American Evangelicals and the 1960s

1. Back to the Future - Contemporary American Evangelicalism in Cultural and Historical Perspective

17 1 Back to the Fu­ ture Con­ tem­ po­ rary ­ American Ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal­ ism in Cul­ tural and His­ tor­ i­ cal Per­ spec­ tive paul s. boyer On Oc­ to­ ber 25, 1976, ­ shortly be­ fore the elec­ tion of Jimmy ­ Carter, a ­ selfproclaimed “born again” Chris­ tian, as pres­ i­ dent, News­ week mag­ a­ zine pro­ claimed 1976 “The Year of the Ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal.” The ­ magazine’s ges­ ture under­ scored a pro­ found trans­ for­ ma­ tion under­ way in ­ American re­ li­ gious life, ­ summed up in the ­ phrase “ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal re­ vi­ val” or, in a more po­ lit­ i­ cally ­ loaded term that would soon gain cur­ rency, “the rise of the re­ li­ gious Right.” This trans­ for­ ma­ tion was ex­ pressed in dra­ matic mem­ ber­ ship ­ growth in the­ nation’s ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal and Pen­ te­ cos­ tal ­ churches, and a cor­ re­ spond­ ing de­ cline, some­ times pre­ cip­ i­ tous, in the mem­ ber­ ship of the “main­ stream” lib­ eral de­ nom­ i­ na­ tions.1 In 1976, 34 per­ cent of the re­ spon­ dents to a Gal­ lup poll an­ swered yes to the ques­ tion, “Would you de­ scribe your­ self as a ‘born ­ again’ or ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal Chris­ tian?” By 1998, the per­ cent­ age stood at 47 per­ cent. A 2005 study set the mem­ ber­ ship in Amer­ ica’s “con­ ser­ va­ tive, ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal” de­ nom­ i­ na­ tions at some 90 mil­ lion, al­ most twice that of the “main­ stream” Prot­ es­ tant bod­ ies.2­ Newsweek’s des­ ig­ na­ tion of 1976 as “The Year of the Ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal” ac­ knowl­ edged not only 18 E back to the future mem­ ber­ ship sta­ tis­ tics but also ­ evangelicalism’s height­ ened po­ lit­ i­ cal and cul­ tural vis­ ibil­ ity, from Wash­ ing­ ton, Hol­ ly­ wood, and Nash­ ville to state cap­ i­ tals ­ across Amer­ ica. The Moral Ma­ jor­ ity, a po­ lit­ i­ cal lobby ­ started in 1979 by the tele­ van­ gel­ ist Jerry Fal­ well, would soon under­ score the ­ movement’s po­ lit­ i­ cal clout. His­ to­ rians are only now com­ ing to terms with this ­ development’s com­ plex­ ities, po­ lit­ i­ cal im­ pact, his­ tor­ i­ cal con­ text, and ­ broader cul­ ture im­ pli­ ca­ tions. His­ to­ rians of ­ American Prot­ es­ tant­ ism, pro­ duc­ ing de­ nom­ i­ na­ tional his­ to­ ries or broad over­ views with lit­ tle crit­ i­ cal intro­ spec­ tion, have typ­ i­ cally paid scant at­ ten­ tion to the ­ nation’s ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal and Pen­ te­ cos­ tal sub­ cul­ tures, fo­ cus­ ing on the main­ stream de­ nom­ i­ na­ tions with their na­ tional vis­ ibil­ ity, lib­ eral theol­ ogy, and ac­ ti­ vist so­ cial agen­ das.3 Prot­ es­ tant, Cath­ o­ lic, Jew, the in­ fluen­ tial 1955 so­ ci­ olog­ i­ cal study of ­ American re­ li­ gion by the jour­ nal­ ist Will Her­ berg, de­ voted only the brief­ est at­ ten­ tion to ­ Protestantism’s ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal ­ branches. The so­ ci­ ol­ o­ gist­ William H. Whyte in The Or­ gan­ iza­ tion Man (1956) ­ treated post­ war ­ American re­ li­ gion as ­ shaped by sub­ ur­ ban­ iza­ tion and a bu­ reau­ cratic cor­ po­ rate cul­ ture, with­ church mem­ ber­ ship pro­ vid­ ing so­ cial root­ ed­ ness and ­ status con­ fir­ ma­ tion to geo­ graph­ i­ cally and ec­ o­ nom­ i­ cally mo­ bile mid­ dle man­ ag­ ers. In The Sec­ u­ lar City (1965), the Har­ vard Di­ vin­ ity ­ School pro­ fes­ sor Har­ vey Cox, a lib­ eral Bap­ tist min­ is­ ter and sup­ porter of the civil ­ rights move­ ment and other 1960s re­ forms, im­ pli­ citly dis­ missed ev­ an­ gel­ i­ cal­ ism as a dead end. God was more ­ present in the “sec­ u­ lar city” than in the ­ churches, he sug­ gested, urg­ ing the pious to aban­ don their “in­ trin­ sic con­ ser­ va­ tism” and sup­ port “God’s per­ ma­ nent rev­ o­ lu...