Michael Patton shared the diagrams below. What strikes me about them is the attempt to define “Evangelical” as the stance between liberal and fundamentalist. The word that he is looking for, where there is a balance between the essential, important, and non-essential, is “moderate.” Some Evangelicals are moderates, but most are conservative, in between the moderates and the fundamentalists, with some closer to one or the other.
His attempt to pretend that “Evangelical” simply means “moderate-to-conservative” surprises me. The definition offered by the National Association of Evangelicals seems better-informed historically. Is anyone actually fooled by Patton's omission of “moderate” and “conservative” and insertion of Evangelical instead?
See also Allan Bevere's post about why today's conservatives are Liberals, his post about reformed fundamentalists, and one problematizing today's concepts of left and right.
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