Evangelicalism

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The evangelicalism (from English evangelicalism ) is a theological direction within the Protestantism that the German pietism , the English Methodism and the revival dates back the 18th century.

Evangelicals make a personal relationship with Jesus Christ the foundation of their Christianity ; Personal volitional decisions as well as individual experiences of awakening and conversion are important for such a relationship. Another central aspect is the appeal to the authority of the Bible (which is mostly regarded as error-free and irrefutable) .

The associated adjective evangelical is differentiated from the more comprehensive and often denominational adjective evangelical . Evangelical Christians can belong to different Protestant denominations , for example they can be Reformed , Lutheran , Baptist , Methodist or Anglican , but also feel that they belong to interdenominational ( interdenominational ) or no special denominational groups in the Pietistic sense . Evangelicalism is therefore not a selective, denominational term. In Germany, the majority of evangelicals work in the regional evangelical churches, in which they sometimes form independent communities and structures.

definition

The relatively young word evangelical means " going back to the gospel " and has become a fixed expression for a Christianity that sees itself as being true to the Bible in a special way and therefore distinguishes itself from liberal theology and secularism .

Concept history

The term evangelical was used in England even before the Reformation . In the 16th century the word was used in England as a term for supporters of Protestantism within the Anglican state church and initially meant nothing more than the German term Protestant . The term was later replaced by the term Protestant .

In the middle of the 18th century the term evangelical reappeared. It now served as an attribute for the representatives of the Methodist revival movement. Methodists and Evangelicals were used as interchangeable terms. With the establishment of the Evangelical Alliance (English: Evangelical Alliance ), which took place in 1846 at a conference in London, in which 921 international representatives, mainly from Great Britain and the USA from various Protestant churches, took part, the suppressed term was taken up again. The founding fathers of the Alliance represented only that part of Protestantism that was rooted in Pietism and in the revival and evangelism movement . That is why they did not call their alliance the Protestant Alliance , but rather the Evangelical Alliance .

In the USA , attempts were made in the first half of the 19th century to redefine the term evangelical , but initially against a different church background than in England. For example, Robert Baird, in his book Religion in America (1844), made a distinction between evangelical and unevangelical . He used evangelical to refer to all Protestants who adhered to the Bible as a binding guideline. Unevangelicals for him were the Catholics , Unitarians , Swedenborgians , Jews , atheists and socialists. Only towards the end of the 19th century, when the debate with theological liberalism broke out within American Protestantism, did the term evangelical change from the Protestant collective term to the “brand name” of a special direction within Protestantism.

In Germany, the term evangelical was only introduced in the 1970s. Until then, the English concept presented evangelical since the 16th century simply the translation of the German term evangelical . Since the 1970s, the term evangelical in German-speaking increasingly revivals and pietistic, Reformation-confessing movement within Protestant regional and free churches.

In German-speaking countries could return the literal translation Evangelical for the same term not use, since the term is already occupied since the Reformation in the 16th century. That is why the word evangelical was created , especially after the mission congress in Berlin in 1966. Evangelical Christians usually see themselves as evangelical (in the sense of “ calling on the gospel ”). Since, due to the spiritual liberality of the majority of the people associated with the regional churches, Evangelical also means “faithful to the Bible” in exceptional cases, the term evangelical is used to distinguish from non-Bible-faithful directions.

In English, evangelical currently has two meanings:

  • On the one hand it is equated with evangelical ,
  • on the other hand (less often) simply with Evangelical , as for example in the " Evangelical Lutheran Church in America " (ELCA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the USA, which is by no means "Evangelical".

In the last decades many Protestant churches, for example within the Evangelical Church in Germany , have used the historical-critical method of interpreting the Bible , which calls into question the complete truth and authority of the Bible . Thus, the creation in the form of the biblical example creationism increasingly rejected and against the gay marriage reinterpreted as a bible compliant. In order to counter such developments, the evangelical network Bible and Confession was brought into being in Germany by the evangelical theologian and evangelist Ulrich Parzany, based on the model of the Confessing Church . The Evangelical news agency idea , which was founded as an information service of the Evangelical Alliance , serves as the information medium in German-speaking countries . In addition, there is an increasing rapprochement and cooperation with so-called “arch-conservative” Catholics, for example in the march for life against abortion or the demo for all against early childhood sexualization . A political alliance between Evangelicals and Arch Catholics can also be observed politically in right-wing populism , for example in the presidential election in the United States in 2016 or the presidential election in Brazil in 2018 . Overlaps in terms of personnel and content can also be observed at the Federal Association of Christians in the AfD . It is therefore not surprising that so-called "evangelical Catholics" have formed in the meantime, who represent traditional teaching within the Roman Catholic Church , but have not supported many of the liberal reforms of recent years.

Also widespread among evangelicals is the unconditional support of the Jews as "God's chosen people" and his only state of Israel promised by God " YHWH " . In organizations such as B. the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) such Christian Zionists actively support the " Alijah ", ie the migration of Jews to Israel, as well as the recognition of Jerusalem as the indivisible capital of the Jewish state and the rebuilding of the biblical temple . While the large churches are increasingly skeptical of the biblical missionary mandate for fear of endangering their “ interreligious dialogue ” and especially reject the “ mission to the Jews ”, most “ messianic Jews ” see themselves as part of evangelical Christianity.

Use of the term

The term has prevailed over similar terms such as biblically faithful or pietistic , as it creates the connection both to the Gospel and to an international movement of strongly Bible-oriented Protestants.

Disambiguation

According to the “Bebbington Quadrilateral” coined by the British historian David Bebbington , evangelicals can be described on the basis of four basic convictions: their emphasis on the trustworthiness of the Bible, the centrality of Christ's work of reconciliation on the cross, the need for personal conversion and active commitment to the spread of the gospel .

Jürgen Werth , former chairman of the German Evangelical Alliance (DEA), together with Fritz Laubach , characterizes the evangelical Christians as follows: “They gather around the Bible and prayer and emphasize the need for a conscious decision to believe. For them, living in faith means shared missionary witness and social commitment. They are open to critical inquiries about the Christian faith and the Church's creed, but are not prepared to stop at questions, but want to find constructive answers. They adhere to the trustworthiness of the Bible and the creed. ”He further defines evangelical as evangelical in the original sense of sola fide , sola scriptura , sola gratia , solus Christ . However, these points are only partially suitable for differentiating from other Christians, because they are well evangelical. The characteristic is more how these points are filled, emphasized and connected with each other.

The theologian Joel Edwards , former leader of the British Evangelical Alliance, advocates rehabilitating the term evangelical as “good news”: there is no suitable synonym for it; rather, it is about filling the term positively with content.

Differentiation from Christian fundamentalism

Fundamentalism can basically be related to different religious directions and world views. In media coverage and public debate in Germany, evangelicalism is often equated with pietism, biblicism and Christian fundamentalism .

Klaus Kienzler, for example, cites a rejection of liberal theology and historical-critical exegesis and the belief in verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures as common features . Likewise, the personal conversion experience and the rejection of other religions, which are referred to as wrong ways, are cited.

The former EKD Council Chairman Wolfgang Huber , however, thinks it is wrong to equate evangelicalism and fundamentalism or to regard evangelicalism as a new import from America:

“What is called evangelical today is primarily anchored in Pietism. Pietism is a regional church movement that we expressly affirm. "

According to Annette Kick, the representative for ideological questions of the Württemberg regional church , a distinction must be made between evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. Fundamentalism lives on opposition and rejects the foreign. Jürgen Werth sees an important difference in the fact that evangelical Christians are open to critical questions. The Protestant theologian Reinhard Hempelmann emphasizes that evangelicalism and Protestant fundamentalism have different historical roots, that (German) evangelicalism is not politically active in Germany like the American evangelicals or the fundamentalist party of Christians who are faithful to the Bible, and that the term fundamentalism is “judgmental and critical the downsides and undesirable developments in Protestant revival piety ”.

In a study of the “new” evangelicals, the non-evangelical cultural scientist Marcia Pally points to the openness and willingness to learn of the evangelical movement, which clearly distinguishes itself from fundamentalism. According to Pally, a faith that is equally biblical and cosmopolitan and the social commitment of "this pious, neither fundamentalist nor fanatical group" can strengthen democratic societies and offer gains in freedom for modern, pluralistic societies, including the European context.

Donald Bloesch sums up the relationship between evangelicalism and fundamentalism as follows: Evangelicalism is open to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, but transcends and corrects the defensive and sectarian mentality that is usually associated with fundamentalism.

In Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism , three US evangelical theologians (Albert Mohler, John G. Stackhouse, Roger E. Olson) and a self-declared fundamentalist theologian (Kevin T. Bauder) deal with the two terms. They agree that on doctrinal issues there is no essential difference between fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism. The four authors see the essential difference in the secondary separation: Fundamentalists distanced themselves not only from those they see as false teachers, but also from those who work with such false teachers and who, according to fundamentalist assessments, thereby compromise Christian doctrine. In the second half of the 20th century, the “ litmus test ” for Christian fundamentalists in the United States was whether or not someone worked with evangelical preacher Billy Graham (who evangelized with Catholics and mainstream churches).

distribution

Evangelical Church in Russia

Evangelicals are spread across much of the world and, if you include Pentecostalism , one of the fastest growing movements. According to current statistics, there are currently 329 million evangelical Christians worldwide. The evangelical theology professor Werner Ustorf, himself committed to liberal Protestantism, estimates the evangelicals, including the Pentecostal and charismatic churches, at "27.7 per cent of organized global Christianity". The contemporary historian Martin Greschat also considers these figures to be correct. In Asia , Africa , South America and the US the movement is growing, in part at the expense of liberal and traditional churches.

Internationally, many evangelicals have joined forces in the World Evangelical Alliance , which acts as an umbrella organization for national and regional alliances and international organizations.

United States

Government agencies, such as the United States Census Bureau , are not allowed to conduct religious surveys of the United States population, so official numbers of evangelicals are not available.

From 1988 to 2003, the proportion of those Protestants who defined themselves as evangelicals rose from 41 to 51 percent within Protestantism as a whole.

According to research by the Barna Group, there are 20 million Evangelicals in the United States, or nine percent of the population (2006). The Hartford Institute of Religion gives 17% evangelicals for the USA, based on evangelical doctrine, and 26% based on membership in a church in the evangelical tradition. Other sources come up with higher numbers. An arte documentation from autumn 2007 names 70 million. A study published in June 2008 by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life puts the proportion of evangelicals in the American population at 26.3% (approx. 80 million). The evangelicals are the largest of the religious groups distinguished in the study, ahead of Catholics (23.9%) and followers of the Protestant “ mainline churches ” (18.1%). In the states of Alabama , Arkansas , Kentucky , Mississippi , Oklahoma , South Carolina and Tennessee each identify more than 44% of the population as supporters of evangelical churches or movements.

Evangelicals can be found in theologically conservative churches such as the Southern Baptist Convention , the congregations of Christ , most megachurches and many Pentecostal congregations, as well as in mainline churches, where they are less represented in the clergy and in the universities, but in the Organize the basis more and more in the neo-evangelical Confessing Movement in recent years . This movement, which was founded by Ockenga (1905–1985), distinguishes itself from both liberal theology and fundamentalism and its socially conservative attitudes.

