What is evangelical theology?
Evangelical theology is hard to define. There is no membership status, and no baptism or initiation rite. But there is a growing corpus of books that attempt the task of definition and analysis. The philosopher Wittgenstein argued that we cannot define even something like a game definitively, but we can give a cluster of characteristics sometimes shared by games. They all have a “family resemblance.” Similarly we can at least point to some of the family resemblances evangelical communities have. Though of course, there is wide diversity, much as second cousins also can look very different from each other. Here are some of the categories used to define the evangelical: • Historical roots–evangelicalism has its roots in the various forms of Protestantism that emerged in the reformation, and subsequent revivals, most commonly the movements stemming from Luther, Calvin. But there are also Mennonites and Anabaptists who regard themselves as evangelical. Similarly the large body of churches
