Who is an evangelical? What do non-Christians think about the evangelical movement?

Is it a movement in crisis and is it a movement worth saving?

These are some of the questions we're going to explore today with our guest,

Dr Thomas Kidd, distinguished professor of history at Midwestern Baptist

Theological Seminary, and the author of an intriguing book called Who is an Evangelical?

You're here visiting Biola first time, which is really cool.

Talking with faculty, talking with students, and we got to sneak you in before you fly out to

LA I've been reading this eager to jump in so thanks for joining me

thanks for having me yes so let's jump right in your opening line right away.

Number one, got my attention in the book.

But number two, it made me pause and think,

I don't know if I agree or not.

So tell me what you mean when you say,

this is an introduction to what is arguably America's most controversial

religious movement. Why is evangelicalism arguably the most controversial?

Well I think it's because especially for people on the outside

Evangelicals seem like they're tied up so deeply with politics and and so almost all the news coverage of

evangelicals has to do with politics sometimes scandal but but agreed but more

often politics and and so there's a way in which I think a lot of

outsiders and even maybe some people who identify as evangelicals really have come

to understand it primarily as a political movement, which when you look

at this historically, I mean that's not what evangelicalism normally has been, and I still don't think it's that at root but

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