There is also a minority of Red-Letter Christians or evangelical left ( Linksevangelikale ) such as former US President Jimmy Carter , the activist Jim Wallis , the Baptist sociologist Tony Campolo , the Mennonite theologian Ron Sider , the Quaker Richard Foster , the Theologian Rob Bell , the journalist Philip Yancey , the activist Shane Claiborne and many others who consciously combine their evangelical beliefs with social engagement and political commitment beyond party lines.

Great Britain

Evangelicals are active in various movements in Britain. In the Church of England there are movements like Fulcrum , which represents the moderate Evangelicals (Open Evangelicals) , while movements like Reform speak for the conservative-evangelical spectrum. Representative churches are All Souls, Langham Place , St. Helen's Bishopsgate and Holy Trinity Brompton , all in London . Outside the Church of England Evangelicals are represented in free churches. Well-known English evangelical theologians are John Stott , Charles Simeon and JI Packer , Alister McGrath and Markus Bockmuehl . Important supra-church organizations are the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship and the British wing of the Evangelical Alliance.

German-speaking area

Germany

According to estimates, Evangelicals make up around one to three percent of the population in Germany. They can be found in both regional and free churches . A large number of evangelical Christians are organized in certain institutions and works of the evangelical movement . The most important association is the German Evangelical Alliance , which by its own account represents around 1.3 million Evangelicals. With the opening of the German Evangelical Alliance to the charismatic movement through the Kassel Declaration of 1996, conservative sections of the Evangelicals alienated themselves from the Evangelical Alliance. At the beginning of the new millennium, an alternative, loose confessional alliance in the form of the Malachi Circle was founded.

In 2013, the criminologist Christian Pfeiffer presented a study in which he showed that the upbringing methods of evangelical parents are more violence-oriented the more religious they are. According to this, 17.4% of the Protestant free church youth from non-academic families experienced severe parental violence in their childhood, while the percentage among Protestant or Catholic youth is 11.8 and 11.9% respectively. In addition, there is a correlation between the religiousness of the parents and the use of violence in upbringing in the parental homes of the Evangelical Free Church . 56.1% of young people from the Protestant Free Church who came from non-religious homes stated that they had been brought up without violence, whereas the corresponding percentage among young people from highly religious homes was only 20.9%. The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported again in 2017 on the study in connection with the new edition of an evangelical parenting guide, which advised against the education of smaller children in particular with a view to the corresponding biblical passages ( Prov 29.17  EU ).

The study was criticized from various quarters. Representatives of the Association of Evangelical Free Churches complained that the study did not reveal which free churches the young people interviewed belonged to. As a result, all free church groups would be treated across the board without differentiation. The United Methodist Church distanced itself from all forms of violence. The Humanist Press Service, on the other hand, criticized Pfeiffer's conclusions as one-sided: According to the figures published in the study, the violence experienced during their upbringing correlates not only with youths from the Protestant Free Church with the degree of religiosity of their parents, but also with other Christians. The lower tendency of highly religious young people to become violent themselves, which the study also reported, was due to the fear of real punishment from hell .

Regional churches of the EKD

It is commonly assumed that within the evangelical movement, the regionally organized Christians are in the majority compared to the free churches. For example, Wolfgang Huber, the former council chairman of the EKD , assumes that evangelical Christians are largely involved in the regional churches. After Klöcker / Tworuschka, the evangelicals in the regional evangelical churches are among the most loyal churchgoers. Many evangelical Christians within the regional church are organized in the form of so-called " regional church communities ", sometimes also in independent parallel structures to the local church community, since they do not find a majority for their positions in most regional church structures. These independent congregations within the EKD often belong to the regionally different associations of the community movement, most of which are amalgamated under the umbrella organization Evangelischer Gnadauer Gemeinschaftverband .

In the Württemberg regional church, in which the synodals are elected by the grassroots, 39 of 90 elected synodals belong to the discussion group “ Living Congregation ”, which represents the conservative-evangelical and pietistic spectrum (as of spring 2014).

Free Churches

Many free churches in the German-speaking area can be classified under the conservative or moderate evangelicals. Georg Schmid includes traditional free churches such as the Mennonites , the Baptists , the Methodists , the Seventh-day Adventists , the congregations of Christ , the Brethren Movement (not to be confused with the Brethren ), the Church of the Nazarene or the Salvation Army . Most Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal churches, such as the International Christian Fellowship , the Anskar Church or Vineyard and the Bund Freikirchlicher Pentecostal Churches , are also included in the evangelical spectrum. However, there are also many among the free churches who do not identify with evangelicalism or who reject it.

Austria

In Austria there are 70 evangelical congregations with around 5000 members. Of these, 52 Austrian congregations are currently united in the Federation of Evangelical Congregations (BEG), which was registered as a state-recognized church together with other free churches as part of the Free Churches in Austria Alliance in 2013.

Switzerland

For Switzerland, Patrick Johnstone gives four percent evangelicals, of which just under three percent are in the reformed regional churches and the rest in free churches. The 3.5% charismatics are divided between Catholic and Reformed regional and free churches. The proportion of evangelicals varies greatly from region to region; they are hardly represented in Central Switzerland , Valais and Ticino , but in Emmental and Frutigland they make up over 40% of the population.

Asia

Although in Asia only five states (Armenia, Georgia, Philippines, East Timor, Russia) have Christian majorities, there are more Evangelicals in absolute numbers than on any other continent. Across the continent, an estimated seven percent of the population is evangelical and charismatic. According to various estimates, there are between 60 and 120 million evangelicals in China, the majority of whom belong to the indigenous house church movement. In South Korea, around nine million, 18% of the population, are evangelical and charismatic, with South Korean evangelicals having several records: ten of the eleven largest megachurches are in Seoul, and South Korea is the country with the most missionaries after the United States (10,000 ) abroad. The predominantly Catholic Philippines also have ten percent evangelicals, the majority of them in native Pentecostal churches.

Africa

For Africa, Johnstone gives 25% or 190 million evangelicals and charismatics, most of whom are located south of the Sahara. The majority of them belong to the African indigenous churches, which together have more members than the worldwide Pentecostal movement.

Latin America

Through intensive missions , especially from the United States, an increasing proportion of the Latin American population who were formerly traditionally Roman Catholics or who belonged to indigenous religions converted to an evangelical form of Protestantism. Patrick Johnston gives 55 million evangelicals and 85 million charismatics (including Pentecostal churches) for the whole of Latin America in 2000. For Argentina he gives 28% evangelicals and charismatics, for Colombia 21%, for Chile 30%, for Nicaragua 33% and for Brazil, the world's largest Catholic nation, 35% evangelicals and charismatics (according to other data 30%). In the Brazilian census 2010 it was still 22%. Of the 513 members of the Brazilian parliament, around 100 belong to the bancada evangélica , which was founded in 2003 , as well as the President Jair Bolsonaro , who was elected in 2018 and was baptized in the Jordan River in 2016 . The Brazilian Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus has built an economic empire largely through donations; their self-proclaimed Bishop Edir Macedo is one of the richest entrepreneurs in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro has been ruled by Marcelo Crivella, a former bishop of this church, since 2016.

Evangelicals are also very influential in Peru, Venezuela, Guatemala (which has had an evangelical president since 2015 with Jimmy Morales ), Honduras, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. In Costa Rica in 2018, an evangelical preacher won the first round of the presidential election with almost a quarter of the vote and made it into the runoff. In Venezuela, the head of the Maranatha Church came third with just under eleven percent.

The largest bloc of evangelicals in Latin America comprises the Pentecostal movement with 32 million followers, with which 28% of Pentecostals worldwide are based in Latin America. This order of magnitude is also confirmed by Catholic sources.

The evangelical churches are far from having complicated theological discussions; they appear more earthly and “Samaritan” than the Catholic Church. They devote themselves to the domestic problems of their mostly poorly educated members, especially the two groups whose problems have long been ignored; namely the indigenous people and the women. In the Amazon region in particular, evangelical missionaries disregard existing laws for the protection of indigenous people and practice ruthless proselytism , often with devastating consequences for indigenous communities. The Catholic Church tolerated women being abused by their drinking and unfaithful husbands. The "reductionist" theology of Evangelicals integrates the idea of ​​baptism in the Holy Spirit with Protestant work ethics, the promise of economic success and a conservative family and sexual morality. This gives the humiliated a space of emotional satisfaction, but also successfully transports political and neoliberal goals: Evangelical parties, which are led by theological laypeople, try to incorporate their syncretic political-economic and moral-theological goals into election programs. At the same time, however, the Pentecostal movement was also penetrating the middle classes. The Pentecostal churches of the middle class create their own religious styles and theological discourses that differ from those of the lower class. The organization Bread for the World sees the strengthening of evangelicals as a step backwards for women's rights in the region. Evangelicals defame and intimidate activists as "gender ideologues".

The evangelical churches in many Latin American countries have given up their original philosophy of flight from the world and are now conquering the political arena. However, they are still very fragmented.

Evangelical theology

Evangelicals are a movement, not a church, with clearly defined dogmas, but the points listed here are affirmed by most evangelicals. Individual deviations or deviations from individual groups in individual points often occur, even if the majority of individuals and groups agree on the majority of these characteristics. Evangelical theology sees itself as an alternative to liberal theology .

A first list of an evangelical belief base is the belief base of the Evangelical Alliance of 1846.

A starting point for an intersection of the similarities of today's worldwide evangelical movement are the publications of the Lausanne movement . The first Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization in 1974 is considered by evangelicals to be an important milestone in the evangelical movement. The Lausanne Commitment is still listed by many groups in the evangelical movement as a basis of faith.

