Picture: Billy Graham Crusade, Minneapolis, 1996

The Evangelical movement has historically been responsible for battling against doctrinal dangers that threatened the authenticity of the Christian faith. The term "evangelical" originates from the Greek word euanggelion, meaning "the good news" or "the gospel". This word found its original usage in Martin Luther's Reformation, duringwhich he employed this term as a name for his breakaway movement (evangelische kirke or "Evangelical Church"). This name is still applied to the Lutheran Church in Germany.

In the English-speaking world and in Asia, Evangelicalism has largely been taken to refer to a series of revivals that was experienced in the North Atlantic Anglo-American world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It also refers to the era when a significant segment of the church reacted against the rise of liberal theology.

For some time in the twentieth century, Evangelicalism was very much characterised by fundamentalism as a result of its intimidation towards liberalism. Although this rigidity in doctrinal positions was eventually broken by Billy Graham and several other Evangelical personalities, a sense of static rigidity largely remained. As it stands today, Evangelicalism is still well committed to retaining a high view of scripture, evangelism and conversion.

What follows is a series of blog entries on my observation of prospects for the Evangelical movement in Asia. The main thrust of this series of blog entries is that the Evangelical movement worldwide is now on the brink of a serious crisis, and this includes Evangelical Christianity in my Asian context. It is a crisis that may lead to an eventual bankruptcy. In the light of this crisis, there are a number of issues that I deem to be of severe importance which need to be examined.

The following points need to be noted as I embark on the writing of this series:

1. I speak as an insider. I am not simply unduly critical of this tradition to which I'm committed. In articulating its weaknesses and it prospects, I am thereby availing myself to be the change that I seek (to quote the words of Mahatma Ghandi - I know, he wasn't an Evangelical Christian; but this is precisely where I seek generosity beyond what is presently expressed in Evangelical theology!)

2. I speak as one who has received colonial imports of Evangelical Christianity. Much of Evangelical Christianity in the Asian Church is characterised by the Western fundamentalism that we observe. This was perhaps legitimate because of the era duringwhich liberal Christianity also penetrated the ecclesiastical context of Asia. But as Christianity in Asia stands today, Evangelicalism by and large no longer faces this threat. The challenge ahead is then one of asking ourselves what it means to be Asian Evangelical Christians. For this, we must move beyond simplistic "Evangelical" and "liberal" categories. In the past, being Evangelical would mean receiving in totality the framework of faith propositions from Western Evangelicalism. It is now crucial to recognise that one can be truly authentic to one's Asian roots and yet still be Evangelical in the sense of being orthodox in one's theology. In this sense, I am speaking about being post-colonial in our theological approach.

3. I speak as a "broader" Evangelical. The view of Evangelicalism can be so narrow as to identify anything unfamiliar as being "liberal". For this reason, I have not always found it useful to identify myself as an Evangelical and would rather retain the description of "orthodoxy". But since my writing here pertains to the Evangelical shifts that I deem are necessary for us to be truly "Evangelical" the way I believe it should be, I would readily identify with the term.

These thoughts which will be hereafter presented are, in large part, a result of my personal observations which I deem to have been confirmed in my recent participation in the Sixth Asia Lausanne Conference on Evangelism (ALCOE VI) held in Laguna, Philippines. It is legitimate to assume that such an event consisting of major leaders in the Church in Asia would be well representative of the state of Evangelicalism in Asia today. However, these expressed observations are not to be taken as necessarily being in direct reference to the Conference itself. The Conference in itself was a confirmation of some thoughts already present and a catalyst for further thinking.