David Bebbington's Quadrilateral

The NAE acknowledges the historian David Bebbington’s “quadrilateral” as the way to identify the four qualifying characteristics of an evangelical. The first characteristic is conversionism, or the belief that lives need to be transformed through a “born-again” experience and a life-long process of following Jesus. The second is Biblicism – a high regard for and obedience to the Bible as the ultimate authority. The third is crucicentrism, or a stress on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross as making possible the redemption of humanity. It is the emphasis of this point that has caused evangelicals to come under critique as being too Christocentric and not trinitarian enough in an equal acknowledgement of the Father and Spirit components …show more content…
Pastor Lee suggests that evangelicals tend to focus on personal sin more than corporate sin. They underemphasize the sin that affects structures as a whole in lieu of going to the root of seeking out a Christ-centered relationship with the individuals that make up that structure in order to change it. For example, issues like sexuality and abortion may seem like more of an individualized private issue than, say, global warming or natural disaster relief efforts. However, through the way that evangelicals have passionately represented sexuality and abortion issues through the pro-life movement, organizations such as these acknowledge that there is a structural aspect to their reforms, giving their attention not only to individuals but also to the redeeming of larger-scale structures such as Planned Parenthood and schools’ sexual education programs. Unfortunately, evangelicals have retained the separatist reputation of their fundamentalist forefathers. “But here is a movement vigorously and often creatively speaking to the needs of contemporary society and simply refusing to retire to its assigned