FT Launches Evangel Blog

First Things has launched Evangel, a new blog featuring some leading evangelical thinkers. Here's a snippet of some of the first posts.

What is an Evangelical by Joe Carter

What does it mean to be evangelical?

A term that applies to between fifteen and forty million Americans should be rather obvious. Yet few words are so commonly used while being so poorly defined. To many people the word evangelical evokes images of the “Religious Right”, of people who read the Left Behind novels, go to megachurches, and vote for Republicans. While to other people—mainly Christians who ultra-conservative theologically— the label is used as a derogatory term for believers who take an insufficiently stringent view of scripture and accept other forms of “liberal” belief.

Evangelicals and the Primacy of the Local by Jared Bridges

Ideally, evangelical is more an adjective than it is a name. It’s not so much the evangelical church as it is evangelical churches. In this respect, the content of this week’s sermon by my pastor is of greater concern than what national leaders are saying — a concept the national media often has difficulty grasping. As pervasive as national evangelical voices can be, the local ministry of the gospel (and the personal authority of the Scriptures is about as local as one can get…) has primacy over the universal.

This is not to say that evangelicals are or should be separatists, let alone wagon-circling fundamentalists (now there’s a tricky word!). Evangelicals indeed listen to and learn from each other from afar — this very blog is but one example of many. However, the gospel that evangelicals preach happens not in a vacuum, but is lived in the daily lives of believers young and old. Paul reminds us: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” Feet serve us best when on the ground, and that’s where evangelicalism is found most pure.

Recapturing Evangelical by Roger Overton

Though still relatively young, I would like to think that I’ve grown and matured in my understanding and perspective on faith, theology and culture. I went through a phase in my life a few years ago when I was extremely particular about the views with which I associated myself. I wanted to make sure I was abundantly clear in not just affirming what I believed to be true (e.g. amillennialism), but also emphatically condemning what I opposed (premillennialism, dispensationalism, postmillennialism, pan-millennialism, etc.). As is typically the case with those whose primary epistemic purpose is the condemnation of opposing views, I at times condemned and excluded the people who held those views.

One of the casualties of this attitude was “evangelical.” Certainly there were good things meant by the term that I could affirm (such as Joe listed below), and there were many great men and women who could be described by it. But in my theological high tower I could only see the bad examples- instances of shallow or questionable teaching, Jesus merchandising, and uncreative cheesy music. So I found myself looking down on the entire term, movement and group.

The Proclaimers by Frank Turk

Because First Things is well-known for the highest level of discourse on the subjects it considers, I’m a little surprised to find myself here. For the last 5 or 6 years I’ve mostly been known for causing mayhem in the evangelical blogosphere, so when I received an invitation to spread some of that content here as a representative of the “evangelical” viewpoint, I was sort of stunned.

And part of the reason I was stunned was that I had to ask myself, “am I an ‘evangelical’”?

Is It Wrong That I Don't Care If I'm an Evangelical? by Russell D. Moore

Several years ago I was explaining to a friend why I’d never been invited to preach in an acquaintance’s church, and never would be. “It’s because I’m not a fundamentalist,” I said. And it was true.

In that church a “fundamentalist” was one who believed not just in the “fundamentals” of the faith, but also in a cultural context that meant flat-top haircuts for men, koolots for women (if you don’t know what those are, just rest in the ignorance), exclusive southern gospel quartet psalmnody, and a dispensationalist, separatist, KJV-only identity. I am, for sure, not that.

The next week, though, I was registering as an observer for a liberal Baptist gathering, where I’d planned to write about the goings-on. Inclusive as they were, they tried to sign me up as a delegate. I tried to explain to the nice person at the registration table that I actually didn’t want to be a delegate because I wasn’t protesting the hegemonic patriarchal whatevers they were there to stand against. “You don’t want me signed up,” I said. “I’m a fundamentalist.” And it was true.