Evangelicalism

Garrett Lambur
As I was reading “Intro to Christianity” I came across something that before hand I was completely unaware of, the basis of American Evangelicalism. I have not had much experience with Evangelicalism and know no more than the common stereotypes associated with it. But in the book it talks about the basis upon which it started back in the 1700’s and I found the principles quite interesting. The stress upon a new birth I was aware of but that it determines whether one is Christian or not. I do not find myself able to agree with this for I do not believe that a sudden new birth can by itself determine if you are Christian. I feel that it is a simplistic and personally that there is no single thing that makes a person Christian, there are a many different things. Continuing, they stress the importance of emotions so that the conversion is of the heart not just the head. I can respect such an idea because saying you believe in something is much different from actually believing in it. Though the showing of emotions for Evangelicals may be too far for me I can respect this ideology, for one who shows strong emotions for a subject may strongly believe in that subject. The last major point being the sufficiency of God, that at the time of the Great Awakening was God’s sovereignty over life. This is where I would draw great difference from the Evangelicals because I struggle in accepting the idea that God influences every day life. There is a part of me that struggles to accept such an idea because I believe in free will. Some would say that we still have free will because you must choose to accept God yourself but this is not a good enough rebuke for me. Without free will then are you truly living life? I am looking at this in absolutes but that is just how I view the issue, I cannot accept the idea that God rules over everyday life because by doing so I touch upon losing the ability of free will, which is very important to me, we all make our own choices in life.