Historian George Marsden quipped in the opening line of Understanding Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism that “A fundamentalist is an Evangelical who is angry about something.” Ironically, this is exactly how many younger evangelicals would distance themselves from, well, evangelicalism.

They are evangelicals who are not angry about something.

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina; President of Serious Times, a ministry which explores the intersection of faith and culture (www.serioustimes.org); and professor of theology and culture on the Charlotte campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Dr. White holds the B.S., M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees, along with additional work at Vanderbilt University and Oxford University. He is the author of over a dozen books.

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Sources

“The Evangelical Crackup,” by David D. Kirkpatrick, The New York Times Magazine, October 28, 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28Evangelicals-t.html?em&ex=1194062400&en=fa9deb4b3195f80e&ei=5070).

“The Demise of the Religious Right?”, Chuck Colson, BreakPoint Commentary, delivered 10/30/2007 (http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=7179).

Martin E. Marty, A Nation of Behavers (Chicag  The University of Chicago Press, 1976), p. 80; 88.

On the survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, see

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/november/12.18.html.

David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, Unchristian: What a new generation really thinks about Christianity (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007).

George M. Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 1.