What Is An Evangelical? by John Ortberg

I thought this was a strong look at a word that carries lots of meaning, baggage, and questions for the future...and maybe JO is right, maybe it will mean nothing or something different to the students I am teaching in the years and generations to come...we will see...

Coming to terms with terms isn't easy.

I have always loved words. One of my favorite early memories is of my dad reading to us at bedtime. One of those books—Alice in Wonderland—had a scene about words that delighted and puzzled me.

Alice ran into Humpty Dumpty, who had an attitude and an unusual verbal style. He used the word glory, for instance, to mean "there's a nice knock-down argument for you." Alice objected, "Glory does not mean a nice knock-down argument."

"When I use a word," Humpty said in a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty, "which is to be master—that's all." He explained that he always paid a word extra when he made it do a lot of work.

One of the words I think about a fair amount these days is evangelical. I grew up in a Swedish pietistic evangelical denomination. I went to college in Wheaton, Illinois, which then was the Vatican City of evangelicalism. I attended Fuller Seminary, founded to advance evangelical scholarship. I went to Young Life and Campus Life meetings in high school (depending on which had the cutest girls at the time. Then I prayed according to the ACTS structure—adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication—and those girls were variously part of the "T", "C", and sometimes the "S" section.) I read The Living Bible. I sang "It only takes a spark to get a fire going." I went to Explo '72—all marks of evangelicalism at the time.

British historian David Bebbington writes that evangelicalism is marked by four characteristics: conversionism (an emphasis on being born again); biblicism (an emphasis on the ultimate authority of the Bible); activism (involvement in sharing the faith); and crucicentrism (a focus on the atoning and redeeming work of Christ on the cross—and a word Humpty Dumpty would have had to pay extra.) Though it was characterized by these qualities, the evangelical movement never had a duly authorized spokesman the way that Rome or Canterbury did.

Except maybe for one.

It is hard now to describe the impact that the name Billy Graham had on the little world in which I grew up. He met with presidents, consorted with world leaders, commanded the media, and remained the most admired man in America in poll after poll. He represented and defined and, in some ways, embodied our little subculture.

I think it was Mark Noll who said that you could peg someone's position relative to evangelicalism based on his response to the name Billy Graham. The seminary I attended still lists him as an emeritus trustee. Leadership journal and this website both are part of a publication entity Billy Graham dreamed up one night. I am part of a generation of preachers for whom he was an inescapable icon and inspiration. The only recognizable impersonation I can do is his. My wife, Nancy, and I spoke at a retreat at Montreat, North Carolina, last summer, just a week or so after the death of Ruth Graham. The weight and depth of the Graham legacy was palpable. American evangelicalism was the movement of which Billy Graham was the leader.

All this leads me to wonder what evangelical will mean in the next generation. How will it be understood? How much does it matter?

Here are a few clues. Not long ago, two articles in USA Today defined evangelicals as people who are "conservative in their political, economic, and moral beliefs."

David Kinnaman, in his widely read book Unchristian, discovered that among folks who are outsiders to the Christian faith, the number that had a good impression of the word evangelicals was 3%. To the rest, they were unknown. Or they were defined by what they are against.

The Pew Foundation recently reported the most widely targeted survey of religious attitudes to date, and one of their more striking findings was that 21% of all people who defined themselves as "atheists" also say they "believe in God." It made me wonder if they were a little unclear on the category. But apparently these are folks who are so turned off by organized religion that they defined themselves as atheists to make sure they are in no way identified with a faith—even though more than a fifth of them actually say they are believers.

Maybe the fate of the word evangelicalism doesn't matter all that much. I always liked evangelical. It seemed to me different from fundamentalism and mainline. It seemed more substantial than born-again, which often was used in ways that were intentionally divisive. To me it meant people who loved Jesus and took the Bible seriously, but were not afraid to read all kinds of books and discuss all kinds of ideas, and who cared about culture and statecraft and the arts. But it may not mean that to other people. Maybe the subculture I grew up in will eventually give in to confusion and competition and irrelevance. God is always getting people to sing new songs.

Words and labels, as old Humpty Dumpty knew so well, shift over time. The word that carries freshness and compels the heart in one generation is oppressive to another. There was a time when "a committee" (a group of people with a common commitment; with the capacity for dedication) was inviting. Now it's like asking people to sign up for rheumatism.

The evangel itself, the gospel, doesn't need any of us to worry about it. It was embodied a long time ago by the one Person who will always be around to put things back on the right track.

There will never be a "next Billy Graham." God just doesn't seem to go in much for cloning.

But the task of trying to describe and define Jesus' movement—to paint the portrait of his bride and sing his new song—that falls to every generation. It falls to every church. It falls to you.

I hope you find the right Word.

John Ortberg is pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California, and is editor at large of Leadership Journal.