this claim by pointing to antecedent movements prior to this date which also bear similar hallmarks to the evangelical movement in modern Britain such as the ‘evangelicals’ of the Protestant Reformation, those of Continental Pietism, the Dutch Further Reformation or Nadere Reformatie, and English Puritanism.[3] Bebbington also unashamedly set evangelicalism in Britain within its historical context considering the influence of enlightenment, romanticism, and modernism on the movement respectively. Some critics found this association of evangelicalism with philosophical and cultural movements unnerving.

Others have tried to offer a more comprehensive or more theological definition of evangelicalism to make up for Bebbington’s seemingly threadbare quadrilateral. Timothy Larsen, for example, offers a considerably verbose definition of evangelicalism in his introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology. He argues that an evangelical is an orthodox Protestant in the tradition of global networks that emerged from the revival ministry of George Whitefield and John Wesley. As with Bebbington, he stresses evangelical Biblicism and argues that evangelicals consider the Bible to be ‘divinely inspired’ and the ‘final authority’ for doctrine and practice. Echoing Bebbington’s definition, he refers to evangelical devotion to the death of Christ upon the cross and considers this to bring about atonement and reconciliation. Finally, he discusses the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing about conversion, sanctification, redemption, and the global diffusion of evangelicalism through the preaching of the Gospel.[4] One wonders if Larsen has said too much about the marks of evangelicalism from an historical perspective. Bebbington’s definition retains a position of clarity and conciseness which Larsen’s clearly lacks. Important, however, is his emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit within evangelical theology and praxis, something Bebbington’s definition failed to elucidate.

From a different perspective on the history of evangelicalism, W. R. Ward dates the emergence of the evangelical movement in the 1670s with the spread of continental pietism. He observes several characteristics within the early evangelical movements: ‘the close association with mysticism, the small-group religion, the deferred eschatology, the experimental approach to conversion, anti-Aristotelianism and hostility to theological system, and … a vitalist understanding of nature’.[5] One wonders by anti-Aristotelianism what Ward means exactly. Does he mean to imply that evangelicals were more neo-Platonic and heavenly minded than their predecessors? How would he square this with evangelical belief in a literal bodily resurrection at the Parousia? Alternatively, he could mean that evangelicals opposed the scholastic system-building of the post-Reformation era and embraced a more Lockean and empiricist view of history, philosophy, and religion. This latter option would seem to be the best fit with the rest of Ward’s argument in his study of early evangelical intellectual history. In terms of vitalism, Jonathan Edwards famously had a typological view of nature in which everything in creation in some way speaks of deity. Mysticism has also characterised the evangelical movement in the sense of experimental religion creating a union between God and man or unio mystica in the new birth. Early evangelicals were famously post-millennial in their eschatology and saw revival as means for building the heavenly kingdom of Christ on earth. Small groups have also characterised evangelical religion. The Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, for example, were known for their 'experience meetings' or seiadau in which participants would study the Bible, sing hymns, and examine the religious experiences of members. Whitefield and Wesley were famous for their experimental approach to conversion and the new birth which they preached with tireless frequency throughout their respective ministries and organised converts into cell-groups or religious societies for subseqent pastoral care. 

As evangelicalism developed over time, so the divisions within the movement emerged such as those between Calvinists and Arminians, Liberals and Conservatives, Progressives and Fundamentalists, and cessationists and charismatics. This has led some scholars to suggest that we should not speak of evangelicalism as a monolithic entity at all. On the contrary, we should rather see a diverse movement with different schools of thought and practice. As David Ceri Jones and Andrew Atherstone have argued, it might be better to speak of evangelicals and evangelicalisms in the plural – particularly as they have emerged and diversified in the modern era with the global diffusion of evangelicalism.[6] In the light of the postmodern critique of history, it may be preferable to speak of evangelical stories or storytelling, rather than a monolithic evangelical metanarrative. After all the ‘good news’ is a story told by evangelicals of ruin, redemption, and regeneration. Humankind is ruined by sin, redeemed by Christ’s atoning work on the cross, and regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Evangelicals are people who tell stories about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They tell us that the Lord Christ was made incarnate by the Holy Spirit, that he lived a holy and pure life, that he suffered and died on the cross for the sins of the world, that he rose again on the third day for our justification, that he now lives in the power of an endless life and makes continual intercession for his people before the throne of God, and that one day he will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. In sum, evangelicals are Gospel people. They have the best news in the world: the Good News that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose for our justification.

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[1] David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London and New York, 1989), pp. 2–3.

[2] Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, p. 1.

[3] See Michael A. G. Haykin and Kenneth J. Stewart, The Emergence of Evangelicalism: Exploring Historical Continuities (Nottingham, 2008).

[4] Timothy Larsen, ‘Defining and Locating Evangelicalism’, in Timothy Larsen and Daniel J. Treier (eds) The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 1–14.

[5] W. R. Ward, Early Evangelicalism: Global Intellectual History 1670–1789 (Cambridge, 2006), p. 4.

[6] Andrew Atherstone and David Ceri Jones, ‘Evangelicals and Evangelicalisms: Contested Identities’, in Andrew Atherstone and David Ceri Jones (eds), The Routledge Research Companion to the History of Evangelicalism (London and New York, 2019), pp. 1–21.