The 7 types of evangelicals

[CopyBoy]

(CNN)—It’s an axiom in American politics, duly repeated every four years: Evangelicals are the country’s biggest and most powerful religious voting bloc, especially during the GOP primaries.

Like many political axioms, though, it papers over a complex reality.

Yes, evangelicals represent a large slice of the electorate, especially in states that vote early in the campaign calendar. In 2012, 57% of people who participated in the Iowa presidential caucuses identified as “born again” or evangelical. This year, evangelicals are again predicted to make up a majority of GOP primary voters in a slew of states that vote by early March.

But evangelicals rarely vote as a bloc, especially in the primaries. They disagree not only on the candidates but also on more basic principles like how active Christians should be in partisan politics.

“The problem is that many secular people think that all evangelicals are alike, when there are multiple streams and theological and generational divides within evangelicalism,” said Russell Moore, a leading Southern Baptist.

With the help of experts, we counted seven ways evangelicals approach politics. How well the GOP candidates court each camp could determine their fate in the primaries.

cnn.com/2016/01/22/politics/seven-types-of-evangelicals-and-the-primaries/

 

[JustaServant]

The article gives a rather superficial view of evangelicals. To refer to John Hagee as part of the ‘old guard’ is ludicrous. Paula White and Kenneth Copeland? Seriously? The last one is laughable. “Cultural evangelicals?”, who are born again but don’t go to church. Like a ‘non-practicing Holy Roller’?

 

[ltwin]

Yes, the article was superficial, but that is what happens when you treat religious movements as voting blocs. That’s why most of the media treats Evangelicalism as only a “white people” thing because even though most African-American Protestants in this country are evangelicals, they don’t vote Republican and so are usually left out of the equation.

If we want to look at Evangelicalism from a theological and practical point of view, rather than a socio-political point of view, this is how it can be divided.

Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism emerged during the early 20th century as evangelical influence, which had dominated American churches in the 18th and 19th centuries, began to decline within mainline Protestantism. The term Fundamentalism comes from stressing that biblical inerrancy, the virgin birth of Jesus, penal substitutionary atonement, the literal resurrection of Christ and the Second Coming of Christ (all doctrines that had come under attack from modernist theology) were fundamental Christian doctrines. Failing to reform the mainline churches, fundamentalists separated from them and established their own churches, refusing to participate in ecumenical organizations such as the National Council of Churches. They also made separatism (rigid separation from non-fundamentalist churches and culture) a true test of faith. Fundamentalists tend to come from Baptist backgroudns and are almost always dispensationalists.

Mainstream Evangelicalism
It’s also called "Neo-Evangelicalism or (in Britain and other English-speaking countries) “conservative Evangelicalism.”

Mainstream Evangelicalism is what Billy Graham represents. But even this brand of Evangelicalism is diverse. There are two major divisions which go all the way back through evangelical history.

Confessional evangelicals
Albert Mohler (the proto-type of the modern confessional Baptist) wrote that confessional Evangelicalism refers to “that movement of Christian believers who seek a constant convictional continuity with the theological formulas of the Protestant Reformation”. Confessional evangelicals are represented by conservative Presbyterian churches emphasizing the Westminster Confession, certain Baptist churches that emphasize historic Baptist confessions like the Second London Confession, and Anglicans/Episcopalians who emphasize classic Anglican theology as represented in the Thirty-Nine Articles and the original Book of Common Prayer (such as in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, Australia).

Revivalist evangelicals
Revivalism has always been influential within Evangelicalism. This is especially true of that strand of Evangelicalism influenced by Pietism. This type of Evangelicalism would be represented by some parts of Methodism, the Wesleyan Holiness churches, the Pentecostal/charismatic churches, some Anabaptist churches, and some Baptists and Presbyterians. Revivalistic evangelicals tend to place greater emphasis on religious experience than their confessional counterparts, and while they understand the need for doctrine, they tend to be more anti-creedal in some respects than confessional evangelicals.

Non-Conservative Evangelicalism
Evangelicals dissatisfied with the movement’s conservative mainstream have been variously described as progressive Evangelicals, post-conservative Evangelicals, Open Evangelicals and Post-evangelicals.

Often, it can be difficult to see how the liberal evangelical differs in any meaningful way from the liberal mainline Protestant.

 

[JustaServant]

Yes, the article was superficial, but that is what happens when you treat religious movements as voting blocs. That’s why most of the media treats Evangelicalism as only a “white people” thing because even though most African-American Protestants in this country are evangelicals, they don’t vote Republican and so are usually left out of the equation.

If we want to look at Evangelicalism from a theological and practical point of view, rather than a socio-political point of view, this is how it can be divided.

Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism emerged during the early 20th century as evangelical influence, which had dominated American churches in the 18th and 19th centuries, began to decline within mainline Protestantism. The term Fundamentalism comes from stressing that biblical inerrancy, the virgin birth of Jesus, penal substitutionary atonement, the literal resurrection of Christ and the Second Coming of Christ (all doctrines that had come under attack from modernist theology) were fundamental Christian doctrines. Failing to reform the mainline churches, fundamentalists separated from them and established their own churches, refusing to participate in ecumenical organizations such as the National Council of Churches. They also made separatism (rigid separation from non-fundamentalist churches and culture) a true test of faith. Fundamentalists tend to come from Baptist backgroudns and are almost always dispensationalists.

