What is an evangelical?

On this episode of five minutes, let's tackle this question.

It often comes up a lot, especially around election season.

When is it not election season? but we're wondering who is an

evangelical, what is an evangelical? We hear them used in statistics and

polls and we hear all things about them. Well let's see if we can give

some definition to this term. You could say that the term

evangelical and evangelicalism began with a joke, a joke told by George Whitfield.

George Whitfield would often tell this joke in his revival preaching.

He would say a person died, went to heaven, and there they were met at the gates of heaven.

And they asked St. Peter, St. Peter, are Anglicans in heaven? Of course

St. Peter would say, oh no there are no Anglicans in heaven. Well the

colonists love that one. Then he would say St St Peter, are there Presbyterians in heaven?

Oh no, there are no Presbyterians in heaven. And he'd go on through the list.

Are they congregationless? Are there people of the Methodist way? Are there Baptists? And finally this exasperated

individual says to St. Peter, well tell me sir who is in heaven and

St. Peter says Christians sir, Christians are in heaven.

And some historians have said that at that moment, at that joke,

evangelicalism as a trans-denominational movement was born. We certainly do see it in this era of the

Great Awakening and emphasis on what is in the name, the Evangel, the gospel. It was a twofold emphasis really, one is

the emphasis of the need for it, to personally believe in Jesus Christ, to not simply rely on being a member of a church,

sometimes this is called nominalism. I can rely on my church membership or the

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