Evangelicals feel they're misunderstood (AP)

[wildflower]

This is a good article concerning a recent series of conferences of evangelicals.

It discusses the divisions within the evangelical community; I particularly noted the distinction between 'evangelical' and 'fundamentalist' (see the last snip here). I recommend reading the whole piece; as always, it's so hard to snip. http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/02/12/f4.rel.evan.0212.html

Evangelicals feel they're misunderstood

By Rachel Zoll
The Associated Press

(snip)

Timothy Tennent, professor of world missions at Gordon-Conwell, said evangelicals have no desire to impose Christianity on unwilling Americans. He insisted that conservative Christians can be respectful of other religions - without abandoning their own core teaching that all faiths are not equal.

(snip)

While people outside the evangelical movement often view it as monolithic, major divisions exist, including disagreement over which policy issues should be paramount. Some speakers said evangelicals too closely align themselves with Republicans and focus too much on abortion and gay marriage, instead of on broad social concerns.

(snip)

David Wells, professor of historical and systematic theology at the seminary, said some of the trouble stems from a tendency to equate evangelicals with fundamentalists. Fundamentalists are cultural separatists, withdrawing from people who hold different beliefs and adopting ``a set of cultural attitudes that evangelicals have abandoned,'' he said. Evangelicals seek to involve themselves in society, engaging members of other religions and influencing the broader culture.

``Race, poverty and the environment are, or should be part of, our biblically based ethic,'' Davis said.

more...

Read the entire article at http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/02/12/f4.rel.evan.0212.html