Evangelicalism

"Evangelicals" redirects here. For the indie rock band, see Evangelicals (band).

Not to be confused with evangelism.

Evangelicalism is a world-wide Protestant Christian historical movement that began in the 1730s with the emergence of the Methodists in England. The movement became significant in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries. Pietism, Nicolaus Zinzendorf and the Moravian Church, Presbyterianism and Puritanism have influenced Evangelicalism.

The earliest leaders included John Wesley, George Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards in the English-speaking world. The largest concentration of Evangelicals can be found in the United States, where roughly a quarter of the world's Evangelicals live (over 90 million). Brazil, with over 42 million Evangelicals also has a sizeable Evangelical community. The movement continues to draw adherents globally in the 21st century, especially in the developing world.

Characteristics

Christian historian David Bebbington says: "Although 'evangelical', with a lower-case initial, is occasionally used to mean 'of the gospel', the term 'Evangelical', with a capital letter, is applied to any aspect of the movement beginning in the 1730s." He notes four distinctive aspects of Evangelical faith: conversionism, biblicism, crucicentrism, and activism, noting, "Together they form a quadrilateral of priorities that is the basis of Evangelicalism."

Conversionism, or being "born again" is based on passages in John 1:12–13 and 3:1–21 that call for a complete change of life. Biblicism is defined as having a high regard for biblical authority and an identification with the biblical story. Crucicentrism draws attention to teachings that proclaim the saving death and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ offering forgiveness of sins and new life. Activism describes the tendency towards the active expression and sharing of the gospel in diverse ways, that includes preaching and social action.

Development in the doctrine of assurance underlies what differentiates Evangelicalism from what went before. Bebbington says: "the dynamism of the Evangelical movement was possible only because its adherents were assured in their faith." He goes on:

Whereas the Puritans had held that assurance is rare, late and the fruit of struggle in the experience of believers, the Evangelicals believed it to be general, normally given at conversion and the result of simple acceptance of the gift of God. The consequence of the altered form of the doctrine was a metamorphosis in the nature of popular Protestantism. There was a change in patterns of piety, affecting devotional and practical life in all its departments. The shift, in fact, was responsible for creating in Evangelicalism a new movement and not merely a variation on themes heard since the Reformation." This new assurance made way for the possibility of Revivalism, another key discontinuity with the Protestantism of the previous era.

Religion scholar Randall Balmer says that:

Evangelicalism itself, I believe, is quintessentially North American phenomenon, deriving as it did from the confluence of Pietism, Presbyterianism, and the vestiges of Puritanism. Evangelicalism picked up the peculiar characteristics from each strain – warmhearted spirituality from the Pietists (for instance), doctrinal precisionism from the Presbyterians, and individualistic introspection from the Puritans – even as the North American context itself has profoundly shaped the various manifestations of evangelicalism.: fundamentalism, neo-evangelicalism, the holiness movement, Pentecostalism, the charismatic movement, and various forms of African-American and Hispanic evangelicalism.

Usage

The term Evangelical has its etymological roots in the Greek word for "gospel" or "good news": ευαγγελιον (evangelion), from eu- "good" and angelion "message". In that sense, to be an Evangelical would mean to be a believer of the Gospel, that is the message of Jesus Christ.

By the English Middle Ages the term had been expanded to include not only the message, but also the New Testament which contained the message, as well as more specifically the Gospels in which the life, death and resurrection of Jesus are portrayed. The first published use of the term "evangelical" in English was in 1531 by William Tyndale, who wrote "He exhorteth them to proceed constantly in the evangelical truth." One year later, the earliest recorded use in reference to a theological distinction was by Sir Thomas More, who spoke of "Tyndale [and] his evangelical brother Barns".

By the time of the Reformation, Protestant theologians began to embrace the term evangelical as referring to "gospel truth". Martin Luther referred to the evangelische Kirche or evangelical Church to distinguish Protestants from Catholics in the Roman Catholic Church. In Germany, Switzerland and Denmark, and especially among Lutherans, the term has continued to be used in a broad sense. This can be seen in the names of certain Lutheran denominations such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, and the Evangelical Church in Germany.

Current usage

Although often used in a religious context, the term may also characterize a generic missionary, reforming, or redeeming impulse or purpose. For example, the Times Literary Supplement refers to "the rise and fall of evangelical fervor within the Socialist movement".

The contemporary North American usage of the term reflects the impact of the evangelical/fundamentalist controversy of the early 20th century. Evangelicalism may sometimes be perceived as the middle ground between the theological liberalism of the mainline denominations and the cultural separatism of fundamentalism. Evangelicalism has therefore been described as "the third of the leading strands in American Protestantism, straddl[ing] the divide between fundamentalists and liberals". In 2004 Andrew Crouch wrote in Christianity Today: "The emerging movement is a protest against much of evangelicalism as currently practiced. The emerging church movement is post-evangelical in the way that neo-evangelicalism (in the 1950s) was post-fundamentalist. It would not be unfair to call it postmodern evangelicalism."