  • The Bible: Evangelicals see the Bible as God's Word, written down by humans, but inspired by God's Spirit. There is no agreement on the exact understanding of inspiration. For example, not all evangelicals believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and verbal inspiration . The Bible is the binding standard of faith and lifestyle by which everything else has to be measured. Evangelicals are aware that the Bible must be interpreted, but believe that even non- theologians can understand the Bible properly. Dictionaries, concordances, and commentaries are widely used, and certain commentaries are widely authoritative for some evangelical schools, for example that of the Scofield Bible for parts of dispensationalism .
  • Sinfulness and guilt expose people to God's wrath and condemnation. The redemption from this can only take place through an act of grace from God and presupposes faith in Jesus Christ, his vicarious sacrifice and resurrection as well as conversion and rebirth through the Holy Spirit .
  • The personal decision of faith: For Evangelicals, Christianity is based on a personal, conscious decision in favor of the Christian faith and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which must also have an impact on personal action in everyday life. Church membership alone is not enough, it requires a personal turning away from the old life and a turn to Jesus Christ ( conversion ). This conscious decision is made in the form of a personal prayer called a life surrender. Because of the idea of ​​a personal relationship with God, evangelicals expect God to intervene directly in their lives. They consider miracles possible or at least not impossible, but they also discover God's work in everyday occurrences. The adult baptism is practiced in some movements as a symbolic confirmation of turning to the "Kingdom of God".
  • The common priesthood of the laity is essential to evangelicals. Each individual should deal personally with the Bible, study it privately and in small groups, interpret it and let it affect them. Hence there are many lay people among evangelicals with considerable knowledge of the Bible. Formal theological training is not required for leadership and training roles. The question associated with the general priesthood of the extent to which women should be involved in leadership and ministry within the ward receives very different answers among evangelicals.
  • Church and denomination are often of secondary importance. Most evangelicals see themselves as part of worldwide Christianity and feel connected to other evangelicals regardless of their church or community membership. However, evangelicals are often distant from the ecumenical movement , especially the Roman Catholic Church is rejected as erroneous, as are Orthodox churches, but also liberal Protestantism. Non-evangelical Christians are devalued by some currents as "Christians by name " who would have to be newly evangelized.
  • Absolute claim: with the exception of Judaism , which has a special status with some evangelicals, other religions (e.g. Islam , Buddhism ) are rejected as wrong turns. A dialogue between the religions usually only takes place from a missionary point of view.
  • Mission : Evangelicals see it as important to testify to their faith towards all non-Christians in their spirit and to spread the biblical message of salvation. Evangelicals and Pentecostal churches first took part in a consultation on conversion in 2007 as part of the joint study process of the Vatican and the World Council of Churches. The consultation in Toulouse thus took a further step towards the goal of a common code of conduct for efforts to convert people to Christianity. A global initiative in this context is the Joshua Project , a database for identifying the number of Christians and non-Christians in all ethnic groups on earth. The aim is to initiate missionary efforts, in particular to win over followers of non-scriptural "tribal religions" on a permanent basis.

In evangelical theology, the United Kingdom and the United States lead the way; see also below literature and people . The Anglican theologian John Stott summarized a theology.

similarities and differences

While most evangelicals agree with the principles of the Lausanne movement, there is a broad spectrum of individual questions of fundamental theology , pastoral care and church constitution within the movement, some with very different opinions, which, however, are seen by most evangelicals as part of the evangelical movement become. Examples of such individual questions are:

Zondervan-Verlag publishes the series Counterpoints: Bible and Theology (18 volumes) and Counterpoints: Church Life (4 volumes), in which three to six evangelical theologians treat such questions in an adversarial manner. Everyone presents their point of view and comments from their point of view on the opinions of the other authors.

Directions in the German-speaking area

Despite the many similarities, Evangelicals are not a homogeneous group. In the German-speaking area, they can be roughly divided into three main directions:

  • The Confession Evangelicals, to whom the authority of traditional church confessions is important. You can find them in conservative circles of the regional churches, for example in the confessional movement No other gospel and the conference of confessing communities .
  • The charismatic evangelicals, mainly in charismatic circles of the regional churches and in the parishes of the Pentecostal movement .
  • The Evangelicals in the pietistic tradition, mainly in the regional church pietism, in traditional free churches and in the Mennonite Brethren congregations, which were often founded by Russian-German resettlers .

Since the 1990s, independent evangelical groups have emerged alongside these directions, which, although they represent strict evangelical teaching, do not feel that they belong to any of these directions. These include, for example, parts of the Russian-German repatriate congregations such as the Gospel Christians (whose founding is also linked to the Russian variant of Pietism, Stundism ) and the conference for church planting .

Evangelicals also differ greatly in terms of their openness to those who think differently:

  • Separatist Evangelicals (Fundamentalists): Biblical-conservative circles that emphasize demarcating themselves from all groups that do not share their specific view of Christianity. They adhere strictly to the inerrancy of the Bible, and often have group-specific interpretations or a group-specific lifestyle. In the German-speaking area there are rather small groups, for example the congregation for Christ , the friends of concordant proclamation of the word, the Adullam community ( Wattwil , Switzerland) or the “closed” wing of the Brethren movement .
  • Conservative Evangelicals: They hold on to the inerrancy of the Bible, which some, but not all, define according to the Chicago Declarations , but are open to contact with those who think differently. This direction is represented by most of the Bible schools , the Free Theological University in Gießen or the state- independent Theological University in Basel (Switzerland). Among the free churches, the Brethren congregations and many independent free church congregations can be classified here. Members of this trend can also be found in many free churches of both a pietist and a Baptist and charismatic direction, less so in the regional churches.
  • Open Evangelicals or Neo-Evangelicals: This direction is aloof from biblical criticism, but is ready to adopt certain results. It can be found especially among the evangelicals in the regional churches. This includes largely the regional church pietism with its regional focus on Baden-Württemberg , Hesse and Saxony and the Protestant community movement and its educational institutions such as the Albrecht-Bengel-Haus , the Tabor Evangelical University in Marburg, the Liebenzell International University in Bad Liebenzell , the Johanneum or the Paulinum . In the free churches they are particularly represented by the Old Lutherans such as the SELK , by the Mennonites and Methodists , although there are also “non-evangelical” Christians, and in the more liberal wings of other free churches.

historical development

Germany

While the German term "evangelical" is still quite young, the movement itself can look back on over three hundred years of history. The trigger was the solidification of the Reformation to " Lutheran Orthodoxy " in the course of the denominational trench warfare in the 17th century. In contrast to their often "cerebral" adherence to the "right doctrine" (as opposed to the "wrong doctrine" of their denominational counterparts), books of edification formed the breeding ground for a renaissance of personal piety from the early 17th century. Particularly noteworthy here are Johann Arndt's Four Books on True Christianity , but also Puritanist literature translated from English, such as Lewis Bayly's “Practice of Piety”.

requirements

The roots of the current evangelical movement are in Pietism and the revival movements of the 19th century. It is connected with the Reformation upheavals of the 16th century, especially through the emphasis on the Bible and faith in Jesus Christ.

Pietism in the 17th and 18th centuries

With Philipp Jacob Spener's program “ Pia desideria ” (1675), Pietism begins as a reform movement of piety and the church . The intensive study of Luther's writings and the above Devotional literature, but also the contact with Jean de Labadie , the later father of Dutch Pietism, had convinced him of the need for a renewal of the people's church. Following a suggestion by Luther, he collected those “who wanted to be Christians with Ernst” in “conventicles” (forerunners of house groups ) for special support through reading the Bible and prayer, among other things .

His student August Hermann Francke (1663–1727) experienced a sudden conversion in 1687 after days of internal struggle , which made him certain of the existence of God and his own rebirth and determined his whole life. The unique, datable conversion experience became, as it were, the trademark of Pietism. The reform of theology studies, initiated by Spener and carried out by Francke in Halle (Saale) , which focused on exegesis , personal piety and preaching practice, as well as the educational reforms in his “Francke'schen Anstalten” also took part as a school for the poor and a priest and faith training facility Educational concerns of awareness . The “ Halle Orphanage ” shows Francke's social welfare awareness . The establishment of the foundation of the same name was the center of this theological approach and practical work, which had a missionary effect, for example through Henry Melchior Mühlenberg .

He financed the institutions with the economically extremely successful Canstein Bible Institute and made inexpensive Bibles widely available. The “world transformation through human transformation” should also include other nations: In 1706 Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau from the “ Danish-Halle Mission ” were the first missionaries ever to be sent to India. Almost all the specifics of modern evangelical piety (highlighted) can already be found here.

Pietism spread (not least thanks to the high academic quality of its education) within 50 years in almost all German countries. In Württemberg he found particularly formative representatives in the exegete Johann Albrecht Bengel and the brooding Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (see Württemberg pietism ). Gerhard Tersteegen is the greatest (and strangest) personality on the (reformed) Lower Rhine . The entire movement took place within the Protestant churches, only the " Brethren Congregation " founded by Nikolaus Ludwig Graf von Zinzendorf in Herrnhut formed a special church. Pietism expanded through Zinzendorf's travels to England and America, among other things, and was able to demonstrate considerable scientific achievements, but here and there was also called "pious hypocrisy" and flagged under the social pressure of the Enlightenment towards the end of the 18th century.

The 19th Century Awakening Movement

From the 19th century onwards, there was a revival movement in German-speaking countries (partly also in other European countries and in the USA) . It was created on the basis of Pietism , which was transformed for the time. It is generally assumed that the movement did not have a uniform origin, since it is decentralized and local at the same time in German-speaking countries. Its preparers include the “ German Christianity Society ”, which originated in Basel and was founded by Johann August Urlsperger in 1780 to defend Christian doctrine against deism and rationalism . The Christian Enlightenment critics Johann Georg Hamann and Matthias Claudius were of great importance . But also the Methodist revival under John Wesley in England (see below) was a source of inspiration (especially with regard to the manner of preaching), as was Charles Haddon Spurgeon's sermons, which were later translated into German .

There is agreement in research about one of the (manifold) triggers of the awakening: It is Friedrich Schleiermacher's " Speeches on Religion " (1799) - a pamphlet in the course of the beginning of Romanticism against the rationalism of the Enlightenment. The essence of religion, he says, consists primarily neither in intellect nor in morality, but in an experience , the “absolute dependence on God”. This direct experiential character of faith was associated with its recipients (e.g. the Holstein revival preacher Claus Harms ) with the attitude of pietism: God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit , as well as the assumptions of Christianity such as conversion, forgiveness of sins and rebirth would come together - it is assumed - let experience . The same Harms once again expressed with the words "He who begat me had no bread for me" exemplarily the early distance of the awakening movement from its (co-) initiator. Instead, the focus on the Bible and the "old dogmatics", such as can be found in the Reformation confessional writings , became characteristic. For the Revivalist she put the paving of a new existential access to both represent This also marks the substantive conflict with contemporary theology (z. B.. John Solomon Semler " Neology ") that the "core" of religion beyond the wanted to find time-related “shell” of the Bible and Confession.

According to the church historian Johannes Wallmann , the revival movement experienced three phases. The first fifteen years or so after Schleiermacher's publication were mainly characterized by its ecumenical openness. Lived faith in Christ counted more than denominational boundaries. The second phase (1815–1830) was the main phase, characterized above all by the large number of revival preachers and meetings inside and outside the churches throughout Germany. It produced a great deal of literature and tracts, as well as numerous Bible and missionary societies. Both the confessional and the theological boundaries (especially against Hegel and Schleiermacher) became more important. In the third phase (until 1848) the movement slowed down, but gained in stability and, above all, in ecclesiastical political effectiveness. The own denomination grew in importance (up to denominationalism). From the bourgeois revolution (1848) onwards, the revival movement consolidated, but, apart from small local events, it did not achieve any large-scale growth.

At the very beginning the revival movement arose in Holstein and the Lower Rhine, embodied by Claus Harms and the ophthalmologist Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling , and then spread over almost all of Germany (with the exception of Oldenburg and Hesse). Examples are the revival movements in Minden-Ravensberg ( Johann Heinrich Volkening ), Baden ( Aloys Henhöfer ), the Allgäu with the first Catholic, then converting Johann Evangelista Goßner , Bremen ( Gottfried Menken ) and the Lower Rhine (with the Krummachers ' preaching dynasty , Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrügge ).

