Theology Matters

What is Evangelicalism?

Am I an evangelical? To be honest, I am not sure. There is confusion about what the term ‘evangelical’ means. On one hand, I quote John Stott and John Wesley, and I was a Young Life leader in college which screams ‘evangelical’. I am passionate about evangelism and try to avoid liturgical ‘fussiness’.

But on the other hand, I have more in common with Pope Francis than Jerry Falwell. When I read books written by pastors who self-identify as evangelical, I worry that we are reading a different Bible. And do not get me started on politics. In America, evangelicals are seen as a powerful voting block that has been organized into a political machine. Groups like the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition can swing elections, so you constantly read headlines like ‘Candidates in S.C. battle for evangelical vote.’ From the media, you get the impression that evangelicalism is a political party instead of a legitimate expression of the Christian faith.

At his first press conference hours after being elected Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry laid out the top two priorities of his ministry, racial reconciliation and evangelism. When asked if that makes him an evangelical, Curry responded, “I think it’s fair to say that I am a follower of Jesus.” Two things about his response stand out to me. First, The Most Reverend Curry has that essential quality of good leaders, the ability to answer a question without answering the question. And second, there is some reluctance to associate himself with that group of people gathered under the umbrella known as evangelicalism. If I were to label Curry, I would call him a progressive evangelical, but does that label even make sense?

When I think of great evangelicals, I think of William Wilberforce who almost singlehandedly ended the British slave trade. Wilberforce’s radical passion for the Gospel compelled him to be the moral conscious of a nation. Or consider Anthony Ashley-Cooper the 7^th Earl of Shaftesbury, the most influential evangelical of the 19^th century. During his time in Parliament, Shaftesbury championed legislation including, but not limited to, reforms in public sanitation, mental health, penitentiaries, child labor (including mining and chimney sweeps who recruited children as young as four), women’s labor laws, burials for the poor, foreign and local missions, education for the poor, and animal cruelty (especially vivisections).                 

Words change meaning over time. Two centuries ago, the word dapper described someone who was heavy-set. Now it describes how I look when I wear my seersucker suit on Easter. Awful used to mean “worthy of awe”, so in ancient devotions, there would be prayers to Awful God. If words are human constructs that convey ideas or thoughts, then the meaning of a word is fluid.

Is that is what has happened to the word evangelical? Has the word changed meaning over time? Or does evangelicalism within the Anglican Church looks different than the rest of Protestantism or even from one side of the Atlantic to the other?

In his book, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s, David Bebbington sees four characteristics of what might be called classic, Anglican evangelicalism.

1. Conversionism-Individual conversion is essential to the Christian faith, thus an insistence on evangelism.
2. Biblicism-The primacy of the Bible for theology and morality.
3. Crucicentrism-The cross is at the center of all doctrine, as opposed to Anglo-Catholics who might focus more on the Incarnation).
4. Activism-Personal faith naturally flows into public life.

Those characteristics are helpful to understanding what it means to be an evangelical Anglican. To be evangelical is to be passionate about the conversion of souls. The Bible contains all things necessary for salvation and is our primary source for all doctrine. The cross is the nexus between God’s mercy and human sin, and therefore is at the center of our faith. And faith is not a private experience, but a life changing, world transforming force. Clearly those categories could describe many non-evangelicals, but a zeal for those four tenants is at the heart of evangelicalism.

My understanding of ‘evangelicalism’ is different than how mainstream America uses the word. If I am an evangelical, I am a Wilberforcian evangelical (a word that I clearly just made up). Regardless of how I define myself, the Episcopal Church is blessed by evangelical voices who have a zeal for the proclamation of the Gospel above all else.

Theology Matters: What Anglicans Believe About Holy Communion

What Anglicans Believe About Holy Communion

I did not grow up Episcopalian, and it wasn’t until my junior year of college that I took the Eucharist for the first time.  I remember not going forward for the first few visits I made to St. Mark’s in Troy, Alabama, then finally daring to kneel in front of the altar to take the bread and cup.  I walked back to my pew and, following what everyone else was doing, knelt in silence to pray.  I could still feel the warmth of the wine in my chest, and taste it on my tongue.

Holy Eucharist is like that, in that even when we have left the altar, it remains with us.  It follows us, stuck on our tongues, and in our hearts.  When we take the Eucharist, we believe we are mysteriously receiving the presence of God.  We know through Holy Scripture that God has showed God’s faithfulness to us in countless ways—the deliverance of the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the creation of the Church, and in even more ways, happening now.  One of the many ways God shows God’s faithfulness to us is through nourishing us with the bread of life that will give us what we need to navigate the challenging life of faith. 

In our catechism, the Eucharist is described as having the benefits of “forgiveness of our sins, the strengthening of our union with Christ and one another, and the foretaste of the heavenly banquet which is our nourishment in eternal life.”  The Book of Common Prayer also says that it is “required that we should examine our lives, repent of our sins, and be in love and charity with all people” in order to come to the Eucharist.  The Eucharist is, simply put, a gathering of community.  As anyone in a community knows, the life of community is not an easy calling.  Being together means recognizing that we have sinned against both God and one another, and asking God for forgiveness.  Being together means being reminded of our need for union with Christ and one another.  Being together means that we strive to create peace where there is discord as best we can now, in our flawed world, knowing that God has created a place for us in the heavens that has no division within it.  

Eucharist is a reminder that we cannot live this Christian faith and life alone.  In order to live in community, we are required to examine our lives, repent of our sins, and be in love and charity with all people, all of which is wrapped up in the thinnest wafer and smallest sip of wine.  The Eucharist requires us to dare to get over ourselves through the humble act of receiving the gift of bread and wine, so that we might be transformed by God into a people who treasure the presence of God over our own pride.  I may not agree with you, but I will kneel beside you, and together we will taste and see that the Lord is good.

The word Eucharist means thanksgiving.  Yes, if we are to have a conversation about what Eucharist means in our tradition, it cannot miss the fact that the Eucharist introduces us to the real presence of God, provides nourishment for the journey, and instructs us in how to be disciples.  However, we also cannot miss the fact that for us, Eucharist conjures up within us the overwhelming sense of gratitude we feel for the love, grace, and truth given to us in the one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The Eucharist is a mysterious act, and it is intended to be so.  What is not mysterious to us when we receive the bread and drink of the cup is the abundant love that is shown to us in God, and our commandment to follow the way of Jesus.

Warde is Associate Rector for Christian Formation for Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas.