I have been trying to understand our unique times. Or are they unique? I read through this weighty tome (more than 700 pages) to try and get a sense of how we got here. The book starts in the 1740s and continues through American History at a snail's pace, detailing every evangelical movement, every leader, every event impacting both politics and faith. It must have truly been a labor of love for Frances FitzGerald, who has created a virtual encyclopedia on the topic. But it is about as fun as reading an encyclopedia -- plodding and plotless. I really didn't need to know the biography of every faith leader of the various religious movements in the United States over past two hundred years. All that being said, I pushed through and I learned a lot. I really didn't know nearly as much about evangelicalism as I thought I knew, including the fact that the evangelicalism we know today is not that old. So, maybe it was worth it. For those who don't want to dig through it all, here are my take-aways: Evangelicalism has meant very different things to different people in the faith community over the past 250+ years in this nation. Evangelicals are not a single entity, but rather a large number of disparate belief systems which grew up and out through the major denominations of early America (Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists and Anglicans). There were major religious movements throughout time and these not only helped to develop the faiths but created schisms and break-off churches. For the better part of the last 200 years, many of the various evangelical groups have not gotten along, or agreed on fundamental points. Most evangelical groups shunned the political spotlight and preferred to keep to themselves. That only changed when an issue of concern (such as the evolution battle of the 1920s) came up. The groups would come together briefly to involve themselves in that single issue, then fade back into their segregated communities until another topic came up. In the 1960s a confluence of things created the seeds of modern evangelical efforts. Society took a sharp left with the Civil Rights acts, followed by the rights battles of women and gays. The pill made sexual activity more prominent outside of marriage. The streets of this country erupted with protests and hippies. Television broadcast images and stories as far away from the "Andy Griffith Show" as you can imagine. Televangelicals arouse, denouncing the very medium which helped them grow their memberships. In 1979, a single person, Jerry Falwell, did what few others had done. He brought a large number of the conservative faith groups, including evangelicals, into a single tent. He called it the "Moral Majority". Working with Ronald Reagan he and his people got a seat at the table -- and liked it. The idea of re-making America into a Christian Nation was born. The moral majority fell apart in the late 80s but the roots were there. Leaders came together and planned out how to win more elections. They worked at the grass-roots level rather than at the national level, where they had seen some success and a lot of failure. They made steady gains in local and state offices, the impact of which is seen today. They created a playbook of lasering in on a single issue of concern for the people they called "values voters" (gay rights, bad books in schools, abortion, etc) and made that the entire focus of an election. Today, we call these "wedge issues". The conservative leaders made it clear from the pulpits of evangelical churches that a failure to act on these issues would have a hugely detrimental impact on the freedoms, rights, even lives, of their devoted followers. Anyone who disagreed was helping to destroy our nation. This was an important shift. Not only were the evangelicals of the 1980s and beyond more political than their predecessors, but they supported political messaging from pastors (which had not been the case very often in the previous two centuries) and they were vehement about stopping abortion ... which many groups had actually supported in the past! (or ignored). The increase in conservative "news" organizations and Social Media after 2010 allowed the right wing to spread their messages more quickly, and to a wider audience, than ever before, bringing on the Presidential election of 2016. And here we are. I still don't buy into it, but at least now, to some degree, I get where it all came from.
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