Evangelical Christianity

Kind of Protestant CHRISTIANITY. Evangelical Christianity has been especially prominent in the United States, while MISSIONARIES have also spread the movement throughout the world. "Evangelical" comes from the Greek word for GOSPEL or "good news," euangelion. It means "based on the gospel." During the REFORMATION Martin LUTHER and his followers preferred to call themselves Evangelical rather than Lutheran. Many Lutherans today still use the term, for example, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Lutherans like this term because they emphasize the "gospel" or "good news" of SALVATION by GRACE through FAITH: that GOD saves people freely if they accept his gift. But in the English language Evangelical Christianity generally does not refer to LUTHERANISM. It refers to a very different kind of Protestant Christianity. This form began in England and North America during the 18th century. It is associated with a personal experience of conversion, revival meetings, and intense missionary activity. Evangelical Christianity in this sense was the dominant religion in the United States after the Revolutionary War. EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY Most Christians believe that God acts in the world through the Holy Spirit. Evangelical Christianity began from a distinctive view of how the Spirit acts. Orthodox, Catholic, and most Protestant churches have traditionally taught that the Spirit acts especially in SACRAMENTS and, for Protestants, in preaching "the Word." Evangelical Christians taught that the Spirit acts in the human heart. They emphasized a personal, emotionally powerful experience of conversion. As a result, they are popularly called "born again" Christians. They also taught that after Christians are saved, they should strive for "sanctifi cation" and moral perfection. One moral demand was extremely important in the history of Evangelical Christianity: not drinking alcohol. It led eventually to the legal prohibition of alcohol in the United States from 1920 to 1933. John WESLEY (1703–91), who founded the Methodists, played an important role in the rise of Evangelical Christianity in England. In the United States, Evangelical Christianity began during the First Great Awakening. This was a revival movement that swept through the British colonies in North America in the middle 1700s. Until the middle 1800s all major branches of PROTESTANTISM in the United States—Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians—were evangelical. They often stressed patriotism and opposed Catholicism. By the late 1800s Evangelical Christianity had gone from the dominant religion to a religion on the outside. Many members of churches that were once Evangelical became attracted to modern ways of looking at the world. In response, Evangelicals insisted that they could tolerate no compromise with the world. It was in this climate that fundamentalism was born. Apart from fundamentalism, Evangelical Christianity remained relatively quiet until after World War Two. At that point evangelical thinkers like the American theologian, Carl F. H. Henry (1913– 2003), tried to formulate a version of evangelicalism that was conservative but not fundamentalist. The popular American preacher, Billy Graham, is often seen as part of this movement. The strictest fundamentalists rejected him because he agreed to associate with more liberal Christians. By the middle of the 1970s Evangelical Christianity was again a major force in American life. Liberal churches were losing members, but conservative churches were growing. "A born-again Christian," Jimmy Carter, was elected president. Other Protestant churches, such as the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Christian Reformed Church, were moving in an Evangelical direction. At the end of the century Evangelical Christianity became a force in American politics. Its members often, but not always, supported conservative causes.