So I vaguely know that Evangelical Christianity is a Protestant branch of Christianity (which in itself might not say much, Protestantism is huge) that is associated with support for Donald Trump, fervent support for Israel, and strong opposition to abortion. I have also read that it is associated with Christian nationalism in the US, but it might be unfair to generalize it that way.
So please educate me about Evangelical Christianity? What do they believe, and why? What are they like in real life? Why are Evangelical Christians a controversial group? How does Evangelical Christianity compare to other branches of Christianity? Etc.
In the US, Evangelical Christians are a significant demographic group. Over here, they are very much a fringe group in society. So that might why I am not very familiar with them and their beliefs.
It's slightly complicated, in part because "evangelical" is a term that has been claimed by or applied to in any number of different and functionally unconnected groups. "Evangelical" is derived from the Greek term ευαγγελιον, which means "good news" and can function both as a reference to the Gospels as literal books of the Bible, or to the act of "evangelizing", that is, proselytizing the faith. There have been numerous evangelical revivals throughout the history of Christianity from the Protestant Reformation onward. So "Evangelical Christianity" in U.S. political conversations is overtly different from, say, the
Evangelische Kirche today dominant in the German cultural sphere. But not actually entirely unrelated, since the history of Protestant evangelical revivals definitely lends structure and weight to contemporary revivals, and they are often consciously on the mind of reformers who choose to use the term. Protestant Christianity in the U.S. specifically has a very boom-and-bust cycle; longish periods of secularization are followed by sudden revivals on a nearly regular generational basis, wherein a new movement of Christians will suddenly flare up and draw enormous crowds to a "new old way" of worship. A further complication with Evangelicalism is that not everyone labeled by this term accepts or encourages that label themselves. While in theory a reference to specific real groups, in practice "evangelical Christian" is also a employed as a popular stereotype, and it can be applied or not applied very indiscriminately.
While the roots go deep even within the US and you could point to a lot of inter-bellum writers and preachers as possible founders, the current Evangelicalism that is a topic of so much conversation usually refers to a swell of Christian conservativism that greatly expanded youth participation in church matters, with a zenith starting in the late 1960's and seeing continuous strong growth pretty much for the entire following decade and some. Evangelical Christianity in this sense was very much a parallel response to the many counter-cultural and social reform movements in the same time period; a strong Nativist push in reaction to a feeling of secular corruption within the church body as a whole. Evangelicals did and still do fall across a wide political spectrum in theory; the original movement spanned the whole distance between hippie-imitating "Jesus freaks" with guitars and celebrity folk singer endorsements, to rigidly conservative, deeply sexist and racist reform groups more akin to Al Qaeda than Haight Street. Over time, the more conservative branches swiftly became more dominant, at least numerically. They embraced the concept of the "Megachurch" in spades, and framed a heavy obligation to evangelize to friends and neighbors as very nearly integral to Christian identity. Today, while there exist relatively liberal and socially conscious Evangelicals, the stereotype of dogged conservativism and anti-intellectualism is generally justified by the numbers. Polls of evangelicals show a consistently socially conservative trend, to the delight of the Republican Party which gladly took advantage of implicit (and later explicit) Evangelical support the older and more politically active their original Baby Boomer seed population got. Most think of the Reagan Era as the time period in which this political alliance began to take unshakeable root. But it is worth remembering that this relationship is not formal, and since there is no central organization to the aging movement, no one who could agree to such an arrangement on behalf of the others. They are also only one half of the wider and even less clearly defined political alliance known as the Christian Right, as this also includes the Mormon churches and conservative Catholic branches despite there being an otherwise mutually contentious relationship between these three groups.
Some general features common to Evangelical Christianity:
- Extreme fidelity to the Bible. Discursively, it is treated as the only legitimate means of learning any knowledge about God. "Bible-believing Church" is a common code phrase marking a congregation. This is, with few exceptions, the Bible in English translation, and pastors and elders are likely considered the only legitimate interpreters of what it all means. Formal academic scholarship on the Bible is specifically targeted by many evangelical leaders as the internal source of the "corruption" the movement rescued the church from, so formal education of any kind is viewed with considerable suspicion, though Evangelical groups do maintain some independent "Bible Schools" of their own that for the most part pass internal muster.
