Waubonsee Community College

The Evangelicals, the struggle to shape America, Frances FitzGerald

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 701-710) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

The Evangelicals

bibliography

951742558

Frances FitzGerald

the struggle to shape America

The evangelical movement began in the revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, known in America as the Great Awakenings. A populist rebellion against the established churches, it became the dominant religious force in the country. During the nineteenth century, white evangelicals split apart dramatically, first North versus South, and then at the end of the century, modernist versus fundamentalist. After World War II, Billy Graham, the revivalist preacher, attracted enormous crowds and tried to gather all Protestants under his big tent, but the civil rights movement and the social revolution of the sixties drove them apart again. By the 1980s, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other southern televangelists had formed the Christian right. Protesting abortion and gay rights, they led the South into the Republican Party, and for thirty-five years they were the sole voice of evangelicals to be heard nationally. Eventually a younger generation of leaders protested the Christian right's close ties with the Republican Party and proposed a broader agenda of issues, such as climate change, gender equality, and immigration reform. Evangelicals have in many ways defined the nation. They have shaped our culture and our politics. Evangelicals now constitute twenty-five percent of the American population, but they are no longer monolithic in their politics. They range from Tea Party supporters to social reformers. Still, with the decline of religious faith generally, FitzGerald suggests that evangelical churches must embrace ethnic minorities if they are to survive

The great awakenings and the Evangelical empire -- Evangelicals North and South -- Liberals and conservatives in the Post-Civil War North -- The fundamentalist-modernist conflict -- The separatists -- Billy Graham and modern evangelicalism -- Pentecostals and Southern Baptists -- Evangelicals in the 1960s -- The fundamentalist uprising in the South -- Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority -- The political realignment of the South -- The thinkers of the Christian right -- Pat Robertson: Politics and miracles -- The Christian Coalition and the Republican Party -- The Christian right and George W. Bush -- The new Evangelicals -- The transformation of the Christian right