While the North American perception has a certain importance in understanding some usage of the term, it by no means dominates a wider global view: elsewhere the fundamentalist debate had less direct influence.

In the first half of the 20th century, evangelicalism in America was largely synonymous with fundamentalism. George Marsden in Reforming Fundamentalism (1995) writes, "There was not a practical distinction between fundamentalist and evangelical: the words were interchangeable" (p. 48). When the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) formed in 1942, for example, participants included such fundamentalist leaders as Bob Jones, Sr., John R. Rice, Charles Woodbridge, Harry Ironside, and David Otis Fuller.

— D.W. Cloud

By the mid-1950s, largely due to the ecumenical evangelism of Billy Graham, the terms evangelicalism and fundamentalism began to refer to two different approaches. Fundamentalism aggressively attacked its liberal enemies; Evangelicalism downplayed liberalism and emphasized outreach and conversion of new members

While some conservative evangelicals believe the label has broadened too much beyond its more limiting traditional distinctives, this trend is nonetheless strong enough to create significant ambiguity in the term. As a result, the dichotomy between "evangelical" and "mainline" denominations is increasingly complex, particularly with such innovations as the "emergent church" movement.

History

Influences from 17th century

The work of the Pietists Philipp Jakob Spener and August Hermann Francke highly influenced Evangelicalism. The Francke Foundations in Halle became the training ground for many priests of the New World, above all for the United States. The German Pietists believed the personal experience of enlightenment was the central reason to find the way to the good, and the spreading of the faith was best pursued by individual piety.

18th century

Evangelicalism emerged in the early 18th century in England and New England. Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland of Wales are the first discernibly Evangelical preachers. At the same time, in Massachusetts, Jonathan Edwards was involved in a revival in Northampton; he was heavily influenced by Pietism—one historian has stressed his "American Pietism." George Whitfield, converted in 1735, was next; his mentor Charles Wesley reported an evangelical conversion in 1738. In the same week John Wesley felt his heart 'strangely warmed'. Pietism directly influenced John Wesley, who had translated 33 Pietist hymns from German to English. Numerous German Pietist hymns became part of the English Evangelical repertoire.

Whitfield joined forces with Edwards to "fan the flame of revival" in the Thirteen Colonies in 1739-40. Evangelical preachers emphasised personal salvation and piety more than ritual and tradition. Pamphlets and printed sermons criss-crossed the Atlantic, encouraging the revivalists. Soon the First Great Awakening stirred Protestants up and down the Thirteen Colonies. The Awakening resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of deep personal revelation of their need of salvation by Jesus Christ. Pulling away from ritual and ceremony, the Great Awakening made Christianity intensely personal to the average person by fostering a deep sense of spiritual conviction and redemption, and by encouraging introspection and a commitment to a new standard of personal morality. It reached people who were already church members. It changed their rituals, their piety and their self-awareness. To the evangelical imperatives of Reformation Protestantism, 18th century American Christians added emphases on divine outpourings of the Holy Spirit and conversions that implanted within new believers an intense love for God. Revivals encapsulated those hallmarks and forwarded the newly created evangelicalism into the early republic.

19th century

The start of the 19th century saw an increase in missionary work and many of the major missionary societies were founded around this time (see Timeline of Christian missions). Both the evangelical and high church movements sponsored missionaries.

The Second Great Awakening (which actually began in 1790) was primarily an American revivalist movement and resulted in substantial growth of the Methodist and Baptist churches. Charles Grandison Finney was an important preacher of this period.

In Britain in addition to stressing the traditional Wesleyan combination of "Bible, cross, conversion, and activism," the revivalist movement sought a universal appeal, hoping to include rich and poor, urban and rural, and men and women. Special efforts were made to attract children and to generate literature to spread the revivalist message.

"Christian conscience" was used by the British Evangelical movement to promote social activism. Evangelicals believed activism in government and the social sphere was an essential method in reaching the goal of eliminating sin in a world drenched in wickedness. The Evangelicals in the Clapham Sect included figures such as William Wilberforce who successfully campaigned for the abolition of slavery.

In the late 19th century, the revivalist Holiness movement, based on the doctrine of "entire sanctification," took a more extreme form in rural America and Canada, where it ultimately broke away from institutional Methodism. In urban Britain the Holiness message was less exclusive and censorious.

John Nelson Darby was a 19th century Irish Anglican minister who devised modern Dispensationalism, an innovative Protestant theological interpretation of the Bible that was incorporated in the development of modern evangelicalism. Cyrus Scofield further promoted the influence of dispensationalism through the explanatory notes to his Scofield Reference Bible. Sweetnam takes a cultural studies perspective and defining dispensationalism in terms of its Evangelicalism, its insistence on the literal interpretation of Scripture, its recognition of stages in God's dealings with humanity, its expectation of the imminent return of Christ to rapture His saints, and its focus on both apocalypticism and premillennialism.

Notable figures of the latter half of the 19th century include Charles Spurgeon in London and Dwight L. Moody in Chicago. Their powerful preaching reached very large audiences.