- Decentralized to an extreme degree. Seldom organized above the level of an individual church. While there are confederations of Evangelical churches, they seldom have meaningful governing authority over their constituent churches. Within a church, which could be of almost any size, leadership is almost always by a male lead pastor, who is hired, advised, and disciplined by a council of "Elders", usually founding members of the church from the years of the first wave of expansion. No degree or qualification is necessarily required for any of these roles, though it has become more common over time for pastors at least to have some sort of degree, especially if from one of the aforementioned Bible Schools.
- Theologically conservative, if by conservative you mean conservative Protestant and very heavily reliant on the reform traditions of England and Germany specifically. While few Evangelicals would admit to treating the Roman Catholic Church as any sort of authority (gasp), the declarations of the early church councils like Nicaea tend to be accepted blindly as "traditional Christianity" by Evangelical groups, with contributions of non-Roman orthodoxies such as Greek Orthodoxy treated as specifically unwelcome foreign corruptions. So, for instance, generally Trinitarian and Augustinian concepts like Original Sin and Substitutionary Atonement dominate Evangelical dialogue.
- In popular dialogue, almost indistinguishable from "Fundamentalism"; though the latter is an older and broader term, in the current climate they are frequently used as though they were synonyms, especially by detractors of both.
- It is now growing much faster as a missionary-driven global movement, especially in Latin America, the Pacific Rim, and Latin America, than it is within the US herself.
- Evangelicalism continues to slightly grow domestically, but their demographics trend older by the year, sparking autochthonous concern about whether they will be able to lure in any significant interest in the youth population going forward. In a connected issue, they are facing pastor shortages in many regions.
- Started many trends, such as the popular revival of commercial "Christian Radio" and the "Contemporary Worship" style (usually a codeword for a "praise band" playing electrified 70s music), that not only last to this day but have quite gotten away from the Evangelical base, having been borrowed by many other groups and younger movements such as the Family Radio cult that made considerable headlines a few years back for wrongly predicting the end of the world.
- Severely anti-liturgical, and often anti-sacramental as well aside from the all important institution of Baptism.
- Faith life often begins with a public recitation of a semi-standardized creed called the "Sinner's Prayer".
- Calls for a "personal relationship" with Jesus are commonplace.
- More American atheists are escaped Evangelicals or children thereof than can be said of any other particular denomination..
- Politics: usually red as hell, though at times, Evangelicalism has strained against over-zealous attempts at Republican control, and you see periodic attempts to put "one of our own" in the White House, or Evangelical code words being used to great advantage in same-party races in the Bible Belt. This some-time autonomy utterly collapsed in the Trump era, and he currently employs seemingly unshakable Evangelical support, aside from some rumors that this support has been slipping among middle-aged suburban women of late.
- Economics: strongly supportive of capitalism and corporate personhood, which are both given distinctly Scriptural overtones in popular conversation.
- Crossovers and overlap with other popular American revival movements like Pentecostalism, Baptism or Methodism are commonplace, but again not very formal or safe to assume. On the other hand, relationships with more traditional denominations like Catholicism, Lutheranism, or Presbyterianism tend to be extremely strained at best, aside from mutual cultural borrowings of music, writing, political rhetoric, etc where the more conservative branches of the above groups are concerned. Praise band or no, though, an Evangelical baptism will not necessarily get you invited to the Communion table in a conservative denominational church.
- On the other hand, many of the pastors and writers these days referred to as "Progressive Christians" are of Evangelical descent, and up until about five years ago, it wasn't unusual for Prog-Christians to openly identify as Evangelical still. This trend is starting to look like another victim of the Trump Era, though. Popular progressive author Rachel Held Evans notoriously gave up on the label shortly before her untimely death, and it is becoming less common for new faces in the Progressive scene to openly identify as such, though many are frank about the complicated paradoxical role that Evangelical Christianity had played in their lives prior to defection.
