{"id":11126,"date":"2017-01-19T21:03:15","date_gmt":"2017-01-20T05:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=11126"},"modified":"2017-01-19T21:03:15","modified_gmt":"2017-01-20T05:03:15","slug":"evangelicals-i-guess-i-are-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/evangelicals-i-guess-i-are-one\/","title":{"rendered":"EVANGELICALS\u2026.. I Guess I Are One?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Evangelicals, exactly who and what are they?\u00a0 The Christian community loves to work on nomenclature to help define who and what you are.\u00a0 You are not just a Baptist; Southern, American, Primitive, Independent, Fundamental, fire-breathing, and the list goes on.\u00a0 Evangelicals struggle with the same identity crisis.The term \u201cevangelical\u201d seems to morph into whatever the possessor of the moniker wants it to be.\u00a0 Global Evangelicalism <\/em>is a cooperative work of several evangelical experts, from different quadrants of the globe, shedding light on this allusive group of Christians known as evangelicals from their perspective, hopefully giving inspiration to this force to be dealt with in the world.\u00a0 Though it may be difficult to pinpoint, the evangelical world has truly impacted the cause of Christ in the world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

Donald Lewis and Richard Pierard, editors, state clearly the purpose to their book, Global Evangelicalism:\u00a0 Theology, History, and Culture in Regional Perspective, <\/em>in the \u201cIntroduction\u201d: \u201cThis book\u2019s main purpose is then to trace the recent history of evangelical churches and evangelical movements while providing a general introduction to the beliefs, practices and characteristic emphases of evangelical Christianity.\u00a0 A second important purpose is to offer a worldwide survey of where evangelical movements have come to exist and of the greatly varying conditions under which evangelicals now carry on their work.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the operative words of the title, \u201cglobal\u201d, is loaded with innuendos, myth, and misrepresentations.\u00a0 The collaboration of Global Evangelicalism <\/em>brought clarity by stating, \u201cSome thinkers argue globalization is a myth or lie that has been put forward to disguise the march of international capitalism, giving the impression that it is an unstoppable process that is useless to resist. (Oh how I wish this was understood by every local church<\/em>.- my thoughts)\u00a0 Others argue that globalization is merely a mask of for Americanization:\u00a0 the world is becoming homogenized as all tastes are flattened and a single flavor triumphs.\u00a0 Other theorists respond by saying the result of globalization is not that people want a single flavor but that it opens a wide diversity of flavors to cater to individual tastes.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

The manifestation of global evangelicalism is what Global Evangelicalism<\/em> seems to focus on the best.\u00a0 Reaching from Latin American and the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Brazil with their \u201cprosperity gospel as the order of the day\u201d[3]<\/a>, to the complexity, demographic challenge and breakdown of, \u201cChristians 503 million of the 973 million people living in Africa\u201d.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Asia does not go unscathed for, \u201c\u2026evangelicalism in Asia in the nineteenth century often looked more like the book of Acts than Calvin\u2019s Institutes of the Christian Religion <\/em>or the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.\u201d[5]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

Twelve months ago, we read David Bebbington\u2019s book, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, A History from the 1730\u2019s to th\"\"<\/a>e 1980\u2019s.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em>Bebbington, who is quoted in Global Evangelicalism<\/em>, defined the quadrilateral view of \u201cevangelical\u201d:<\/p>\n

There are four qualities that have been the special marks of Evangelical religion:\u00a0 conversionsim, <\/em>the belief that lives need to changed; activism, <\/em>the expression of the gospel in effort, biblicism, <\/em>a particular regard for the Bible, and what may be called crucicentrism, <\/em>a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

Whether reading Bebbington or the compilation of authors in Global Evangelicalism<\/em>, I still walk away embracing the fundamentals and truths of evangelicalism.\u00a0 But it seems that we are still attempting to nail \u201cfog to a wall\u201d.\u00a0 The evangelical movement is widespread in its definition, lacks a central location to rally around (i.e., the Vatican), and is difficult to find a singular spokesperson that represents the movement.\u00a0 Throw in the international nuances of various cultures and you must believe in the sovereign work of God in the earth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I am not sure I am any closer to understanding all that there is to evangelicalism.\u00a0 I do have a deeper understanding of the scope of influence that they have been in the earth.\u00a0 When it is all said and done, I guess I are one (bad grammar on purpose<\/em>)!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Donald M. Lewis and Richard V. Pierard, editors, Global Evangelicalism:\u00a0 Theology, History, and Culture in Regional Perspective, <\/em>(Downers Grove, IL:\u00a0 InterVarsity Press, 2014), 14.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., \u00a062.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., 194.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 126.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 214.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> D. W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, A History from the 1730\u2019s to the 1980\u2019s, (<\/em>New York:\u00a0 Routledge, 2002), 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction Evangelicals, exactly who and what are they?\u00a0 The Christian community loves to work on nomenclature to help define who and what you are.\u00a0 You are not just a Baptist; Southern, American, Primitive, Independent, Fundamental, fire-breathing, and the list goes on.\u00a0 Evangelicals struggle with the same identity crisis.The term \u201cevangelical\u201d seems to morph into whatever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[366,620,631],"class_list":["post-11126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-evangelicalism","tag-lewis","tag-pierard","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}