Define ‘evangelical’ — 2013 edition

List America’s prominent evangelical Protestant voices and the Rev. Rick Warren remains near the top, up in the mix with the Rev. Brian McLaren, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Jim Wallis, the Rev. Tim Keller and others.

Many evangelicals, of course, like to argue about who belongs on that list. In recent years, it has become increasingly obvious that the experts are finding it harder to decide who is and who is not an “evangelical” in the first place.

“I know what the word ‘evangelical’ is supposed to mean,” said Warren, 58, leader of the 20,000-member Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., with its many branch congregations and ministries. “I mean, I know what the word ‘evangelical’ used to mean.”

The problem, he said, is that many Americans no longer link “evangelical” with a set of traditional doctrines, such as evangelistic efforts to reach the lost, the defense of biblical authority, projects to help the needy and the conviction that salvation is found through faith in Jesus Christ, alone.

Somewhere during the George W. Bush years the word “evangelical” — a term used in church history — got “co-opted into being a political term,” said Warren, in a recent telephone interview.

Arguments about this vague word are not new. During a 1987 interview with the Rev. Billy Graham, I asked him point blank, “What does the word ‘evangelical’ mean?”

The world’s best-known evangelist responded, “Actually, that’s a question I’d like to ask somebody, too. … You go all the way from the extreme fundamentalists to the extreme liberals and, somewhere in between, there are the evangelicals.” Ultimately, Graham said an “evangelical” is someone who preaches salvation through faith in Jesus and believes all the doctrines in the Nicene Creed — especially in the resurrection.

Warren said he would certainly agree with Graham’s bottom line, which is that “evangelical” must be defined in terms of doctrine. The problem is that this isn’t how the term is being used in the public square — especially in the news media.

During the administration of President George W. Bush, he said, most journalists “seemed to think seemed to think that ‘evangelical’ meant that you backed the Iraq war, for some reason or another. … Right now, I don’t think there is any question that way too many people have decided that evangelicals are people who oppose gay rights — period. That’s all the word means.”

Warren based this judgment on his experiences during 22 interviews with major newspapers, magazines and television networks — a pre-Christmas blitz marking the release of an expanded, 10th anniversary edition of his book “The Purpose Driven Life: What On Earth Am I Here For?” The book has sold more than 32 million copies around the world, with translations in 50 languages.

By the end of that media storm, Warren said members of his team were starting to cast bets on whether the perfunctory gay-marriage question would be the first, or the second, question in each interview. On CNN, interviewer Piers Morgan noted that the U.S. Constitution and the Bible are “well-intentioned” but “inherently flawed.”

Morgan continued: “My point to you about gay rights for example — it’s time for an amendment to the Bible.”

Warren, of course, disagreed: “I do not believe the Bible is flawed, and I willingly admit … that I base my worldview on the Bible, which I believe is true, and truth. … It was true 1,000 years ago, it’ll be true 1,000 years from today.”

Time after time, said Warren, interviewers assumed that his beliefs on moral and cultural issues — from salvation to sexual ethics — were based on mere political convictions, rather than on the Bible and centuries of doctrine.

“I’ve decided that don’t have faith, so politics is their religion,” he said. “Politics is the only thing that is really real to many people in our world today. … So if politics isn’t at the center of your life, then many people just can’t understand what you’re saying.”

In the end, said Warren, it may be time for various brands of Protestants — charismatics, Baptists, Wesleyans, Lutherans, Calvinists and others — to stop trying to rally under a common “evangelical” umbrella and to start talking more about the specific traditions that shape their beliefs and actions.

“Maybe ‘evangelical’ will be like the word ‘liberal,’ ” he said. “When that word turned into a negative, all of a sudden everybody on the left turned into ‘progressives’ and they moved right on. … Perhaps it’s time to give ‘evangelical’ a rest.”

Passionate news in 2004

For headline writers, 2004 was the year of "values voters," stormy acts of God in Florida, gay marriage rites and countless clashes between "believers" and "infidels" in Iraq, Russia, Spain and other locations around the world.

This may sound like the annual list of the top 10 news events released by the Religion Newswriters Association. But no, these events dominated the 2004 Associated Press survey of the top stories in the world -- period.

In a typical year, at least half of the world's top news stories have a strong religious element. But it was next to impossible to find a major news story in 2004 that didn't raise faith questions of one kind or another. It was just that kind of year on the religion beat.

Thus, it was no surprise that the re-election of President George W. Bush was voted No. 1 in both the AP and the RNA surveys. But the religion-news specialists decided that another story was just as hot as the White House race. The release of "The Passion of the Christ" tied for the top spot and director Mel Gibson was named Religion Newsmaker of the Year, with Bush coming in second.

Truth is, these faith-based stories had much in common, according to Frank Rich of the New York Times, one of the critics on the cultural left who fueled the firestorm that enveloped Gibson and his film. This was the year of the angry fundamentalist in politics, war and pop culture, he said.

"The power of this minority within the Christian majority comes from its exaggerated claims on the Bush election victory," argued Rich, in an essay entitled "2004: The Year of 'The Passion.' "

"It is further enhanced by a news culture ... that gives the Mel Gibson wing of Christianity more say than other Christian voices and usually ignores minority religions altogether. ... In the electronic news sphere where most Americans live much of the time, anyone who refuses to engage in combat is quickly sent packing as a bore."

