Evangelical… what does that mean?

It seems that word is thrown around so loosely sometimes, and with the recently finished election, as with the one before it, the word evangelical has taken on more of a political meaning than a theological one. Is it time to take the word back?

The word evangel comes from the Greek word ‘evangelion’, found in the New Testament, that means ‘good news’, or ‘gospel’. The common use of the word Evangelical starting at the time of the Protestant Reformation. As the movement gained force and momentum, there needed to be a distiction between the Roman Catholics and the non-Romanists (as the term ‘Protestant Reformation’ was a later attribution), thus the term ‘Evangelical’ was used to differentiate between those who held to Scripture and Church tradition (though not necessarily in that order, the Romanists) and those who held strictly to a high view of Scripture as the sole authority (the Protesters). This was the majority meaning of the term Evangelical for centuries.

Within the first half of the 20th Century, the meaning of the term shifted. The term began to include a broader swath of those called ‘Christians’– even those not necessarily holding to a high view of Scripture. It appears to have included many who, seeing that culture has left a centrality of Biblical influence to one that is influenced by a man-centered priority, have been eager to change the message of the Gospel to fit a wider audience. However, within the last decade or three perhaps, a shift back to Bible-centeredness has been the impetus for the ‘Evangelical’ label, and this has roused the ire of those who simply, for lack of a better word, hate the fact that people live among them that place something else besides man/self/humanity at the center of Reality.

Essentially, then, the term has been bandied about lately as more of a pejorative. When a term is used that creates an emotive response to a certain segment of the population, then either a) people are not thinking clearly enough about the words they use, b) people are easily roused up to an emotional and visceral reaction now more than in the past, or c) a mixture of both. Or, is it like Paul said, that the Good News is folly to those who are perishing? (1 Cor. 1:17,18)