Is the Term "Evangelical" Obsolete?
A friend of mine from Singapore was visiting NYC recently. He is well-respected Christian leader in that part of the world. Over lunch I asked him his view of the American church and evangelicals in particular. He was reluctant to answer, but after some prodding on my part used the following words to describe us- reductionistic, black and white (resistant to nuances and mystery), and more of a civil religion tied closely to culture, than biblical. I wanted to explore more but our lunch table with family had other more fun topics to talk about. David Wells was one of my professors I had at Gordon-Conwell in the mid1980’s. In his book, The Courage to Be Protestant, he recommends we abandon the term evangelical because it has outlived its usefulness, arguing that it is now sagging and disintegrating. He writes: “There have been just too many instances of obnoxious empire-building going on, too much in evangelicalism that is partisan and small,. Read more.
