EVANGELICALS

ORIGINS OF THE EVANGELICALS

• Surge of disparate movements among Protestant churches (1730-1740) that permeated the United Kingdom and much of North America
• Great Awakening
• Trailblazers like Jonathan Edwards had heavy impacts on the American religious mindset
• Preaching of George Whitefield and John Wesley
• Doctrines can be traced back to English Methodism, the Moravian Church, and German Lutheran Pietism

THE REFORMATION AND EVANGELICAL REVIVAL

• Methodist Revival (Great Britain) and Pietist Movement (Germany), but especially the first and second Great Awakenings (United States)
• Resolving the Fundamentalist controversy (Late 1930s): conservatives who stuck with the old Protestant churches but who did not really support the growing modernist approach wanted a name for themselves in the Americas: Neo-Evangelicals, soon shortened to Evangelicals
• Term was used to distinguish followers of Martin Luther (Lutherans/Evangelicals) from the Reformers who followed John Calvin

STATEMENTS OF FAITH

• We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.
• We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
• We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
• We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

STATEMENTS OF FAITH (CONTINUED)

• We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, ... in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
• We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
• We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

WORSHIP TRADITIONS

• Communal prayer and Music
• Reading/Hearing the Word
• A Response of Confession
• Passing the Peace of Christ
• Eucharist
• The Church Year
• Very oriented towards personal transformation: the need for a conversion experience, a personal relationship with Jesus, and a reliance on the Bible as the sole standard for faith and practice

MAIN DOCTRINES

• Working to lead others to Christ is part of being a good Evangelical. (Similar to Catholicism)
• Specific personal conversion in which they are "born again" or "saved."
• One large difference: Evangelicals believe that people can do nothing to earn their way to heaven: Believers must do "good works in grateful response to our pardon, not to cause it."

MAIN DOCTRINES (CONTINUED)

• Christ's Second Coming (the Rapture): Most, though not all, Evangelicals believe that in the end times the church will be "caught up with Christ before the Great Tribulation, leaving nonbelievers behind to suffer on earth."
• https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GrXe8YDbzYs
• The Bible: "final authority in all matters of doctrine and faith."

SIGNS OF ECUMENISM IN ACTION

• In 2014 Pope Francis met with the general secretary of the World Evangelical Alliance - WEA general secretary Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe said: "We acknowledge the differences between our traditions, yet also affirm the common tasks we have shared in the past and pray that we can build on those.”
• Personal group opinion: The emphasis on the conversion experience makes Evangelicals a very apt group to use proclamation and personal testimony in ecumenism.

A PROFOUND WORK OF ECUMENISM

• The document "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" was the collaborative effort of fifteen religious writers who were either Evangelical or Catholic (some are even converts from one denomination to the other). This document dissects the primary similarities and differences among the Evangelicals and Catholics; the text then explores how the separation between the two can be mended back together. This is extremely important to the modern-day ecumenical movement between Evangelicals and Catholics. (Refer to diagram.)

Other Interesting Facts about Evangelical Christians

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Neuhaus, Richard John and Charles Colson. Evangelicals and Christians together. Grace to You, 29 March 1994. Web. 16 February 2016.
• Evangelical Practices and Beliefs. Pew Research Center, 22 Jun 2011. Web. 16 February 2016.