Is the CGGC "Evangelical?"

In his Where are We Now?  articles, Lance has made that claim.

The word evangelical has achieved the status of being a word that means so many things that it means nothing.

If, by it, Lance means that we hold carefully to the theology of the Reformation...the most formal definition of the term..., I think he's wrong. We aren't serious enough about theology to qualify according to that definition.

If he means by that that we are moderate and tradition-bound...,

--not conservative enough to be called Fundamentalists and
--not liberal enough to be progressives, he may be on to something.

It seems to me that the defining characteristic of the CGGC, especially in the past decade plus, is our blandness and moderation.

------------------

However, in our talk, our official talk anyway, we are not evangelical.

We have taken on the language of our founders who, in truth, shared the belief that the Reformation had failed. In that day, we, most definitely, were not evangelicals.

Our founders actually hoped that the Church of God would be a part of "another great Reformation," words spoken in 1830 on the very day our body was formed.

And, using the language of our founders in the day that this was a thriving and blessed movement, we seek to return to the ministry of the first disciples of Jesus and operate...,

...not according to the ways of the sixteenth century revolt against Rome...,

...but on the "New Testament plan."

Those words identify us, not with the sixteenth century Protestants, or evangelicals, but with the Anabaptists, whom the first evangelicals imprisoned and executed.

So, is Lance right? Are we evangelicals? (I don't believe we are members of the National Association of Evangelicals.)

Theologically, I don't think we're vigorous enough to be evangelicals...

...but in terms of blandness and moderation? Well, yeah, that probably fits.