Originally posted by mikewhitney
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- an Evangelical with a capital E is a Protestant Christian
- and Evangelical piety (in the broadest sense) is Christ-centred & Bible-centred
Other Christians use and venerate the Bible - what distinguishes its place in Evangelicalism, is the functional load it carries. In Evangelicalism, it colours and irradiates everything. The very great veneration of Evangelicals for the Bible has an analogy in Catholic & Orthodox veneration of the BVM, in this sense: the two objects of veneration serve as the supreme created symbols of what is holy, short of God Himself. Both the Bible & the BVM can legitimately be called holy; but some epithets are incommunicable: neither can be called uncreated or eternal, for instance.
More catholic types of Christianity - much of Anglicanism; Catholicism; Orthodoxy, and others - emphasise the function of the Church. Not that much of Evangelicalism does not - the “magisterial” wing of the Reformation had a very strong sense of the Church; it was most certainly a Churchly movement. But the Church has, in catholic types of Christianity, a very great functional load, that it does not have in Protestantism, and does not have in Evangelicalism. In Catholicism at least, the boundaries of the Church’s life are the boundaries within which the Christian believer lives the life of faith; for Evangelicalism, the boundaries of the life of faith in Christ are the boundaries of the Bible. Both sets of boundaries are rescued from fossilisation and deathliness by the vivifying and enlightening grace of the Spirit of God.
Furthermore, in Catholicism and Orthodoxy (at least) the Church is the guarantor (under God) of the authenticity of the Christian tradition in that Church. This is one of the reasons that form of Christianity professes to be Apostolic.
In Evangelicalism OTOH, the Christian tradition, as expressed canonically and for all time to come, in Scripture alone, is the guarantor (under God) of the authenticity of the Church, which is more or less Christianly authentic according as it agrees or disagrees with Scripture.
Evangelicalism is often reproached as having no care for, and little interest in, the Christian tradition. To a great extent, I think that objection can be met by saying that the dynamic activity of the Holy Spirit speaking to the Churches through the Bible is the tradition of Evangelicalism. Without the dynamism of the Holy Spirit in the Church, the Apostolicity of the catholic Churches would be a deadening and deadly weight; it is the Spirit of God Who makes it live and fruitful in good.
And while some forms of Evangelical Churchmanship seem to have little interest in the Christian past, that cannot be said of all forms of Evangelicalism.
Catholic forms of Christianity are sacramental, and emphasise a principle of mediation by creatures. Evangelicalism is not sacrament-minded, and is decidedly opposed to the very principle of mediation by creatures. For Evangelicalism, the totality of mediation is an activity of the Ascended & Glorified Christ alone, so as to be incommunicable to creatures. Less theologically, the notion of mediation by creatures is seen as illegitimate first and foremost because of what Scripture says in 1 Tim. 2.5; and also because mediation by creatures is seen as a sinful human intrusion by man between the believer and his Saviour. This is one of the reasons for Evangelical dislike of what has often been called “priestcraft”.
I think what defines evangelicalism as a religious form is that it is self-consciously Gospel-centred, Christ-centred, and Bible-centred. It seeks inward Christian authenticity, rather than beautiful externals. Sometimes this comparative disregard for beautiful externals has gone hand in hand with Christian vandalism; more often, it is expressed in a concern for “godly order” in a manner of Christian worship that may be plain, but is decorous and austere and disciplined.
Furthermore, I think evangelicalism is marked by earnestness - the evangelical takes God seriously, not with an attitude of trifling, irreverence, flippancy, or scepticism. This earnestness is what gives the error of legalism its power, and can lead to an unChristian joylessness & dourness, often miscalled Puritanism. The evangelical takes God as being in earnest, as meaning what the Bible shows Him saying. The evangelical attitude is therefore a powerful motive for Christian obedience.
IMHO, who is a Christian can be defined only by God. There are external “tests”, of course, such as whether someone professes belief in Christ as Saviour & Lord; but such tests are
(a) external
(b) not a perfect index of God’s attitude to that person
(c) emphasise man’s POV instead of God’s
(d) liable to be mistaken, even by the professor of the belief
IMO, the answer to the question lies entirely within God’s “Subjectivity”, & is therefore inaccessible to man on Earth. That one belongs to Christ as one of His sheep, is IMO something that can be held only by faith in Him. Our hearts can and do condemn and deceive us, so we cannot trust them. So self-analysis, though not useless, cannot, ISTM, tell us whether we are His sheep.
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