Monday 13 May 2013

Conservative... Evangelical... Christian?

There once were Christians.  Then, skip forward a few hundred years... there were Evangelical Christians.

The noun was Christian, the adjective was Evangelical.

Then the adjective slowly became the noun, as we spoke of Evangelicals.

And now there are Conservative Evangelicals, where the adjective is Conservative and the noun is Evangelical.

I wonder what the next stage in the Evolution of our constant attempt to redefine ourselves (usually by comparison to another "outgroup") will be?

And what about the other end of the spectrum?  We had Liberal Christians, who are now just Liberals.  Are there different types of Liberals in the same way there are different types of Evangelicals?

But most intriguingly, it's no longer suitable to say "I'm a Christian".  We now seem to need to ask "what kind of Christian are you?".  And that, is sad.  You see, we're dropping the word Christian ever so slowly.
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous29 May 2013 at 18:35

    Greetings MM,

    Great analysis -- I'll just add my further development to this evolution:

    "Liberal Evangelical" !!

    .. or maybe just "Christian!

    Nicolas.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Musing Monk29 May 2013 at 22:12

    Hello Nicolas! And if you're the same Nicolas as before, welcome back! I seem to have blinked and 2012 disappeared.
    I've heard "liberal evangelical" used, and I wonder if it's a similar juxtaposition (as opposed to oxymoron, if I'm remembering my school English lessons correctly) to "generous orthodoxy"?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nicolas7 June 2013 at 10:36

    Hi M.M. -- yes, it's the same me as before. Thank you for the welcome back -- I found my way back through your recent post at coffeewithlouis.

    Thanks for being "generous" about my liberal evangelical! I've no strong feelings about the titles.

    I, too, can't believe it was back in 2011 that we exchanged a few thoughts, and I never did get back for which I apologise.

    So I'll add a piece back there now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Musing Monk7 June 2013 at 18:35

      No need to apologise! We often drift in and out of people's lives (and blogs) and this is not a problem...

      Delete

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