Every person reading this article has a world view.  A world view is simply the broad perspective of how someone understands reality.   World views such as secularism, humanism, pragmatism, consumerism, and individualism are un-Christian world views.  There are also Christian world views. I want to consider evangelicalism.

The word, evangelicalism, is derived from the Greek words "euangelion" which means good news and "euangelizomai" which means to announce good news.  Evangelicalism is the world view that emphasizes the gospel of Jesus Christ."  It is the gospel of forgiveness and regeneration through personal faith in Jesus Christ.  At this point most Protestant Christians would say "I'm evangelical." 

The crucial question pertains to the scope and content of the good news, not the basis of the good news.  Protestant Christianity recognizes Martin Luther as one of the first evangelicals.  Luther believed that people were justified by grace through faith alone. 

The question remains:  Do you embrace evangelicalism?  If I had lived 500 years ago, I would have called myself evangelical.  Evangelicalism was equal to the Protestant Church.  Today the church is so fractured by various doctrinal and theological beliefs (and disbeliefs) that one has to be definitive to remain true to a conscionable confession.  It is impossible to be a Christian and not believe in evangelicalism, but it is possible to be a Christian and be confused about the meaning of evangelicalism.

Michael Horton, an evangelical theologian and writer, has said, "by undermining the doctrinal, intellectual foundation of the faith, evangelicals left evangelicalism without a serious defense in that marketplace of ideas it once built, but from which it was now evicted."  True evangelicals have not left the substance of evangelicalism, but they have been driven out by the abundance of heresies in the 20th century Protestant Church.