Talk:Conservative evangelicalism in the United Kingdom

New page
I've created it with some basic information. New editors welcome! One thing I'm not sure about is if the term "conservative evangelical" is only used in the UK. I'm afraid I don't know much about it in other countries and all the content is currently UK-centric. Makes a change from the normal US bias on Wikipedia! I've put the globalize tag on. Sidefall (talk) 15:49, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I've added the Christianity project tag. Anyone out there to do some more editing? Sidefall (talk) 07:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * You'll want to provide some reliable sources defining the titular term as you do here, or the article will probably be deleted as original research. --Fl e x (talk/contribs) 13:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Have added a few references giving relevant infomation, but don't have the time to make them inline. I'm not familiar with published work on this topic so would appreciate help. Sidefall (talk) 20:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Hopefully the fact that it's now been independently rated as high importance else will encourage some more quality content and reduce the chance of it getting AfD'd. Sidefall (talk) 23:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi... in my understanding the term "conservative evangelical": a) is considered by many evangelicals in the UK to distinguish themselves from "open" and "charismatic" evangelicals... thus it's a largely theological term. A good source for this would be "Evangelicalism in Britain 1935-1995", which in many ways defines the term when used in this way. b) is used in by many evangelicals in the US to distinguish themselves as part of the Christian right... thus it's a largely political term, though I only know that from reading stuff on the web. Does that mean breaking this out into two pages? Or creating different sections to explain the term in different regions?Petemyers (talk) 18:55, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll start making edits along those sorts of lines... and do a little organising if I may. If I'm stepping on toes, I'm sorry, I've read the whole talk page, and I'm not intending to touch on any of the issues that people had concerns over. Petemyers (talk) 19:02, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Article Rating
It needs to include more of an international scope and include more of the variety in conservative evangelicalism. For example, in the US many Pentecostals and charismatics also consider themselves conservative evangelicals, as seen in the fact that many Pentecostal denominations are members of the National Association of Evangelicals. You may want to redefine your distinctives section as many conservative evangelicals also practice contemporary worship.Edit: When I wrote this assessment I forgot to sign my name! Ltwin (talk) 19:38, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the rating, and I couldn't agree more with your points. My knowledge in this field is rather limited and I was completely unaware of the different use of the term in the US. Over here, conservative evangelical nearly always means non-pentecostal/charismatic and generally resistant to contemporary worship. I also agree with your rating and was quite amazed that, given the high importance of the article, no-one else had previously created it. I'm honored to have started the ball rolling, but can't take it much further on my own. Sidefall (talk) 23:13, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I would suggest that these two points are not true - from my experience, many conservative evangelicals are Arminians and the majority of htem are creationists. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 14:35, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Fundamentalists may hold Calvinist or Arminian soteriology whereas conservative evangelicals are generally Calvinist
 * Fundamentalists are generally creationist whereas conservative evangelicals accept a range of views including theistic evolution


 * Each of the points of definition need sources, but the one on soteriology doubly so (I have my doubts about it as well). As far as creation, theistic evolution is a form of creationism, so there's no conflict there. Consider the Presbyterian Church in America, which I think qualifies as a relatively large Conservative Evangelical denomination and which issued a report on creation allowing ministers to hold various views, including theistic evolution.


 * "Creationism" is often equated with 6-day creationism, over and against such views as theistic evolutionism. So the term could be a little misleading.Petemyers (talk) 18:58, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Sidefall, you might want to check out the Evangelical Manifesto for help in defining things more precisely. --Fl e x (talk/contribs) 17:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Funny - the Evangelical Manifesto was, if anything, published by members of Liberal Evangelicalism, not Conservative Evangelicism. See here for a take on the Manifesto - and the identity of Conservative Evangelicals - by Dr. Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a prominent conservative evangelical. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 22:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the link. I would be hard pressed to call Os Guinness et al. "liberal." Indeed the labels conservative and liberal are tossed around so much in the States, that I think it would be hard to come up with a definition of liberal and conservative evangelicals that is widely accepted. (Here are evaluations of the Manifesto from various authors, Christian and otherwise, several of whom try to define "evangelical". I think Chuck Colson would qualify as a "conservative evangelical" by nearly any definition, so his approving piece may be particularly informative, as would N. T. Wright's view from the UK.) So, the question is: Is there really a verifiable definition of "conservative evangelicalism"? If not, this article is in trouble. Perhaps it is more clearly defined in the UK (though Wright seems to think not). --Fl e x (talk/contribs) 21:18, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * While I personally think Wright's a genius on many counts, he has a lot of personal gripes with the conservative evangelical movement in the UK. Fulcrum, an evangelical organisation that he's involved with do define conservative evangelicalism, and indeed that definition is linked at the bottom of this article.  It's maybe not the best definition, and we'll need a balance of sources.  One problem is that lots and lots of literature has been written about Open and Charismatic evangelicals, but not so much about Conservatives.  But the article is do-able. Petemyers (talk) 21:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've really reached the limit of my knowledge here. I certainly cannot write anything on the different groupings within US evangelicalism, although I would tend to agree with Philosopher that the Evangelical Manifesto came from the more liberal (or open) wing of the evangelical movement. It seems to me that "conservative evangelical" does have different connotations in the US to the UK, and the US situation may well be more complex (not least because it's much larger) than the UK. Sidefall (talk) 08:09, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

