Defining evangelicals

As time goes on, what is meant by the term 'evangelical' seems to be ever more fuzzy. Don Carson considers the possibilities.

What is an evangelical? If we are to reflect on evangelicals and the church we had better agree on who evangelicals are. Attempted definitions of evangelicalism and evangelical lie in one of three domains.

1. Social definition

The approach of social science is 'Those who call themselves or who are generally called evangelical are evangelicals.' In other words this is a social grouping which in some respects is self-defined. In one sense this is a generous approach. But it is also exceedingly slippery.

The word means different things in different parts of the world. For example, in Germany evangelisch means roughly non-Catholic, Protestant and usually Lutheran. This is so much so that in recent decades Germans have invented a new word 'evangelikal'. In the Anglo world, the so-called evangelical movement is fragmenting. Today there are people who call themselves evangelical whom no evangelical would have called evangelical a bare three or four decades ago. This leads to the approach of Mark Noll and others. He says that there is no theological core that identifies evangelicalism, rather it is merely a social movement within broad Christendom.

One of the graduates of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where I teach, was working for a particular publishing house, and they commissioned her to do a study on Christology within evangelicalism. This would then define for the publishing house what was acceptable. Note, not Christology according to Scripture, but Christology according to the movement called evangelicalism which is getting larger and larger. If one did a similar study today on the doctrine of God within evangelicalism, and then used the results to define what was acceptable, one would have to embrace, for example, open views of God - a finite God who cannot possibly know the future where free contingent decisions are taken.

So, although this approach is very common, I never use it in serious discussion. Are evangelical beliefs nothing more than what some who call themselves evangelical believe?

2. Theological definition

The second domain is the idea that 'Evangelical belongs exclusively to theological definition.'

Historically that means not only adherence to the ecumenical creeds, but to something more. (The ecumenical creeds (like the Apostle's Creed, or Chalcedon, etc.), lay out the Triune nature of God, his sovereignty and transcendence, his personhood, his incarnation in the line of David, the death and resurrection of Jesus, the work of the Holy Spirit consequent upon the Son's resurrection and ascension, and history moving to a determined goal, ultimately the general resurrection and the new heaven and the new earth.) The more is clarity with respect to two elements which historically have been called 'the formal principle' and 'the material principle'.

The formal principle is the final and exclusive authority of Scripture. This is over against on the one hand the view of the deposit of faith in the church espoused by Medieval Catholicism. It is also over against Liberalism, which undermines the authority of Scripture in one fashion or another.

The material principle is the gospel. This is bound up with the cross work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When evangelicals and evangelicalism are defined this way, three things follow.

We hold that evangelicalism at its best is that position which adheres most closely to the Bible - the Word of God. This is not arrogance. It is the logic of our formal principle. With our whole hearts we want to bring everything into submission to Scripture. Our whole passion is not so much to master by the Word as to be mastered by it.

We can then apply the term evangelicalism even to some who do not primarily think of themselves as evangelical, because what interests is the theological position that is held, not the label. Thus in parts of the world where there is still a confessing conservative Lutheranism, though most Lutherans do not call themselves in the Anglo world 'evangelical', with this theological definition of evangelical, that is what they are.

We can talk in terms of self-reformation if we buy into a theological definition of evangelicalism. Self-reformation, under Scripture, in the light of Scripture. We will lose this power, where the sociological definition of evangelicalism prevails. In that case, should the social science definition prevail, evangelicalism and evangelical will become useless terms. Carl F. H. Henry, who has been extraordinarily influential in American evangelicalism this century, is quite prepared to venture the opinion that in a few years, evangelicalism as a term will be theologically useless because so many people now embrace it. That is what lies behind the need to invent adjectives like conservative evangelical, and confessional evangelical, versus liberal evangelical and so forth.

Whenever, evangelical is associated with a social science definition it is on the road toward becoming useless. If instead, evangelical is bound up with a theological definition then we may hope for reprieve of the word and more importantly self-reformation in the light of Scripture.

3. Spiritual definition

'Evangelical refers to the regenerate, to the truly converted, to the genuine Christian.' I do not use the term that way. It has many problems.

One understands why the term is used that way. After all, if evangelicalism is bound up with the proclamation of the evangel, then the evangelical is someone who has so received the gospel that they truly have been converted. However, there are, as we all know, many men and women who are not consistent with respect to the evangel, who are nevertheless regenerate. Moreover, I do not want to be the judge of who is and who is not regenerate. Further, in the name of charity, suddenly to discover people who, as far as we can see, are regenerate but who espouse all kinds of strange beliefs on this point or that point, exerts a kind of back pressure into the second definition. If we insist on a spiritual definition this can be such that the theological definition itself becomes wobbly, precisely because we are trying to be charitable about who is and who is not regenerate.

So it is much better not to use the terms evangelical or evangelicalism to define who is and who is not a true Christian.

In my usage, therefore, evangelical and evangelicalism refer to a theological position.

This is part of a talk given by Don Carson at the recent Evangelical Ministers' Assembly concerning evangelicals and the church. Tapes are available from the Proclamation Trust Tape Ministry (020 7407 0563).

Defining evangelicals

A challenge to the fuzziness of what is meant by evangelical

1. Social definition

2. Theological definition

3. Spiritual definition

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