Talk:Evangelicalism

In my experience, evangelicals would contrast themselves with fundamentalists, rather than saying that fundamentalists were a subset of evangelicals, or vice versa. One distinction is that where fundamentalists might say that the Bible is completely inerrant in every detail, evangelicals might say it is infallible with regard to matters of faith and morals in the original manuscripts or autographs. Historically, I think the self-labeled fundamentalists in Protestantism have been around at least several decades longer than the self-labeled evangelicals. They might look almost the same from the outside, but not from the inside. --Wesley

Good points. It's probably more accurate to say there's an overlap and/or a spectrum of belief rather than one being a subset. Also, it should be noted that fundamentalists often don't use that label to describe themselves, since it can be considered perjorative. --Eric

I, would call myself both a fundamentalist and an evangelical. In the Christian circles in which I have been, people often use the term "fundamental/evangelical". One might consider fundamentalism a more extreme form of evangelicalism. As Wesley has indicated, evangelicals always regard the Bible as infallible in some sense. Fundamentalists, on the other hand, will probably take a more extreme stance on this. I, as a fundamentalist, will tell you that the autographs are completely infallible - the word-for-word perfect Word of God - in ALL senses. Some evangelicals may reject the authority of the Bible in certain areas, such as history, but a fundamentalist will not. However, a fundamentalist might (and I do) interpret certain parts of the Bible figuratively, depending on the context. I have written a statement defining my personal method of interpretting Scripture and it is on the web at http://writings.kennypearce.net/interpret.html. Also, many irrefutably "mainline" Christian denominations consider themselves "evangelical" - most obviously the "Evangelical Lutheran Church or America" (ELCA) - so I have altered a portion of the article that seemed to imply that the terms "evangelical" and "mainline" were mutually exclusive.

-- Kpearce 04:25 Nov 27, 2002 (UTC)

I understand that evangelical and fundamentalist, when referring to Christianity, used to mean the same thing. 'The Fundamentals' journal published in the early part of last century comprised of articles which were defenses of Biblical Christianity or attacks on liberalism (maybe one and the same thing). I am lead to believe that the designation of some Christians as 'fundamentalists' comes from this journal and, as far as I understand, in this original context, it was interchangeable with Evangelical.

However, fundamentalist now has much more negative connotations (as evangelical used to). In the current era, evangelical is a more positive term than fundamentalist, which I believe is why Christians of that persuasion use the term that they do.

A good reference source on this is the book "Fundamentalism and the Word of God" by J.I. Packer.

Mistertim 05:12 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

This is reasonably, but not perfectly, accurate. Curtis Lee Laws, a conservative Baptist who was responsible for editing one of the later editions of 'The Fundamentals' coined the term fundamentalist in 1920, to refer to those Baptists who held to the fundamentals of the faith as outlined in the book, as opposed to the liberal Baptists. As you can see in the article neo-evangelicalism, the term "Evangelical" had already been around for some hundred years when the fundamentalist movement began. Neo-evangelicalism (which is what most Christians mean when they say "Evangelical", although the ELCA is still refering to the old Evangelicalism) is a movement that split from the fundamentalists in the 1940s because they thought that the fundamentalists had become too insular and thus were not having any effect on the world. I would venture to say that modern fundamentalists such as myself are rebelling against certain supposed Neo-evangelicals who are rejecting certain portions of Scripture or allowing false teachings within their church. For instance, I came to consider myself a fundamentalist in part because objected to the inter- (not non-)denominational (but supposedly Evangelical) church I was a member of allowing a woman who did not believe in the virgin birth or the inerrancy of Scripture, and at one point admitted to being uncertain that the historical person Jesus of Nazareth ever lived, to teach an adult Sunday school class. (Just to be doubly clear, the critical issue here was not that she was a woman but that she was a heretic) Since then, I have also been in debate with some members of the American Baptist Church over their practice of ordaining women (of course, this has been going on since before the dawn of the original fundamentalist movement). Religious fundamentalism is by definition a backlash against liberal theology. In Christianity, it has historically been a backlash against liberalization of the two historical "Evangelical" movements, and thus it is closely related to evangelicalism, and fundamentalists often choose to oppose this liberalization from within Evangelical churches, but fundamentalism and Evangelicalism are not interchangeable terms. One might say, as I have said before, that a fundamentalist is a more extreme Evangelical who calls other Evangelicals back to their roots.

kpearce 17:32 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I can't see how a lack of belief in the virgin birth, the historical Jesus, etc is compatible with evangelicalism. In my experience, evangelical has always been used to mean: literally - of the gospel, and practically, one who believes that Christ was crucified, is risen from the dead, has been made both Lord and saviour, and who takes the Bible as the final authority in matters of faith and life (and thus uses the Bible to interpret itself).

I'm not sure where to go with what you've written. It seems a very American-centric view of evangelicalism, which is (of course) a world-wide phenomenon. I'm in Australia, and my experience of evangelicalism is not quite what you describe as fundamentalism, but certainly more than what you describe as neo-evangelicalism. Perhaps we should expand the scope of these articles to acknowledge these differences. What do you think?

Mistertim 23:57 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Mistertim. Evangelicalism has constructed its own peculiar, non-ecclesiastical way of policing the movement, which would certainly exclude those who deny the virgin birth and the historical Jesus. While there is no "official" evangelicalism, the evangelical community has a specific core of beliefs which express a shared identity within a very broad, very loose coalition. Mkmcconn \

While some of those who are on the long evangelical lists of "cults" would call themselves Evangelical, their defense of themselves is consistent in resorting to the safe-sanctuary of the "fundamentals" as proof of their Evangelical credentials. Aberrations multiply at the edges of these "fundamentals" - especially in ecclesiology, doctrines concerning worship, and their understanding of prophecy, healing and other spiritual gifts - but cannot easily touch on the central issues of the Gospel without generating backlash from the community as a whole. Mkmcconn \

There are exceptions. There is no evident consensus concerning Clark Pinnock and other writers of the "Openness of God", Process Theology movement, for example - in part because of the masterful firsthand and scholarly understanding of the "evangelical mind" possessed by these writers. However, watching the development of that controversy is an interesting example of how the Evangelical movement watches over itself. Mkmcconn 02:45 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)