How do you define "Evangelical Christian?"

Does someone have to try to get strangers to go to church to be an Evangelical?

is one who will eventually end up having thier gas tank sugared by me

No seriously, anyone who is required to witness and convert others.

I don't care what anyone believes, as long as they keep it to themselves.

And tell me how to live my life.

Almost as bad as Charismatic Christian.

Seriously. So many denominations and worship styles. Hella confusing for me. Explain please? Thanks.

consider themselves possessed by the Holy Spirit and who speak in tongues.

The Pentecostals (e.g. Assembly of God) have this as a central part of their doctrine, but there are charismatic subgroups in every denomination, even the Roman Catholics.

Little do they know that what they experience is simply trance, as found in voodoo and other non-Christian religions.

(The "tongues" that Charismatics speak in are simply repetitious babbling. The account of Pentecost in the Bible says that the disciples spoke actual languages.)

But I like to think of the common denominator for charismatics is the obvious (and odious) existence of the charismatic leader. Down here in Bibleland, these "Bible Churches" (mostly started by VERY charismatic former Baptist ministers) are non-denominational. However, they will not survive without that charismatic leader. It is VERY scary, as these are often the strong-holds of the rapture fanatics, and whatevery other quirks of personality the leader has. VERY scary.

1)Someone who takes the bible literally and believes it is the final authority on matters of faith (as opposed to Catholic and to a lesser degree high church protestants who give equal or more weight to church leaders).

2)Someone who believes they are saved by faith through an adult (or at least old enough to be freely chosen)conversion experience.

3) you believe that your faith should be the central organizing principle of your life, not a hobby for Sunday morning, weddings, and when you find out you have cancer.

Evangelicals not only have their own denominations, but strong factions within more liberal denominations and even the Catholic church.

a fundamentalist is an angry evangelical with no teeth or shoes.

a charismatic is an evangelical who speaks in tongues, rolls on the floor, and thinks Benny Hinn is cool.


To an evangelical, anyone who does not subscribe to 1-3 is not a Christian even if they belong to a denomination that is typically considered evangelical (you can be the wrong kind of baptist).

To evangelicals, Catholics are Christians for political purposes, but otherwise not.

1) Bible is 100% accurate.
2) Jesus was a god that died for our "sins".
3) Trinity is real
4) Mary was a virgin
5) Jesus will return
6) Minister is always right and never question authority since thinking is evil.

That is an Evangelical Christian.

nt

But evangelical is a PC way to say fundie mostly.

that is, preaching the gospel. They have varying views about what it is, and how it is to be spread: some few believe that preaching Sunday is sufficient; others that their leaders do the heavy lifting; some believe it's incumbent on every believers.

Some evangelicals believe that the verb implies a perfective aspect (not their term), which is to say, their activity must be sufficient to produce the appropriate result: a person evangelized must, of necessity convert. These evangelicals are obnoxious. More want the evangelized to convert, even though it's not foregone conclusion. These are no less obnoxious, and are frequently even more obnoxious.

Others believe that it's the activity that is important, not the result, and it is simply necessary for every human to hear the gospel of Christ. We see these people because the assumption is that most Americans have heard of Christ, and they believe their fields of endeavor lie elsewhere; there are, however, exclusionary Christian sects that believe the correct flavor of the gospel must be heard, and they do evangelize the US. Those of exceeding thin skin and delicate sensibilities causing them to break out in hives when they hear a dissenting opinion are greatly annoyed even by this, and stalwartly refuse to believe that their perceptions to not tally with reality. In this case, it's the latter that are obnoxious, protecting their ears' virginity and callously overlooking distinctions important to others.

Many evangelicals are fundamentalist. Many are not. To confuse the term is somewhat less egregion than confusing Nazi with progressive, Stalinist with Green, Social Democrats with Pol Pot, although the difference in error is one of quantity, not quality. I'm sure that there must be some feature shared by both members of each pair, but that is not sufficient to ensure identity. Between evangelical and fundamentalist there is surely a greater degree of overlap, but that's due, largely, to having the same holy book and largely the same traditions from which they draw their beliefs, and likewise does not imply identity. Both are distinct from charismatic, although again it must be said there is sufficient overlap to befuddle the uninterested, passive, or predecided examiner. One may be a tolerant, liberal evangelical; one may also be an ascetic fundamentalist non-evangelical.