Define "Evangelical"

Today the Protestant church is as scattered and fragmented as is probably possible -- many churches no longer even belong to a denomination, so its hard to get more fragmented than that. I'm not sure it's a bad thing, because since the Reformation denominations have served to pit Christians against each other and create labels and stereotypes that are almost exclusively destructive. However, within this fragmenting there have been a few large movements, 'super-denominations' you might say, that have arisen. The most vocal and prominent, especially due to the last few presidential elections in the United States, is the Evangelical movement. This movement includes many denominations including Baptist, Pentecostal, most anything with evangelical in the name (although not all, for example the Evangelical Lutheran church is very liberal and not part of the Evangelical movement), and most 'charismatic' churches. It is worth noting that the Evangelical movement gains a great deal of it's numbers and momentum from the south and east coast of the United States. I have no doubt, especially after living in Texas for three years, that regional culture has had a great deal to do with the formation of the movement. To those who have experience within the Evangelical church it's not too hard to define what the movement is, or at least what it looks like. But if you've always been on the outside you might be very confused. You might wonder, "what is this 'religious right' I keep hearing about?" and "What exactly do they stand for?" or even "why does everyone else always seem so annoyed by them?" Perhaps the answer to these questions can be found by studying an Evangelical cultural icon: just for fun, me and my little brother watched some old Carman music videos a few weeks ago. While watching them it became apparent to me that Carman (yeah, he looks like Elvis right now) and his career exemplify the values of the Evangelical movement. Now, this is a big movement and the exact values vary from church to church, and even person to person, usually. That's one of the values of the Evangelical movement -- it doesn't hold it's individuals down to more than a few core beliefs. But, as a whole it has many other values, so the following exploration is speaking in general terms. If you're an Evangelical and this offends you, look around at the other people in your movement, I don't think I'm wrong here. But maybe I am... maybe I'm just a little too bitter still. Right or wrong, here is my analysis of Evangelical tenants (it's not exhaustive), based on Carman (in no particular order):

1. A fundamental inability to separate Christianity and America:
The first thing that comes to mind under this category is Carman's old hit "America Again" in which he repeatedly states "we need God in America again!" Sure, we need God in America... and everywhere in the world. However, Carman, and many Evangelicals, have a focus narrowed generally to America alone. Recently there has been more of a movement towards international aid for struggling countries, but the view of America is different from that of the rest of the world. It is not uncommon for Carman to have clips of patriotic songs in his own, and its extremely common, especially around July 4th, to have patriotic songs sung as hymns during church services. It's great to be patriotic -- I consider myself a patriot -- but the country and God are two distinctly separate things in my mind. Not so much in theirs. In fact, there are many Evangelicals who have a doctrine of "the new Israel" in which America has replaced Israel as God's chosen people. They actually believe that God has abandoned his covenant with Israel and moved it to America. These are the extremists, granted, but they are no small minority.

This accounts, in a large part, for their political activism today. It explains why their politics are more about their views becoming the views of the country than anything close to 'tolerance' (I'm not a big fan of the term, either). Now, I will grant that most of what they are pressing for is legal, because the Constitution does not necessarily prohibit the Government from promoting religion as long as it doesn't prohibit it. In a nutshell they want Christian values to be those enforced by the country, but they do not want Christianity forced on others.

2. A 'victim' complex, blaming the secular world for all their problems:
A good example from Carmen is "Our Turn Now", a joint effort with Petra. Carman starts the song by stating, "The ball got dropped in '62... they wouldn't let children pray in school..." He then goes on to explain how this lead to our current state of moral decay "Violent crime began to rise/The grades went down and the kids got high/ Free love, gay rights, no absolutes, abortion on demand/ Brought VD, AIDS, and no morality..." Somehow when they stopped prayer in school (nevermind the fact that legally they never stopped anyone from praying in school, they just made public schools stop making it part of their program) all morality died. Its not that we, as a church, no longer instill a love for God in people. It's not that our society is becoming secular and therefore would be bizarre to keep Christian morals, it's not any logical explanation. It's because they stopped prayer in school. And similar sentiment is echoed in most Evangelical doctrines -- that the secular world and social and political liberals are out to destroy everything we hold dear. On purpose. Because they hate God.

This again explains their politics. They believe that the world is out to get them and everyone in politics who is not a Christian is against them. They whole-heartedly believe that political liberals are anti-Christian (some may indeed be, but that doesn't constitute a rule) and therefore it is sinful to vote for them. Most of the campaigning from the pulpit takes place in Evangelical churches, especially in the south. Many pastors feel no qualms at all about telling their congregation who to vote for, and claiming that voting for anyone else goes against the ever elusive 'Will of God.' Yes, this really happens.

