From 18th c. applied to that school of Protestants which maintains that the essence of 'the Gospel' consists in the doctrine of salvation by faith in the atoning death of Christ, and denies that either good works or the sacraments have any saving efficacy.
Other features more or less characteristic of the theology of this school are: a strong insistence on the totally depraved state of human nature consequent on the Fall; the assertion of the sole authority of the Bible in matters of doctrine, and the denial of any power inherent in the Church to supplement or authoritatively interpret the teaching of Scripture; the denial that any supernatural gifts are imparted by ordination; and the view that the sacraments are merely symbols, the value of which consists in the thoughts which they are fitted to suggest. As a distinct party designation, the term came into general use, in England, at the time of the Methodist revival; and it may be said, with substantial accuracy, to denote the school of theology which that movement represents, though its earlier associations were rather with the Calvinistic than the Arminian branch of the movement. In the early part of the 19th c. the words 'Methodist' and 'Evangelical' were, by adversaries, often used indiscriminately, and associated with accusations of fanaticism and 'puritanical' disapproval of social pleasures. The portion of the 'evangelical' school which belongs to the Anglican church is practically identical with the 'Low Church' party. In the Church of Scotland during the latter part of the 18th and the early part of the 19th c. the two leading parties were the 'Evangelical' and the 'Moderate' party.
How does a modern day person know if they're are one?
They think the essence of 'the Gospel' consists in the doctrine of salvation by faith in the atoning death of Christ, and denies that either good works or the sacraments have any saving efficacy. If they attend a baptist or bible church, then most likely they are.
However, "evangel" is just "gospel" so in a broad sense, all Christians are evangelicals. It depends on how narrow or broad you're using the term. You mentioned the news in which they usually are referring to the definition above which excludes Catholics, Orthodox, and confessional Protestants (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Anglican) although you may find evangelicals sprinkled in anywhere.
Evangelical is a term for those hated by the religious establishment. HTH.
Uh, who is the "religious establishment"? Because the SBC seems pretty "religious establishment" to me, and self-identified "Evangelical Protestants" are the largest bloc of Christians in the US according to a Pew Research Religious Landscape Study.
I truly cannot find anything more than vague ideas and vibes.
Who is or isn't an evangelical?
They are referred to in the news and such as something real and concrete.
Would love a clear definition. Please help.
This guy's youtube channel is great for very dry, even keeled review of theology and church history. Its basically saying what this thread is already lead on: -Evangelical is hard to nail down in modern contexts because anyone can grab it. -You are usually defined as within a group by your opposition group. -Evangelical has a connotation of pertaining to a saved by grace alone view of christianity, this generally follows denominations that have sprung up the last 200-300 years that focus exclusively on big gatherings and outreach focused on sharing the good news. -Part of this ability to focus so much on evangelizing is because they don't have much else to go on or do. There are no real sacraments. No monk/nun paths. Very light liturgical calendar or preservation of church history. No authority structure outside their own congregation. You're one red letter bible and a big tent from starting your own evangelical church today.
For me, evangelical describes the end result of continual cutting at the fullness of the faith until its only mission is to answer the question of how to be saved in the simplest terms possible. As each protestant branch has grown it has also had someone within that denomination spring up a version that is 'evangelical' in nature with an outsized focus on spreading the gospel and going light on everything else - 'because the gospel is enough.'
Protestantism has a hard time fighting off evangelical takeovers and splinters because A) The roots of protestantism is taking authority for yourself (in protest). B) Protestantism splintering has created a marketplace approach to christianity. Evangelicalism is popular because it reflects popular things in society. Namely high production concerts, entertaining sermons, cheap salvation doctrine and low church membership participation burden.
As an aside, just like protestantism has produced a marketplace, we are seeing the affects of markets back onto the thousands of versions (and there are truly thousands) of protestantism. In a market place for anything you usually see a high feature tier, high cost option emerge as well as a low feature tier, low cost option emerge. The middle of the market gets squeezed as people gravitate to the ends of the market.
I see evangelical churches as the low cost low option feature (for the reasons listed in my post above) pulling mainline protestants out of the middle of the modern market. Mainline protestants were once the undercutting option 300-500 years ago, and have been undercut by evangelicals offering even lower burdens within the last 150 years. The emergence of the latest flavor of 'boyfriend Jesus/coffee shop Jesus/anti-masculinity Jesus' evangelical churches have also created such a bad taste in young men's mouths that its pushed a lot of them to seek church authority and push back up to the high tier high option churches.
From 18th c. applied to that school of Protestants which maintains that the essence of 'the Gospel' consists in the doctrine of salvation by faith in the atoning death of Christ, and denies that either good works or the sacraments have any saving efficacy.
Other features more or less characteristic of the theology of this school are: a strong insistence on the totally depraved state of human nature consequent on the Fall; the assertion of the sole authority of the Bible in matters of doctrine, and the denial of any power inherent in the Church to supplement or authoritatively interpret the teaching of Scripture; the denial that any supernatural gifts are imparted by ordination; and the view that the sacraments are merely symbols, the value of which consists in the thoughts which they are fitted to suggest. As a distinct party designation, the term came into general use, in England, at the time of the Methodist revival; and it may be said, with substantial accuracy, to denote the school of theology which that movement represents, though its earlier associations were rather with the Calvinistic than the Arminian branch of the movement. In the early part of the 19th c. the words 'Methodist' and 'Evangelical' were, by adversaries, often used indiscriminately, and associated with accusations of fanaticism and 'puritanical' disapproval of social pleasures. The portion of the 'evangelical' school which belongs to the Anglican church is practically identical with the 'Low Church' party. In the Church of Scotland during the latter part of the 18th and the early part of the 19th c. the two leading parties were the 'Evangelical' and the 'Moderate' party.