There are three main focuses:

  • The Bavarian-Franconian awakening , based on Christian Krafft (1784–1845) and Karl Georg von Raumer (1783–1865), spread across the whole of Franconia from Nuremberg, and with Erlangen theology brought about a special one that committed to the experience of faith and the longer, the longer more emphasized the Lutheran type of science. One of the scientific achievements was the first text-critical Luther Complete Edition.
  • The Brandenburg-Pomerania awakening with its initiator Hans Ernst von Kottwitz (1757–1843) was closely associated with the Prussian nobility . In the course of time August Tholuck became one of the university lecturers and disseminators. He had an effective influence on the young pastors taught and was a party organ in the form of the " Evangelical Church Newspaper " founded by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg . It claimed to gather the pious and, in the sense of "awakening", to defend the Christian doctrine, guaranteed in the Bible and Confession, against rationalism, but occasionally failed to achieve its goal (e.g. in the " Halle Church Dispute " in 1830) .
  • The Wurttemberg revival brought about the most classic revival preacher of Anglo-Saxon provenance in Ludwig Hofacker, who died early, who attracted people from a wide area with his sermon aimed at sin and grace , penance and conversion. Here the revival movement not only led to the formation of new conventicles and communities, but also to the formation of free churches. Further representatives were Johann Michael Hahn and the early charismatic Blumhardts (father and son) , the latter became the first pastor and social democrat in the Stuttgart state parliament.

In contrast to Pietism, which saw itself as an internal church reform movement, some supporters of the awakening movement (especially when there was more intensive contact with England) became more skeptical about the constituted churches. Johann Gerhard Oncken founded the first Baptist church in Hamburg in 1834 , which became the nucleus of many continental European Baptist churches. Methodist denominations, which had existed in Anglo-American countries since the 18th century, emerged in Central Europe from the middle of the 19th century.

The apocalyptic mood was of social importance in view of a calculation by Johann Albrecht Bengel for the second coming of Christ in 1836. From 1800 a spirit of optimism grew that advocated emigration to Russia and America to "meet the Lord". Supporters of the revival movement around Johann Georg Rapp (later called "Rappists") emigrated to Pennsylvania , where they founded the city of "New Harmony" and showed that the literal understanding of the Bible ( Acts 3: 32–37  LUT ) could lead to social forms, which in some respects coincided with the ideas of the early socialists, which later u. a. was addressed by the Pietist son of Barmen, Friedrich Engels .

The defeat of the political freedom movement in the "civil revolution" of 1848 broke the upswing of the revival movement. Extensive emigration to the USA also included supporters of the revival movement. The new work area of ​​“Inner Mission” achieved growth among the poor and suffering. With their works, Johann Hinrich Wichern and Friedrich von Bodelschwingh stood for practiced Christian charity, which was based on literal interpretation of the Scriptures and laid the foundation for the church's work area of diakonia . Furthermore, internationally networked structures were created in order to preserve the achievements of the revival movement in community circles. After the much-noticed establishment of the Evangelical Alliance in London in 1846, local branches of the Evangelical Alliance were founded in Germany from 1857–1886 . In 1888 the Gnadau community association was constituted . The community movement then became more international in that it took up ideas and methods from Methodism and the Oxford Movement . Before the turn of the century (the 20th century), the sanctification movement largely carried the expansion of the movement.

The 20th century

First half

The beginning of the 20th century brought the first notable influence from the USA to the post-revival movement, which initially led to a split: the Pentecostal movement . In 1901 Charles F. Parham in Topeka (Kansas) had a circle of Bible students in ActsEU a . Ö. discovered speaking in tongues as a feature of the baptism of the Spirit and received it as a gift after intense prayer. In 1907 two Norwegians brought speaking in tongues to Kassel. In a series of revival meetings, many participants began to speak in tongues. When the apparition took on more and more ecstatic forms, the police urged the events to be stopped. After a long struggle, the majority in communities and free churches came to the conviction that speaking in tongues was not “from above” but “from below”. The Berlin Declaration of 1909, with its clear (and controversial discussion to this day) demarcation, took the Pentecostal awakened their home in communities and free churches. This led to the establishment of free church Pentecostal congregations, the “ Christian Community Association Mülheim (Ruhr) ” and several other associations that have since led an (initially) independent existence as the “ Pentecostal movement ”.

The position of those influenced by pietism and revival during the Second World War cannot be systematized. On the one hand, court preacher Adolf Stöcker († 1909) , who was motivated by Wichern's popular missionary ideas, became one of the leading anti-Semites in the empire , on the other hand, the revival brought forth major forces of the Confessing Church , such as Jochen Klepper and Paul Schneider ; Dietrich Bonhoeffer is seen as a common figure of integration. On the one hand, Professors Werner Elert and Paul Althaus , who belong to the “Erlangen Theology”, were able to reject the Barmer theological declaration and understand the National Socialist state as a divine order in the Ansbach Council . On the other hand, the Gnadauer Verband under the leadership of its chairman Walter Michaelis already distanced itself sharply from the German Christians six months before the Confessing Church . He did not join the “Confessing Church” itself (so as not to lose his independence), but instead joined the “Working Group of Missionary and Diaconal Works”, which was closely related to it, and contributed to the content of the “Barmer Declaration” (there is extensive coverage its own "Salzuflen Declaration") and was given high recognition by the "Confessing Church". Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book Succession and the life reports of the Dutch resistance fighter Corrie ten Boom are among the most widely read works by evangelicals. Karl Barth's theology was also widely received by evangelicals, despite his sometimes harsh criticism of pietism.

The popular church and pietism or community movement started in close cooperation in the post-war era. Only gradually did the theological differences within the former “Confessing Church” break out, which the common resistance against the Nazi regime had covered. Two processes are important here:

The evangelism with Billy Graham

The decisive impetus for the evangelical movement in the post-war period was the mass evangelism of Billy Graham in Germany since 1953. They met with great echo in Germany, which has been de-churched. In terms of content, they tied in with the "common thread" of Pietism and the Awakening Movement, but brought new points of view from the USA to Germany both methodically and in terms of content. That this in the German Evangelical Alliance z. Some of them were viewed critically, as shown by the fact that their accession to the “World Evangelical Fellowship” (WEF, since 2001 WEA) (closely associated with Graham) was clearly rejected in 1952 and only came about in 1968 at the second attempt. Nevertheless, the alliance work gained a new dynamic in these years. The Ruhr area (e.g. the Weigle House of the youth pastor Wilhelm Busch ), Baden (Dean Friedrich Hauß ) and others are particularly important . In 1965 the new movement (using the English term "evangelical") was first referred to as "evangelicals". At the “World Congress for World Evangelization” held in Berlin by American Evangelicals in 1966, the term prevailed. This conceptual recognition of one's own togetherness corresponds to a sharp demarcation with contemporary theology in the context of the conflict with the Bultmann School , which has been going on for several years .

The "dispute over the Bible"

Shortly after the war, the community of convenience of the “Confessing Church” collapsed. The demythologization program of its member Rudolf Bultmann assumed that the New Testament worldview was mythological in nature; the biblical contents such as miracles, atoning death, resurrection, ascension and Jesus' return cannot be made accessible to modern man. His program of “demythologizing”, in the course of which the biblical understanding of existence as the essence of the texts had to be peeled out of their clothing, led to a new edition of the old conflict between revival and liberal theology . The evangelicals reacted at first with concern and then with some energetic resistance, as they believed biblicity (which for them was indispensable) (which shortly before that, during the war, had been the decisive aid in dealing with the German Christians) and with it essential Saw beliefs in danger. From a discussion group of theologians critical of Bultmann (including Hellmuth Frey , Paul Deitenbeck , Rudolf Bäumer ), the “Bethel Circle” emerged in 1961 and later - after a large-scale rally in Dortmund with 24,000 participants - the “ confessional movement 'No other gospel' (Gal 1, 6) ". They formulated their objection to the Bultmann School in numerous publications (e.g. “Alarm um die Bibel” by Gerhard Bergmann ). Due to its purely apologetic basic orientation, the confessional movement represented only a part of the evangelicals, mainly those who were at home in the regional church, but not free churches and most community groups. However, it generally triggered the concern to develop theologically viable alternatives to the prevailing theological school opinion. Numerous contributions to this, z. Some of them have a broad-based conversation with the various currents of theological science, and in the meantime they themselves have a recognized scientific level.

The Charismatic Movement

In the 1960s there was another new awakening movement under the sign of the Holy Spirit - this time, however, initially within the church. The Lutheran pastor Arnold Bittlinger had got to know the " Charismatic Movement " initiated by Dennis J. Bennett in the USA . Impressed by their disciplined way of living the early Christian spiritual gifts (including the so-called “supernatural gifts” such as speaking in tongues (glossolalia), prophecy, etc.), he first founded numerous house groups within the church and then in 1968 together with others the “Ecumenical Center of Life for Christian Unity ". From this primordial cell, the “ Spiritual Community Renewal ” (GGE) gradually emerged from 1976 as a movement within the Evangelical Church, which also radiated into the free churches. From its forerunner, the “Pentecostal Movement”, the “Charismatic Movement” differs on the one hand in the less ecstatic handling of the spiritual gifts (although there are always exceptions), on the other hand in their different assessment: During the “ Spirit baptism ” in the Pentecostal movement like as a second, higher level the spirit award after the regeneration is understood and the tongues as her proof drops according to the "charismatic movement" in both conversion and regeneration together; the gifts of the Spirit then appear merely as manifestations of the Holy Spirit , without a particular gift (such as the glossolalia ) being given priority or being of evidence. The position of the charismatics within the Evangelical Movement is still controversial in Germany; Reactions from non- charismatic evangelicals in this country range (depending on the congregation and grouping) from acceptance and cautious opening for charismatic phenomena to clear rejection (e.g. by parts of the "Confession Evangelicals" and the "Gnadauer Verband"); Occasionally, warnings are issued (especially in connection with the healing of illnesses or a strongly dualistic understanding of the spirit). The tense relationship does not make it appear advisable to present charismatic forms of piety without further compatibility test as examples of general evangelical beliefs.

United States of America

Mass evangelism events also trigger deep emotions in children .

According to Meic Pearse and Derek Tidball, there is general agreement that the Great Awakening and the dawn of Methodism in the 18th century are the birth of the modern evangelical movement. They point to the common characteristics of Jesus ' vicarious death , conversion , Bible study, and active Christianity .

The actual evangelical movement and Protestant fundamentalism developed together in the United States over different phases and only separated in the middle of the 20th century. Derek Tidball describes the development in three phases:

First phase: Conservative theology and revival movement

There were various movements in the 19th century that continued seamlessly into the evangelical movement.

Non-denominational Protestant movements

In the 19th century a large number of conservative, non-denominational Protestant movements such as

Through revival trips in the Anglo-Saxon region, they created the basis for a unifying bond. The foundations were conservative theology, supranaturalism , individual conversion, personal prayer life and a literal interpretation of the Bible .

Conservative theology

Also in the 19th century there was a conservative theological movement in leading American universities that distinguished itself from liberal theology. Leading the way was the renowned Presbyterian University of Princeton, with Charles Hodge , Archibald Alexander Hodge and Benjamin B. Warfield , the biblical and dogmatic foundations of evangelical theology as a reaction to the liberal theology spilling over from Europe.

