Who Is an “Evangelical” and Who Gets to Decide?
Terms like “evangelical”, “fundamentalist”, and more are somewhat amorphous.
Why would Olson care? I thought evangelicals were inclusive by design. He sounds quite a bit like a fundamentalist with all that talk about separation on theological grounds.
And that’s a shame. Olson illustrates a very significant theological tragedy of our day; that the very word “evangelical” does indeed have a wide variety of meanings, to the point that it’s semi-plausible to believe that it simply means one loves the late Rev. Graham. Really, in a different way, the word “fundamentalist” has the same problems.
And my response, I hope, is simply to say that when I refer to myself as a “fundagelical”, that means I affirm the five Fundamentals, but am ambivalent about much of the cultural baggage. I do so realizing fully that this means I’m not welcome in some peoples’ clubhouses. And that’s OK.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
I am weary of labels, especially when it seems everyone has a different dictionary.
I know what I am and I really am not that concerned with whether other people think I am.
I think ____ is a fundamentalist. I think ______ is an evangelical. My friends, and even those who aren’t my friends, are free to disagree with me.
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
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