This is the second short article about the origins and development of the politically significant Evangelical community in the America of today. The present post features three leaders who had an outsized influence during the latter half of the twentieth century.
The twentieth century provided many opportunities for significant growth in the American evangelical movement. The Great Depression and collapse of the world economy brought many people back to church. The Second World War followed with its near-apocalyptic scenes of Nazi aggression, spoken of by some in literal prophetic terms, e.g. Gog and Magog killing the Jews as a prelude to Armageddon. And as a new focus of opposition, the atheist communism of the Soviet Union expanded its reach into eastern Europe and spoke of world dominance.
In the post-war era there was one new development which evangelical leaders early took advantage of: television! The faith healer Oral Roberts [photo on the left] had been working in a large tent or other outdoor facilities when in the 1950’s he brought his ministry to the small screen, familiarizing many people with his unusual Pentecostal style.
Later, Roberts adapted his outreach using the format of a variety show with musical numbers and a theme song: “Something good is going to happen to you.” He pioneered a fund-raising method that he called Seed Faith: give of your resources and God will bless you, including financial increase. This teaching prepared the ground for the later “prosperity gospel” that became a focus for a number of television evangelists. Oral Robert’s innovative and individualistic style of ministry began a trend of very large, leader-centered churches.
There were two other Americans who had considerable influence on evangelicals from the 1960’s and on, namely Francis Schaeffer and Jerry Falwell. Schaeffer, a Presbyterian pastor [photo in the center], moved his ministry to Switzerland to help young thinkers develop a Christian faith within an increasingly secular world and university environment, but he also had a great impact on the American scene. Time magazine called him “an evangelist to the intellectuals.”
In his books or in person, Schaeffer discussed an approach to truth and a defense of Christian faith which he learned from other Reformed and Presbyterian scholars. He took from them the idea that people have “presuppositions,” basic beliefs that form their outlook on life, their “world-view,” and he tried to bring these out in his discussions with people as a way of having them see the lack of a sound foundation they were building on. He warned that the population in general, though, would rather go for “personal peace and affluence” instead of taking on a principled challenge.
And yet Schaeffer considered that there was somewhere a point of contact between himself and an unbeliever, because they were both living in the same world and universe; there could be some physical or psychological fact that could help make for a good discussion and outcome. In two film series about how certain aspects of western culture have muddied the waters of thought and life, Schaeffer brought his ideas to a large international audience.
He said that American society had been based on generally Biblical principles but that there has been a gradual take-over by the outlook of Secular Humanism. He advocated a way to take society back, not by revolution or theocracy, but rather through developing a Christian mind and worldview to then take these into the political arena. In this he was closely following the ideas of Dutch neo-calvinists. He also viewed the practice of abortion as pivotal, a wedge issue in society that would lead to the acceptance of euthanasia and even infanticide.
Not long after Francis Schaeffer had reached the peak of his impact, a successful Baptist pastor and television personality, Jerry Falwell Sr. [photo on the right], joined with some other southern evangelical leaders to form an activist organization called The Moral Majority. He had decided to break with Baptist tradition by advocating Christian political action for stopping a moral slide and to return the country to “traditional family values.”
The Netherlands had acted through a specifically Christian political arm, the Anti-Revolutionary Party, to elect a Christian prime minister and other Christians in government. Falwell, however, worked within the American two-party system for the election of Republican Party politicians, most notably Ronald Reagan. He also established Liberty College, which was later upgraded to a university, to train a younger generation in the aims and methods of a socially active conservative faith. Though the school’s educational philosophy is spelled out in astute terms, some former Liberty undergraduate students have said that school assemblies often feature Republican speakers, that strict rules are imposed on the student body, and that sometimes a “worldview” was more about what to think than how to think.
There is no doubt that Jerry Falwell had a major impact on the current reality of a politicized conservative evangelical presence in America, and some of that might have been more temperate if the liberal side had spent more time honestly listening to conservative concerns. Here is something that neither side seems to have been good at — and more on this matter in the third and last article of the series.
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