“Evangelical” has become a contentious term in the United States. Today we often hear about “exvangelicals” or “post-evangelicals.” Some who once owned the identification now regard the term “evangelical” as having been simply ruined. The primary reason for such contention is that pollsters have identified “evangelicals” as a major American political force. And politics — and with it, conflict and polarization — overwhelms everything else in our news and much of our discourse.
A pressing question, then, for those who would still own the term “evangelical” is how in these troubled times we might still think of evangelicalism as primarily a religious movement.
Defining a Faith Tradition
First, we need to emphasize how provincial is the political pollsters’ identification of “evangelicals” with “American white evangelicals.” Even looking only at the United States, such a classification obscures the fact that most African American churches are evangelical. Many other churches of non-white ethnicity are likewise evangelical. More strikingly, if we think of how evangelicalism has remarkably burgeoned throughout the world, especially in Africa and Asia, then we see how very misleading the identification of the traits of white American evangelicals with evangelicals is.
The most used set of traits for identifying who is “evangelical” is the “quadrilateral” developed by historian David Bebbington. Evangelicals are:
- Biblicist, emphasizing the Bible as the highest authority;
- Crucicentric, emphasizing salvation through the atoning work of Christ on the cross;
- Conversionist, emphasizing lives transformed, a “born-again” experience and a life-long process of following Jesus; and
- Activist, emphasizing action for evidencing and spreading the gospel.
Such evangelical traits can be found among hundreds of millions of Christians around the world. At the same time, such evangelical Christians are distributed among a bewildering variety of churches and ministries.
Reformation and Revival Roots
If we step back and look at the history of these many-sided but related Christian movements, we can better understand the remarkable diversity of the evangelical movement today. Evangelicalism has roots in the Reformation and earlier, but modern evangelicalism arose in the 18th century pietist movements of Continental Europe and then in British Methodism and revivalism. George Whitefield was the leading evangelist bringing this gospel style to America. Beginning in the 1730s, his revival tours sparked what became known as “The Great Awakening” in the colonies.
Whitefield’s successes brought many imitators. In the American colonies most of the state churches had been relatively weak. Revivalism appealed to individual experience, recognition of one’s sin and guilt, need for personal commitment, and a life guided by Christ’s teaching. Evangelicalism thus succeeded in building grass-root Christianity. For the next several generations, awakenings flourished throughout the emerging nation. The first half of the 19th century brought many varieties of revivalism that became known collectively as the “Second Great Awakening.”
Faith and Cultural Impact in America
These revival movements helped shape many parts of American culture. Evangelicals were active in reform movements against slavery and for temperance and women’s rights. Meanwhile, in the South, white evangelical Christians offered biblical justifications for enslaving Africans. Because evangelism appeals to individual choice, it is often susceptible to accommodating, rather than challenging the prejudices of its constituents. Even so, and remarkably, evangelical Christianity became the most common religion among African Americans, both enslaved and free. During the Civil War, each side often invoked Christian justifications for its cause.
Through the end of the century, even while America was becoming more ethnically and religiously diverse, evangelicalism was embraced by most Protestants. Innovative leaders continued to introduce new emphases and found new ministries and denominations. The most prominent of these were various holiness movements that grew mainly from Methodist roots, and then Pentecostal movements that would become further agencies of innovation, division and growth.
Despite such distinctions, most American Protestant churches in the early years of the 20th century shared a common evangelical heritage. Christians in almost all Protestant denominations, for instance, were familiar with the same wide repertoire of gospel songs. So much was this heritage part of a widespread American culture that it did not seem out of place at Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Party Convention in 1912 to adopt as their theme song, “Onward Christian Soldiers.”
The Fundamentalist-Modernist Divide
By the early decades of the 20th century, however, the largest northern evangelical denominations were beginning to divide between liberal and conservative factions. The more progressive leaders, who became known as “modernists,” accepted modern critical biblical scholarship and less literalistic theologies, often with emphasis on a politically progressive “social gospel.” Meanwhile, revivalism was still strong in much of American Protestantism and, by the 1920s, many conservative evangelicals were promoting militant “fundamentalist” movements to counter the modernist trends.