An advanced theological perspective came from the Princeton theologians from the 1850s to the 1920s, such as Charles Hodge, Archibald Alexander and B.B. Warfield.

20th century

Services at the Pentecostal Church of God in Lejunior, Kentucky, 1946

Evangelicalism in the early part of the 20th century was dominated by the Fundamentalist movement after 1910; it rejected liberal theology and emphasized the inerrancy of the Scriptures.

Following the Welsh Revival, the Azusa Street Revival in 1906 began the spread of Pentecostalism in North America.

In the post–World War II period, a split developed amongst evangelicals, as they disagreed among themselves about how a Christian ought to respond to an unbelieving world. The evangelicals urged that Christians must engage the culture directly and constructively, and they began to express reservations about being known to the world as fundamentalists. As Kenneth Kantzer put it at the time, the name fundamentalist had become "an embarrassment instead of a badge of honor".

The term neo-evangelicalism was coined by Harold Ockenga in 1947 to identify a distinct movement within self-identified fundamentalist Christianity at the time, especially in the English-speaking world. It described the mood of positivism and non-militancy that characterized that generation. The new generation of evangelicals set as their goal to abandon a militant Bible stance. Instead, they would pursue dialogue, intellectualism, non-judgmentalism, and appeasement. They further called for an increased application of the gospel to the sociological, political, and economic areas. Not all conservatives are pleased with the new direction. One author has termed it "the apostasy within evangelicalism".

The self-identified fundamentalists also cooperated in separating their opponents from the fundamentalist name, by increasingly seeking to distinguish themselves from the more open group, whom they often characterized derogatorily by Ockenga's term, "neo-evangelical" or just evangelical.

The fundamentalists saw the evangelicals as often being too concerned about social acceptance and intellectual respectability, and being too accommodating to a perverse generation that needed correction. In addition, they saw the efforts of evangelist Billy Graham, who worked with non-evangelical denominations, such as the Roman Catholics (which they claimed to be heretical), as a mistake.

The post-war period also saw growth of the ecumenical movement and the founding of the World Council of Churches, which was generally regarded with suspicion by the evangelical community.

In the United Kingdom, John Stott and Martyn Lloyd-Jones emerged as key leaders in evangelical Christianity.

The charismatic movement began in the 1960s and resulted in Pentecostal theology and practice being introduced into many mainline denominations. New charismatic groups such as the Association of Vineyard Churches and Newfrontiers trace their roots to this period (see also British New Church Movement).

The closing years of the 20th century saw controversial postmodern influences entering some parts of evangelicalism, particularly with the emerging church movement.

Types of evangelicalism

Conservative evangelicalism

Main article: British Conservative Evangelicalism

Chinese evangelical church in Madrid, Spain

Toward the end of the 20th century, some have tended to confuse evangelicalism and fundamentalism, but as noted above they are not the same. The labels represent very distinct differences of approach that both groups are diligent to maintain, although because of fundamentalism's dramatically smaller size it often gets classified simply as an ultra-conservative branch of evangelicalism.

Both groups seek to maintain an identity as theological conservatives; evangelicals, however, seek to distance themselves from stereotypical perceptions of the "fundamentalist" posture of antagonism toward the larger society and advocate involvement in the surrounding community rather than separation from it. However, despite the differences, some people, particularly those with a non-denominational background, may consider themselves both evangelical and fundamentalist because they believe in the engaging practices of evangelicalism and take a fundamental view of the Bible.

On the American political spectrum, evangelical Christians traditionally are socially conservative. Based on their belief that the biblical view of marriage is only between one man and one woman, they oppose both state and church recognition of same-sex marriage. Since the 1970s they have also opposed legalizing abortion on demand. (See below for more details).

Open evangelicalism

Main article: Open Evangelical

Open Evangelical refers to a particular Christian school of thought or Churchmanship, primarily in the United Kingdom (especially in the Church of England). Open evangelicals describe their position as combining a traditional evangelical emphasis on the nature of scriptural authority, the teaching of the ecumenical creeds and other traditional doctrinal teachings, with an approach towards culture and other theological points of view which tends to be more inclusive than that taken by other evangelicals. Some open evangelicals aim to take a middle position between conservative and charismatic evangelicals, while others would combine conservative theological emphases with more liberal social positions.

Post-evangelicalism

Main article: Post-evangelical

British author Dave Tomlinson characterizes post-evangelicalism as a movement comprising various trends of dissatisfaction among evangelicals. The term is used by others with comparable intent, often to distinguish evangelicals in the so-called emerging church movement from post-evangelicals and anti-evangelicals. Tomlinson argues that "linguistically, the distinction [between evangelical and post-evangelical] is similar to the one that sociologists make between the modern and postmodern eras".

There persists considerable and inevitable confusion as to how best to classify the non-traditional/non-conservative forms of evangelicalism. Some call the emerging church movement a version or manifestation of post-evangelicalism, whereas others distinguish both under the broader umbrella of the "evangelical left" movement. As such developments are still relatively new, it remains to be seen how the categories and semantics will settle.

