Any Evangelicals here?

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I have a non-religious question about Evangelicals. Any Evangelicals here?
I have a friend at work who is an Evangelical. She’s very active in her church with the worship team, and women’s bible study, etc. and she and her family have very active social lives. Her kids attend a private Christian school.

They seem to have people visiting them, or they go visiting other people, a couple times per week. There seems to be a really strong impetus to have whole families socialize.

I have a feeling that their social connectedness is through their church and the school–in other words, their church and school form a strong community to the point that…it’s almost like there’s an expectation that they will all continually interact with one another.

It borders on an exclusivity, in my mind. An exclusivity of expected/acceptable behaviors, of association with others, etc. I think she and her husband are somewhat aware of it because she made a point of telling me that they have raised their children to be respectful and tolerant of people whose values and lives differ from their own–something, she said, that not everyone does among her Evangelical brethren, because her kids have found been uncomfortable with how judgemental their friends are when they’re among themselves. As a matter of fact, a Catholic family left the school because they felt like outsiders (there was some mention of salvation, and how our Catholic version doesn’t pass muster with the Evangelicals’ viewpoint)

For example, when I say something like, “My daughter has been dating a new guy, but I haven’t met him yet,” I think such a state of affairs would be unheard of in her circle–frankly, she’s told me that she herself feels pressured when one of her daughters goes out with a boy and his parents immediately set up a family picnic so they can all get to know each other.

I guess what I’m asking is, is this sort of cultural bond and exclusivity characteristic of Evangelicals? Everyone accepts that we Catholics aren’t particularly outgoing when it comes to our fellow parishioners.
 
I am struggling with knowing how to answer because I have a cousin that attends an Evangelical Catholic Church, we have numerous friends that attend an Evangelical Lutheran Church. So when you ask if there are any evangelicals here, even the Catholics should be answering “yes” according to them. But I do get your drift and I think it boils down to “birds of a feather stick together.”

I think it is a characteristic of any group that has commonly accepted standards of behavior and belief. I don’t think they mean to be exclusive but I know that is how it can be perceived. Even here on CAF there are Catholic posters who tell us non-Catholics that we do not belong on most other threads than the non-Catholic Religions section.
 
Wannano said:
Even here on CAF there are Catholic posters who tell us non-Catholics that we do not belong on most other threads than the non-Catholic Religions section.
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That’s largely due to the fact that there are a handful of non-Catholic posters who feel a need to go into a thread where somebody has asked a question about Catholic beliefs or Catholic practice, and disrupt it by posting the Protestant view. Example would be someone asking a question about Catholic confession and a Protestant comes into the thread and tells the person they don’t need to confess to a priest, just confess directly to God . Or someone asks about a Blessed Mother teaching and halfway through the thread some Protestant starts posting Bible verses claiming that they show we’re making Mary into an idol.

This is “Catholic Answers” and we have an interest in seeing that Catholic teaching is appropriately represented. Often the person asking the question is not a regular participant on the forum and has no idea who’s Catholic or non-Catholic or how to check profiles, plus some of the Protestants don’t have a religion on their profile or have it hidden, etc.

By the way, I’m pretty sure that an “Evangelical Catholic Church” is not going to be in communion with Rome so they’re basically using the word “Catholic” in a misleading manner from our standpoint. I’m sure they could provide 10 Bible justifications from their standpoint that it’s perfectly fine for them to use the word.
 
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I’m LCMS, which is technically an evangelical church. Not in the sense of pentecostalism, reformed Christianity, etc.

Regardless of denominational affiliation we are all called to evangelize.
 
I understand that Tis and don’t have a problem with it personally. I was just showing how we can’t make generalizations about certain groups of people when we do the same things ourselves. In the OP it was presented that a Catholic family left the Christian School over the differences in the understanding of salvation. That may not have resulted from exclusivity but from the Catholic parents questioning the Evangelical belief as well.
 
on_the_hill said:
I guess what I’m asking is, is this sort of cultural bond and exclusivity characteristic of Evangelicals?
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It’s not, and it’s not even characteristic of all Evangelicals. Most of them will socialize with people from their church to some extent, but Evangelical churches vary a lot. If it’s some small church in a small town where everybody’s minding everybody else’s business anyway, and where the church relies on keeping members in order to survive, then they’ll probably care a lot more about keeping people within the group. If it’s a big church or a megachurch, then you’ll see less insularity.

And as someone said, you’ll see insularity among certain groups of traditional Catholics as well as certain other small church communities.

It’s also driven by expectations. If the expectation is that the daughter is going to be married off by age 21 (or younger) and settle down in a house in the same town and raise kids, then the parents can police her dating habits. If the expectation is that daughter is going to go to college many miles or even many states away and live on her own and probably not marry right away, you’re not going to have the parents watching her every move.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
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Wannano:
Even here on CAF there are Catholic posters who tell us non-Catholics that we do not belong on most other threads than the non-Catholic Religions section.
Click to expand...
That’s largely due to the fact that there are a handful of non-Catholic posters who feel a need to go into a thread where somebody has asked a question about Catholic beliefs or Catholic practice, and disrupt it by posting the Protestant view. Example would be someone asking a question about Catholic confession and a Protestant comes into the thread and tells the person they don’t need to confess to a priest, just confess directly to God . Or someone asks about a Blessed Mother teaching and halfway through the thread some Protestant starts posting Bible verses claiming that they show we’re making Mary into an idol.

