Consider these words: Main Line, Protestant, Evangelical, and Fundamentalist. These are frequently-used words, and people often have a ‘gut feeling’ about what they mean. Yet it becomes clear, when people are called upon to provide precise definitions of these words, that there is substantial ambiguity.
The word ‘Protestant’ is found almost always capitalized. ‘Fundamentalist’ and ‘Mainline’ and ‘Evangelical’ are found both capitalized and with lower-case initial letters in various writings.
Evangelical is an adjective derived from the Greek word meaning ‘Gospel’ and has been used among Jesus followers for around 2,000 years. In its most literal and basic meaning, it is almost synonymous with ‘Christian,’ yet it has come to be used in a different way, to denote a specific subset of Christians.
Protestant refers to individuals and groups in the sixteenth century who objected to, or disagreed with, the Roman Catholic church. It came also to refer to later groups who opposed or diverged from Roman Catholicism. Sometimes it is used in an extremely broad sense, to refer to anything or anyone who is not Roman Catholic. But it is also used in a much narrower sense, to refer to a specific group of radical reformers who were a subset of the larger set of reformers in the 1500s. In this latter context, e.g., some Lutheran theologians insist that they are neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant.
Fundamentalism is and was a movement that emerged largely in North America, although present elsewhere, in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The movement arose in response to various theological trends which were diverging from traditional Christian teaching — in this way, the movement can be seen as a defensive action. It began with the identification of five “fundamental” teachings within Christianity. These five concepts were well established within the norms of historical Christian thought. In this way, at its root, fundamentalism was originally inclusive: individuals from a variety of traditions and denominations could give assent to these five fundamentals. These five theses constituted a platform for mutual recognition, a sort of minimum standard: a person who acknowledged the five fundamentals could be understood as a Christian, and as a relatively non-heretical Christian. Over time, however, the movement began to be less inclusive. Mere assent to the five fundamentals — although such assent might prove that a person was tolerably Christian — was not enough to make a person a part of the fundamentalist movement. Eventually, instead of creating a broad basis or consensus for a range of denominations and theological viewpoints, fundamentalism came to denote a well-defined and small subset within the larger range of Christianity’s forms.
Mainline is a word used to label a group of churches, primarily in the United States. The word is used primarily to list organized institutional churches, while the other words — fundamentalist, protestant, evangelical — can also be used to describe theologies or individual believers. The ‘mainline’ denominations tend to be those which were well-established as institutions, had large numbers of members, facilities like church buildings, schools, and colleges, and during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries enjoyed a generally respected status in American society. The late twentieth century saw a decline, both in numbers and in social prestige, for mainline churches.
Given the meanings and histories of these four words, the complexity of their use becomes apparent. Many mainline churches have a historical doctrinal basis which would embrace the ‘five fundamentals’ and so, in the mid 1800s, mainline churches could be seen as possibly friendly toward fundamentalism. Now, however, ‘mainline’ and ‘fundamentalist’ are often seen as opposing movements.
The Roman Catholic church could be described as ‘evangelical’ in the sense that it acknowledges the message of the New Testament, i.e., the Gospel, and sees Jesus as Redeemer and Savior. Yet the word ‘evangelical’ is often used to describe people, institutions, and theologies which self-consciously define themselves as something other than, and even opposed to, Roman Catholicism, to the extent that it was seen as a great feat to help “Catholics and Evangelicals” make common cause in the late twentieth century.
Meanwhile, the word ‘Protestant’ has endured gerrymandering to the extent that, on the one hand, people are routinely asked to put themselves into one of only two categories: Protestant or Catholic (as if no other type of Christianity were possible); while on the other hand, there is a rather large set of Christian denominations who identify themselves as neither Catholic nor Protestant.
When using one or more of these words, then, readers would be well-advised to pause and consider precisely what they intend to communicate. Consider a sentence like this: “His sermon was less fundamentalist and more evangelical.” Or: “These mainline churches aren’t currently faithful to their Protestant heritage.”
Whoever writes or says such sentences certainly has a meaning which she or he hopes to convey to the reader or listener. But there is a significant danger that the intended meaning might get garbled, because of the ambiguities surrounding these words. The writer or speaker should first stop, and define for the audience what, precisely, is meant by these words.