List of unsourced points
I've moved these points here from the article. No evidence is offered in their support. If evangelicals and fundamentalists were ethnic groups, this article would undoubtedly be considered racist. My humble suggestion would be for interested editors to develop this material further (perhaps in a sandbox?) before re-introducing it. --Northernhenge (talk) 13:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Distinctives

 * Infallible or inerrant view of the Bible
 * Reformed theology
 * Penal substitution model of atonement
 * Cessationist position on spiritual gifts - opposition to the charismatic movement
 * Proclamation approach to evangelism
 * Male leadership
 * Homosexuality seen as a sin
 * Opposition to abortion
 * Hell seen as a real place of eternal punishment
 * Emphasis on systematic expository preaching

Comparison to Fundamentalism
Compared to Fundamentalist Christianity:


 * Fundamentalists are strongly separatist whereas some conservative evangelicals are found in mixed denominations
 * Fundamentalists are generally far more socially conservative than conservative evangelicals
 * Fundamentalists are generally creationist whereas conservative evangelicals accept a range of views on creation including theistic evolution
 * Fundamentalists tend to reject most historic church practices whereas conservative evangelicals often place strong emphasis on the traditions resulting from the Reformation

(end of text)


 * Perhaps the answer is to edit Evangelicalism so that it identifies subgroups with just enough description to tell them apart from each other. It already has some of this in it but it still needs some work, and this is not currently its emphasis. Then each subgroup (including conservative evangelicalism) could focus on its own distinctive points. I'm afraid I'm incapable of doing this myself. To give you an example of the shallowness of my knowledge, the opposite of conservative evangelical might be liberal evangelical, but isn't that itself a contradiction? --Northernhenge (talk) 17:38, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I noticed the claim that women ministers are opposed by some congregations is not cited. Is there a citation for this further down, or is it an unsubstantiated claim? (Awhistorywiki (talk) 20:47, 3 October 2017 (UTC))

Giving the article some direction
Ok, I fleshed out the history up until the 1970s with a couple of sources (as you can see I lent heavily on one particular source). Now, I have a good idea of how to flesh this stuff out even further, and also how to finish it up to the present day... but before I do that I'd like to collect some more sources first (which means going through some books on my shelf I haven't picked up in a while). Hopefully, though, what I've provided may give some other editors a better idea of what is meant by "conservative evangelical", and what in particular makes this article distinctive. Can I suggest... that we start making suggestions as to how to shape the article and make it more useful? The movement is defined historically, but the article needs more than that to be most useful, I think. To start with, I think we'll need some sections on theology and practice. Petemyers (talk) 20:56, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * To begin with, loads of this article is just lists of stuff, and the contents has no structure. So I've re-organised the contents so as to help the page have some coherence, but really the lists need to be expanded into actual encyclopedic content. Petemyers (talk) 21:11, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I have now changed the status of this article to Start Class. I hope I'm ok doing that! Petemyers (talk) 21:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Name change
I recommend the material in this article be changed to British Conservative Evangelicalism, and there should probably be a disambiguity page for "conservative evangelicalism"

