This is a bunch of thoughts I jotted down a while ago while I was doing a class on Systematic Theology. I think these notes are from a book I was reading by M. Loyd-Jones. Anyway, if you've ever wondered what an 'evangelical' is, well, now you have the Cole's Notes version.

WHAT IS AN EVANGELICAL?

An evangelical is a Christian who, first and foremost, places the word of God as the sole authority in his life. Evangelicalism is primarily a movement about the Bible. While it is not entirely true that an evangelical distrusts reason and philosophy entirely, he is incredibly wary of any reason or philosophy that does not take as it's primary and ultimate authority the written word of God. Recognizing that the truths contained in the Bible do not make immediate sense to us, the evangelical, instead of subjecting the Bible to his reason, subjects his reason to the authority of Scripture. The belief in Scripture is that it does not only contain God's word, but that it is God's word; that in it's entirety and in all areas it touches it is both authoritative and without error; that it is useful not only for faith and practice, but also gives us an authoritative description of real historical events that took place in time and space; that the word of God is self-authenticating and does not need the church to validate what is and is not scripture.

The second defining mark of an evangelical Christian is that he looks to history to help shape his understanding of his own faith. While he does not take historical practice as authoritative, he nonetheless allows it to influence his own beliefs and interpretations of Scripture. The evangelical walks a fine line when it comes to history; On the one hand avoiding the error of both the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Churches in placing tradition as authority on par with scripture, and on the other, avoiding the temptation to disregard 2000 (or, indeed 6000 or more) years of Christian belief. The evangelical recognizes that his is an historical religion, but as the Apostle John says, it is an old commandment as well as being a new, fresh, and active one (cf. I John 2:6-8).

A third distinguishing mark of the evangelical is that while maintaining those beliefs by which he can claim to hold the name 'evangelical', he is also careful to exclude those teachings which would seek to add something to that “which has been once for all delivered” (Jude 3). This means that he is not interested in only maintaining those positive statements of what he believes, but also entails negative statements stating what he does not believe.

Part and parcel with the last point, because the evangelical is fully convinced of the sufficiency of the revealed word of God, he seeks to guard against both adding or taking away from what is essential.