Evangelical or Evangelical

The sign on the front of the church lawn says our name is “Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church”, a member of the “Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada”.

Nowadays there can be some confusion as to what we mean by “Evangelical”. I imagine there are many people who think of “Evangelical” as a collection of conservative, “religious right” voices. We have all seen headlines about how the ‘Evangelical movement’ has the ear of various political figures. This is often perceived as Conservative / Republican, anti-abortion, capitalist, and homophobic. This is not who we are.

The ‘Evangelical’ in Trinity’s name comes from a different place entirely. Rooted in the original Greek word, evangelical means “good news”, as in the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, bringing salvation, mercy, forgiveness, and grace to all of us undeserving sinners.

Martin Luther, the Augustinian monk who is credited for starting the Protestant Reformation some 500 years ago, did not want his followers to be called after his name, “Luther”, but rather wanted us to use the name “Evangelical”, to emphasize that we are to bring the ‘good news’ of Jesus to our neighbour, wherever we may find them. This is who we strive to be.