After 1880, various church-conservative currents radicalized in the fight for prohibition and turned away from the Democratic Party. This created a non-denominational mass movement with the aim of raising morality outside the political system.

The Presbyterian Henry Parsons Crowell , the founder of the cereal trading company Oatmeal and a marketing genius, played an important role in uniting conservative currents . (The brand name " Quaker Oats " and the image of a Quaker on the then unusual packaging should associations of purity - purity - awaken, although Crowell anything with the Quakers had to do.) In 1904 he became president of the industry-funded Moody Bible Institute , whose work was directed against the political radicalization of broad middle classes and impoverished farmers that began after 1890. This movement of the South and Midwest, deeply anchored in religious currents, organized itself into the Populist Party and the Farmer's Alliance . For example, the movement in South Carolina was heavily supported by the Methodist Protestant Church and the Disciples of Christ, two widespread splits from the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Baptists who oppose the "tyranny" and the "dictation" of their church leaders and of the state turned. The farmers saw themselves as the disciples of Christ who based their struggle for reforms and for the autonomy of private property directly on biblical postulates.

The evangelical-populist movements combined their conservative theology with market-liberal and social Darwinist ideas, reform-oriented self-administration concepts and radicalized variants of premodern and backward-looking ideologies such as B. communitarian and religious doctrines of virtue and perfection, chosen topics or universalism of salvation. If the conservatives insisted on the right and duty to read the Bible individually without the need for further theological-church mediation, a wide variety of radical insights and consequences could result - depending on which texts were read and how literally their messages were taken. The latter, however, distinguished the evangelicals.

Crowell and various theologians therefore tried to combine individual enlightenment through free Bible reading with the maintenance of a (admittedly fictitious) common conservative Protestant orthodoxy in order to curb ultra-radical interpretations.

The basis was the Scofield Bible published by Cyrus I Scofield in 1909 , a study Bible based on dispensationalism with chain references , and the book series The Fundamentals, supported by the Moody Bible Institute and funded by the two Californian oil millionaires Lyman and Milton Stewart . A Testimony to the Truth , a twelve-volume collection of works published since 1910, which was advertised with then modern marketing methods and found 300,000 subscribers . In it, conservative theologians from many denominations and from the entire English-speaking world defended conservative theology against historical-critical exegesis . Among the 64 contributors were theological heavyweights such as BB Warfield , James Orr , and Reuben Archer Torrey .

Because of this name, the term fundamentalists came about for the contributors, but this does not correspond to the current understanding of the term - today these theologians would be referred to as evangelical.

Intra-denominational movements

Irrespective of this, the rapid growth of the Sanctification and Pentecostal churches also fell during this period, which was particularly popular among non-intellectual immigrants and African-Americans.

At the same time, movements developed in the “base” of the larger churches that protested against the liberal or modernist currents within their respective denominations , since they had abandoned the foundations of Christianity in favor of agnostic principles. The “liberals” had founded a secular , humanistic and skeptical religion, based no longer on Christianity, but on the increasingly pluralistic European culture that emerged from the Enlightenment .

This movement got an additional impetus from the annual Niagara Bible Conferences in the last quarter of the 19th century, where Baptist and Presbyterian theologians, but also representatives of the Congregationalists , Methodists , Lutherans and Anglicans came together as a counter-movement against theological modernism. Numerous renowned theologians such as CI Scofield and Hudson Taylor took part in the Niagara Bible Conferences . At various of these conferences, indispensable non-denominational foundations of the Christian faith were defined.

Second phase: union of the three movements

The beginning of the second period can be dated to the establishment of the World's Christian Fundamentals Association in 1919, in which the independent conservative movements came together on the basis of five traditional basic truths of Christianity:

The first two points have been part of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity since the early Church , the third is undisputed in Western (Catholic and Protestant) conservative theology since the Middle Ages.

The last two points were never rejected in conservative theology, but they were never particularly emphasized. Here they were deliberately performed in order to differentiate themselves on the one hand from historical-critical exegesis and on the other hand from the rejection of the reality of miracles.

The resulting movement was called fundamentalism, but besides the actual fundamentalists it also included the much larger group of today's evangelicals. Fundamentalism still had theological capacities like John Greshammachen and Cornelius Van Til on the one hand - but also people like Jay Frank Norris of the Southern Baptists or Billy Sunday, a former baseball player as an evangelist, who were ideally suited for a caricature on the other.

During this period the campaign against teaching evolutionary theory in schools was launched. The monkey trial of 1925 against the teacher John Scopes became world-famous . The aim of the campaign was to defend biblical statements against modern science.

In many large denominations there were disputes and the conservative groups split off. This resulted in z. B. from the American Baptists the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches and from the Northern Presbyterian Church the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

An interdenominational network was created with the participation of

Third phase: separation of evangelicals and fundamentalists

The evangelical schism was initiated by a process of many denominations becoming involved in modernity with the aim of evangelizing it. They founded the National Association of Evangelicals in 1943 .

In 1957 there was a separation between Evangelicals and Fundamentalists in North America (whereby the English word Fundamentalists does not correspond to the language used in German since around 1980, where fundamentalists are identified with extremists, but refers to the emphasis on Fundamentals , i.e. to basic biblical truths; see above under Conservative Theology ), when revival preacher Billy Graham incurred criticism from the fundamentalists , who interpreted his participation in the World Council of Churches as a compromise with the pernicious forces of modernism. Bob Jones accused him of "giving up religion" and "sacrificing the gospel on the altar of contemporary opportunity". Graham held on to admitting himself. The final schism between evangelicals and fundamentalists came in 1957 after the fundamentalists refused financial support for the New York City Crusade . Since then, strictly speaking, the term only refers to the remaining part of the fundamentalists, even if it is also applied in a broader sense to the Protestant rights of the USA.

Post Evangelicalism

There are now many people within the evangelical movement who no longer want to fully agree with classical evangelicalism. Many of these people live out their faith in private, but find no place for themselves in evangelical circles. Reasons for this may be that these people do not share the narrowness and dogmatism they experienced. In their thinking they are strongly influenced by postmodernism . The evangelical subculture ( above all in the USA) with its special church services, church centers, music and literature as well as partially commercialized excesses is also critically questioned.

As a movement, post-evangelicalism cannot be specifically described. The connection between post-evangelical and evangelical can be described as both continuity and discontinuity. The ratio essentially reflects the development from modern to postmodern.

Culture is very important in understanding the Bible and the church . Cultural relativity must be taken into account in both biblical interpretation and church building. Closely related to this orientation is the emerging church , which is controversial among conservative evangelicals and which tries to re-develop the church and theology in a postmodern way. Examples of post-evangelicalism are Dave Tomlinson and Stanley J. Grenz .

Evangelicals and Politics

Europe

In Europe, evangelicals are mostly conservative and advocate a Christian value system. Virtually all European evangelicals tend to be conservative on issues such as abortion and euthanasia ; in matters concerning the social policy , the environment , the education policy or the asylum legislation concerning, but there are many European evangelicals more left. Since the Iraq war at the latest, there has also been a clear skepticism towards the USA among the political conservatives, which is sometimes also discussed in evangelism, for example by Ulrich Parzany ; this criticism also includes the attitude of American evangelicals to economic and social conditions. In many countries, evangelicals orientate themselves politically towards the established parties (in Germany especially towards the CDU ) and try to exert political influence through them, either directly or through special party forums, such as the Christian Democrats for Life , who speak out against abortion and networks also entertain outside of politics. In addition, own evangelical political parties were founded, such as B. the Evangelical People's Party , the Federal Democratic Union or the Party of Christians who are faithful to the Bible .

North America

In North America, according to various polls, the majority of the evangelicals have been right-wing conservative politically in the past decades and now vote mostly republican. The evangelicals were not compromised by daily or power politics for a long time. However, the Prayer Breakfast Movement ( The Family ) , founded in 1935, was particularly active in missionary work in politics and the military during the Cold War and created the militant-anti-communist Militant Liberty program, which was supported by high military officials such as Admiral Arthur W. Radford .

Later, as anti-federalists, the evangelicals were more distant from the government in Washington and the power of the banks. Many evangelicals were politicized after Roe v. Wade from 1973. Jerry Falwell (1933–2007), together with Paul Weyrich (1942–2008), co-founder of the Heritage Foundation , is the founder of the political-religious, Republican-based grassroots movement Moral Majority (1979), Jimmy Carter himself a devout evangelical - put under considerable pressure and intervened in the 1980 election campaign. As a television preacher, Falwell railed against homosexuals, liberals, Muslims and trade unions. After Ronald Reagan's second term in office , the importance of the political evangelical movement declined as many voters no longer perceived moral dangers. The volume of donations decreased, and the Moral Majority dissolved in 1989.

After the financial crisis, the evangelicals criticized the state bailouts rather than the banks. Nathan Duffy (in The Federalist ) posits that Christ has a preference for wealthy taxpayers and defends those "marginalized" because of their wealth. For many popular evangelicals, property is as much a private matter as salvation; Even the greatest wealth is seen as a personal distinction because of which no one should be discriminated against.

Occasionally Christian libertarians are also counted among the evangelicals; both are linked by the rejection of state power and state intervention except in the case of murder, theft or fraud. The libertarians, however, tend to be anarchist; often they are recruited from the Catholic population. A think tank of conservative Republicans and evangelicals related movement is the 1990 by former activists of the gay rights movement and now a Catholic priest Robert A. Sirico founded Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in Grand Rapids (Michigan) and Rome .

Dominionism represents a special form of evangelical politics , which marks an interface between Christian fundamentalism and politics. Dominionists refer to Genesis 1.26-28  EU and reject a separation between state and church . The spectrum ranges from tough Dominionists who want to establish a totalitarian state of God based on the 10 Commandments , to soft Dominionists who merely dominate "Christian", evangelical-conservative values ​​in the areas of state, business, media, art and entertainment , Strive for education, family and religion. The latter group includes influential politicians such as Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry .

Attitudes and political preferences

The vast majority of evangelicals today are against the liberalization of abortion, against secularization and pluralistic lifestyles, for the death penalty and against state social measures: social assistance is seen as the task of the churches. Their attitude is not racist, but predominantly ethnocentric : immigrants threaten American values ​​through their foreign cultures. Followers of the Islamic faith tend to be viewed negatively. This rejection was intensified by the development of the Iraq war and the terrorist attack in New York , which in places is / was also interpreted apocalyptically / eschatologically .

Since the 1990s, the Democratic Party , formerly supported by many Southern Baptist supporters, has had a high percentage of poorer white evangelicals whom it previously elected because of its restrictive attitudes towards school prayers and its liberal stance on abortion and homosexuality in the southern states hardly achieved any electoral successes. The rise of the evangelicals in the Bible Belt is even interpreted as a reaction to the politics of the so-called democratic establishment. In addition, many whites feel that the social legislation of the Democrats supposedly inappropriately favors blacks.