This is “Catholic Answers” and we have an interest in seeing that Catholic teaching is appropriately represented. Often the person asking the question is not a regular participant on the forum and has no idea who’s Catholic or non-Catholic or how to check profiles, plus some of the Protestants don’t have a religion on their profile or have it hidden, etc.

By the way, I’m pretty sure that an “Evangelical Catholic Church” is not going to be in communion with Rome so they’re basically using the word “Catholic” in a misleading manner from our standpoint. I’m sure they could provide 10 Bible justifications from their standpoint that it’s perfectly fine for them to use the word.
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All I know about the Evangelical Catholic Church he attends is that it has the transubstantiational Eucharist.
 
Wannano said:
All I know about the Evangelical Catholic Church he attends is that it has the transubstantiational Eucharist.
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If it’s not in communion with Rome, and presumably also not Orthodox, then it doesn’t have that. He can say it has it all day and all night, he’s wrong.

Edited to add, here’s what Wiki says the “Evangelical Catholic Church” is…an “independent Catholic church”, in other words they don’t follow the Pope, and it was founded in 1997. And it has women priests, allows gay marriage and birth control, and allows all divorced and remarried people to receive communion.

I call baloney.

 
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Tis_Bearself said:
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Wannano:
All I know about the Evangelical Catholic Church he attends is that it has the transubstantiational Eucharist.
Click to expand...
If it’s not in communion with Rome, and presumably also not Orthodox, then it doesn’t have that. He can say it has it all day and all night, he’s wrong.

Edited to add, here’s what Wiki says the “Evangelical Catholic Church” is…an “independent Catholic church”, in other words they don’t follow the Pope, and it was founded in 1997.

I call baloney.

Evangelical Catholic Church (Independent Catholic) - Wikipedia
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I don’t know how to say this so I guess I will just say it. My cousin is a Grandfather to the young man att ending the Church and they are all in a tizzy because he is taking the Eucharist in which they believe Jesus becomes present. Perhaps I should inform them that their grandson may not in fact involved with a bona fide Catholic Church which will be a relief to them if true. I personally have no involvement in this other than talking to the Grandparents.
 
Please feel free to tell them the truth that if this organization on Wikipedia is the church your relative has joined, he is deluding himself if he thinks Jesus is manifesting His Real Presence in such a situation.

Here for your reference is a list of the actual Catholic churches, as we here on CAF understand “Catholic”. It includes Eastern rite and Western rite. If a church is not on this list then we don’t consider it “Catholic”. There are various other independent churches that use the word “Catholic” in their name but are not in communion with us, or not in full communion with us.


The Orthodox churches, such as Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Ukrainian Orthodox etc also have valid Eucharist.
 
I think I will look in to it as now I am curious too. This church is in Canada.
 
Wannano said:
Even here on CAF there are Catholic posters who tell us non-Catholics that we do not belong on most other threads than the non-Catholic Religions section.
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They would be wrong. And they are not living the Charity and love thy neighbour virtue that Catholics should be living for.
 
on_the_hill said:
I guess what I’m asking is, is this sort of cultural bond and exclusivity characteristic of Evangelicals? Everyone accepts that we Catholics aren’t particularly outgoing when it comes to our fellow parishioners.
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It varies. As I can imagine Catholics also vary as well. Some people are really, really into their religious group and make a point to structure their whole social lives around that religious group. Others not so much. Evangelical churches do tend to foster fellowship within the congregation, and there is a wide array of institutions that form an evangelical subculture: schools, colleges, Christian music, books, films, and a host of Christian “alternatives” to any secular thing.

I went to a church-ran Christian school from 4th to 7th grade, which was ok but there was certainly a different culture compared to public school. But for those years, my social life either revolved around my evangelical school or my evangelical church. In my case, it was even more intense because my local church was centered around a web of interconnected family trees. So, for me, the church was to some extent literally my family or else church members were close family friends. Even the pastors of the church that ran my Christian school used to team pastor with my pastor. So, my parents knew them very well.

However, there are evangelicals who just attend church and avoid getting swamped by the subculture. It just depends on the individual to a large extent, and whether you have a circle of friends outside of church relationships.

And when it comes to dating, there are some parents who are stricter and others less so. There really isn’t a single “evangelical approach” to dating. But you can certainly find a whole lot of advice literature in evangelical book stores.
 
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Thank you for the answers. On the one hand, I do realize that one can’t generalize about a whole community based on such a minimal exposure. On the other hand, it does seem to me that their religious/social community intertwine to an extent that doesn’t exist in my own experience. And since they’re the only Evangelicals I know personally, I felt it important to get a better understanding.

(FWIW, they’re Evangelical with a capital E, not adjectively evangelical)
 
No longer an evangelical here (Grew up Southern Baptist, now an Anglican), but married to a Catholic (raised Latin rite, she’s in the process of changing to Byzantine). So - this is my perspective between my family and history and hers - it is not unusual, nor, I would wager to say, is it simply an evangelical thing. It’s funny, I was struck by the intertwining of social and religious life I observed with Catholics.

My family intertwined them growing up, but I might wager to say it was a fact of the community simply not having a lot of Catholics at the time. (North Atlanta, FYI. That has obviously very much changed.) It didn’t matter the particular church per se, but it was there. I see less of it these days among the evangelical population, as a function of everything just being more populous.

My wife’s family, to my observation, very much entwine their religious and social community. It’s not exclusive, but it is very much there. Raised in actively religious households, attended Catholic schools all their life, continue to be involved with their alma maters, and continue to have overlap. I also see it with all of their friends, across multiple cities, where they have moved over the years, regardless of the size of the city.

So, I would simply reiterate that it is not that unusual with families (of any faith).
 
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