Evangelicalism

Even though all mainline Protestant churches (Presbyterian, Lutheran, etc.) would be considered “evangelical” under the main umbrella of Christianity. However, in order to simplify the massive amount of global churches that exist there have been attempts to discuss what it means to be evangelical. Typically (according to our professor), if a church has started after within the last 100 (that’s not charismatic) would be considered evangelical.

Another interesting fact about Evangelical churches is that Evangelicals typically desire a renewal in an area that is dying or dead. For example, the Methodist Church would be considered evangelical because this denomination arose from the work of John and Charles Wesley. John Wesley (like Martin Luther and others before him) had no intention of starting a new denomination, but to simply renew or restore the denomination he was involved with (Anglicanism). Wesley simply wanted to renew Anglicanism, it just so happened that his movement and teaching caught fire and a lot individuals began to follow him...this in turn produced Methodism.

On another side note that pertains to this issue is another visible picture on how certain evangelical denominations formed. If you remove the Pope from the Catholic Church you have the Anglican church, if you remove the archbishop from the Anglican Church you have the Methodist Church. All these churches "do" church in a lot similar manners, but the polity of the church looks different.