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Evangelicalism (/ˌiːvænˈdʒɛlɪkəlɪzəm, ˌɛvæn-, -ən-/), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that puts primary emphasis on evangelization. The word evangelic comes from the Greek word for 'good news' (evangelion).[1] The Gospel story of the salvation from sin is considered "the good news". The process of personal conversion involves complete surrender to Jesus Christ (commonly referred to as being "born again"). The conversion process is authoritatively guided by the Bible, the God in Christianity's revelation to humanity.[2][3][4][5][6] Critics of the conceptualization of evangelicalism argue that it is too broad, too diverse, or too ill-defined to be adequately seen as a movement or a single movement.[7][8]
The theological nature of evangelicalism was first explored during the Protestant Reformation in 16th century Europe. Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 emphasized that scripture and the preaching of the gospel had ultimate authority over the practices of the Church. The origins of modern evangelicalism are usually traced to 1738, with various theological streams contributing to its foundation, including Pietism and Radical Pietism, Puritanism, Quakerism and Moravianism (in particular its bishop Nicolaus Zinzendorf and his community at Herrnhut).[9][10][11] Preeminently, John Wesley and other early Methodists were at the root of sparking this new movement during the First Great Awakening. Today, evangelicals are found across many Protestant branches, as well as in various denominations around the world, not subsumed to a specific branch.[12] Among leaders and major figures of the evangelical Protestant movement were Nicolaus Zinzendorf, George Fox, John Wesley, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Billy Graham, Bill Bright, Harold Ockenga, Gudina Tumsa, John Stott, Francisco Olazábal, William J. Seymour, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones.[9][11][13][14][15]
Evangelicalism has long had a presence in the Anglosphere before spreading further afield in the 19th, 20th, and early 21st centuries. The movement gained significant momentum during the 18th and 19th centuries with the Great Awakening in the United States, and also in Great Britain's reformations.
As of 2016,[update] there were an estimated 619 million evangelicals in the world, meaning that one in four Christians would be classified as evangelical.[16] The United States has the largest proportion of evangelicals in the world.[17] American evangelicals are a quarter of the nation's population and its single largest religious group.[18][19] As a transdenominational praxis, evangelicals may be found in nearly every Protestant denomination and tradition, particularly within the Reformed (Continental Reformed, Anglicanism, Presbyterian, Congregational), Plymouth Brethren, Baptist, Methodist (Wesleyan–Arminian), Lutheran, Moravian, Free Church, Mennonite, Quaker, Pentecostal/charismatic and non-denominational churches.[20][21][22][23][14]
- ^ "Evangelical church | Definition, History, Beliefs, Key Figures, & Facts | Britannica". britannica.com. Retrieved April 26, 2022.
- ^ "Evangelicals and Evangelicalism". University of Southern California. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
At its most basic level, evangelical Christianity is characterized by a belief in the literal truth of the Bible, a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ", the importance of encouraging others to be "born again" in Jesus and a lively worship culture. This characterization is true regardless the size of the church, what the people sitting in the pews look like or how they express their beliefs.
- ^ Sweet, Leonard I. (1997). The Evangelical Tradition in America. Mercer University Press. p. 132. ISBN 978-0-86554-554-0.
...evangelical Christianity, which united by a common authority (the Bible), shared experience (new birth/conversion), and commitment to the same sense of duty (obedience to Christ through evangelism and benevolence).
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Kidd2019was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Stanley 2013, p. 11. "As a transnational and transdenominational movement, evangelicalism had from the outset encompassed considerable and often problematic diversity, but this diversity had been held in check by the commonalities evangelicals on either side of the North Atlantic shared – most notably a clear consensus about the essential content of the gospel and a shared sense of the priority of awakening those who inhabited a broadly Christian environment to the urgent necessity of a conscious individual decision to turn to Christ in repentance and faith. Evangelicalism had maintained an ambiguous relationship with the structures of Christendom, whether those structures took the institutional form of a legal union between church and state, as in most of the United Kingdom, or the more elusive character that obtained in the United States, where the sharp constitutional independence of the church from state political rulership masked an underlying set of shared assumptions about the Christian (and indeed Protestant) identity of the nation. Evangelicals had differed over whether the moral imperative of national recognition of godly religion should also imply the national recognition of a particular church, but all had been agreed that being born or baptized within the boundaries of Christendom did not in itself make one a Christian."
- ^ "The Evangelical Manifesto – Os Guinness". February 2, 2016. Retrieved January 20, 2023.
- ^ Dayton 1991, p. 251.
- ^ Sweeney 2005, p. 23.
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
Hope1997was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Brian Stiller, Evangelicals Around the World: A Global Handbook for the 21st Century, Thomas Nelson, USA, 2015, pp. 28, 90.
- ^ a b Angell, Stephen Ward; Dandelion, Pink (April 19, 2018). The Cambridge Companion to Quakerism. Cambridge University Press. p. 293. ISBN 978-1-107-13660-1.
- ^ "Christianity report" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 5, 2013. Retrieved December 30, 2014.
- ^ Manual of Faith and Practice of Central Yearly Meeting of Friends. Central Yearly Meeting of Friends. 2018. p. 2.
- ^ a b Wood, A. Skevington (1984). "The Lord's Watch: the Moravians". Christian History Institute. Retrieved July 26, 2021.
- ^ Williams, Daniel K. (September 20, 2019). "'Evangelical' Isn't Code for White and Republican". ChristianityToday.com. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
CNRSwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ How Many Evangelicals Are There?, Wheaton College: Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, archived from the original on January 30, 2016
- ^ Smith, Gregory A.; Masci, David (March 3, 2018). "5 facts about U.S. evangelical Protestants". Pew Research Center.
- ^ "Religion in America: US Religious groups". Pew Research Center.
- ^ Angell, Stephen Ward; Dandelion, Pink (April 19, 2018). The Cambridge Companion to Quakerism. Cambridge University Press. p. 290. ISBN 978-1-107-13660-1.
Contemporary Quakers worldwide are predominately evangelical and are often referred to as the Friends Church.
- ^ Wilkinson, John Laurence (1993). Church in Black and White. Saint Andrew Press. p. 40. ISBN 978-3-89144-301-9.
This powerful spiritual awakening resulted in an amazing worldwide upsurge that firmly planted evangelical Christianity in the Caribbean, and the Moravian Church as an important element in West Indian life. Next came the Methodist...
- ^ Mohler (2011, pp. 106–108): "A new dynamic emerged in the last half of the twentieth century as the charismatic and Pentecostal movements also began to participate in the larger evangelical world. By the end of the century, observers would often describe the evangelical movement in terms of Reformed, Baptist, Wesleyan, and charismatic traditions."
- ^ Ohlmann 1991, p. 155.