Global statistics

According to a 2011 Pew Forum study on global Christianity, 285,480,000 or 13.1 percent of all Christians are evangelicals. The largest concentration of Evangelicals can be found in the United States, with 28.9% of population or 91.76 million, less than a quarter of the world figure. The next most populous is Brazil with 26.3% or 51.33 million. The World Evangelical Alliance is "a network of churches in 128 nations that have each formed an evangelical alliance and over 100 international organizations joining together to give a worldwide identity, voice and platform" to an estimated more than 420 million evangelical Christians. The Alliance was formed in 1951 by evangelicals from 21 countries. It has worked to support its members to work together globally.

Africa

In the 21st century, there are evangelical churches active in Sudan, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa, and Nigeria. They have grown especially since independence came in the 1960s, the strongest movements are based on Pentecostal-charismatic beliefs, and comprise a way of life that has led to upward social mobility and demands for democracy. There is a wide range of theology and organizations, including some sponsored by European missionaries and others that have emerged from African culture such as the Apostolic and Zionist Churches which enlist 40% of black South Africans, and their Aladura counterparts in western Africa.

In Nigeria the Evangelical Church Winning All (formerly "Evangelical Church of West Africa") is the largest church organization with five thousand congregations and over three million members. It sponsors two seminaries and 8 Bible colleges. It also sponsors 1600 missionaries who serve in Nigeria and other countries with the Evangelical Missionary Society (EMS). There have been serious confrontations since 1999 between Muslims and evangelical Christians standing in opposition to the expansion of Sharia law in northern Nigeria. The confrontation has radicalized and politicized the Christians. Violence has been escalating.

In Kenya, mainstream evangelical denominations have taken the lead in promoting political activism and backers, with the smaller evangelical sects of less importance. Daniel arap Moi was president 1978 to 2002 and claimed to be an evangelical; he proved intolerant of dissent or pluralism or decentralization of power.

The Berlin Missionary Society (BMS) was one of four German Protestant mission societies active in South Africa before 1914. It emerged from the German tradition of Pietism after 1815 and sent its first missionaries to South Africa in 1834. There were few positive reports in the early years, but it was especially active 1859-1914. it was especially strong in the Boer republics. The World War cut off contact with Germany, but the missions continued at a reduced pace. After 1945 the missionaries had to deal with decolonisation across Africa and especially with the apartheid government. at all times the BMS emphasized spiritual inwardness, and puritanical values such as morality, hard work and self-discipline. It proved unable to speak and act decisively against injustice and racial discrimination and was disbanded in 1972.

Since 1974, young professional have been active proselytizers of evangelicalism in the cities of Malawi.

In Mozambique, Evangelical Protestant Christianity emerged around 1900 from black migrants whose religious conversion took place previously in South Africa. They were assisted by European missionaries, but as industrial workers they paid for their own churches and proselytizing. They made southern Mozambique of for the spread of evangelical Protestantism. Before the collapse of the colonial regime, the Catholic Portuguese government tried to impede their efforts.

Latin America

Brazil

Universal Church of the Kingdom of God church in São Paulo

Main article: Protestantism in Brazil

Protestantism in Brazil largely originated with German immigrants and British and American missionaries in the 19th century, following up on efforts that began in the 1820s.

In the late nineteenth century, while the vast majority of Brazilians were nominal Catholics, the nation was underserved by priests, and for large numbers their religion was only nominal. The Catholic Church was disestablished in 1890, and responded by increasing the number of dioceses and the efficiency of its clergy. Many Protestants came from a large German immigrant community, but they will were seldom engaged in proselytizing and grew by natural increase.

Methodists were active along with Presbyterians and Baptists. The Scottish missionary Dr. Robert Reid Kalley, with support from the Free Church of Scotland, moved to Brazil in 1855, founding the first evangelical church among the Portuguese-speaking population there in 1856. It was organized according to the Congregational policy as the Igreja Evangelica Fluminense; it became the mother church of Congregationalism in Brazil. The Seventh-day Adventists began in 1894, and the YMCA was organized in 1896. The missionaries promoted schools colleges and seminaries, including a the liberal arts Mackenzie college in São Paulo, and an agricultural school in Lavras. The Presbyterian schools in particular later became the nucleus of the governmental system. In 1887 Protestants in Rio de Janeiro formed a hospital. The missionaries largely reached a working-class audience, as the Brazilian upper-class was wedded either to Catholicism or to secularism. By 1914, Protestant churches founded by American missionaries had 47,000 communicants, served by 282 missionaries. In general, these missionaries were more successful than they had been in Mexico, Argentina or elsewhere in Latin America.

There were 700,000 Protestants by 1930, and increasingly they were in charge of their own affairs. In 1930, the Methodist Church of Brazil became independent of the missionary societies and elected its own bishop. Protestants were largely from a working-class, but their religious networks help speed their upward social mobility.

Protestants accounted for fewer than 5% of the population until the 1960s, but grew exponentially by proselytizing and by 2000 made up over 15% of Brazilians affiliated with a church. Pentecostals and charismatic groups account for the vast majority of this expansion.

