The evangelical movement was never just about theology

The fate of black evangelicals, and other chapters from Isaac B. Sharp's new book.

Call me naive, but for the years I worked at Christianity Today, I believed evangelicalism was about belief — and only belief. That is, the global Protestant movement, as vast and decentralized as it is, nonetheless finds its center in theology.

Historian David Bebbington gave us his quadrilateral (summarized here). The National Association of Evangelic…