In the last couple of years, I have heard an awful lot about evangelicals and their political leanings. I looked it up and to me the definition sounds like “Christian.” How are evangelicals different than other Christians?
They’re not Catholic. 
If I remember my college religion class, the tenets, as it were, that separate evangelicals from other christian denominations is a belief in the inerrancy of the bible/biblical literalism, a belief that the only road to salvation is through Jesus Christ (no virtuous pagans in evangelicalism!), an emphasis on a personal conversion or born-again moment and that good old evangelist zeal.
This is not to say that one or more of these can’t be true of other christian groups.
I can only offer my humble opinion, but ISTM that Evangelicals are more politically active than the Christians who ‘render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s’. That is, you hear about their political leanings because they tend to be politically active. Catholics may advocate voting for anti-Choice candidates, but I haven’t heard them advocating the suppression of other faiths. Evangelical Christians seem to advocate voting for candidates who would enshrine the Ten Commandments into law, establish [their brand of] Christianity as the official religion of the United States, etc.
American Evangelicals are literalists; they pick and choose, we all have to do it simply because there are contradictions in the Bible (even within the three parallel Gospels), but they claim they don’t.
They’re not Episcopal (no Apostolic Succesion) and in fact anybody can call himself a Pastor and start his own Church.
They’re likely to have been baptized multiple times, once for every congregation they’ve been a part of. To Episcopalians, Orthodox or Catholics this is a travesty of the Sacrament (I can’t speak for Lutherans or Baptists, each of which is a pretty big umbrella containing multiple Churches which may not be on speaking terms).
They often use doctrines which have been condemned by every major church, such as the Gospel of Prosperity (if you’re rich it’s because God loves you; if you’re poor it’s because you’re a sinner; give money to the Pastor and you’ll become rich).
Take into account that, since every single congregation is its own animal, there is no consistent doctrine; each Evangelical Church follows that one Pastor.
Neither are the Anglicans or Orthodox Christians or Lutherans or Calvinists or Mormons, but they’re not evangelicals, either.
Johnny L.A. and Inner Stickler’s posts are pretty spot-on, IMO. While “Evangelical” is the term that seems to be most commonly used, “Fundamentalist Christian” is another term that would fit many of them.
Evangelical Christians in the U.S., for the most part, tend to be very conservative socially and politically. As noted, they’re likely to be strongly anti-abortion, as well as against same-sex marriage (as they’re likely to view homosexuality as a sin, and believe that marriage can only be between a man and a woman). They’re also likely to believe that sex outside of marriage is a sin, and support abstinence-only sex education in schools.
One can contrast this with the “mainline” Protestant denominations (such as the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church), which are often more moderate-to-liberal on many social issues than the Evangelical churches (though even the mainline denominations have seen internal struggles and debates over issues around sexuality).
To be clear, the media have noted that a large part of Trump’s base is made of evangelicals, and evangelicals also show strong support for the move to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Those are the big news drivers for this group in the last couple of years.
Some Evangelicals, especially the upper middle class ones, combine their religion with a complete lifestyle. There are many evangelical mega-churches in the U.S. and the facilities alone can be extremely impressive. They usually have auditorium style seating, swimming pools, concert quality AV equipment, sports facilities and lots more. They are basically a country club disguised as a church. Members socialize together and the churches even host things like retreats and vacation packages. The overall atmosphere is very different from your typical Catholic or mainline Protestant churches.
Not all Evangelical churches are like that though. There are also low-end ones that rent space in half-empty strip malls. The one thing they have in common is that the churches do not usually look like typical Catholic or Protestant churches and they hire preachers that are good speakers in a salesperson kind of way rather than someone that is solemn and more reverent.
A significant number of evangelical pastors do not even have any particular theological or ministerial training. A result is that there is no general agreement on doctrine among evangelical congregations, and for many, doctrine is a secondary consideration (if it is considered at all) behind the primary goal of growing the congregation.
American evangelicalism basically goes back to John Wesley and the early English Methodists (though today some Methodists do not consider themselves part of the evangelical movement.) Wesley’s practice was to engage in street-preaching and proselytizing, and to organize local elders with little or no formal religious training to lead small congregations.