The Christian new right of the United States, which occupies an influential political position, is composed mostly of evangelicals. Representatives are, for example, James Dobson , Franklin Graham , Pat Robertson , Charles Colson or George W. Bush . In the 2016 presidential election, according to ABC News, 81 percent of evangelical voters voted for Trump, only 16 for Clinton. ABC News reported that this was the biggest lead a candidate had in evangelicals since the statistics were introduced in 2004. American Vice President Mike Pence is one of the followers of what is known as Prosperity Gospel (Biblical Capitalism) , who assume that the economic system is ordained by God .

The criticism of the radical evangelicals in the USA of state interventions in general, especially those in the health and education system, and above all their resistance to Obamacare have been cherished by the historian Matthew Sutton but also with those of them since the end of the 19th century apocalyptic expectations. After that, at the end of time, all states will hand over rule to a totalitarian political leader who will prove to be the Antichrist . This evangelical resistance to state interference was already articulated during the New Deal in the 1930s.

Today about 58 percent of white evangelicals in the United States believe that Jesus will return by 2050. For the Afro-American evangelicals, however, the antichrist appears more in the form of racist politics and justice, while the white evangelicals see the civil rights movement as a form of eschatological lawlessness.

In a representative Gallup survey from 2008, in which the attitude of Americans towards different religions and denominations was asked, 39% of the population saw evangelicals as positive, 16% as negative (compared to Methodists 49% positive, 4% negative, Baptists 45% positive, 10% negative, Catholics 45% positive, 13% negative, atheists 13% positive, 45% negative, Scientologists 7% positive, 52% negative). The responses of non-Christians in the same poll were 13% positive and 52% negative for evangelicals.

According to a 2007 study by the Barna Group , 16 percent of non-Christians in the United States between the ages of 16 and 29 report that they have generally positive associations with Christianity (up from 85 percent in 1996). Evangelical Christianity, on the other hand, has a positive image in only 3 percent of the same group. Compared to the previous generation of baby boomers, the unpopularity of evangelical Christians among non-Christians has increased eightfold. The study also found that the definition of "evangelical" Christians is rather unclear. Often they were mistaken for political activists; their specific theological views were not noticed.

The evangelical left

In addition to the Christian right, there is also what is known as the evangelical left in the United States. It is less organized and has been less politically influential in the past. Increasingly, however, left evangelicals in the United States have been gaining influence in recent years. On the one hand, it is because the old guard of well-known right-wing conservative preachers is getting old or is dying. On the other hand, this is due to the fact that the younger generation of up-and-coming theology students are socially more open and tolerant . This new generation of evangelical theology students is more left-wing.

As part of the Christian Left , left evangelicals occupy a special position: Christians who, unlike liberal representatives of the Christian Left, because of their basic theological convictions, represent an evangelical rather than a liberal theology , and sometimes have a conservative attitude towards issues such as social policy , peace policy , people - and civil rights clearly take left positions and are very active in advocating these positions.

The Evangelical Environmentalism ( "Evangelical environmentalism") is an environmental movement in the United States that the biblical mandate for tilling and preservation of creation emphasize. Although the movement aims at several aspects of environmental protection, it became known for climate protection due to its theological perspective. The Evangelical Climate Initiative argues that man-made climate change will have serious consequences and will hit the poor hardest. That is why it calls for slowing down climate change and supporting the poor in adapting to changing climatic conditions.

One of the most prominent left evangelicals is Jim Wallis , founder and leader of a Christian community called Sojourners , preacher and author. The title of his last book clearly shows the view of the left evangelicals that Christian politics does not work with the traditional division into "right" and "left": "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It" . The fact that left evangelicals, despite differences with other representatives of the Christian Left, are mostly counted among them and that Jim Wallis is even a figurehead of the religious left for some, may be due to the fact that their commitment to poverty and issues such as peace and justice is in the foreground of their activities they are not infrequently heavily criticized by the religious right.

New Evangelicalism

Many professing Christians have reoriented themselves out of disappointment about the republican party taking over the evangelicals and the one-sided focus on topics such as homosexuality and the hateful tone of many leaders of the Religious Right . Marcia Pally assumes, based on her research and surveys before 2010, that about a third of the Evangelicals in their sympathy belong to the Republicans, the Democrats and the Independents. Many Christians who voted Republicans because they were against abortion are now voting for Democrats because they want to fight the poverty that fosters abortion rates. According to Pally, the New Evangelicals want to show solidarity with the immigrants and want to work for a legal residence option for them. They also don't ask them to assimilate. The Christian way goes over the Golgotha Hill and not over the Capitol Hill, which is perceived as corrupt . The dominionist way is rejected by the New Evangelicals, the way as a Christian minority in pluralistic democracy is asked. Solidarity with society and the poor is a logical consequence of the conviction that evangelicals strongly believe that church and state are separated as a result of the Golgotha ​​logic. Therefore, many New Evangelicals think that it is not consistent to stand up for school prayer and creationism lessons in schools . Evangelicalism is guilty of nationalist and political idolatry, Pally quoted a Minnesota Reverend as saying. In his view, Christians do not need to participate in acts of violence by the government. In addition, he is against election recommendations from the pulpit. Even Bill Hybels spoke out against the Iraq invasion from of 2003. Part of the heterogeneous movement of the New Evangelicals has an affinity with the so-called emerging churches . Pally identifies several intermediate and transitional forms between the religious right and the evangelical left. The evangelical writer and preacher Jim Wallis turns for example. B. against the tax cuts for the rich, as they are called for by many evangelicals.

Emerging Markets and Third World

According to C. René Padílla and Lindy Scott, evangelicals in emerging countries and in the Third World tend to position themselves “left” on political and social issues (they stand for social justice, poverty reduction, etc.); They remain decidedly conservative on socio-political issues such as marriage laws or homosexuality. However, influential evangelical politicians predominantly, but not exclusively, represent right-wing religious to fundamentalist positions. Although these do not represent the evangelical mainstream, the religious right is gaining increasing influence in the southern hemisphere.

The religious right follows a largely closed ideology, which includes skepticism towards homosexuality , the prohibition of abortions, free possession of weapons, complete social cuts and the privatization of the education and health system as well as capitalism as a system favored by God .

Representatives of the evangelical left, on the other hand, are mainly involved in existing parties.

To mobilize supporters, e.g. B. in Brazil or the Philippines, the so-called " spiritual warfare " is increasingly resorted to, a conspiracy theory drafted by the neo-charismatic theorist Charles Peter Wagner , according to which certain places are possessed by "demons" and these through prayers or Jesus marches would have to be driven out. Places with a historical or political background are often chosen as “demonic”, but these are often those that the organizers do not like, including places of worship of other religions, abortion clinics and meeting places for homosexuals, but there is no uniform definition. Despite the militaristic rhetoric, these were purely spiritual marches, not violent excesses. "Spiritual warfare" primarily serves to mobilize one's own supporters and is rejected by most non-evangelical and many evangelical Christians.

Latin America

The rise of the evangelicals has led to a political destabilization of some countries in the southern hemisphere. In many regions of Latin America, evangelicals have flourished economic activities and their influence in parliaments is increasing.

Conservative missionaries , who were predominantly from the Charismatic Movement based in the United States' Deep South , were specifically promoted by the United States from the 1970s, especially during Republican governments and by the CIA , in order to influence the influence of left Catholics - liberation theology was popular under many socialist, partly Soviet- backed parties and guerrillas - and moderate, American-skeptical Christian Democrats . US President Richard Nixon endorsed support for the Protestant mission after a 1969 memorandum received by then Vice President Nelson Rockefeller summarized: "The Catholic Church is no longer an ally the US can trust." This was stated in the book World Order and Religion by the US sociologist of religion Wade Clark Roof confirmed. The Guatemalan Archbishop Próspero Penados also blamed the US for promoting evangelicalism in Guatemala, suspecting political rather than religious reasons: “The spread of Protestantism in Guatemala is more part of an economic and political strategy against the Catholic doctrine of social justice . "

The growth of evangelicals is also attributed by observers to the fact that the Catholic Church did not recognize the importance of the social change of the 1960s, which led to the impoverishment of large groups, and disqualified and massively fought the liberation theology that responded to it. The Catholic Church has limited itself to maintaining people's hope without changing their real situation.

The massive migration flows from the countryside to the slum belts of the big cities of Central America favored the growth of the evangelicals in this situation. In Guatemala , the great earthquake of February 1976 offered a ticket for evangelical churches from the USA that came into the country with relief supplies. The same applies to other countries in the region and in particular to Haiti, where the evangelical church buildings were first rebuilt after the 2010 earthquake .

The first evangelical president of a Latin American state was the Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt , who came to power in 1982 through a US- backed military coup. During his tenure there were bloody war crimes such as the massacres and rape of the Ixil , for which he was sentenced to 80 years in prison on May 10, 2013 for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Corruption and nepotism also formed the guideline for the term in office of right-wing populist Jimmy Morales , who has been shown to have money laundering and links to the drug milieu. Morales is also accused of having set up a child abuse ring in the presidential palace.

In times of political and economic crisis in Brazil since 2017, evangelical churches, pastors and related parties are trying to shape politics. Some groups, such as the right-wing extremist Patriota party, which is part of the Bolsonaro government, are even calling for the previous, secular and democratic constitution to be abolished and for a theocracy to be introduced instead . As a result, many Brazilians feel that the constitutional separation of church and state is in danger. The Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) may have to address the question of whether the churches should be prohibited from using their attraction to believers and their economic resources for electoral purposes. The evangelical churches financed Jair Bolsonaro's election campaign, combating the Afro-Brazilian cults and traditions that the Catholic Church has long tolerated, and hindering the law-based consideration of Afro-Brazilian and indigenous topics in schools.

Different evangelical churches maintain different political parties as representatives of interests in parliament. The right-wing conservative Partido Social Cristão , headed by Pastor Everaldo Pereira , is considered the political arm of the Assembleias de Deus . However, avowed Catholics such as the governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Wilson Witzel , are also active in this party . Evangelical right politicians in Brazil are regularly involved in scandals and violations of the law. Pastor Marco Feliciano described Africans as being victims of a curse from Noah's time. which earned him the accusation of racism . He and Everaldo Pereira have also been involved in sexual harassment and bribery.

The fundamentalist Partido Republicano Brasileiro is one of the most important evangelical parties . This is de facto under the control of the sect guru Edir Macedo , a former lottery employee and self-proclaimed miracle healer and founder of the neo-Pentecostal Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD). This party strives for a “re-Christianization of Brazil in the sense of a rigid and apocalyptically determined ethic”. Another well-known face of the party is the economically and socio-politically conservative creationist Marcelo Crivella , released bishop of the IURD, at the same time co-founder of the Brazilian Republican Party, former senator for the state of Rio de Janeiro and fisheries minister and, since the beginning of 2017, mayor of the city of Rio de Janeiro . However, this is controversial in Rio, as it describes the city's traditional carnival as "pagan" and regularly stays away from it. Crivella was marked by extreme religious intolerance during his time as a missionary, for example in his book Evangelizing Africa he described Catholics as demonic and claimed that traditional African religions revere "evil spirits" and that Hindus drink child blood. According to his own statement, he now distances himself from these statements .

