{"id":3256,"date":"2013-01-30T09:11:42","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T14:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thinplaces\/?p=3256"},"modified":"2013-01-30T09:11:42","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T14:11:42","slug":"on-identity-being-an-evangelical-and-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thinplaces\/2013\/01\/on-identity-being-an-evangelical-and-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"On Identity, Being an Evangelical, and Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Kristina Robb Dover, blogger at Saints and Sinners over at beliefnet, recently asked if she could interview me. The interview begins:<\/p>\n
Christianity Today has named you one of 50 women to know, for your work in (and I quote) \u201cprofoundly shaping the evangelical church and North American society.\u201d \u00a0<\/em>Would you also use the term \u201cevangelical\u201d to describe yourself also, and if so, what do you mean by that term?<\/em><\/p>\n
I would call myself an evangelical both because it is the line of Christianity through which my faith came alive (at a Young Life Camp) and also because I see one aspect of my role as a Christian as telling other people about the good news of the Gospel. I\u2019m aware, however, that \u201cevangelical\u201d has become a negative term in many circles, for good reasons, and that it often conjures up political and social associations that probably don\u2019t describe who I am. I worry that evangelicals are known more as people who are against certain cultural movements rather than people who are for life with God. Most evangelicals I actually know (rather than read about in the newspaper) could be characterized by their desire to love and serve other people and talk about spiritual questions. I hope that\u2019s true of me too.<\/p>\n