So, the word "proselytizing" has acquired in the last few generations a negative connotation (relative to "evangelizing") that it did not previously have.
Disputations has a list of "negative" aspects of witness-to-the-faith, which he — quite interestingly — found in an ecumenical document composed in conversations between Baptist and Catholic groups. It serves as a description, if not a definition, of "proselytizing" in the modern, negatively-tinged sense.
We also admit that there are negative aspects of witness which should be avoided and we acknowledge in a spirit of repentance that both of us have been guilty of proselytism in its negative sense. We affirm that the following things should be avoided:
- every kind of physical violence, moral compulsion and psychological pressure (For example, we noted the use of certain advertising techniques in mass media which might bring undue pressure on readers/viewers);
- explicit or implicit offers of temporal or material advantages such as prizes for changing one’s religious allegiance
- improper use of situations of distress, weakness or lack of education to bring about conversion
- using political, social and economic pressure as a means of obtaining conversion or hindering others, especially minorities, in the exercise of their religious freedom;
- casting unjust and uncharitable suspicion on other denominations;
- comparing the strengths and ideals of one community with the weaknesses and practices of another community.
Sounds pretty good to me.
The term "evangelist" has some negative connotation in the wider culture thanks to "television evangelist," but if it's used in its historical, more narrowly technical sense (i.e., to describe the authors of the four Gospels) that's generally avoided.
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