Criag D Allert Evangelical Identities Summary

In this essay we will be preforming a review on Criag D. Allert’s paper, “Evangelical Identities: Streams of Confluence and Historical Theology in Evangelicalism.” In this paper Allert attempts to give understanding to the word Evangelicalism and the theology behind it. In his paper he splits it into six sections: the “Introduction”, “Definition of Evangelicalism”, “Streams of Cofluence in Evangelicalism”, “The Call to the Reformation View of Sola Scriptura”, “The Call to Piety”, and finally the “Conclusion”. In this essay we will be summarizing what Allert is discussing in each one of these sections as well as we will be discussing my personal thoughts on the subject matter. With this being said, lets dive right into his first paragraph,

Allert does a great job of pulling the reader into the subject and making them want to read more. He introduces his points by referring to conservatives and radicals and how they affect the reformation. He follows up that point by bringing up the question, “What are we trying to conserve?” He relates this question to the theology within Evangelicalism and the fact that there is no boundaries within the tradition. He then gives reference to other authors about their findings and beliefs on the situation. Finally, Allert states his point about the confusion of the topic and makes the end of this paragraph flow into the next paragraph about the definition of Evangelicalism. Allert starts off this paragraph by making sure the reader is aware of his possible biases and his religious background. The first point he brings up is that many Christians say that they are Evangelicals but in truth they just say that because they do not strictly follow a single denomination. Although there is no strict definition to Evangelicalism, Allert states that there are four key components that are synonymous between all people that try to make sense of Evangelicalism. Allert then states some viewpoints of other authors and their problems and then discusses this thoughts on their

As someone who is fairly new to his faith I agree that it can be confusing trying to understand or explain what it means to be an Evangelical. The first point I want to touch on is that, Allert did a fantastic job at explaining the background of why there is confusion about what Evangelicalism is. In cohesion with my beliefs coming into this reading, I feel that it has resulted in an all-around better understanding of the topic. The second point I want to touch on is that, Allert explains that there are different sub-groups that it is possible to be a part of. As someone who is new to studying scripture this is interesting to me as it has previously seemed that each group only believes in one set of ideas and they do not differentiate. Another point I’d like to discuss is the way Allert discussed all the factors causing Evangelicalism to be confusing to define. He did a marvelous job at giving historical information as well as giving references to other works to help explain the points he was trying to get across. Along with the references, Allert did a great job giving his view point on what the other experts had to say. By doing this it provided me with enough information to make my own decisions on the topic which I believe is important for a reader to do. A point that I would like to touch on in regards to what I disagreed with Allert is the examples he gave about theology and its effects on students. I disagree