When the Methodists started emigrating to America, that concept took off with the revivalist movement in the 19th century, combining local organization, lack of central authority, biblical inerrancy, and a focus on salvation through faith in Jesus alone rather than on religious enlightenment and behavioral moral systems.
Taxonomizing evangelicals can be tricky for these reasons. There’s no evangelical pope, just a few loose-knit organizations of congregations, like the Southern Baptist Convention. But there are plenty of other evangelical movements, like the rather loathsome Prosperity Gospel movement.
What are your definitions of evangelists and that of Christian would be a good start. A good second start would be to look them BOTH up and find out what they really mean :smack:
The Eastern Orthodox Church is indeed Catholic, as is the Oriental Orthodox Church.
(And the Anglicans defined themselves as not being Catholic, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t Catholic. High Church and all that, you know.)
It’s pretty common for people (in the U.S., anyway) to use the term “Catholic” when they specifically mean the Roman Catholic Church, and many likely aren’t even aware that there’s a broader definition of the term.
As is so often the case, I now regret making the joke in the first place.
INDEED!!
I say that because in the US, someone who identifies as Eastern Orthodox Church would be very ready to correct you if you claimed, as Derleth does, that they were actually Catholic. They would likely give you a history lesson.
The catholic church has 18 “rites” including the Ukrainian, Syrian, an Armenian.
The Eastern Orthodox church - dominant in Greece, Ukraine, Russia, etc. - is a separate church from the Catholics, under their own leader (Patriarch), not the pope.
“Evangelical” is as I recall the term for religions where obeying the admonition to “preach the word” is the paramount motivation. Those megachurches and the TV shows are full of preachers begging you to send money so they can expand the reach of their TV shows - those are evangelicals. As mentioned, they tend to be fundamentalist, have literal interpretations of the Bible and more likely to be intolerant of those who do not accept literal interpretation, and more willing to accept/demand the government enact laws to force adherence to their principles - after all, if it’s God’s will what could be wrong with making it the law of the land? Nobody should object unless they are evil or misguided.
And they’re terrified of Sharia law.
The Orthodox Catholic Church is a separate Church from the Roman Catholic Church. Both claim to be “Catholic”, that is “universal”.
It’s quite common to use “Evangelical” and “Fundamentalist” as synonyms; and in many ways they are. But strictly speaking, Evangelicals are those who put the most emphasis on evangelizing or reaching out to others with the Gospel. Fundamentalists are those who put the most emphasis on the “fundamentals” of the Bible, and having correct doctrine.
Almost everything in this post is at least half incorrect.
Most Evangelicals are literalists, but not all. It is true that many pick and choose what parts of the Bible to follow, but that is largely because many of them are actually quite liberal in many areas of doctrine. Conservative Christians know very well that (A) all parts of the Bible are important, and (B) there truly are no contractions.
“Episcopal” has absolutely nothing to do with apostolic succession. It refers to a particular form of church government–having bishops. Most evangelical churches are congregational (the congregation as a whole makes the big decisions) or presbyterian (the church appoints elders or presbyters, and they make most of the decisions), but a few are episcopal.
There’s quite a bit a variation regarding baptism. A significant number of churches will accept a baptism from another group as long as it was done in a certain way; i.e., they might accept any baptism by immersion, but reject all done by sprinkling. On the other hand, some evangelical/fundamentalist churches hardly pay any attention to baptism at all. It’s not unheard of for a person to be a Christian for years and years, and attend several different churches, all without ever having been baptized.
The Prosperity Gospel type of thing is generally found only in churches who have incorrect notions of several points of doctrine.
Nor are all evangelical churches independent. Many, probably a majority are; but several belong to nation-wide denominations.
It’s a bit hard to pin down, because “depending on the method of measurement, more than one-third of Americans are evangelical, or fewer than one-in-10 are” (“Are You An Evangelical? Are You Sure?,” NPR), and “Its meaning has shifted throughout Christianity’s long history and changes depending on who you ask” (“Defining ‘Evangelical’,” The Atlantic).
In addition to those articles, here’s Wikipedia on Evangelicalism, and here’s “5 Beliefs That Set Evangelicals Apart From Other Christians.”
Since Vat II, doesn’t the universal church include the protestants?