RELIGION: 101 PART NINE

Separation of Evangelical, Protestant, and Pentecostal can be a little confusing, so I have included them on the same page.

The word evangelicalism usually refers to a broad collection of religious beliefs, practices, and traditions which are found among conservative Protestant Christians. Evangelicalism is typified by an emphasis on evangelism, a personal experience of conversion, biblically oriented faith and a belief in the relevance of Christian faith to some cultural issues. In the late 20th century and early 21st century, such Protestant Christians, and their churches and social movements, are often called evangelical to distinguish them from Protestants who have a tendency towards more Liberal Christianity.

Statement of Faith

• We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.

• We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

• We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.

• We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.

• We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

• We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

• We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Note that in continental Europe the word Evangelical is often understood to mean simply Protestant, or specifically Lutheran, as a literal translation of the German "Evangelists." In Germany, churches of the Protestant religious tradition known as Lutheran in the USA and other parts of the world are referred to specifically as Evangelists.

Evangelicalism (including Baptists and Pentecostals) — are currently experiencing significant growth in countries such as China (Christian News Service), India and many nations in Europe as well as Africa.

Pentecostals believes the Bible is the only God-given authority which man possesses. All doctrine, faith, hope, and all instructions for the church must be based upon and harmonize with the Bible” The Bible is the Word of God, and therefore inerrant and infallible. They reject all extra biblical revelations and writings, and views church creeds and articles of faith only as the thinking of men.

Salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, not by works. Faith in Jesus is the means by which a person is justified. At the same time, a sinner must believe the gospel; he is commanded to repent of his sinful life, to be baptized in water in the name of Jesus Christ, and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Thus the various aspects of faith and obedience work together in God's grace to reconcile us to God.

Pentecostals teach that the one God who revealed Himself in the Old Testament as Jehovah revealed himself in His Son, Jesus Christ. Thus Jesus Christ was and is God. In other words, Jesus is the one true God manifested in flesh, for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. While fully God, Jesus was also fully man, possessing a full and true humanity. He was both God and man. Moreover, the Holy Spirit is God with us and in us. Thus God is manifested as Father in creation and as the Father of the Son, in the Son for our redemption, and as the Holy Spirit in our regeneration.

They also believe and hold to divine healing, and foot washing. The holiness standard includes disapproval of these activities: theaters, dances, mixed bathing or swimming. Make-up and immodest apparel that exposes the body is not allowed. All worldly sports and amusements such as unwholesome radio programs and music, no television sets are permitted. Public school activities such as dancing classes, coeducational classes, health, sex education, calisthenics, mixed athletics are dismissed as improper. No teachers that promote or advocate sexual activity of any kind outside the marriage of a man and a woman, are allowed.

Any Christian denomination which is not Catholic or Orthodox is commonly called Protestant. The term "Protestant" represents a diverse range of perspectives, denominations, individuals, and related organizations, all typically focused on a worship of Jesus and a deference to the New Testament over the Old.

These distinctions were to some degree inherited to descendant churches, called "denominations," and notable differences remain between liturgical churches, such as the Anglican Communion and Lutheran churches, and other Protestant churches (Pentecostal, Calvinist, etc.). Calvinism strongly influenced Puritanism, which led to the founding of the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregationalist churches and of the Quakers. Pietism, a movement within Lutheranism, begat Anabaptism, the Church of the Brethren, and the Moravian Church, which then influenced the Anglican founders of Methodism.

Two hundred years after the Reformation, in the United States, the "Great Awakenings" brought Restorationism, which rejects some aspects of the Reformation and includes such Protestant groups as the Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons (the last two groups hold significantly divergent views from "mainstream" Protestantism.) The holiness movement bought together elements of Methodism and Quakerism and lead to the twentieth century beginnings of Pentecostalism.

Protestantism currently predominates in many first-world countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Certain forms of Protestantism —in particular, Evangelicalism (including Baptists and Pentecostals) — are currently experiencing significant growth in countries such as China (Christian News Service), India and many nations in Europe as well as Africa.

In a broader sense of the word, Protestant came to be used as the collective name for those contemporary individuals and churches who can trace their theological heritage to a formal separation from the Roman Catholic Church in or around the 15th century.

Earlier "reformers" such as John Wycliff and Jan Huss did not advocate such a separation but rather sought to purge what they saw as impurities within the Catholic Church. Anachronistically, they can be seen as reformers as their work heavily influenced the thinking of those who did formally separate.

As an intellectual movement, Protestantism grew out of the Renaissance and West European universities, attracting some learned intellectuals, as well as politicians, professionals, skilled tradesmen, and artisans. The new technology of the printing press allowed Protestant ideas to spread rapidly, as well as aiding in the dissemination of translations of the Christian Bible in native tongues. Nascent Protestant social ideals of liberty of conscience and individual freedom, were formed through continuous confrontation with the authority of the Papacy, and the hierarchy of the Catholic priesthood. The Protestant movement away from the constraints of tradition, toward greater emphasis on individual conscience, anticipated later developments of democratization, and the so-called "Enlightenment" of later centuries.

God Bless
rECj/LJG