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Growing up, I was a practicing Evangelical. I won't go into it here, you can find some more info in my posting history, but in the 1970s, for my area and in my churches, that wasn't a bad thing. It was a generally healthy and positive mindset for me and most of the people around me. In short, it didn't much resemble the 'Evangelical' many people think of today, even though I believe that particular belief system is a loud minority. I no longer practice evangelism, but a part of me is still walks in the same faith I had growing up, not because it's scientifically sound, but because it's a useful and positive thought model and world view for me. To my point: looking here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism "Evangelicalism, Evangelical Christianity, or Evangelical Protestantism is a worldwide, transdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity maintaining that the essence of the gospel consists in the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ's atonement." That's nicely spells out the kind of 'Evangelical' I was and am. Those who believe the Bible says that humans can't alter God's creation, at least among the protestant community with which I am most familiar, are pretty rare and they're reaching long and wide to come up with scriptural justification for that belief. I've only run into one or two people who held this belief. However, quite a few self-identified Evangelicals don't think that humans can change God's creation, but they don't take that as a religious teaching. This disparity, I believe, comes from the decades of politicization of various Protestant sects in the United States and elsewhere. Indeed, up until the election last week, they were, by and large, a direct arm of the Republican party. |