The word \u201cevangelical,\u201d\u009d as the bishop notes, is in danger of being lost to us because of its almost daily use in the media to denote fundamentalists and others on the Christian Right who insist on \u201cborn-again\u201d\u009d experiences as the hallmark of the true believer. These Christians are typically identified with three issues above all others\u201d\u201dabortion, same-sex marriage, stem-cell research\u201d\u201dand vote Republican in overwhelming numbers.<\/p>\n
The word is also used within the historic Protestant (mainline) denominations to identify parties within the church, usually in a political context with regard to hotly debated issues such as same-sex marriage. Rarely are the deeper theological issues addressed or even acknowledged. Part of the frustration of being evangelical in the Episcopal Church today is the near-impossibility of getting a discussion going about foundational issues\u201d\u201dChristology, Scriptural interpretation, the doctrine of revelation, the divine agency. The last is the most important of all, as F. F. Bruce clearly outlines in the quotation above, which is taken from a 1989 interview with W. Ward Gasque, a professor at Regent College.<\/p>\n