American Evangelicals and the 1960s

10. The Evangelical Left and the Move from Personal to Social Responsibility

211 10 The Ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal Left and the Move from Per­ sonal to Social Re­ spon­ sibil­ ity david r. ­ swartz In 1947 the theo­ lo­ gian Carl F. H. Henry pub­ lished The Un­ easy Con­ science of Mod­ ern Fun­ da­ men­ tal­ ism. This semi­ nal tract of the “new ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal­ ism” de­ cried the ob­ scu­ rant­ ism of his fun­ da­ men­ tal­ ist re­ li­ gious her­ i­ tage. Mod­ er­ nity, Henry began, was re­ plete with so­ cial evils, among them “ag­ gres­ sive war­ fare, ra­ cial ha­ tred and in­ tol­ er­ ance, liq­ uor traf­ fic, and ex­ ploi­ ta­ tion of labor or man­ age­ ment, which­ ever it may be.” But fun­ da­ men­ tal­ ist ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cals, mo­ ti­ vated by an an­ i­ mus­ against re­ li­ gious mod­ ern­ ism, had given up on ­ worthy hu­ man­ i­ tar­ ian ef­ forts. Henry and his new ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal col­ leagues in­ tended to fully apply the gos­ pel.1­ Henry’s clar­ ion call, how­ ever, had lim­ its. As a grad­ u­ ate of Whea­ ton Col­ lege in Il­ li­ nois, and ed­ i­ tor of Chris­ ti­ an­ ity Today, Henry em­ bod­ ied a pas­ sive con­ ser­ va­ tism that char­ ac­ ter­ ized much of Billy ­ Graham–style ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal­ ism. In Un­ easy Con­ science, for ex­ am­ ple, ­ Henry’s clear­ est sug­ ges­ tion for so­ cial ­ change iron­ i­ cally had less to do with party pol­ i­ tics and so­ cial ac­ ti­ vism than with in­ di­ vid­ ual ef­ fort. Au­ then­ tic so­ cial trans­ for­ ma­ tion could be ­ sparked only by per­ sonal spir­ i­ tual trans­ for­ ma­ tion, he de­ clared. ­ Henry’s con­ cep­ tion of so­ cial en­ gage­ ment con­ sisted 212 E part iii: taking it to the streets?­ largely of plac­ ing re­ deemed in­ di­ vid­ u­ als into po­ si­ tions of so­ cial im­ por­ tance more than spec­ ify­ ing par­ tic­ u­ lar pro­ grams to over­ see so­ ci­ ety. Not­ with­ stand­ ing fun­ da­ men­ tal­ ist mo­ bil­ iza­ tion in Cal­ i­ for­ nia in the 1960s, this in­ di­ vid­ u­ al­ ist ap­ proach rep­ re­ sented a sig­ nif­i­ cant ­ strain ­ within the di­ verse, fluid re­ al­ ity of Cold War ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal pol­ i­ tics. The his­ to­ rian John ­ Turner, who ­ charted the po­ lit­ i­ cal ac­ ti­ vism of Cam­ pus Cru­ sade, ­ states that “many ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cals re­ mained wary of the messy na­ ture of po­ lit­ i­ cal ac­ ti­ vism and ­ wanted to con­ cen­ trate on preach­ ing the gos­ pel.”2 By the 1980s, ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal pol­ i­ tics ­ looked very dif­ fer­ ent. Many ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cals, going well be­ yond ­ Henry’s vi­ sion of in­ di­ vid­ u­ al­ is­ tic so­ cial trans­ for­ ma­ tion, were par­ tic­ i­ pat­ ing in un­ em­ bar­ rassed po­ lit­ i­ cal ad­ vo­ cacy. The Moral Ma­ jor­ ity of­ fered very spe­ cific pol­ icy pre­ scrip­ tions on is­ sues as di­ verse as abor­ tion reg­ u­ la­ tion,­ prayer in ­ school, eco­ nom­ ics, and di­ plo­ macy. Mil­ lions of ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cals ­ lifted Jimmy ­ Carter to vic­ tory in 1976. Over fifty mil­ lion ­ Americans ­ claimed to be­ born-again Chris­ tians. Major news mag­ a­ zines ran cover sto­ ries on the re­ cent surge in ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal po­ lit­ i­ cal and cul­ tural power. News­ week even ­ dubbed 1976 the “year of the ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal.” Ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cals, many ­ clearly in a ­ post-pietist con­ text, no ­ longer had to leg­ i­ ti­ mize par­ tic­ i­ pa­ tion in de­ bates over the pub­ lic good. What fac­ tors led to this ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal surge? And why the sud­ den bur­ den to ex­ tend ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal re­ spon­ sibil­ ity from the per­ sonal to the cor­ po­ rate and so­ cial­ realms? Clues to this re­ mark...