Pentecostal missionaries arrived early in the 20th century. Pentecostal conversions surged during the 1950s and 1960s, when native Brazilians began founding autonomous churches. The most influential included Brasil Para o Cristo (Brazil for Christ), founded in 1955 by Manoel de Mello. With an emphasis on personal salvation, on God's healing power, and on strict moral codes these groups have developed broad appeal, particularly among the booming urban migrant communities. In Brazil, since the mid-1990's, groups committed to uniting black identity, antiracism, and evangelical theology have rapidly proliferated. Pentecostalism arrived in Brazil with Swedish and American missionaries in 1911. it grew rapidly, but endured numerous schisms and splits. In some areas the evangelical Assemblies of God churches have taken a leadership role in politics since the 1960s. They claimed major credit for the election of Fernando Collor de Mello as president of Brazil in 1990.

According to the 2000 Census, 15.4% of the Brazilian population was Protestant. A recent research conducted by the Datafolha institute shows that 25% of Brazilians are Protestants, of which 19% are followers of Pentecostal denominations. The 2010 Census found out that 22.2% were Protestant at that date.Protestant denominations saw a rapid growth in their number of followers since the last decades of the 20th century. They are politically and socially conservative, and emphasize that God's favor translates into business success. The rich and the poor remain traditional Catholics,, while most evangelical Protestants are in the new lower-middle class–known as the "C Class."

Chesnut argues that Pentecostalism has become "one of the principal organizations of the poor," for these churches provide the sort of social network that teach members the skills they need to thrive in a rapidly developing meritocratic society.

One large evangelical church is the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD), a Pentecostal denomination begun in 1977. It now has a presence in many countries, and claims millions of members worldwide.

Guatemala

Protestants remained a small portion of the population until the late-twentieth century, when various Protestant groups experienced a demographic boom that coincided with the increasing violence of the Guatemalan Civil War. Two Guatemalan heads of state, General Efraín Ríos Montt and Jorge Serrano Elias, have been practicing Evangelical Protestants. They are the only two Protestant heads of state in the history of Latin America.

General Efrain Rios Montt, an evangelical from the Pentecostal tradition, came to power through a coup. He escalated the war against leftist guerrilla insurgents as a holy war against atheistic forces of evil.

Asia

Korea

Main article: Christianity in Korea

The Protestant missionary efforts in Asia were nowhere more successful than in Korea. American presbyterians and Methodists arrived in the 1880s and were well received. In the days Korea was a Japanese colony (1907–45), Christianity became in part an expression of nationalism in opposition to Japan's efforts to promote the Japanese language and the Shinto religion. In 1914 out of 16 million people, there were 86,000 Protestants and 79,000 Catholics; by 1934 the numbers were 168,000 and 147,000. Presbyterian missionaries were especially successful. Since the Korean War (1950–53), many Korean Christians have migrated to the U.S., while those who remained behind have risen sharply in social and economic status, Most Korean Protestant churches in the 21st century emphasize their evangelical heritage. Korean Protestantism is characterized by theological conservatism coupled with an emotional revivalistic style. Most churches sponsor revival meetings once or twice a year. Missionary work is a high priority, with 13,000 men and women serving in missions across the world, putting it in second place just behind the U.S.

Sukman argues that since 1945 Protestantism has been widely seen by Koreans and the religion of the middle class, youth, intellectuals, urbanites, and modernizers. It has been a powerful force supporting South Korea's pursuit of modernity and emulation of the United States, and opposition to the old Japanese colonialism and to the Communism of North Korea. There are 8.6 million adherants to Protestant Christianity (approximately 19% of the Korean population) in which many identify themselves as evangelicals.

South Korea has been referred as an “evangelical superpower" for being the home to some of the largest and most dynamic Christian churches in the world; South Korea is also second to the U.S. in the number of missionaries sent abroad. In Britain, according to a 2005 study conducted by the Assemblies of God, evangelicals give 7.5% of their income to their churches and a further 3% to Christian charities. The Evangelical Alliance, formed in 1846, conducts statistical surveys of the beliefs and behaviour of Evangelicals.

United States

20th century

By the 1890s, most American Protestants belonged to evangelical denominations, except for the high church Episcopalians and German Lutherans. In the early 20th century, a divide opened up between the Fundamentalists and the Mainline Protestant denominations, chiefly over the inerrancy of the Bible. The fundamentalist were those aggressive evangelicals who sought to defend their religious traditions, and feared that modern science and biblical studies were leading away from the true path. A favored mode of fighting back was to prohibit the teaching of Darwinism and evolution in the public schools, a movement that reached its peak in the Scopes Trial of 1925, and resumed in the 1980s. The more modernistic Protestants largely abandoned the term "evangelical" and welcomed modern science and Biblical studies.

Evangelicals held the view that the modernist and liberal parties in the Protestant churches had surrendered their heritage as evangelicals by accommodating the views and values to secularism. At the same time, the modernists criticized fundamentalists for their separatism and their rejection of the Social Gospel.

