Evangelical Defined

Thanks to CelebrateVida for this post entitled A Washington Monthly Editor on Vocalizing Vida (well, indirectly). Several thoughts resonated with me and I hope to follow up on them personally. Many of the people I appreciate most in life fall into the author's preferred definition of evangelical. I've taken the liberty to reproduce it here in it's entirety. The bold type is my emphasis.

Washington Monthly editor Amy Sullivan, guest blogger at Beliefnet.com during the week of June 20, tells what politically progressive people of faith can do about these insane false political and religious dichotomies:
"What you can do . . . is stand up and witness. Not witness, as in proselytize, but by coming out of the closet as a person of faith."
Amen to that.

Several times in the past week I came across the same trio of names in discussions of politically progressive evangelicals: Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, and Ron Sider. Yes, these men are influential--they certainly have influenced (and affirmed) my thinking--but folks should be able to picture more than the three of them when they think "politically progressive evangelicals."

As long as we evangelicals are afraid to admit who we are spiritually when we're among progressive friends, the politically-progressive-evangelical club will be--not just appear to be--small indeed. We won't even be able to find one another, much less make ourselves visible to politically progressive nonevangelicals.

(Incidentally, the word evangelical is a frustrating one for me. I am not a cultural evangelical. I reject the spiritual as well as the political all-about-me-and-my-crowd emphases of many evangelical churches. I'm pleased as punch to have found my home among Mennonites becaue I'm an anabaptist at heart. But if by evangelical you mean people who follow Christ and believe we should bear witness to him in word and deed, then yes, I am an evangelical. An evangelical who laments the nonevangelicalism of "evangelicals" who fight peace, enrich the wealthy, and devastate the poor in Jesus' name.)