During this era of controversy, the term “evangelical” was less commonly used by those on either side of the divide. Most conservative Protestants who stood against liberal trends were known as “fundamentalists.” In the largest northern denominations, most prominently among Presbyterian and Baptist, fundamentalists were militants who fought against modernist trends, some forming their own smaller denominations. Many others who were militant fundamentalists were already in smaller revivalist-oriented denominations that emphasized separation not only from liberal theologies, but also from modern mores such as smoking, drinking, dancing or card-playing.
The Rise of the “New Evangelicals”
Harold J. Ockenga, the leading founder of the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942, played a large role in bringing back the term “evangelical” as a designation for Bible-believing evangelistically oriented traditionalist Christians. The “new evangelical” movement, as it came to be called, received an incalculable boost when in 1949 one of its evangelists, Billy Graham, emerged as a national sensation.
For the next decades Graham remained America’s evangelist and was also a leading figure in building alliances with evangelicals worldwide. While the “new evangelicals” around Graham, such as Ockenga and others, remained loyal to their biblicist and anti-modernist heritage, they also were cautiously stepping away from strict separationism and the behavioral practices that most militant fundamentalists insisted upon. During the decades following mid-century, even while revivalism continued to foster many varieties, Billy Graham remained the principal face of evangelicalism and gave it a mostly positive image.
A momentous shift in the public perceptions of American evangelicalism began just a half century ago, when presidential candidate Jimmy Carter announced that he was “born again” and 1976 was tagged “the year of the evangelical.” Soon it became apparent that Carter’s evangelicalism was a political asset and may have made the difference in a close election.
Faith, Politics and Free Enterprise
As a result, evangelicalism was now seen as newsworthy due to its political potential. And, most importantly, some evangelicals and their formerly separatist fundamentalist counterparts, such as Jerry Falwell, Sr., began to focus on growing their political influence. Media attention tended to focus on these high-profile leaders, but evangelical ministries remained as diverse and as innovative as ever, and many did not involve politics.
Even so, due largely to the nature of the American news machine, political identity has become a primary identity for many Americans. And so, churches on either side of the political spectrum are likely to accommodate the dominant political loyalties of their members. Political stances can be charitable and even prophetic, but, given the nature of politics, they are more likely to mirror our self-interests.
Recognizing the dangers of such temptations on both sides of the American political spectrum, it is helpful to step back from America’s controversies and view evangelicalism as a global phenomenon shaped over four centuries. Evangelicalism arose in the Western world in the same era as free enterprise capitalism. Both of these movements encouraged innovation and thrived on what proved effective, or what would sell. Inevitably, some innovations were admirable, and others far less so. Awareness of the imperfections, and even some aberrations, within the evangelical orbit should keep us humble and prompt us to pray for discernment.
If we look at the remarkable flourishing of evangelicalism worldwide, we find notable diversity, including awe-inspiring faithfulness under persecution, as well as some deeply concerning examples of syncretism, abuses, excesses of the prosperity gospel and other dubious teachings. Yet even among churches and ministries that we may see as unhealthy or simply frivolous, one often still hears the basic gospel message of sin and salvation through Christ’s atoning work on the cross that evangelical founder George Whitefield, and even the Apostles, would recognize.
Discernment is certainly needed when aberrations appear, but the authentic gospel continues to shine through in many varieties and contexts. That is good news indeed.
George Marsden is professor emeritus of history at the University of Notre Dame and one of the leading historians of American religion and evangelicalism. Marsden is widely recognized for his scholarship on the relationship between Christianity and American culture, particularly in higher education and intellectual history. He is the author of numerous influential books, including “Jonathan Edwards: A Life,” “The Soul of the American University,” “Fundamentalism and American Culture” and “The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship.” Marsden earned a bachelor’s degree from Haverford College, completed theological studies at Westminster Theological Seminary and received a doctorate in American history from Yale University.
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