3. Cults of personality
Many Evangelical churches suffer from a 'cult of personality' in which there is one charismatic leader to whom followers flock. You'd think that Jesus would be enough of a charismatic force to gather people, but no, we need people here we can see and hear. Evidenced through Carman's "Global Prayer Chain" -- your friends and local Church aren't going to get your prayers through to God, but Carman will! Again we see on the home page of Carman's site "Carman's new song that every church will be singing before every sermon!" (titled "This is My Bible"). Carman is one of these personalities around which a cult has formed, and now if he does something or says it's right then his loyal followers will believe. Also notice that most of the cover art is just Carman standing there, making some dramatic, compelling face. You can also download, or even pay for, pictures of Carman -- just standing there. I have no idea who pays for these things...

This accounts for the advent of the megachurch. Other examples are Max Lucado and Jim Cymbala. Both are wildly popular and lead some of the largest congregations in the country. They have tens of thousands of people there every Sunday just to hear them speak. Billy Graham is another example. This is not something exclusive to the church, in fact it's very common among secular movements. However, other church movements have far less or no personalities around which they congregate.

4. Systematic solutions
The Evangelical church in notorious for having religion down to a science. Everywhere you turn in the Evangelical church there is a 12-step plan, or a 3-step plan, or a 7-step plan. Here is Carman's systematic "Statement of Faith" and "Plan of Salvation." Systematic salvation is by far the most popular invocation of this ideal, including such things as "The Sinner's Prayer," "The Romans Road" and other processes that are easily printed on tracts. Additionally we have hit sensations (that spawn cults of personality) such as The Prayer of Jabez (aka Chicken Soup and Money for the Christian Soul), and The Purpose Driven Life that have some scientific plan to improve your life and your relationship with God. Results guaranteed!

5. Bad imitations of 'Secular' things
See my earlier post, Christian Bubbles. Witnessed by Carman in songs like "Addicted to Jesus" (he tried to do rap with DC Talk on that one... its also know as "A2J" with sign language and all) that try to make Christianity cool. Also see his so-called Mega-Store and his 25+ albums for evidence of Christians copying popular culture.

6. Paramount importance placed on personal "witness"
This is not exclusive to the Evangelical movement, but it is central to it -- it provides the name. The idea is that the only thing a Christian can do on this earth worth doing is making more Christians, and the best way to do that is to go out and talk to everyone we see about Jesus. This is one of the things I most dislike about the Evangelical church. They put so much emphasis on conversion that they pay little or no attention to life afterwards. As though life ends at conversion. "Welp, you're a Christian now, you might as well make more Christians until you die. But that's about all that's left, you've accomplished what you're here for." To me that doesn't go at all with Jesus' message of "Life more abundant," but maybe it's just me. In Carman's song "Satan, Bite the Dust" he claims, "I have a weapon with two bullets that overcome all sin and crud. One bullet is called 'the word of my testimony' and the other one's called 'the blood'!" Now, I would have thought that the Word of God (aka Jesus, if you're reading the Greek in the book of John, or the Bible if you're an Evangelical) would have much more power to "overcome all sin and crud" than "the word of [Carman's] testimony," but that's not what he chooses as his weapon. And I think it speaks volumes. To the Evangelical the Bible lays out how to live and what to do, but the thing that actually makes a difference in this life is the words you use to make converts. And that has led to a great deal of self-importance I think. I'm not sure that their kind of evangelism is necessarily bad, but it certainly isn't the only kind, and it certainly isn't the only thing worth living for.

7. Extreme Melodrama/Overly Serious
Just explore Carman's website or read the lyrics for any of his songs. He takes this stuff seriously, and so do most Evangelicals (they really talk like that if you get them in groups together). I think this is probably one reason why the Evangelical movement draws in so many young people, why the Youth Group is successful mainly in Evangelical churches. Adolescents love drama, they eat the stuff up. So they're drawn in by it. It also could explain why all their statistics show that most people become Christian before age 18 or not at all, and also the ridiculously high 'drop out' rate after high school (I think my youth pastor told me that more than 2/3 of kids stop going to church altogether after high school... maybe it was lower).


There are plenty of other things I could add to this list. There are also many good things that can be said about the Evangelical church that I haven't. For one thing, they're very good at mobilizing people. Furthermore, the freedom they allow their followers to have as far as specific doctrine goes is refreshing. And what doctrine they do hold as necessary is mostly sound. I think they are mostly genuine people who want to do what is right. And they, in general I believe, are as much Christians as me or anyone else. But the points I've listed above are some their more prominent, and annoying, characteristics. So, from now on if you hear someone talking about the Evangelical movement, you have some idea of what that means. Or I'm an idiot. Or both.