To the present day there remains no real consensus around what it means to be an “evangelical.” There was a time when this etymological confusion proved a strength, prompting a growing number of Protestants to set aside organizational rivalries and join beneath a common decentralized banner. Yet such ambiguity was ripe for exploitation. Powerful people began to sense that if doctrinal differences were so easily set aside, then perhaps there was something else—not just something spiritual, but something cultural—that united these evangelicals.
