Evangelical Futures: Should we ditch the term ‘evangelical’ in the Trump era?

‘What kind of church is yours?’ Ever been asked that by someone who isn’t a Christian? I’m never quite sure what to say. ‘Evangelical’ – I suppose!

I’ve often wondered about whether the term, evangelical, is one that will continue to be worthwhile using. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. You can’t say it has an immediate connection with those who aren’t in the know. Its potential for being misconstrued is quite significant as well. With that in mind, is it worth ditching the term altogether and perhaps use a different label?

For my own church, there are a lot of labels I could use, except that most of them are to signify what we’re not rather than what we are. Using the term Protestant would indicate that we’re not Catholic, and the term Non-Conformist would indicate that we’re not Anglican. Our church uses the term Baptist in its name, but we’re not part of any Baptist network and if that term is only useful for indicating a particular view on baptism then that’s not very helpful in positively portraying what else we’re about.