During and after World War II, evangelicals increasingly organized, and expanded their vision to include the entire world. There was a great expansion of evangelical activity within the United States, "a revival of revivalism." The Youth for Christ was formed; it later became the base for Billy Graham's revivals. The National Association of Evangelicals formed in 1942 as a counterpoise to the mainline Federal Council of Churches. In 1942-43, the Old-Fashioned Revival Hour had a record-setting national radio audience.

Even more dramatic was the expansion of international missionary activity by the evangelicals. They had enthusiasm and self-confidence after the national victory in the world war. Most evangelicals came from poor rural districts, but wartime and postwar prosperity dramatically increased the funding resources available for missionary work. While the mainline Protestant denominations cut back on their missionary activities, from 7000 to 3000 overseas workers between 1935 and 1980, the evangelicals increase their career foreign missionary force from 12,000 in 1935 to 35,000 in 1980. Europe meanwhile was falling behind, as North Americans comprised 41% of all the world's Protestant missionaries in 1936, rising to 52% in 1952 and 72% in 1969. The most active denominations were the Assemblies of God, which nearly tripled from 230 missionaries in 1935 to 626 in 1952. The Southern Baptists more than doubled from 405-2855, as did the Church of the Nazarene from 88 to 200. Overseas missionaries began to prepare for the postwar challenge, most notably the Far Eastern Gospel Crusade (FEGC; now named "Send International"). Having destroyed Nazi Germany and fascist Japan, the newly mobilized Evangelicals were now prepared to combat atheistic communism, secularism, Darwinism, liberalism, Catholicism, and (in overseas missions) paganism.

21st century

Today, evangelicals are often concerned with their own failure to live up to Christian standards in contrast to the world. Christianity Today author Mark Galli says "It's now pretty much agreed that the evangelical church mirrors the dysfunctions of secular society, from premarital sex stats to divorce rates to buying habits. Much to our dismay, we are hardly a light to the world, nor an icon of the abundant, transformed life."

Meaning of Evangelicalism in the US

The Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals states:

There are three senses in which the term "evangelical" is used today at the beginning of the 21st-century. The first is to view "evangelical" as all Christians who affirm a few key doctrines and practical emphases. British historian David Bebbington approaches evangelicalism from this direction and notes four specific hallmarks of evangelical religion: conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel in effort; biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible; and crucicentrism, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

A second sense is to look at evangelicalism as an organic group of movements and religious tradition. Within this context "evangelical" denotes a style as much as a set of beliefs. As a result, groups as disparate as black Baptists and Dutch Reformed Churches, Mennonites and Pentecostals, Catholic charismatics and Southern Baptists all come under the evangelical umbrella, thus demonstrating just how diverse the movement really is.

A third sense of the term is as the self-ascribed label for a coalition that arose during the Second World War. This group came into being as a reaction against the perceived anti-intellectual, separatist, belligerent nature of the fundamentalist movement in the 1920s and 1930s. Importantly, its core personalities (like Harold John Ockenga and Billy Graham), institutions (for instance, Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College), and organizations (such as the National Association of Evangelicals and Youth for Christ) have played a pivotal role in giving the wider movement a sense of cohesion that extends beyond these "card-carrying" evangelicals.

Demographics

An event at Gateway Church's 114 Southlake Campus

The 2004 survey of religion and politics in the United States identified the evangelical percentage of the population at 26.3 percent while Roman Catholics are 22 percent and mainline Protestants make up 16 percent. In the 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States, the figures for these same groups are 28.6 percent (evangelical), 24.5 percent (Roman Catholic), and 13.9 percent (mainline Protestant.) The latter figures are based on a 2001 study of the self-described religious identification of the adult population for 1990 and 2001 from the Graduate School and University Center at the City University of New York. A 2008 study showed that in the year 2000 about 9 percent of Americans attended an evangelical service on any given Sunday. The Economist estimated in May 2012 that "over one-third of Americans, more than 100m, can be considered evangelical," arguing that the percentage is often undercounted because many black Christians espouse evangelical theology but prefer to refer to themselves as "born again Christians" rather than "evangelical."

The movement is highly diverse and encompasses a vast number of people. Because the group is diverse, not all of them use the same terminology for beliefs. For instance, several recent studies and surveys by sociologists and political scientists that utilize more complex definitional parameters have estimated the number of evangelicals in the U.S. at about 25–30% of the population, or roughly between 70 and 80 million people.

The National Association of Evangelicals is a U.S. agency which coordinates cooperative ministry for its member denominations.

Types of Evangelical

John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, used polling data to separate evangelicals into three camps, which he labels as traditionalist, centrist and modernist:

1. The traditionalists, characterized by high affinity for certain Protestant beliefs, (especially penal substitutionary atonement, justification by faith, the authority of scripture, the priesthood of all believers, etc.) which, when fused with the highly political milieu of Western culture (especially American culture), has resulted in the political disposition that has been labeled the Christian right, with figures like Jerry Falwell and the television evangelist Pat Robertson as its most visible spokesmen.
2. Centrist evangelicals, described as socially conservative, mostly avoiding politics, who still support much of traditional Christian theology.
3. Modernist evangelicals, a small minority in the movement, have low levels of church-attendance and "have much more diversity in their beliefs".