Cultural conservatives would, of course, disagree with Rich's claim that they were uniquely to blame for the acidic atmosphere that surrounded the White House race and the smashing box-office success of Gibson's epic exercise in sacramental symbolism and bloody special effects. After all, culture wars require at least two armies. One thing is certain: Preachers on the religious and secular left are sure to turn up the volume in 2005.

Here are the rest of the RNA poll's top 10 stories:

(3) Gay marriages are performed for the first time in Massachusetts, but the legal status of the rites remained uncertain. Religious groups mobilize on both sides, as 11 states pass amendments against the redefinition of marriage.

(4) Sen. John Kerry runs for president, setting the stage for several archbishops and bishops to warn that they will deny Communion to Catholics who openly oppose church teachings on moral issues such as abortion and gay unions. A task force of U.S. bishops leaves the decision up to local bishops.

(5) The Anglican sex wars escalate, as a Lambeth Commission report does little to close the global rift caused by last year's installation of a non-celibate gay bishop in New Hampshire. More Episcopal parishes flee, uniting with Third-World dioceses.

(6) Church-state conflicts continue to hit the U.S. Supreme Court, which upholds the Pledge of Allegiance's "under God" language and the right of the state of Washington to block scholarships used for ministerial studies.

(7) Religious groups debate the role of American troops in Iraq, while Shiite clerics emerge in leadership roles that are crucial to that war-torn nation's future.

(8) The United Methodist Church's split on homosexuality is demonstrated by the trials of two lesbian pastors. Karen Dammann is acquitted in Washington State and Beth Stroud is found guilty in Pennsylvania. Some mainline Protestant leaders publicly call for amicable splits in their denominations.

(9) The Catholic dioceses of Portland and Tucson go into bankruptcy because of sex-abuse scandals, while the largest financial settlement in such a case is reported in Orange County, Calif. Former Springfield (Mass.) Bishop Thomas Dupre became the first bishop indicted, but the statute of limitations had run out in his case.

(10) The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) votes to pull investments from companies profiting from Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict decreases somewhat from recent years.

There's power in the words

White House scribe Michael Gerson's telephone rang with a vengeance after the 2003 State of the Union address and its claim that there is "power, wonder-working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people."

In the age of Google, it was easy to connect this with the gospel hymn "Power in the Blood," which says there is "power, wonder-working power, in the precious blood of the Lamb." Soon, journalists were calling Gerson's West Wing office asking him to underline all the evangelical "code words" hidden in major speeches.

"They're not code words. They're our culture. ... They are literary allusions understood by millions of Americans," Gerson told 24 journalists at a recent Ethics and Public Policy Center seminar in Key West, Fla. "It's not a strategy. It's just the way that I write and the president likes it."

George W. Bush is not speaking in an unknown tongue.

Anyone who studies what presidents -- from George Washington to Bill Clinton -- have said in times of triumph and tragedy knows that faith language is normal. If anything, said Gerson, today's imagery has become more nuanced. It's hard to imagine Bush delivering anything resembling Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1942 address warning that the Nazis yearned to spread their "pagan religion" worldwide, replacing the "Holy Bible and the Cross of Mercy" with the "swastika and the naked sword."

The historical patterns are easy to find. In addition to literary allusions, said Gerson, presidents have consistently used religious language when:

* Offering words of comfort. Presidents cannot face the nation after shocking tragedies and say that "death is the end, life is meaningless and the universe is a vast, empty, echoing void," said Gerson. Instead, they use words similar to Bush's remarks after the space shuttle disaster: "The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home."

* Praising the influence of faith on efforts to promote justice. Thus, in a 2003 speech on Goree Island, Senegal, Bush bluntly described America's sinful history of slavery. But he added: "In America, enslaved Africans learned the story of the exodus from Egypt and set their own hearts on a promised land of freedom. Enslaved Africans discovered a suffering Savior and found he was more like themselves than their masters."

* Asking citizens to help their neighbors. For Bush, this "faith-based rhetoric" has been closely connected with "compassionate conservatism" and his efforts to allow religious groups to find niches within wider government programs to help the needy.

* Alluding to divine providence in national life. Here, the rhetorical bar has been set especially high by Abraham Lincoln, who insisted that Americans can hope to be on God's side, but cannot claim that God is fighting on their side.

Presidents use religious language in wartime, said Gerson. Nevertheless, critics of the war in Iraq have attacked Bush's consistent use of these words: "Freedom is not America's gift to the world. It is almighty God's gift to all humanity."

The president wrote those words, noted Gerson. Working together, they have tried to emphasize that Bush rejects what scholars call "American exceptionalism" -- the belief that America is uniquely God's instrument in history. The president's stance is best expressed in the 2003 State of the Union address, said Gerson.

"We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone," said Bush. "We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history."

Those anxious to criticize how the Bush White House has used religious language should dig into the speeches of Woodrow Wilson, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and many other American leaders, said Gerson. Would critics prefer Republicans to limit themselves to the libertarian logic of big business?

"As a writer, I think this attitude would flatten political rhetoric and make it less moving and interesting," he said. "But even more, I think the reality here is that scrubbing public discourse of religious ideas would remove one of the main sources of social justice in our history."