The Multiple Definitions of “Evangelical”

It’s not the main point of the piece, but I would say the political usage of “evangelical” is now the worst sense of the term and not clearly the good guys. The political sense is only slightly less tainted than the political sense of ‘fundamentalist.’

It’s fair to say that the religious sense of the term now pretty much means “culturally Christian” as far as general usage goes. But, as others have pointed out, the term ‘fundamentalist’ is at least as messy and conflicted in usage—requiring context to give it any useful meaning.

“Evangelical” has an anchor in Scripture, because Jesus and the Apostles declared the euangelion. So if we’re going to make the argument that a term “is still useful among those who understand it [ie, useful in context] ,” we should make it for ‘evangelical’ sooner than ‘fundamentalist.’ The latter, if we’re going to use history as context, is a subset of the former.

[Aaron Blumer]

It’s fair to say that the religious sense of the term now pretty much means “culturally Christian” as far as general usage goes. But, as others have pointed out, the term ‘fundamentalist’ is at least as messy and conflicted in usage—requiring context to give it any useful meaning.

Usage always determines meaning, as I said in my reply to Jim on P&D.

Since there really are no language police, language is fluid and humans find imaginative ways to use words, usually ending up altering their generally accepted meaning. That happens a lot, as you know. In the cases of “evangelical” and “fundamentalist,” neither term has fared well in the last seventy years. Evangelical has a longer history, but it has suffered much more at the hands of users than fundamentalist has.

[Aaron Blumer] “Evangelical” has an anchor in Scripture, because Jesus and the Apostles declared the euangelion. So if we’re going to make the argument that a term “is still useful among those who understand it [ie, useful in context] ,” we should make it for ‘evangelical’ sooner than ‘fundamentalist.’ The latter, if we’re going to use history as context, is a subset of the former.

I have never agreed with this proposition. The evangelicals left the fundamentalists deliberately in the 50s. Yes, the fundamentalists were quick to attack their betrayals in response, but it was the action of evangelicals that caused the divide. I don’t see how that makes the fundamentalists a subset of evangelicals.

The evangelicals left the fundamentalists deliberately in the 50s. Yes, the fundamentalists were quick to attack their betrayals in response, but it was the action of evangelicals that caused the divide. I don’t see how that makes the fundamentalists a subset of evangelicals.

If we are going to haggle about words, it was the “new Evangelicals” who left the old evangelicals or the fundamentalists. As Kevin pointed out in the article, 100 years ago, evangelicals and fundamentalists were the same; they were synonymous. The “new” evangelical label was taken by the new evangelicals to distinguish themselves from the old evangelical. Whether or not it’s a subset can be debated I suppose. Whether or not it’s a useful debate can be debated I suppose. But historically, it seems like Fundamentalism and New Evangelicalism were both subsets of a sort of historic orthodoxy which is what the fundamentalism/evangelicalism was in the early 1900s. By and large modern fundamentalists and evangelicals would affirm the same core doctrines (by and large; yes there are exceptions and nuances). All in all, it’s unlikely there is much mileage to gain in these old distinctions. In many quarters, the “evangelicals” are more doctrinally robust and militant than “fundamentalists” are.

Generally speaking it would seem that all Bible believing Christians are evangelicals and under that “Broad Evangelical” umbrella are strong separated fundamentalists, separated fundamentalists, fundamentalists, conservative evangelicals, and probably more I can’t think of. EXCEPT that Separatist Fundamentalists seem to declare that they are not evangelicals. They also seem to consider all evangelicals to be new evangelicals. We definitely need a dictionary and name tags.

Ron, I think there is an urge to have a sort of shorthand in an attempt explanations as we discuss these things. Sometimes there is a desire to lump things together when there are commonalities.

However, the thing that matters in defining things are distinctions, not commonalities. Most evangelicals I know would reject any identification as fundamentalists. I think it is a mistake to water down the distinctives of fundamentalism by blurring the definition by making them out as a sort of evangelical

Most evangelicals I know would reject any identification as fundamentalists.

This is correct because the term “fundamentalist” means significantly more (and worse) things to Evangelicals. Phil Johnson covered that in Dead Right way back in the day. For example, to an Evangelical, “Fundamentalist” generally means “schismatic”, not “separatist”, much less “principled separatist”. If anyone is paying attention to what is going on in the SBC, many evangelicals are calling the CBN a “fundamentalist” organization although in my opinion they are not. David French explicitly made the connection last year in one of his newsletters: https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/under-attack-from-fundamentalist

Whether you want to admit it or not, Fundamentalists/Fundamentalism has always been a subset of those who believe in, live by, and teach the Gospel (Evangelicalism). We are deeply grounded in the Church and in orthodoxy, but we also emphasize certain areas of the faith more than Evangelicals do.