Politics

Christian right

Main article: Christian right

Evangelical political influence in America was first evident in the 1830s with movements such as abolition of slavery and the prohibition movement, which closed saloons and taverns in state after state until it succeeded nationally in 1919. The Christian right is a coalition of numerous groups of traditionalist and observant church-goers of every kind: especially Catholics on issues such as birth control and abortion, Southern Baptists, Missouri Synod Lutherans and others.

Evangelical political activists are not all on the right. There is a small group of liberal white evangelicals. Most African Americans belong to Baptist, Methodist or other denominations that share evangelical beliefs; they are firmly in the Democratic coalition and (except for gay and abortion issues) are generally liberal in politics.

Christian left

Main article: Evangelical left

Typically, members of the evangelical left affirm the primary tenets of evangelical theology, such as the doctrines of Incarnation, atonement, and resurrection, and also see the Bible as a primary authority for the church. A major theological difference, however, which in turn leads to many of the social/political differences, is the issue of how strictly to interpret the Bible, as well as what particular values and principles predominantly constitute the "biblical worldview" believed to be binding upon all followers. Inevitably, battles over how to characterize each other and themselves ensue, with the evangelical left and right often hyperbolically regarding each other as "mainline/non-evangelical" and "fundamentalist" respectively.

Unlike conservative evangelicals, the evangelical left is generally opposed to capital punishment and supportive of gun control. In many cases, evangelical leftists are pacifistic. Some promote the legalization of same-sex marriage or protection of access to abortion for the society at large without necessarily endorsing the practice themselves. There is considerable dispute over how to even characterize the various segments of the evangelical theological and political spectra, and whether a singular discernible rift between "right" and "left" is oversimplified. However, to the extent that some simplifications are necessary to discuss any complex issue, it is recognized that modern trends like focusing on non-contentious issues (like poverty) and downplaying hot-button social issues (like abortion) tend to be key distinctives of the modern "evangelical left" or "emergent church" movement.

Recurrent themes

Abortion

Since 1970 a central issue motivating conservative evangelicals' political activism is abortion. Theologically they argue abortion is the taking of an innocent life. Pro-choice advocates oppose the evangelicals on abortion and argue that any legal restrictions based on such a religious worldview amount to imposing religion. Abortion was not a crime under English and American common law at least until the "quickening" of the fetus. Physicians—not religious leaders—were responsible for enacting the 19th century laws against abortion in the name of protecting the mother and stopping quacks from operating. The 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court said women have a right to choose abortion; with some modifications, that remains the law. It proved decisive in bringing together Catholics (who had opposed abortion since the 1890s) and evangelicals in a political coalition in the 1970s, which became known as the Religious Right when it successfully mobilized its voters behind presidential candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Secularism

In the United States, Supreme Court decisions that outlawed organized prayer in school and restricted church-related schools also played a role in mobilizing the Religious Right. In addition, questions of sexual morality and homosexuality have been energizing factors—and above all, the fear that "elites" are pushing America into secularism.

Christian nation

Some opponents have argued that the evangelicals actually want a Christian America—that is a nation in which Christianity is given a privileged position. Survey data shows that 60–75% of evangelicals reject proposals for a Christian America. Evangelical leaders retort they merely seek freedom from the imposition by national elites of an equally subjective secular worldview, and feel that it is their opponents who are violating their rights.

Other issues

According to recent reports in the New York Times, some evangelicals have sought to expand their movement's social agenda to include poverty, combating AIDS in the Third World, and protecting the environment. This is highly contentious within the evangelical community, since more conservative evangelicals believe that this trend is compromising important issues and prioritizing popularity and consensus too highly. Personifying this division were the evangelical leaders James Dobson and Rick Warren, the former who warned of the dangers of a Barack Obama victory in 2008 from his point of view, in contrast with the latter who declined to endorse either major candidate on the grounds that he wanted the church to be less politically divisive and that he agreed substantially with both men.

See also

• Bible believer
• Broad church
• British Conservative Evangelicalism
• Christian eschatological differences
• Evangelical Council of Venezuela
• Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
• Fundamentalism
• List of evangelical Christians
• List of evangelical seminaries and theological colleges
• List of scandals involving evangelical Christians
• National Association of Evangelicals
• World Evangelical Alliance

