Q. What part of the Body do you come from? Are you evangelical?

New Covenant Christians do not claim descent from any established Christian tradition. Our members come from diverse denominational backgrounds such as Norwegian Lutheran Evangelical, Pentecostal, Ukrainian Orthodox, Church of England, Greek Catholic, Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Roman Catholic, Reorganized Latter Day Saint, Messianic and from no Christian background at all.

The term "evangelical" is quite an ambiguous term. In the wider sense it has been applied since the Reformation to the Protestant Churches because of their claim to base their teaching pre-eminently on the Gospel. Though we do not claim to be "Protestant" (since we have not emerged out of that tradition of "protesting" against Roman Catholicism), we certainly claim to base our teachings pre-eminently on the Gospel. Thus we would claim to be evangelical on the basis of the latter but not the former.

In Germany and Switzerland the term "Evangelical" has been used especially by the Lutheran group of Protestant Churches as contrasted with Calvanist or Reformed Churches. In that sense we are not evangelical.

In the Church of England the term "evangelical" is currently applied to the school which lays special stress on personal conversion and salvation by faith in the atoning death of Christ. New Covenant Christians would certainly identify with this definition and claim to be evangelical.

Others narrow the term down to include belief in the Bible as the sole, authoritative Word of God to mankind. Whilst New Covenant Christians would not wish to dogmatically limit God to one book, since we believe that there are other inspired books that for one reason or another were omitted from the present Canon, and since we believe that God has the right to give more of His Word if He chooses, we nonetheless only accept the Bible as canonical scripture. Thus we would pretty well go along with this school of thought also, but with the provisions mentioned.

This page was created on 18 April 1998 Last updated on 18 April 1998

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