In Brazil, the “hijacking” of existing political parties by evangelical rights has meanwhile achieved a certain tradition. The originally rather progressive Partido Social Liberal was transformed into a right-wing extremist party with evangelical characteristics through the entry of Jair Bolsonaro . Other parties that were captured by the evangelical right are the formerly environmentally oriented Partido Nacional Ecológico (today Patriota ), as well as Podemos , which changed its left-wing populist orientation in favor of an economically liberal and a moderate religious agenda with the entry of Pastor Marco Feliciano .

Well-known evangelical leftists in Brazil include the Afro-Brazilian human rights activist and former governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Benedita da Silva from the Partido dos Trabalhadores , which campaigns for the rights of women and disadvantaged population groups, and the green politician Marina Silva von Rede , who narrowly missed the runoff in the 2014 election in Brazil. Both are professed Pentecostals. State secularism also appears to be in danger in other Latin American countries. In the 2016 vote on the peace agreement in Colombia, the government failed to dispel concerns of evangelical groups about some aspects of the agreement, which resulted in a fall.

Africa

In the Congo , the rise of the Pentecostal movement has led to exorcisms and atrocities against children, the so-called witch children . Such expulsions of devils have been rather uncommon in Christian Africa.

In southern Africa there are smaller parties with an evangelical-theocratic orientation, the Christian Democratic Party in South Africa and the Christian Democratic Voice Party in Namibia , which, however, despite a flourishing evangelicalism, especially in the townships of Africa, are largely politically insignificant and especially from the members small, fundamentalist sects.

The importance of the mostly Pentecostal Evangelical African churches in politics is also increasing in Kenya . Prosperity and political influence are seen there as a positive distinction from God.

Islamic countries

In numerous Islamic countries, missionary activity on the part of non-Muslims was prohibited by law, as “too many” Muslims turned to the Christian faith, also because of evangelical missionaries. In certain countries, evangelical denominations are denied legal recognition, which is associated with discrimination against members of these churches (see e.g. Eritrea ).

Asia

In South Korea there is a large evangelical congregation with some fundamentalist features. Since the presidency of Lee Myung-bak, this scene has come more into the spotlight. Professor Son Bong-ho of Goshin University criticized President Lee for participating in a national prayer march in March 2011 and feared the danger of increasing evangelical influence on previously secular Korean politics. However, increasing hostility by radical Protestant Christians towards Buddhism and the traditional religion of Korea has resulted in severe public criticism and a backlash against Protestant churches. Author Chan-sik Hong therefore sees the evangelical scene in Korea in decline. On the other hand, the government has made a proposal to limit the activities of Korean missionaries in the Middle East.

In the People's Republic of China , evangelical denominations are often denied recognition.

Personalities

German language area

English speaking area

Other language areas

Television documentaries

  • Friends of God: A Road Trip With Alexandra Pelosi : TV documentary about Evangelicals in the USA - Friends of God in the English language Wikipedia
  • About gods and designers : a film with a focus on creationism by Frank Papenbroock and Peter Moers , produced by arte .
  • With the Bible to the Abitur : Film by Peter Moers and Frank Papenbroock, produced by WDR
  • Jesus Camp : Documentary about evangelical children in the USA, on Netflix

See also

literature

History of the Evangelical Movement

  • Gisa Bauer : Evangelical Movement and Evangelical Church in the Federal Republic of Germany. History of a fundamental conflict (1945 to 1989). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-525-55770-9 (= work on contemporary church history , volume 53, also habilitation thesis at the theological faculty of the University of Leipzig 2011).
  • David Bebbington: Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s. Unwin Hyman (London), 1989.
  • Josef Braml , Karsten D. Voigt : America, God and the world. George W. Bush's foreign policy on a Christian right-wing basis. Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-88221-854-1 .
  • Werner Beyer (ed.): Unity in diversity. From 150 years of the Evangelical Alliance. Brockhaus, Wuppertal / Zurich 1995, ISBN 3-417-24135-9 (about the beginnings of the Evangelical Alliance in Germany in the 19th century and today's initiatives).
  • Jörg Breitschwerdt: Theologically conservative. Studies on the genesis and concerns of the evangelical movement in Germany. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2019 (Work on the History of Pietism, Volume 62), ISBN 978-3-525-57076-0 .
  • Frederik Elwert, Martin Radermacher, Jens Schlamelcher (eds.): Handbook Evangelicalism. Transcript Verlag , Bielefeld 2017, ISBN 978-3-8376-3201-9 .
  • Paul Freston: Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Cambridge UP 2004.
  • Harold Fuller: People of the Mandate. The story of the World Evangelical Fellowship. Paternoster, Carlisle / Baker, Grand Rapids 1996, ISBN 1-900890-00-3 .
  • Michael Hausin: State, constitution and politics from the perspective of the evangelical movement within German Protestantism. Grin, Munich 2000, 2010, ISBN 978-3-640-70960-1 (also dissertation at the University of Rostock 1999).
  • Hansjörg Hemminger : Evangelical: of children of God and righteous. Brunnen Verlag, Giessen 2016, ISBN 978-3-7655-2049-5 .
  • Michael Hochgeschwender : American Religion: Evangelicalism, Pentecostalism, Fundamentalism. Verlag der Welteligionen im Inselverlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-458-71005-9 .
  • Stephan Holthaus : Fundamentalism in Germany: The struggle for the Bible in Protestantism of the 19th and 20th centuries. 2nd Edition. Verlag für Kultur und Wissenschaft, Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-932829-85-9 .
  • Friedhelm Jung: The German Evangelical Movement. Baselines of their history and theology. 3rd, expanded edition. Verlag für Kultur und Wissenschaft, Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-932829-21-2 (also dissertation at the University of Marburg 1991).
  • Jens Koehrsen: Middle Class Pentecostalism in Argentina: Inappropriate Spirits. Brill, Boston, ISBN 978-90-04-31014-8 .
  • Fritz Laubach : Departure of the Evangelicals. Brockhaus, Wuppertal 1972, ISBN 3-417-00401-2 .
  • Hartmut Lehmann, Ruth Albrecht (Hrsg.): Faith and worlds of life . Volume 4 of: History of Pietism, ed. by Martin Brecht. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, pp. 49–82.
  • Martin Sallmann , Ulrich Gäbler (ed.): The Pietism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-55348-X (= Marin Brecht (Hrsg.): History of Pietism. Volume 3, complete edition of the 4 volumes: ISBN 3-525-55351-X ).
  • Reinhard Scheerer: Confessing Christians in the Protestant Churches in Germany 1966–1991. History and shape of a conservative evangelical awakening. Haag and Herchen, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-86137-560-5 .
  • Derek J. Tidball: Keyword Evangelical. Development of a piety movement. Ed. Anker, Stuttgart 1999 (English: 1994) ISBN 3-7675-7058-0 (An evangelical theologian from England describes the history and teaching of the movement in detail and not uncritically).

Books by evangelical theologians

  • Frank Hinkelmann : Evangelical: in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Origin, meaning and reception of a term , Verlag für Kultur und Wissenschaft, Bonn 2017, ISBN 978-3-86269-141-8 .
  • Jürgen Mette : The Evangelicals: neither unique nor well-behaved. A biographical-theological interior view , Gerth Medien, Aßlar 2019, ISBN 978-3-95734-548-6 .
  • John Stott : Being Christian in the focal points of our time (a leading theologian in the European evangelical movement takes a position on contemporary issues).
  • William Sanford LaSor, David Allan Hubbard, Frederic William Bush: The Old Testament. Origin - history - message. Brunnen, Basel / Gießen 1992 (English 1982), ISBN 3-7655-9344-3 (Evangelical standard work on the Old Testament).
  • Craig L. Blomberg : The parables of Jesus, their interpretation in theory and practice (Evangelical American New Testament scholar on parable research).
  • Eckhard J. Schnabel : Are Evangelical Fundamentalists? R. Brockhaus, Wuppertal / Zurich 1995, ISBN 3-417-29067-8 . Evangelical theologian on the one hand emphasizes the need for a foundation of faith, but also warns against loveless narrow-mindedness.
  • Yearbook for Evangelical Theology 1 ff. (1987 ff.); SCM R. Brockhaus, Wuppertal.
  • European Journal of Theology 1 ff. (1992 ff.); Paternoster, Carlisle.
  • Stephan Holthaus : The Evangelicals. Facts and Perspectives. Johannis-Kompakt, 2007, ISBN 978-3-501-05254-9 .
  • Colin Hansen / Andrew David Naselli (eds.): Four views on the spectrum of Evangelicalism (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology). Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 2011, ISBN 978-0-310-29316-3 .
  • Randall Balmer: Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism. Baylor University Press, Waco, Texas 2004, ISBN 1-932792-04-X .

