I’ve often heard that confession is good for the soul. I won’t disagree with that, and in that spirit, I have a confession to make. Please don’t judge me for this confession too harshly. Here goes: sometimes, when I’m looking a word up in an English dictionary, I lose track of time and discover that I’ve been reading the dictionary for a while! If the dictionary happens to be a Greek lexicon, the time period for reading the dictionary can be borderline ridiculous!
I love words. I think I always have loved words, and I can remember my mother often telling how I would make up words out of nowhere. As a semi-decent student of Scripture, I find great satisfaction in working on doing my best to understand what words would have meant to biblical authors and to the people who first read (or more likely heard) the words of Scripture spoken. Then the challenge becomes even more intriguing in attempting to think about how we can say the same thing in 21st-century English that Paul said in mid- to late-first-century Greek to citizens of the Graeco-Roman world who were followers of Jesus.
All of that convinces me that words – not just any words, but the best and most appropriate theological words – are more important than the surface-level preaching we often hear and what much of contemporary, repetitive worship songs might suggest. Two books by William Willimon, Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized (1992) and The Intrusive Word: Preaching to the Unbaptized (1994), confirmed for me that words – think vocabulary – are more important than we often think.
I don’t remember exactly the year, but sometime in the mid to late 1990s, I decided that I would no longer use the world “evangelical” to describe my theological worldview. It had nothing to do with a change in how I thought about the Bible, the nature of the gospel, the mission of the church, and a host of other important ideas – but everything to do with the misuse of that term. It had everything to do with politicians using that word to describe themselves while treating women with grossly un-Christlike behavior, having extramarital affairs with multiple women, covering up all sorts of sexual misconduct – while at the same time wanting to impeach Bill Clinton for his misbehavior with an White House intern. Those politicians were a bit odd when it comes to “family values.”
I know that there is no copyright or trademark protection for theological vocabulary. That certainly includes the word evangelical. But I do think one could make a reasonable argument that the historical meaning of the term evangelical among Christians is that it describes people who believe that the Bible is the “trustworthy word of God,” and that as the trustworthy word of God, the Bible should, when understood according to the rules of how language works, become the standard for Christian conduct. And, because the Bible is trustworthy, regular engagement in a local church is essential, not optional. If that is the definition of evangelical, then please feel free to call me an evangelical.
A second point of confession for me is that I will admit to being a bit of a political junkie. I can’t remember when I didn’t stay up way too late listening to election results. Most often, I swap between major broadcast and cable channels. Sometimes you wonder if you are watching coverage of the same event!
I stayed up later than I should have watching coverage of the Iowa caucus event on 15 January. This is not a literal count of vocabulary used by the media – from the far left to the far right – but my gut tells me among the most commonly repeated phrases was “evangelical Christians.” What I suspect the reporters meant was “evangelical, white American Christians,” but that isn’t what they said. Do they realize that 3 in 5 evangelicals live in Asia or Africa? Or that 69% of African-American Christians call themselves “born-again” or “evangelical”? Have they noticed that something like 40% of people who identify as evangelicals seldom or never attend worship?
I can’t imagine that there is an evangelical Christian in Asia or Africa who is interested in who won the Iowa Republican primary. Demographics would suggest that few African-Americans even live in Iowa, much less voted in the Republican primary.
To use the term “evangelical Christian” in a United States-centric fashion betrays a kind of geo-political nationalism that most often is criticized as Christian nationalism by those practicing the same behavior, but in different words. Don’t misunderstand – I personally think “Christian nationalism” is far beyond the borders of heresy. To reduce the Jesus-ideal of the kingdom of God to some political entity can only mean one has failed to read the gospel with any of its intended meaning. But to assume the only evangelical Christians are the people who vote in Republican primaries is to ignore the reality of the global influence of those who believe that the Bible is the trustworthy word of God.
I doubt that I will live long enough to ever be comfortable calling myself an “evangelical Chrisian.” Again, that has nothing to do with a shift in my view of the nature of Scripture. To paraphrase something N.T. Wright often says, we have the Bible He gave us, and it is the Bible He wants us to follow. But I also won’t likely live long enough to quit being irritated that our culture has stolen our vocabulary and created its meaning in its own image.
“Evangelical” enters English directly from the Greek word that means “good news.” Good news is rooted in Jesus, not who you might vote for.
Wye Huxford 