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The Evangelicals : the struggle to shape America / Frances FitzGerald.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, 2017Copyright date: ©2017Edition: First Simon & Schuster hardcover editionDescription: ix, 740 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781439131336
  • 1439131333
  • 9781439131343
  • 1439131341
Subject(s):
Contents:
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.
Summary: Initially a populist rebellion against the established Protestant churches, evangelicalism became the dominant religious force in the country before the Civil War, but the northerners and southerners split over the issue of slavery. After the Civil War, the northern evangelicals split, eventually causing a conflict between fundamentalists and modernists. Only after the Second World War would conservative evangelicalism gain momentum, thanks in large part to Billy Graham's countrywide revivals. FitzGerald shows how the conflict between religious conservatives and others led to national culture wars and a Southern Republican stronghold, and how a new generation of evangelicals is challenging the Christian right by preaching social justice and the common good. FitzGerald suggests that because evangelicals are splintering, America, the most religious of developed nations, will eventually look more like secular Europe. -- adapted from book jacket.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 277.308 F553 Available 33111009182847
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

* Winner of the 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award
* National Book Award Finalist
* Time magazine Top 10 Nonfiction Book of the Year
* New York Times Notable Book
* Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2017

"A page turner...We have long needed a fair-minded overview of this vitally important religious sensibility, and FitzGerald has now provided it." -- The New York Times Book Review

"Massively learned and electrifying...magisterial." -- The Christian Science Monitor

This groundbreaking book from Pulitzer Prize­-winning historian Frances FitzGerald is the first to tell the powerful, dramatic story of the Evangelical movement in America--from the Puritan era to the 2016 presidential election.

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 and other southern televangelists, such as Pat Robertson, 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. Frances FitGerald's narrative of this distinctively American movement is a major work of history, piecing together the centuries-long story for the first time. 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.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 701-710) and index.

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.

Initially a populist rebellion against the established Protestant churches, evangelicalism became the dominant religious force in the country before the Civil War, but the northerners and southerners split over the issue of slavery. After the Civil War, the northern evangelicals split, eventually causing a conflict between fundamentalists and modernists. Only after the Second World War would conservative evangelicalism gain momentum, thanks in large part to Billy Graham's countrywide revivals. FitzGerald shows how the conflict between religious conservatives and others led to national culture wars and a Southern Republican stronghold, and how a new generation of evangelicals is challenging the Christian right by preaching social justice and the common good. FitzGerald suggests that because evangelicals are splintering, America, the most religious of developed nations, will eventually look more like secular Europe. -- adapted from book jacket.

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