What is evangelical?

Question

What is evangelical?

Answer 1

Well, the word has "angel" in the middle of it, so you can be sure its not anthropological!

Answer 2

The term 'evangelical', in a lexical but less commonly used sense, refers to anything implied in the belief that Jesus is the Messiah. The word comes from the Greek word for 'Gospel' or 'good news': ευαγγελιον evangelion, from eu- "good" and angelion "message". In that strictest sense, to be evangelical would mean to be merely Christian, that is, founded upon, motivated by, acting in agreement with, spreading the "good news" message of the New Testament.

In American cultural usage the word "evangelical" has generally referred to Fundamentalist Protestantism, or Protestants that propose a literal reading of the Christian Bible. These protestants contrast themselves with Roman Catholicism.

The current usage is applied to Christian groups who appear to want a strict interpretation of the bible and who feel they have a right to be the moral police for the rest of the world.   Often with the adjective Fundamentalist.

Answer 3

1.

Adjective

    * S: (adj) evangelical (relating to or being a Christian church believing in personal conversion and the inerrancy of the Bible especially the 4 Gospels) "evangelical Christianity"; "an ultraconservative evangelical message"

    * S: (adj) evangelical (of or pertaining to or in keeping with the Christian gospel especially as in the first 4 books of the New Testament)

    * S: (adj) evangelical, evangelistic (marked by ardent or zealous enthusiasm for a cause)

2.

evangelical: The term originates in the Greek word evangelion, meaning "the good news," or, more commonly, the "gospel," but today the term means different things even to self-described evangelicals around the globe — though the majority would share the definition: that Jesus Christ is their lord and savior. That salvation entails a personal conversion - being born again and that the Bible is God's word. In a 2006 article for FOREIGN AFFAIRS magazine on the effect of religion on President Bush's foreign policy, scholar Walter Russell Mead described evangelicals as, "the third of the leading strands in American Protestantism, straddl[ing] the divide between fundamentalists and liberals." But that definition would not satisfy many who define themselves as evangelical. The group Religious Tolerance maintains a web page with a number of definitions of evangelical, as does the The Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College.