(Photo Credit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct4pjg)

“What’s in a name?” asked Shakespeare’s lovelorn Juliet.

Wouldn’t her beloved Romeo still be a pretty cool guy, even if his name was Bob, Octavius, or even Orange Marmalade? After all, she reasoned, a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.

But names and labels get more complicated when it comes to religious, social, and theological movements, especially when the name of the movement—as in the case of evangelicalism—has a very important word embedded in it: evangel, the Greek word for the gospel.

The gospel is central to what evangelicals have historically believed. Narrated in the pages of the Holy Scriptures, the gospel is the joyful announcement that Jesus, by his death and resurrection, can give people his Spirit, restore them to a right relationship with God, and energize their efforts to live out his life and to spread this good news to more people.

Michael Reeves, in his recently published book Gospel People: A Call for Evangelical Integrity, insists that “there is a biblical case to be made for the importance and the goodness of being evangelical” (13). At the same time, he offers this important caveat:

I do not mean to defend everything that calls itself evangelical. Far from it. Looking around at the phenomenon of evangelicalism today, it seems a mile wide and an inch deep. . . And then there is the problem of how being ‘evangelical’ has become associated with particular cultures, with politics, or with race.

It is my love for the gospel, as well as for the rich history of evangelicalism, that makes me appalled by the fusion of race and politics with the term “evangelical.” What happens to the word “evangelical” when so-called evangelicals embrace a political identity over theological and ethical commitments—and when that identity comes with overtly un-Christlike actions? 

Just today I got another reminder of this difficulty. The New York Times ran an article by Ruth Graham with the title, “Piety and Profanity: The Raunchy Christians Are Here.”

“In the Trump era,” Graham writes, “a surprising number of evangelicals are rejecting modesty and turning toward the risqué.” It goes on to describes the growing confluence of evangelicals, conservative politics, and coarse sexual language.

One plausible explanation for the ascendency of the sexually vulgar is that conservative Christians fear that the world has become “dangerously unbalanced.” They are outraged by the “rising rates of nontraditional gender and sexual identities.” In such a maelstrom, perhaps, “an indulgence in heterosexual lust, even if in poor taste, is becoming seen as not just benign, but maybe even healthy and noble.”

How bizarre it is to think that we can correct one sexual aberration by celebrating another sexual aberration. How un-evangelical, in the true sense of that word!

So, in our current climate, what must the label “evangelical” do to be saved? Quite possibly, it is losing its usefulness as a word to describe people who cherish the Bible, prioritize on the gospel, embrace the new birth, and work for spiritual renewal and social good—as evangelicals historically have done.

If so, this I know: the evangel itself—the joyful announcement about Jesus—will never outlive its usefulness. It is the power of God for salvation for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16).

“Names do matter,” Michael Reeves writes in the conclusion of his little book. 

“However, the future for evangelicals does not depend on what we are called. Evangelism will be strong wherever believers stand shoulder to shoulder contending for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. It will thrive where the people of the gospel have integrity to the gospel.”