{"id":3006,"date":"2016-11-21T17:45:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T17:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/2016\/11\/21\/are-evangelical-pastors-discarding-evangelical-label\/"},"modified":"2016-11-21T17:45:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T03:11:28","slug":"are-evangelical-pastors-discarding-evangelical-label","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/are-evangelical-pastors-discarding-evangelical-label\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Pastors Discarding the \u2018Evangelical\u2019 Label? We Surveyed Hundreds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three days after the election of Donald Trump, Skye Jethani tweeted “#FarewellEvangelicalism” and published an open letter<\/a> explaining his dissatisfaction with the term. The author and pastor predicts the label will soon fall out of use: “When our successors write a history of these times, I suspect the modern American evangelical movement will rest neatly within the lifespan of Billy Graham.” Other Christian leaders—including Russell Moore<\/a>, Shane Claiborne<\/a>, Katelyn Beaty<\/a>, John Fea<\/a>, and Preston Yancey<\/a>—have expressed similar frustration with the term or abandoned it during the 2016 election season.<\/p>\n\n

Others have held fast to the evangelical<\/em> label, despite reservations. Mark Labberton and Richard Mouw released a statement<\/a> defining Fuller Seminary’s association with the term. They write,<\/p>\n\n

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Because of its non-negotiable commitment to the evangel, God’s good news, Fuller Seminary will continue to identify itself as evangelical. We must understand evangelical … as our commitment and aspiration: our deep desire that the daunting and urgent hope of Jesus Christ will transform us so our speech truly proclaims and our life faithfully enacts God’s good news of love, justice, and mercy.<\/p>\n

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Still others believe there is more reason than ever to hold evangelical<\/em> in high esteem. In a newsletter, Gary Bauer—politician and activist of the Religious Right—declared the election a “Victory for Values Voters”:<\/p>\n\n

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Donald Trump owes his victory in large part to historic participation by evangelicals. … Many people expected evangelicals would forget about the issues and vote only on the character flaws of the two candidates, if they voted at all. But that is not what happened. … The Reagan Coalition—working class Americans, conservative Catholics and evangelical Christians—once again proved what a powerful force it can be.<\/p>\n

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So which is it? Has this year’s election caused a tidal wave of evangelical leaders to opt out of the term, or is this one more conversation resulting in little change to widespread usage of the E-word?<\/p>\n\n

To find out, we surveyed CTPastors.com readers (38% Senior\/Solo pastors, 17% other pastors, 25% lay leaders, 20% business admin\/other) regarding their comfort with the term. We limited our sample population to those who agreed or strongly agreed with LifeWay Research \/ NAE’s definition<\/a> of evangelical<\/em> (resulting in a sample size of 440). Then we asked these respondents four questions:<\/p>\n\n