Further reading

• Balmer, Randall Herbert. Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism. (2nd ed. 2004) excerpt and text search; online edition
• Balmer, Randall. (2010) The Making of Evangelicalism: From Revivalism to Politics and Beyond. ISBN 978-1-60258-243-9.
• Balmer, Randall. (2000) Blessed Assurance: A History of Evangelicalism in America
• Beale, David O. (1986) In Pursuit of Purity: American Fundamentalism Since 1850. Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University (Unusual Publications). ISBN 0-89084-350-3.
• Bebbington, D. W. (1989), Evangelicals in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s, London: Unwin.
• Carpenter, Joel A. (1980), "Fundamentalist Institutions and the Rise of Evangelical Protestantism, 1929–1942", Church History, 49: 62–75.
• Carpenter, Joel A. (1999). Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism. Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-512907-5.
• Freston, Paul (2004), Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-60429-X
• Hindmarsh, Bruce, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in Early Modern England (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005).
• Kidd, Thomas S. The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America, (Yale University Press, 2007).
• Marsden, George M. Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (1991) excerpt and text search
• Marsden, George M. (1987), Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans.
• Noll, Mark (1992). A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada.. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 311–389. ISBN 0-8028-0651-1.
• Noll, Mark A., David W. Bebbington and George A. Rawlyk eds. Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles and Beyond, 1700–1990. (1994)
• Pierard, Richard V. (1979), "The Quest For the Historical Evangelicalism: A Bibliographical Excursus", Fides et Historia, 11 (2): 60–72.
• Price, Robert M. (1986), "Neo-Evangelicals and Scripture: A Forgotten Period of Ferment", Christian Scholars Review, 15 (4): 315–330.
• Rawlyk, George A., and Mark A. Noll, eds. Amazing Grace: Evangelicalism in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States (1993).
• Schafer, Axel R. Countercultural Conservatives: American Evangelicalism From the Postwar Revival to the New Christian Right (U. of Wisconsin Press; 2011). 225 pages; covers evangelical politics from the 1940s to the 1990s that examines how a diverse, politically pluralistic movement became, largely, the Christian Right.
• Smith, Timothy L. Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War, 1957
• Stackhouse, John G. Canadian Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century (1993)
• Utzinger, J. Michael (2006) Yet Saints Their Watch Are Keeping: Fundamentalists, Modernists, and the Development of Evangelical Ecclesiology, 1887–1937, Macon: Mercer University Press, ISBN 0-86554-902-8
• Ward, W. R. Early Evangelicalism: A Global Intellectual History (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006). excerpt and text search
• Wigger, John H., and Nathan O. Hatch, eds. Methodism and the Shaping of American Culture (2001) excerpt and text search, essays by scholars
• Wright, Bradley. "What, exactly, is Evangelical Christianity?" Economist March 21, 2013

Missions

• Anderson, Gerald H., ed. Biographical dictionary of Christian missions, Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1998
• Bainbridge, William F. Around the World Tour of Christian Missions: A Universal Survey (1882) 583 pages; full text online
• Barrett, David, ed. World Christian Encyclopedia, Oxford University Press, 1982
• Brown, Candy Gunther, ed. Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing (Oxford UP, 2011) 400pp; essays by scholars on different countries
• Etherington, Norman, ed. Missions and Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series) (2008)
• Gailey, Charles R. and Howard Culbertson. Discovering Missions, Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2007
• Glover, Robert H. The Progress of World-Wide Missions, rev. by J. Herbert Kane., Harper and Row, 1960
• Hutchison William R. Errand to the World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Missions. (1987).
• Jenkins, Philip. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford U. P. 3rd ed. 2011) excerpt and text search
• Kane, J. Herbert. A Concise History of the Christian World Mission, Baker, 1982
• Koschorke, Klaus; et al. (2007). A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, 1450-1990: A Documentary Sourcebook. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. {{cite book}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help) excerpt ansd text search and highly detailed table of contents
• Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A History of the Expansion of Christianity, 7 volumes, (1938–45), the most detailed scholarly history
• Moreau, A. Scott, et al. Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, Baker Book House Company, 2000
• Neill, Stephen. A History of Christian Missions. Penguin Books, 1986
• Newcomb, Harvey. A Cyclopedia of Missions: Containing a Comprehensive View of Missionary Operations Throughout the World with Geographical Descriptions, and Accounts of the Social, Moral, and Religious Condition of the People (1860) 792 pages complete text online
• Pocock, Michael, Gailyn Van Rheenen, Douglas McConnell. The Changing Face of World Missions: Engaging Contemporary Issues And Trends (2005); 391 pages
• Shenk, Wilbert R., ed. North American Foreign Missions, 1810-1914: Theology, Theory, and Policy (2004) 349pp important essays by scholars excerpt and text search
• Tejirian, Eleanor H., and Reeva Spector Simon, eds. Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion: Two Thousand Years of Christian Missions in the Middle East (Columbia University Press; 2012) 280 pages; focus on the 19th and 20th centuries.
• Tucker, Ruth. From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya. 2004
• Tucker, Ruth. Guardians of the Great Commission. 1988

External links

• Institute for the Study of American Evangelicalism – Wheaton College
• The Coming Evangelical Collapse by Michael Spencer, The Christian Science Monitor, March 10, 2009
• Modern Evangelical African Theologians: A Primer
• American Evangelicalism and Islam: From the Antichrist to the Mahdi
• Operation World - Statistics from around the world including numbers of Evangelical by country