When Grace Gets Replaced: Why I No Longer Call Myself An “Evangelical”

 When Grace Gets Replaced 

Why I No Longer Call Myself An “Evangelical” 

By Ron Randle 

From Ron’s Journal — October 5, 2026 

Recently, I was invited to join a panel discussing what “evangelicals” think about the Israel and Gaza war. There were eleven of us, which is a minyan in Judaism, the quorum needed to begin a service. The panel gathered on a Zoom call hosted by The Tablet, a Jewish magazine I respect. As the facilitator opened the session, he asked each of us whether we identified as evangelical. When it was my turn, I answered, “I am not sure what that even means anymore, but I am a believer in Jesus. That is the reference I desire.” 

That response was not evasive. It was honest. There was a time when the label “evangelical” could be associated with grace, renewal, and a commitment to the gospel of Christ. Today it means many things, most of which no longer reflect the grace that saved me. I do not say that dismissively. I say it soberly. Whatever evangelicalism has become in the public square, it is not what drew me to Christ in the first place. 

What troubles me most is not merely the label itself but what has taken shelter beneath it. In much of the American evangelical imagination, there is a growing confidence that government through political coercion and cultural control can manifest the kingdom of God. It is the belief that if enough Christians occupy positions of power, we can legislate morality, secure righteousness, and redeem culture from the top down. But what if that assumption is not only misguided but in direct tension with the gospel Jesus embodied? 

The gospel of Christ does not come through law, and it cannot be preserved through legalism. Legalism demands what only the Spirit can produce. It promises certainty but delivers fear. It offers power but withholds transformation. It produces a moral servitude that sounds righteous but does not heal the interior life. It begins with control rather than surrender. 

Grace begins elsewhere. Grace begins with gift. Grace unbinds rather than coerces. Grace heals what law exposes but cannot restore. Grace draws us toward the life of God by making us free rather than making us afraid. 

Legalism rarely introduces itself as legalism. It presents itself as virtue or moral clarity. It claims to defend truth and safeguard righteousness. Yet when morality is defined by what serves our preferences rather than by what reflects God’s heart, we are no longer living by grace. We are legislating our own comfort. The tragedy is not simply that legalism fails. The tragedy is that it succeeds at producing compliance without producing character. 

This is why nationalism and legalism make such convenient partners. Nationalism offers identity without repentance. Legalism offers security without surrender. Both promise 

power without humility. Both invert the gospel by placing the will of man at the center rather than the grace of God. But Jesus did not secure his kingdom through political dominance or cultural leverage. He secured it through obedience, sacrifice, and love that refused to win by force. 

Legalism will always prefer the appearance of righteousness to the work of becoming righteous, because only grace can accomplish the latter. 

At their best, legalistic systems can only foster and market mimicries of righteousness. These mimicries may look convincing for a time, but they never endure. They cannot, because they are built without the interior work grace alone can accomplish. The systems, institutions, and churches that rely on such mimicries become houses of cards, dependent on appearance rather than transformation. They may hold for a season, but they collapse under the weight of what they cannot actually sustain. 

History has shown what happens when righteousness is secured by rule rather than received by grace. Societies become ordered but not renewed. Churches become fierce but not compassionate. Hearts become informed but not transformed. As C. S. Lewis observed, this produces “men without chests,” people whose minds are sharp and whose appetites are strong but whose moral imagination has hollowed out. The seat of conviction is gone. The interior where grace forms character is no longer present. 

The gospel restores what legalism hollows. It rebuilds the interior life rather than disguising it. It calls us not merely to know what is good but to love what is good. It invites us not merely to confess Christ but to become like Christ. 

This is why I no longer place confidence in the evangelical label. The label has become too small and too political for the grace that saved me. My hope is not in a movement. My hope is in Jesus. Whatever grace produces will outlast whatever politics or cultural anxieties demand. 

If there is a question the panel never asked but perhaps should have, it is this. What if the world is waiting not for Christians who can win arguments or elections, but for believers who have been transformed by grace? What if the gospel is never advanced by power but always by love? 

I do not know what will become of the evangelical label in years to come. Labels come and go. Nations rise and fall. Movements flourish and fade. But grace remains. Grace forms. Grace renews what control cannot. And wherever grace is received, the gospel still bears His name. 

Endnote 

[1] C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 25. Lewis described “men without chests” as those who have intellect and appetite but lack a moral center formed by truth and virtue. 

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Copyright © 2025 Ron Randle. All rights reserved. 

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