TY - JOUR AU - Smith, Greg PY - 2018/11/21 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Evangelicals and the Encounter with Islam: Changing Christian Identity in Multi-Faith Britain JF - Entangled Religions JA - ER VL - 5 IS - SE - Articles DO - 10.13154/er.v5.2018.154-209 UR - https://er.ceres.rub.de/index.php/ER/article/view/7343 SP - 154-209 AB - <p>Over the last fifty years, British society has changed from a Christendom&nbsp;model, where the default religious identity was Church of England, to a religiously diverse&nbsp;society, where religious identity is a significant marker for minorities in the population. Among&nbsp;Christians, strong religious belief and belonging is most likely to be expressed by those who&nbsp;identify as evangelical. In many parts of the world, and especially in the USA, evangelical&nbsp;discourse on the subject of non-Christian faiths, especially Islam, suggests profound antipathy&nbsp;to ‘other’ beliefs and sometimes hostility to their adherents. In contrast, evidence presented in&nbsp;this paper from a recent Evangelical Alliance panel survey suggests a range of nuanced views<br>in the community of evangelical Christians in the UK. Although over 80% affirmed that Jesus is&nbsp;the only way of salvation, and 84% thought Christianity is the only path to God, more extended&nbsp;comments show that a wide range of views exist, from the paranoid or exclusive to a view&nbsp;that is tolerant and broadly inclusive. The paper will examine the associations between these&nbsp;views and various demographic and theological factors and seek to explain the data in terms&nbsp;of the patterns of contemporary everyday inter-faith encounters, with specific emphasis on the&nbsp;Abrahamic faiths, especially Islam. The situation is discussed in a framework of dynamics and&nbsp;stability, where religious contact between faith communities has both crystallized beliefs and&nbsp;identities and opened up new possibilities for alliances against the secular world.</p> ER -