Post Evangelicalism

  • Dave Tomlinson: The Post-Evangelical. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London 2002, ISBN 0-281-04814-2 .
  • Stanley J. Grenz: Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era. Baker Academic, 2000, ISBN 0-8010-2239-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Erich Geldbach : Evangelical Movement. In: Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1986, Vol. 1, Sp. 1186.
  2. a b Statement by the former EKD Council Chairman Bishop Huber quoted by the Bremen Bureau for Cultural and Religious History, online , accessed on September 27, 2011.
  3. ^ Hans Hauzenberger : Unity on an evangelical basis. About the becoming and essence of the Evangelical Alliance. Giessen 1986, p. XIV.
  4. ^ A b Klaus Kienzler: The religious fundamentalism: Christianity, Judaism, Islam. 4th edition, CH Beck, 2007, p. 39.
  5. ^ Fritz Laubach: Awakening of the Evangelicals. Witten 1972, ISBN 3-417-00401-2 , p. 13 f.
  6. See: Erich Beyreuther: Der Weg der Evangelischen Allianz in Deutschland , Wuppertal 1969, p. 10 ff.
  7. ^ Denton Lotz : The Evangelization of the World in this Generation. The Resurgence of a Missionary Idea among the Conservative Evangelicals. Hamburg 1970, p. 66 ff.
  8. Christian Herrmann: Truth and Experience: Thematic Book on Systematic Theology. Volume 1. R. Brockhaus, 2004, ISBN 3-417-29484-3 , p. 210 f. ( GoogleBooks )
  9. Friedhelm Jung: 1.1 The term Evangelical
  10. Network Bible and Confession. Retrieved November 30, 2018 .
  11. ^ Carol Harris-Shapiro: Messianic Judaism: A Rabbi's Journey Through Religious Change in America . Beacon Press , Boston, Massachusetts 1999, ISBN 0-8070-1040-5 , Studying the Messianic Jews, pp. G. 3 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search): “And while many evangelical Churches are openly supportive of Messianic Judaism, they treat it as an ethnic church squarely within evangelical Christianity, rather than as a separate entity.”
  12. ^ Conference report: Pietism - Neupietism - Evangelicalism. Report of the 4th symposium of the Neupietism Research Center, March 2015. In: afet.de, accessed on January 1, 2020.
  13. ^ Schäfer: Kirchentagdebatte: Werth on fundamentalism and guilt in dealing with homosexuals. (No longer available online.) Christian Media Association KEP , June 5, 2011, archived from the original on April 28, 2015 ; accessed on January 1, 2020 .
  14. ^ John Stackhouse: Evangelical Theology Should Be Evangelical. In: John Stackhouse: Evangelical Futures. A Conversation on Theological Method. IVP / Baker, Grand Rapids 2000, p. 429.
  15. Joel Edwards : Irresistible. Church that embodies Jesus. Neufeld Verlag, Schwarzenfeld 2010, p. 69 ff.
  16. Evangelicalism on the website of the Information Center Churches - Sects - Religions of the Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zurich, accessed on September 6, 2011.
  17. Klaus Kienzler, s. v. Fundamentalism II.2. Christianity. In: Religion in past and present , 4th edition. (Study edition) UTB, Vol. 3, p. 415.
  18. James Barr: Fundamentalism. In: Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1986, Vol. 1, Sp. 1404.
  19. Klaus Kienzler, sv Fundamentalism II.2. Christianity. In: Religion in past and present , 4th edition. (Study edition) UTB, Vol. 3, p. 415.
  20. ^ Oda Lamprecht, Christian Baars: Mission Gottesreich. Fundamentalist Christians in Germany. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2009, p. 15 f.
  21. a b Christian media association KEP : Kirchentagdebatte: Werth on fundamentalism and guilt in dealing with homosexuals ( Memento from April 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: die-Evangeluellen.de from June 14, 2011.
  22. Reinhard Hempelmann: Evangelicalism is not fundamentalism. Evangelical Central Office for Weltanschauungsfragen (EZW) , accessed on August 24, 2010.
  23. Marcia Pally: The New Evangelicals in the USA. Gains of freedom through religious politics. Berlin University Press, Berlin 2010.
  24. Donald G. Bloesch: The future of evangelical Christianity , 1983, quoted in Hansen: Four Views on the spectrum of Evangelicalism : “Evangelicalism unashamedly stands for the fundamentals of the historic [Christian] faith, but as a movement it transcends and corrects the defensive, sectarian mentality commonly associated with fundamentalism. Though many, perhaps most, fundamentalists are evangelicals, evangelical Christianity is wider and deeper than Fundamentalism, which is basically a movement of reaction in the churches in this period of history. Evangelicalism in the classical sense fulfills the basic goals and aspirations of Fundamentalism but rejects the ways in which these goals are realized. "
  25. ^ Collins / Naselli: Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism. Chapter Fundamentalism .
  26. Evangelical Christians in Austria Status of Global Christianity, 2015 ( Memento from June 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 0.8 MB), accessed on June 18, 2015.
  27. ^ Hugh McLeod, Werner Ustorf (ed.): The Decline of Christendom in Western Europe 1750-2000. Cambridge 2003, p. 219.
  28. ^ So Martin Greschat: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte. Attempt at orientation. ThLZ.F 16, Leipzig 2005, p. 45.
  29. a b c d e Patrick Johnstone: Prayer for the world. Hänssler, 2003; in the respective articles Asia, Africa, Latin America and USA.
  30. Arte: Set of cards as of May 2007 Evangelicalism - A religious movement on the advance ( Memento from July 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  31. ^ Marcia Pally: The New Evangelicals. Berlin University Press, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-940432-93-3 , p. 71.
  32. ^ Barna Group: Evangelical Christians ( Memento from January 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  33. ^ Encyclopedia of Religion and Society
  34. arte.tv ( Memento from July 30, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  35. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life: US Religious Landscape Survey (PDF; 2.6 MB) June 2008.
  36. ^ A b Andre Prokop: 23 maps that explain how Democrats went from the party of racism to the party of Obama . Vox, December 8, 2014 , especially cards 16 and 17.
  37. LifeSiteNews.com , December 23, 2011th
  38. ^ Marcia Pally: The New Evangelicals. America's most reactionary Christians are turning left and discovering Christianity for themselves. Retrieved February 11, 2015 .
  39. ^ In two documents on the website of the German Evangelical Alliance e. V. read: “The German Evangelical Alliance is part of a worldwide movement of 380 million evangelical Christians in 124 national and 7 regional / continental evangelical alliances. [It] represents an estimated 1,300,000 Christians from many churches and free churches in Germany. ”As well as:“ Allianz represents around 1.3 million Evangelicals in regional and free churches. ”
    Matthias Oppermann: 30th Evangelical Church Congress - Revival and rebirth . In: Die Zeit , No. 22/2005, p. 10.
  40. ^ Nestvogel, in: Malachi Circle (Ed.): Dangerous Silence! 3. Edition. CLV Verlag, 2013, p. 95 f.
  41. Christian Pfeiffer and Christian Baier: Christian religiosity and parental authority. A comparison of the family socialization of Catholics, Protestants and members of the evangelical free churches. online , accessed August 18, 2017.
  42. Ulrike Heidenreich: Raising children: Beatings in the name of the father. In: sueddeutsche.de , August 12, 2017, accessed on August 18, 2017.
  43. Free churches criticize violence study . In: Medienmagazin pro , April 24, 2013, accessed on August 18, 2017.
  44. Katharina Micada: Study draws one-sided conclusions . In: Humanistic Press Service of April 29, 2013, accessed on August 19, 2017
  45. Wolfgang Huber: Evangelicals in Germany are not fundamentalists. ( Memento of January 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: ideaSpektrum , issue of May 2, 2008 (offline).
  46. Klöcker / Tworuschka: Handbuch der Religionen , II – 2.2.3.2
  47. ^ Evangelical Church in Württemberg: Results of the election to the 15th regional synod ( Memento from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  48. ^ Georg Schmid: Churches - Sects - Religions .
  49. ^ Statistics Austria Religions 2001 ( Memento from January 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). In: statistik.at, accessed on November 21, 2019.
  50. ^ History of the BEG; accessed on October 10, 2016
  51. Federal Law Gazette II No. 250/2013 (PDF; 138 kB)
  52. adherents.com: Major Branches of Christianity
  53. Andreas Behn: No more “candidates of the church”! , evangelisch.de, April 2017.
  54. ^ Gaining power for Brazil's Evangelicals , Deutsche Welle , September 26, 2018.
  55. Katja Dorothea Buck: Catching Voices in the Name of the Lord , in: welt-sichten.de, July 7, 2018.
  56. Arte: Evangelicalism - A Religious Current on the Rise ( Memento from July 26th, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  57. Jens Köhrsen: 2.2.3 Evangelicalism in Latin America . In: Handbook Evangelicalism . tape 5 . transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2017, ISBN 978-3-8394-3201-3 , doi : 10.14361 / 9783839432013-008 ( degruyter.com [accessed on December 30, 2018]).
  58. providence.edu ( Memento from January 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  59. Aznárez 2018.
  60. ^ Peter L. Berger: Faith and Development . In: Society . tape 46 , no. 1 , January 1, 2009, ISSN  1936-4725 , p. 69-75 , doi : 10.1007 / s12115-008-9166-5 ( springer.com [accessed December 30, 2018]).
  61. Koehrsen, Jens: Middle Class Pentecostalism in Argentina: Inappropriate Spirits . Brill, Boston 2016, ISBN 978-90-04-31014-8 ( brill.com [accessed December 30, 2018]).
  62. ^ Heinrich Schäfer: Identity as a network . In: Berlin Journal for Sociology . tape 15 , no. 2 , June 1, 2005, ISSN  1862-2593 , p. 259–282 , doi : 10.1007 / s11609-006-0121-2 ( springer.com [accessed December 30, 2018]).
  63. Jens Koehrsen: When Sects Become Middle Class: impression management among middle-class Pentecostals in Argentina . In: Sociology of Religion . tape 78 , no. 3 , September 1, 2017, ISSN  1069-4404 , p. 318–339 , doi : 10.1093 / socrel / srx030 ( oup.com [accessed December 30, 2018]).
  64. ^ Atlas of Civil Society - Central America
  65. Rolf Hille in: Evangelical Theology - Mitteilungen , Edition 19/2 (2013), p. 4 ff.
  66. Belief base of the Evangelical Alliance of 1846
  67. Jung: The German Evangelical Movement. P. 75–80
    Working Group for Evangelical Theology: History of the Working Group ( Memento from January 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  68. Erich Geldbach: Evangelical Movement. In: Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1986, Vol. 1, Sp. 1189.
  69. ^ Vatican Radio : Vatican: Consultation on Conversion ( Memento of October 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) August 6, 2007.
  70. John Stott: Evangelical Basics ( Memento July 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  71. Overview of the Christian fundamentalists: Stephan Holthaus : Fundamentalismus in Deutschland , VKW, 2003.
  72. See the mission statement of the FTA ( Memento from February 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  73. Martin Luther: Preface to the German Mass 1526.
  74. ^ Johannes Wallmann: Church history in Germany since the Reformation. 4th edition. 1993, pp. 136-139.
  75. ^ A b Johannes Wallmann: Church history in Germany since the Reformation. 4th edition. 1993, pp. 144-147.
  76. According to ( JohEU )
  77. The first text-critical edition of the New Testament goes back to Bengel (1734).
  78. Here he learned z. B. Support from the Francke student Henry Melchior Mühlenberg , who churchly collected the emigrated Germans.
  79. See e.g. B. Gottfried Arnold's “Impartial Church and Heretic History”, which - on the basis of years of study of sources - detaches from any denominational partisanship, cf. Johannes Wallmann: Church history in Germany since the Reformation. 4th edition. 1993, p. 141 f.
  80. ^ A b c d e Johannes Wallmann: Church history in Germany since the Reformation. 4th edition. 1993, pp. 197-200.
  81. Friedrich Schleiermacher: About religion. Speeches to the educated among their despisers. S. (...); Johannes Wallmann: Church history in Germany since the Reformation. 4th edition. 1993, pp. 185-188.
  82. See Friedrich Wintzer: Claus Harms. Sermon and theology. Flensburg 1965, p. 21 f.
  83. Claus Harms: biography, written by himself , Kiel 1851, p. 69.
  84. ^ A b Johannes Wallmann: Church history in Germany since the Reformation. 4th edition. 1993, pp. 200-203.
  85. Friedhelm Jung: The German Evangelical Movement, chap. 1.2.1, 1.3.1. and 2.1 ; identical Friedhelm Jung, The German Evangelical Movement, ³2001, pp. 27 f., 40 ff., 51–55.
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  95. On this section: Friedhelm Jung: The German Evangelical Movement , Bonn ³2001, pp. 94–122.
  96. Cf. the bibliographies by Thomas Pola , Hans-Joachim Eckstein , Thomas Schirrmacher , Stephan Holthaus , Helge Stadelmann , Rolf Hille , Johann Michael Hahn and others. v. a.
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  98. Supporters were the regional church pastor Reiner-Friedemann Edel (like Bittlinger himself), the Baptists Wilhard Becker and Siegfried Großmann and the Catholic Eugen Mederlet (OFM) - signs that the charismatic movement, like the awakening movement at the time, overcame denominational boundaries (Friedhelm Jung: The German evangelical movement. Bonn 2001, p. 158 f.)
  99. A setback occurred in 1988 when the incumbent chairman Wolfram Kopfermann, pastor of the St. Petri Church in Hamburg, resigned from the regional church and the “Freie Ev.-luth. Anskar Church ”.
  100. Cf. Friedhelm Jung: The German Evangelical Movement, Bonn ³2001, p. 158 f.
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