Thoughts? Petemyers (talk) 11:16, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I think that would be better, the terms have so many differences by country.Ltwin (talk) 19:34, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes please rename the article, I think it would resolve some confusion. Over here in the states the term "Conservative Evangelicalism" is considered synonymous with Evangelicalism itself. Lamorak (talk) 01:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Y Done. Ltwin (talk) 02:53, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Terrible choice of name. No-one ever uses "British Conservative Evangelicalism" as a term. It sounds vaguely like the BNP, apart from anything else. Roger Pearse (talk) 20:03, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Name Changed
Per the conversation above, the name has been changed. Ltwin (talk) 02:53, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Very Important for North American Evangelical Protestant Christians, to understand the UK Church Scene...
As subj line above, again, Wikipedia does an excellent job in explaining the UK Church scene to visiting Christians from North America. Most of us in North America see "Fundamentalists" as a very small and very conservative sub-segment of Evangelical (Protestant) Christians. A Men Choir Group from the Boston area plans to visit the WEST Christian Training College in SE Wales in September and the associated Hanover Chapel and Llanover Manse, just North of Newport and NE of Cardiff. The Chapel is a congregation of the type of UK Christian described in this fine article. All people in the UK, evidently, who separated from the Established (Anglican) Churchs, the COE and the CIW, were called "non-conformists" or even "dissenters," but they now are members of the independent churches and denominations, the small buildings of which, in Wales, are called "Chapels," as opposed the the local Anglican (COE and/or CIW in Wales) "Churches." 71.232.121.182 (talk) 04:37, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 18:13, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Use of the word "fundamentalist" - where should it be located.
Happy to see this moved from its current location, but does not belong in the lede. Perhaps a separate section? Springnuts (talk) 20:38, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It most certainly belongs in the lede: it's an alternative name. As per WP:OTHERNAMES, "When this title is a name, significant alternative names for the topic should be mentioned in the article, usually in the first sentence or paragraph." Therefore, one could argue that it should be in the opening sentence: "Conservative evangelicalism, occasionally known as fundamentalism, is a term used in Britain to describe a theological movement found within evangelical Protestant Christianity". Conservative evangelicalism sometimes being known as fundamentalism is fully cited, though I recognise that it is controversial (and unlike the US, few would self ID as it in the UK). Having it in the opening sentence might be over the top (although fully within MOS) so I would suggest simply keeping it in the introduction: IE where it was before Springnuts deleted/moved it. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 21:13, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Springnuts, you haven't explained why you don't think it belongs in the lede? Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 13:29, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Is this the same thing as American fundamentalism? Do conservative evangelicals in Britain identify as fundamentalist? Is this applied by others as an insult? Ltwin (talk) 23:27, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not a theologian nor is this my expert subject. However, I'd say there must be similarity between American/British fundamentalism/conservative evangelicalism especially in the 21st century with the easy of sharing ideas through the internet: they share biblical inerrancy/literacy, substitutionary atonement, limited-to-no ecumenicism etc. I suppose the difference is the context within which it has developed: England has an established church (the Church of England) for example. It's not an insult (something like "bible basher" would be) but rather an alternative/common name. Conservative evangelicals might not like any adjectives (including "conservative") due to perceiving their views as the correct/mainstream/valid position that everyone else is differing from. Self use isn't the only or even main criteria for naming things on Wikipedia; although there are some churches in the UK who do use fundamentalist as a self descriptor it isn't as frequent as the US, but is regularly used by those outside of conservative evangelical circles. As one of the current sources states ""sometimes "conservative evangelical" is just a euphemism for fundamentalist", and another one from a quick google "Conservative evangelicals are biblical fundamentalists". It should be noted that many conservative evangelicals simply identify as " the only valid evangelicals", although this is the case for many minority positions within a wider position (traditionalist Catholics would consider themselves simply "Catholic" but external parties added the "traditionalist" with a small number owning it for themselves). Simply, might be the same/at least similar, some do but most ID as simply "evangelical", and no it sin't an insult. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk  13:17, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Here's a quote supporting the "we're just evangelicals/mainstream Christians" belief" : "People very often want to label you a fundamentalist as if it's something dangerous and scary … Well if fundamentalist means whether I believe the fundamentals of the Bible, yes I believe the fundamentals of the Bible … but believing in those fundamentals doesn't make me an extremist it makes me mainstream’." Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 13:21, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 11 October 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus. (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:50, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Conservative evangelicalism in the United Kingdom → Conservative evangelical – the term is generally used in the UK and should not simply redirect to Evangelicalism Caorongjin (talk) 13:45, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 20:47, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

PAGE ]]) 14:26, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * queried move request Anthony Appleyard (talk) 20:47, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The term is also widely used in the US as well, and it's not clear that UK conservative evangelicalism is enough of a primary topic to get such a generic title. --Ahecht ([[User talk:Ahecht|TALK
 * That may be right to a certain extent, but it still doesn't explain why conservative evangelical redirects to evangelicalism or why there isn't a US article. --Caorongjin (talk) 21:39, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Question: User:Caorongjin, why "Conservative evangelical" and not "Conservative Evangelicalism"? Ltwin (talk) 22:15, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Because the term is about individuals and institutions, and more about differences in disposition rather than differences in evangelicalism(s). It is a term contrasted with open evangelical, as is seen in the article "Canal, River and Rapids." --Caorongjin (talk) 22:52, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This article is quite clearly about the movement in the UK. StAnselm (talk) 22:34, 11 October 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.