Mainstream Evangelicalism
It’s also called "Neo-Evangelicalism or (in Britain and other English-speaking countries) “conservative Evangelicalism.”

Mainstream Evangelicalism is what Billy Graham represents. But even this brand of Evangelicalism is diverse. There are two major divisions which go all the way back through evangelical history.

Confessional evangelicals
Albert Mohler (the proto-type of the modern confessional Baptist) wrote that confessional Evangelicalism refers to “that movement of Christian believers who seek a constant convictional continuity with the theological formulas of the Protestant Reformation”. Confessional evangelicals are represented by conservative Presbyterian churches emphasizing the Westminster Confession, certain Baptist churches that emphasize historic Baptist confessions like the Second London Confession, and Anglicans/Episcopalians who emphasize classic Anglican theology as represented in the Thirty-Nine Articles and the original Book of Common Prayer (such as in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, Australia).

Revivalist evangelicals
Revivalism has always been influential within Evangelicalism. This is especially true of that strand of Evangelicalism influenced by Pietism. This type of Evangelicalism would be represented by some parts of Methodism, the Wesleyan Holiness churches, the Pentecostal/charismatic churches, some Anabaptist churches, and some Baptists and Presbyterians. Revivalistic evangelicals tend to place greater emphasis on religious experience than their confessional counterparts, and while they understand the need for doctrine, they tend to be more anti-creedal in some respects than confessional evangelicals.

Non-Conservative Evangelicalism
Evangelicals dissatisfied with the movement’s conservative mainstream have been variously described as progressive Evangelicals, post-conservative Evangelicals, Open Evangelicals and Post-evangelicals.

Often, it can be difficult to see how the liberal evangelical differs in any meaningful way from the liberal mainline Protestant.

Good summery Itwin. I failed to notice the absence of African American evangelicals when I skimmed the article. Probably because it is assumed by the writer that Black evangelicals will vote Democrat based simply on the fact they are black.

 

[Reuben_J]

Yes, the article was superficial, but that is what happens when you treat religious movements as voting blocs. That’s why most of the media treats Evangelicalism as only a “white people” thing because even though most African-American Protestants in this country are evangelicals, they don’t vote Republican and so are usually left out of the equation.

If we want to look at Evangelicalism from a theological and practical point of view, rather than a socio-political point of view, this is how it can be divided.

Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism emerged during the early 20th century as evangelical influence, which had dominated American churches in the 18th and 19th centuries, began to decline within mainline Protestantism. The term Fundamentalism comes from stressing that biblical inerrancy, the virgin birth of Jesus, penal substitutionary atonement, the literal resurrection of Christ and the Second Coming of Christ (all doctrines that had come under attack from modernist theology) were fundamental Christian doctrines. Failing to reform the mainline churches, fundamentalists separated from them and established their own churches, refusing to participate in ecumenical organizations such as the National Council of Churches. They also made separatism (rigid separation from non-fundamentalist churches and culture) a true test of faith. Fundamentalists tend to come from Baptist backgroudns and are almost always dispensationalists.

Mainstream Evangelicalism
It’s also called "Neo-Evangelicalism or (in Britain and other English-speaking countries) “conservative Evangelicalism.”

Mainstream Evangelicalism is what Billy Graham represents. But even this brand of Evangelicalism is diverse. There are two major divisions which go all the way back through evangelical history.

Confessional evangelicals
Albert Mohler (the proto-type of the modern confessional Baptist) wrote that confessional Evangelicalism refers to “that movement of Christian believers who seek a constant convictional continuity with the theological formulas of the Protestant Reformation”. Confessional evangelicals are represented by conservative Presbyterian churches emphasizing the Westminster Confession, certain Baptist churches that emphasize historic Baptist confessions like the Second London Confession, and Anglicans/Episcopalians who emphasize classic Anglican theology as represented in the Thirty-Nine Articles and the original Book of Common Prayer (such as in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, Australia).

Revivalist evangelicals
Revivalism has always been influential within Evangelicalism. This is especially true of that strand of Evangelicalism influenced by Pietism. This type of Evangelicalism would be represented by some parts of Methodism, the Wesleyan Holiness churches, the Pentecostal/charismatic churches, some Anabaptist churches, and some Baptists and Presbyterians. Revivalistic evangelicals tend to place greater emphasis on religious experience than their confessional counterparts, and while they understand the need for doctrine, they tend to be more anti-creedal in some respects than confessional evangelicals.

Non-Conservative Evangelicalism
Evangelicals dissatisfied with the movement’s conservative mainstream have been variously described as progressive Evangelicals, post-conservative Evangelicals, Open Evangelicals and Post-evangelicals.

Often, it can be difficult to see how the liberal evangelical differs in any meaningful way from the liberal mainline Protestant.

My head is spinning now. uch: