Let’s Reclaim ‘Evangelical’ for the Sake of the Global Church

The Christian narrative is a global story composed of a “cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1) from “every nation, tribe, people, and language” (Rev. 7:9, CSB). A striking feature of John’s kingdom vision is its multiethnic composition unified in worship to the risen Lamb. In the 20th century, the evangelical movement witnessed unprecedented globalization that reflects this end-times scene. While the evangelical movement originated in the West, sprouting from the Protestant Reformation and Great Awakenings, the 20th century confirmed that “good news” people are no longer a Western-dominant demographic. Evangelicals and those who share evangelical theological convictions are scattered across the globe. Despite the excitement of evangelicalism’s expanding reach, American evangelicals are in a crisis of definition. Cable-news anchors and other culture shapers regularly use “evangelical” to reference a voting bloc more than than a Christian movement. Consequently, American Christians with historically evangelical commitments actively debate the term’s usefulness. Conceding the use of “evangelical” to secular pollsters is deeply flawed by an American-centric gaze that forgoes meaningful connection with the global evangelical family. InterVarsity president Tom Lin explains, Any evaluation of the word evangelical or evangelicalism must be done in the context of the global church. The decision of some American evangelicals to abandon the term is insensitive to our overseas sisters and brothers; it reflects the worst impulse of American exceptionalism and self-absorption. We have long since passed the era when American evangelicals may act independently. Even a cursory look at the global church provides great hope for the future of evangelicalism. Despite the confusion, I contend that as American Christians grasp the beauty, wonder, and scale of the global evangelical movement, an abiding impulse to reclaim American evangelicalism’s theological and missiological heritage will emerge. This is more than prevailing over a populous evangelical narrative marked by cultural and political captivity; it is akin to being reunited with long-lost family members. As American Christians grasp the beauty, wonder, and scale of the global evangelical movement, an abiding impulse to reclaim American evangelicalism’s heritage will emerge. For many individualist-leaning Westerners, this unity may sound like hyperbole. But something is gloriously mysterious about doing everything in our power to unify ourselves with a body of believers that the shed blood of Christ has constituted. Having quantified the challenge for contemporary American evangelicals, let’s consider an exegetical and historically grounded definition of Christianity, understand its prevalence in the global church, and appreciate why American evangelicals should clarify the term “evangelical” rather than jettisoning it. Misunderstanding ‘Evangelicalism’ Americans reference various personal anecdotes for misunderstanding the evangelical movement, but historian Thomas S. Kidd notes three factors that warped our collective imagination. First is the success of the evangelical movement. By the mid-20th century, many Americans grew up assuming they were evangelicals because, in many cases, the term seemed synonymous with “Protestant Christian” or even “American.” The implication is that you were born an evangelical, rather than being “born again” to become an evangelical. Kidd’s first factor lays the foundation for the radical confusion that mushroomed in the 21st century. Second, Kidd recalls the political alignments of the 1970s and 1980s, which also contributed to confusion about evangelical identity. Since Ronald Reagan, self-identifying white evangelicals have often supported GOP candidates who learn evangelical lingo and promise Supreme Court appointments. Lastly, Kidd cites the challenge of modern polling: Letting respondents self-identify as evangelical makes discerning the political behavior of confessional evangelicals nearly impossible. A recent flash point was the well-circulated (albeit debated) statistic that 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Mark Labberton, former president of Fuller Theological Seminary, notes, The 2016 election may have been the occasion for this drama, but it isn’t the cause. For starters, it needs to be said that the battle afoot has little to do with theology proper. In part, it reveals that the word evangelical has morphed in common usage from being a reference to a set of primarily theological commitments into something akin to a passionately defended, theo-political brand. . . . In its current mode, evangelicalism contains an amalgam of theological views, partisan political debates, regional power blocks, populist visions, racial biases, and cultural anxieties, all mixed in an ethos of fear. No wonder it can be difficult to know whether one is still evangelical. Kidd wonders, “Who are these rank-and-file Trump supporters who tell pollsters they are ‘evangelicals’? What do they believe? Do they attend church? Do their lives reflect a transforming experience of grace?” Kidd suggests these poll results point to a wholesale watering down and politicization of the term “evangelical.” This 81 percent statistic indicates that “evangelical” morphed into a sociological designation, away from its long-held theological and missiological roots. This cocktail advanced in pop culture and among evangelical ranks is causing many confessionally evangelical Americans to render the word useless. Despite America’s confusion about the term “evangelical” and the impulse to set the language aside, there is more at stake than meets the eye. Define and Identify Evangelicals Contrary to the attention-grabbing rhetoric of 24-hour cable news stations and “hot takes” by social media influencers, identifying evangelicals has historical and theological grounding that is both globally relevant and also contextually meaningful. Exegetically speaking, the word “evangel” means “good news.” This meaning is grounded in the Greek word euangelion, which New Testament writers regularly use to signify “glad tidings.” For example, it was “good news” that Jesus appeared on earth as the Son of God to accomplish God’s plan of salvation for needy humanity. Contemporary Bible translators often use the term “gospel” in place of the Old English word gōdspel, meaning of “good news” or “glad tidings.” In short, evangelicals are “good news” or “gospel” people. David Bebbington identifies four primary qualities of this gospel people that have been widely affirmed as the marks of evangelical Christianity: conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel in effort; biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible; and crucicentrism, a stress on Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Bebbington’s theologically and missiologically oriented definition describes the global evangelical ethos but lacks a mechanism to associate individuals or churches with the quadrilateral’s ideas. Mark Noll admits to the complexities of discerning who to “count” as an evangelical. He and other historians acknowledge three overlapping constituencies that differ in their evangelical self-consciousness but emerge from a shared history and set of convictions. Beginning with the easiest to quantify, there are intentional evangelicals, who deliberately identify themselves and their efforts with the label. The second group is much larger and is dubbed historically evangelical because they are affiliated with agencies, voluntary societies, and institutions that have traditionally quantified their efforts as evangelical. The final and largest contingent is the functionally evangelical because, while they may have loose connections with evangelical movements, they share historic evangelical beliefs and practices. The functionally evangelical grouping raises an important question about the need for self-identification. When quantifying the global evangelical footprint, leading minds are divided on counting someone as an evangelical without his or her affirmation. For example, Timothy Larsen objects to the practice of designating someone as an evangelical by not asserting a label on someone that they may resist. Larsen’s desire to uphold personal agency is laudable in light of the West’s historic tendency to impose labels on the Majority World, but others (including me) are interested in including such believers in the evangelical fold with nuanced annotation. My inclination to carefully integrate functional evangelicals into the data pool is, in large part, an attempt to accurately understand and assess the behaviors and commitments of theologically and missiologically aligned believers. This effort is especially consequential for correcting confusion caused by self-identified “evangelicals” who don the label without assent to historic evangelical theological convictions. Global Evangelicalism As the 20th century began, it was appropriate to locate intentional and historic evangelicals almost exclusively in Western Europe and North America. But as Noll observes, “Today, the number of evangelicals in each of Africa, Latin America and Asia exceeds the total in Europe and North America combined.” Philip Jenkins provides some statistical clarity for this colossal shift in the past millennium: The figures are startling. Between 1900 and 2000, the number of Christians in Africa grew from 10 million to over 360 million, from 10 percent of the population to 46 percent. If that is not, quantitatively, the largest religious change in human history in such a short period, I am at a loss to think of a rival. In more recent decades, the number of evangelicals in the world has increased from 112 million in 1970 to 386 million in 2018—and the lion’s share has been outside the West. In more recent decades, the number of evangelicals in the world has increased from 112 million in 1970 to 386 million in 2018—and the lion’s share has been outside the West. As Jenkins reflects on the global state of Christianity at the onset of the 21st century, he insists, “The most vibrant centers of Christian growth are still in Africa itself, but also around the Pacific Rim, the Christian Arc. Already today, Africans and Asians represent some 30 percent of all Christians, and the proportion will rise steadily.” The state of global evangelicalism is an increasingly melanin-rich movement as 77 percent of all evangelicals lived in the Global South in 2018—up from 7.8 percent in 1900. It’s also important to note that 9 of the 10 countries with the largest evangelical populations in 2018 were in the Global South. The United States is the outlier as the only country listed in the Global North in the top 10. At least before COVID-19 and recent crackdowns, Jenkins predicted that the richest Christian harvest might be found in China in the immediate future. While China is north of the equator, it continues the explosive growth of evangelicalism beyond the West. Evangelicalism’s spread and influence resulted in a network with tentacles reaching around the globe. Only the Roman Catholic Church rivals evangelicalism as a global Christian religious movement. The global evangelical landscape is marked by institutions and organizations bearing the name. Larsen humbly affirms that while the word “evangelical” undoubtedly doesn’t mean the same thing in each diverse location, the members of these organizations are indeed part of a cross-pollinating international movement. They include the Association of Evangelical Theological Education in Latin America, the African Journal of Evangelical Theology, the Journal of Asian Evangelical Theology, and The National Association of Evangelicals in America, among many others. Global evangelicals are full partners in world mission. Believers from the Majority World lead organizations that define the movement, such as the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, Overseas Missionary Fellowship International (formerly called the China Inland Mission), Navigators, InterVarsity, and the World Evangelical Alliance. Majority World evangelical theologians and biblical scholars are being developed through ministry partnerships, including the Langham Partnership scholars program and Sola Media’s Theo Global initiative. As Tom Lin has pointed out, global evangelicals are no longer exclusively dependent on Western seminaries for degrees and publishers for translated books. Theological education and academic texts are written by believers in their mother tongue for the benefit of all God’s people. The question remains: Will American evangelicals dissociate from this movement that’s nothing short of an act of God? Acquiescing to the American confusion over the term and rejecting the term might demonstrate that Christians in the United States haven’t given sufficient ear to our global brothers and sisters to increase our affections and dependence on them for our own spiritual growth and flourishing. The question remains: Will American evangelicals dissociate from this movement that’s nothing short of an act of God? Brian Stiller of the World Evangelical Alliance passionately argues there’s a more insidious reason that American Christians opt out of using “evangelical” as a self-designation: Americans believe we are the center of the Christian world. To impose current first-world debates on hundreds of millions of Christians worldwide would be worse than a mistake; it would be a new form of first-world intellectual colonialism. (Re)join the Family American evangelicals have our work cut out for us. We have the joyous task of clarifying a theologically and missiologically focused expression of evangelical Christianity in our country. Then we will have the honor of growing in knowledge of, understanding of, and love for our global brothers and sisters. We can also explore how to meaningfully participate in the global evangelical movement without subconsciously (or consciously) occupying the prominent seat. This kind of family participation will likely reframe our use of “evangelical” vis-à-vis the North American confusion over the term. Intentionally returning to the global evangelical family will cause American Christians—whose self-perception is often devoid of connection to Christianity’s global witness—to embody a renewed passion for the good news to unify God’s people, while sanctifying each of us with the unique joys and pressures in our corner of the globe. This posture of global participation is a seedbed capable of sparking generations of missiological momentum until our King returns. Join The Keller Center mailing list The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics helps Christians share the truth, goodness, and beauty of the gospel as the only hope that fulfills our deepest longings. We want to train Christians—everyone from pastors to parents to professors—to boldly share the good news of Jesus Christ in a way that clearly communicates to this secular age. Click the button below to sign up for updates and announcements from The Keller Center.