Monday, April 10, 2023

It is the 10th of April, 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

All right, a happy Easter Monday to you- we are heading to the mailbag to answer a question from Jay, who wrote to me from “just outside Stone Mountain” Georgia- “just outside” Jay? Are we talking about Clarkson? Tucker? North Druid Hills? Stone Mountain, of course, is a haven for professional wrestlers- from Jerry Blackwell's “The Mountain from Stone Mountain,” Apollo Crews and Jake the Snake Roberts. Of course, Stone Mountain is where my childhood hero played high school baseball- 1986 Rookie of the Year Wally Joyner (an all-star his rookie year who also won the home run derby).

Ok- Jay has sent me a number of questions- this one, we covered years ago but probably deserves another crack- Jay asked, “How do you define ‘Evangelical,’ is there a historical answer, and how does that match up with how we use the word today?”

Oh boy- ok, first, the etymology and history. The word comes from the Greek “Evangelion”- it’s the word we translate to “gospel”- it comes from the Greek prefix for “good” and the same word we use for “angel”- which means “messenger”- an evangelical is thus one who emphasizes the message of good news- namely in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In that sense, all Christians are “evangelical,”- but that’s not how we always use the word.

The first Reformers in the 16th century wanted to be called “evangelicals” as they believed they were emphasizing and re-introducing the truly “good news” of Jesus that had been corrupted by, among other things, political power.

So- there is some irony that “evangelical” today is often a political designation for a broad coalition of conservative Protestants.

The National Association of Evangelicals- a good place to look for the self-understanding of what an evangelical is has defined an evangelical with four phrases:

• Biblicism- a belief in the authority and relevance of the Bible
• Conversionism- a belief in the importance of one's personal conversion experience
• Activism- a belief in the importance of missions and personal witness
• And “Crucicentrism”- an emphasis on the work of Christ on the cross.

Can I be frank for a second? I really don’t like this. The importance of a conversion experience is the only one that ties it to the Great Awakening, but even that could be true of any number of Christians. I think the historian George Marsden was probably closer and more succinct when he said that an evangelical is a Christian who “likes Billy Graham.”

When someone uses the term, I can figure out from the context what they mean- but that makes for a tricky designation. I have heard it used as both the highest praise, “oh, yes, he’s an X,” but an “evangelical one” and as an epithet- something like a fundamentalist. It was the conservative Protestant movement in the last century that tried to move away from the Fundamentalist label. It was these folks who started Christianity Today and Fuller Seminary who probably best take the historical term “evangelical,” but as a broad coalition they didn’t stress confessional subscription and thus are hard to pin down.

Jay, and everyone, let me ask you- what kind of Christian are you? Some of you can give me a one-word answer- usually because of a confession or allegiance. But even then, I’ve been in very well-defined church bodies that still have to add a few qualifiers to make clear who they are (and sometimes, more importantly, who they are NOT). I wish “Christian” was enough- but with the amount of division in the church, we often need to define ourselves- and while “Evangelical” meant a conservative but not Fundamentalist American Protestant for the 20th century, it has become a plastic, elastic badge of honor OR boogeyman in the 21st. So- when you see the term, perhaps it is best to use it as a reminder to ask more questions to figure out what the person is saying by using the term. Thanks for the question Jay NEAR Stone Mountain. You can send me your questions at danv@1517.org.

The last word for today comes from the daily lectionary-

Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 10th of April 2023, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man from “just outside Random Lake”- he lives in the village, not the lake- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man from a man whose Los Angeles Angels are from “just outside” Los Angeles- Anaheim. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.