Evangelical or Protestant?

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There is some cofusion in the minds of many people that think that it is the same thing Evangelical and Protestant.

To clarify things would someone in this forum explain exactly what is the difference between Protestant and Evangelical.

Thanks in advance

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), January 14, 2003

Answers

--@--

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), January 14, 2003.

Evangelicals are a type of Protestant.

The dictionary has these definitions of evangelical:

1. Of, relating to, or in accordance with the Christian gospel, especially one of the four gospel books of the New Testament.

2. Evangelical Of, relating to, or being a Protestant church that founds its teaching on the gospel.

3. Evangelical Of, relating to, or being a Christian church believing in the sole authority and inerrancy of the Bible, in salvation only through regeneration, and in a spiritually transformed personal life.

4. Evangelical 1. Of or relating to the Lutheran churches in Germany and Switzerland. 2. Of or relating to all Protestant churches in Germany.

5. Of or relating to the group in the Church of England that stresses personal conversion and salvation by faith. 6. Characterized by ardent or crusading enthusiasm; zealous: an evangelical liberal.

Definitions 2, 3, and 4 are capitalized, referring to specific groups. When I use the term, I'm using definitions two and three. My own characterization (not-so-charitable) of "Evangelicals" is as "pushy Protestants." Apologies ;-)

In Christ,

Mateo

-- (MattElFeo@netscape.net), January 14, 2003.


Oops. My definition was there, I just missed it!

"evangelical -- 6. Characterized by ardent or crusading enthusiasm; zealous: an evangelical liberal."

Something like that...

Enjoy,

Mateo

-- (MattElFeo@netscape.net), January 14, 2003.


Have you ever heard of an Evangelical Catholic?

Please check out the following website:

http://www.evangelicalcatholic.com/Essays/Primary%20Essays/What%20is% 20an%20Evangelical%20Catholic.htm

I would sincerely love to know other's opinion about this subject. It intrigues me, and it does not seem pushy or liberal to me, but I'd like to hear from others.

Carolyn

p.s. I'm not affiliated with them in any way. Just ran across this website one night while surfing, and bookmarked it.

-- cksunshine (ck_sunshine@hotmail.com), January 14, 2003.


Post #1:

Hi Sunshine,

You write:

"I would sincerely love to know other's opinion about this subject. It intrigues me, and it does not seem pushy or liberal to me, but I'd like to hear from others."

I hope you don't mind if you hear a little more from me. I'm not explaining myself too well today. :-)

The term "evangelical" has a bunch of definitions, so it's no wonder that it's a troublesome term to use. The last definition (evangelical as a synonym for zealous) is probably how I personally use the term.

The dictionary gave an example of an "evangelical liberal," which is probably the exact opposite of an "evangelical Protestant." I suppose sharing my own personal experiences might shed some light on why the term has a negative connotation to me.

In the time I've spent in Latin America, I've run into both evangelical liberals and evangelical Protestants. They have nothing in common except for their dislike for the Catholic Church.

-- (MattElFeo@netscape.net), January 14, 2003.



Post #2:

A typical evangelical liberal comes down from the US to "help" Latin America with it's supposed overpopulation. They come with condoms for children and free sterilization procedures for expectant mothers. They "generously" offer to provide the medical care to deliver the mother's baby; and in exchange, the mother is pressured into being sterilized. She's told that sterilization is reversible; though I doubt that they'd offer that for free. Worse than the money, these women aren't told that it's not easy (nor 100% possible) to reverse the procedure. For evangelical liberals, Catholic morality is the enemy.

A typical evangelical protestant group uses various techniques to pluck the faithful from the Catholic Church. They have Bible studies (I've attended some), meant to establish that the Catholic Church is not Christ's Church. They shun those who hold onto the Catholic faith and tell them that Catholics aren't even Christians. Catholic faith is the enemy.

I don't paint a pretty picture because these are the personal experiences I've had. I've seen a pattern in both Central and South America. Others here may have had similar experiences.

These experiences are negative toward a particular use of the term "evangelical;" but obviously this wouldn't apply to "Evangelical Catholics!" :-)

In Christ,

Mateo

PS--Here's Sunshine's link to Evangelical Catholics.

-- (MattElFeo@netscape.net), January 14, 2003.


Thanks Mateo! Wow, you have some good real life experiences to draw from on this subject. I could not agree at all with such practices! I want to say more, and I will try to do so tomorrow. I'm off to a parent meeting at the school, but I wanted to respond, even if it was brief.

ps Thanks for the help with the link. I'm going to try to figure out how to do that. I've got bold down (I think!)

-- cksunshine (ck_sunshine@hotmail.com), January 15, 2003.


Uhhh... It tears my heart up. My fiancé’s cousin was "plucked" away from the Catholic Church half a year ago, to join an Evangelical "congregation". He was going to be one of the Groom's men.

He comes calling like 2 months ago, and tells us he can no longer go to the wedding. "Why?" we asked. His response was...

We worship statues... We pray to Saints... The usual anti-Catholic garbage.

Rrrr. So, I set up a date for us to meet. It turns out we met twice. Once with just him, me and Erika. The second time it was him and one of his "friends" (actually the guy who scooped him away).

I thought I made progress, I gave him a couple Scott Hahn tapes, I gave him a book explaining some Catholic "myths", and I gave him several Scriptural proofs to help him - but to no avail.

He won't listen to reason. In fact, what I learned is that their "congregation" doesn’t even refer to God as the Trinity, because it makes God "separate". They believe that God the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit are the exact same person. The "snatcher" explained to the effect that Jesus never existed before His birth. And that when Jesus was born, then the Father didn't exist. I asked him what he thought when Jesus prayed to the Father at the garden of Gethsemane. He said Jesus was praying to God inside Himself. Get this: I told him we don’t worship statues, and I explained to him why we have them. He shook his head and said we do! What!? He believes his pastor over someone who actually is Catholic. I mean – he’s telling me, what I believe.

-- Jake Huether (jake_huether@yahoo.com), January 16, 2003.


These guys are confused. And it is so unchristian! They are going to make him miss our wedding because we worship statues, not to mention there’ll be drinking. I talked to some of my non- denominational friends, from fear of them missing our wedding too! I told them about Erika’s cousin, and explained that even Jesus went to weddings. They answered, “Yah, and He even brought the booz!” LOL. At least they will go.

But it sickens me. I want to find out this pastors address and write him a nice long letter.

I mean – if he is ignorant about our faith, okay – at least I can tell him the truth and hopefully he’ll stop lying about us. But if he is purposely spreading lies about our Church, he will have to answer to God for misleading many many children!

In Christ.

-- Jake Huether (jake_huether@yahoo.com), January 16, 2003.


Jake, I'm so sorry to hear that. I am afraid this group that he has fallen into sounds more like a fundamentalist cult than your typical evangelical church! They are unitarians from what you said. May pay to do some research on unitarianism. Typically, unitarians are not even thought of as Christians by evangelical groups. Sounds like he is sucked in deep.

God Bless,

Gail

-- Gail (rothfarms@socket.net), January 16, 2003.



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