Evangelicalism is rife with tensions.
In fact, I feel tense just using the word ‘evangelical’ to describe myself as a certain kind of Christian. I immediately want to define what I don’t mean by it. I don’t mean that I align with a powerful political movement that has prominence in the United States. I don’t mean that I stand on street corners wearing a sandwich board denouncing passers-by as sinners. I don’t mean that I am a trendy vicar with slick communication skills and a big budget to spend – sadly no danger of mistaking me for one of those!
Thankfully, Gavin Calver and Phil Knox are on hand to help to define what I do mean when I call myself an evangelical. They have senior roles in the Evangelical Alliance and spend their time serving churches across the UK. Their book Good News People is a positive manifesto for evangelical emphases in contemporary ministry and mission.
Calver and Knox acknowledge that the evangelical movement is loosely defined. However, they draw on the classic formulation of Bebbington’s quadrilateral to give shape to it. Evangelicals are: Bibliocentric; Cruciocentric; conversionist; and activist. In a separate chapter they further emphasise the unity that evangelicals share in making Jesus known, cutting across denominational and other factional groupings.
The bulk of the book addresses the question, ‘How should we live?’. It responds to trends that the authors observe in our current cultural context, offering ways in which evangelical convictions can both connect with and challenge them.
Each of these are pairs of convictions which have a long heritage in the evangelical tradition: ‘We need to be brave and kind’; ‘We need to be culturally relevant without selling out’; ‘We need to be hopeful and realistic’; ‘We need to go for decisions and make disciples’; ‘We need to be united and diverse’.
If that sounds like an exercise in hedging bets, don’t fear. Calver and Knox have not set up straw men at the extremes, while trying to drag the church towards a soggy and insipid middle ground. Rather, they are arguing for both… and. These convictions complement each other. Both sides of each pair are necessary. They are stronger when held in tension with the other.
All Christians have good news about Jesus and plenty of reasons to be hopeful as we seek to share it. Good News People is a valuable guide for what that might look like in our churches today.
May 2026 Lead On review by Alastair Gledhill, Curate, Holy Trinity, Norwich.