Two of the book\u2019s editors provided standard definitions, In an introduction to a 1984 book, Marsden said \u201cwe may properly speak of evangelicalism as a single phenomenon\u201d with \u201cconceptual unity\u201d around five points: \u201cthe final authority\u201d of the Bible, the \u201creal, historical\u201d character of God\u2019s work recorded in the Bible, \u201ceternal salvation only through personal trust in Christ,\u201d \u201cthe importance of evangelism and missions,\u201d and \u201cthe importance of a spiritually transformed life.\u201d<\/p>\n
That last point, often mis-characterized, does not require a dramatic moment of \u201cborn again\u201d conversion or commitment. People in biblically conservative churches are often \u201ctransformed\u201d gradually, but thoroughly.<\/p>\n
Bebbington\u2019s 1989 history of British evangelicalism defined the \u201cspecial marks\u201d as \u201cconversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel in effort; biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible, and what may be called crucicentrism, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.\u201d<\/p>\n
Confusingly, both the Marsden and Bebbington criteria depict not some distinctive evangelical ideology but ardor for pretty much what all of Protestantism stood for till recent times.<\/p>\n
The Religion Guy advises writers to refine those definitions by adding traditionalism in doctrine and morals. Thus evangelicalism embraces the ancient belief in God as the Trinity (excluding \u201cOneness\u201d Pentecostals, Latter-day Saints and Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses despite some evangelical-like traits), and on morality opposes such innovations as openly gay clergy and same-sex marriages in church.<\/p>\n
Note that movement-wide definitions omit certain sectors\u2019 enthusiasm for end-times scenarios or attacks on evolution. Also they involve religious substance, not politics…<\/p>\n