European evangelicals reinforcing own identity
Tensions between American evangelicals and their European counterparts have simmered for years, but they have recently intensified, mainly over political questions, writes Paul Marshall in Religion Unplugged (July 15). Marshall cites a report from the European Evangelical Alliance (EEA) which seeks to challenge stereotypes about the roughly 23 million European evangelicals. The EEA is affiliated with the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), which draws together some 650 million evangelicals. While the report seeks to educate Europeans about the evangelical minority on the continent, “it also has a subtext that European and, by implication, world evangelicals, should not be equated with some American evangelicals, many of whom are seen as on the political right, even Trumpist,” Marshall writes. Because of evangelicals’ greater minority status in Europe, the report is eager to counter “characterizations that imply Evangelicals are political extremists.”
The report adds that “collectively, European Evangelicals are diverse, multiethnic, and nonpartisan” and that they represent “a broad spectrum of political views” whose “primary identity is rooted in Christian faith, not political allegiance.” As the American evangelical right has become the dominant image of evangelicalism in the world through media coverage, many of the world’s 650 million evangelicals have felt the need to distance themselves from it. Marshall notes that the WEA’s head is Palestinian. He concludes that although there is often “tendentious media coverage of actual multi-varied and multi-racial evangelicals in the U.S.,” the report is testament to the fact that America’s “sprawling presence in the world’s media and imagination is negatively shaping views within world evangelicalism.”