The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America Hardcover – 8 Mar 2018

It is taking a while to get through this, but it has been an eye opener. Highly recommended.

A well-written and thoroughly researched book that follows the historical development of evangelical Christianity in the US up to the beginning of the Trump presidency in 700 fact-filled pages. Highly recommended!

This book is by turns surprising, well researched and interesting. I thought they were a monolith but they're not and rarely were; neither are they synonymous with Fundamentalists though they have overlapped for periods. I long since found, in studying the populist movement of the 1890s, that there was more to Williams Jennings Bryan than being the patsy in the Scopes 'Monkey' Trial, but I had reckoned without them as a force opposed to the American neoliberal Right, as they became under George W. Bush where their stance become more egalitarian and they demanded better care for the indigent, the sick and the benighted. They have been at odds with the right at other times too. In fact there has always been more to them than I supposed, easy to miss for a Briton unaware of 'The Great Awakening', unaware of the influence of divines like Jonathan Edwardes thus I found it instructive to follow these Christians' influence in America. In this ostensibly unreligious country, religiosity far exceeds the easy unbelief of my own United Kingdom, where the Church may be Established but it is tolerated rather than enthusiastically followed. Knowing how this exacting, expansionist and fervent version of the faith has for so long had different priorities, indeed different affinities between it and the state makes the always reliable FitzGerald an excellent guide, as she neither exults in the piety nor patronises Evangelicals, a tonic in our post-truth world . As ever she is readable , much of its learning was erm, a revelation too. Extremely enlightening on one of the more likeable responses to the Enlightenment.. I believe I now know America the better for reading this fine book. I lived there for two years in my youth and was not aware of how much I missed. Highly recommended.

Frances FitzGerald's new history of the American Evangelicals is a massive one: 637 pages of text plus another hundred pages of a Glossary, extensive Notes, and a Bibliography. While it is a weighty history it is nevertheless an engaging one, well written and replete with short biographies of major figures and revelatory anecdotes that help to illuminate important points. You need not be a theologian or a historian to enjoy The Evangelicals, anyone interested in American history, American Christianity, and America's possible futures will find much rich material here.A major theme of The Evangelicals is the recurring or cyclical nature of the history of American Evangelicalism. Beginning in the 18th and 19th centuries with the First and Second Great Awakenings evangelical religion developed out of dissatisfaction with the Established Churches and mainstream religion in general. In the early to mid nineteenth century evangelicalism had to deal with the same overwhelming issue as the rest of the nation: the debate over African slavery. As in the nation as a whole the debate eventually led to division, with many evangelical churches splitting into Northern and Southern halves. After the Civil War ended the evangelical divisions continued, with the result that much of the ferment for reform and the subsequent rise of new evangelical beliefs took place in the North since the South was smaller, poorer, and more uniformly minded. Conflict and controversy continued in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the debate between Fundamentalists and Modernists that culminated in the 1920s with, among other events, the Scopes Monkey Trial and the rise of the Pentecostal and other movements that threatened to splinter Evangelicalism still further.The summary I've supplied thus far takes readers through Chapter 5. The following 12 chapters and Epilogue concern the period from about the World War II era through the 2016 election. Here once again the history of Evangelicalism is one of conflict and controversy: how churches should deal with modern war and Cold War; Civil Rights and other movements for social change from the 1950s through the 1970s; and the reaction to these social changes that led to the rise of a harder line fundamentalism in the South, the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition's attempts to influence American politics, and the development of the Christian Right in the 1990s and early 2000s. Throughout this period FitzGerald documents another recurring theme in Evangelical history: the sad story of organized religion's attempts to influence secular politics, which inevitably result in religious belief becoming subordinate to and controlled by political ambition. Included in these chapters are the stories of the careers of Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and other preachers; thinkers like Francis Sheaffer and Rousas Rushdoony and their influence; and the politicians like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush who encouraged Evangelicals to believe they were on their side in order to obtain their support but then put their concerns at the bottom of their agenda. The final chapter and Epilogue describe the changes in American Evangelicalism, changes which parallel those in the nation as a whole: greater tolerance, more awareness of the threat of climate change, less interest in hardline political policies of either the left or the right, and overall a more multi-cultural society. FitzGerald ends her history by noting the heavy Evangelical influence in the election of Donald Trump, but maintains that the larger trends I've just mentioned might be delayed but not derailed.I enjoyed The Evangelicals, though as an American Southerner with a lengthy family history intertwined with evangelical and fundamentalist history I could have wished for more details in the early chapters (but that would have made the book even longer). FitzGerald herself points out that she deliberately did not include African-American Evangelicalism since that is a long and rich history in itself deserving of more detail than she could provide in this volume. Even with these limitations The Evangelicals is an important study that non-specialists should not shy away from (FitzGerald's clear descriptions, as well as the Glossary, are very helpful). Whatever the future course of American Evangelicalism, those wishing a clear understanding of the movements' beginnings, conflicts, and continuing struggles will find FitzGerald's work to be a useful guide.

Fitzgerald's research is exceptional. She breaks up facts and history with her interesting story telling style. Once I started the book, I HAD to plow through its over 630 pages and finish it.I have researched and written a book on the history of cultural and religious discrimination against the LGBT community in America and knew much of the skeletal information in this book. It was absolutely fascinating to read more history and information to supplement what I already knew. I learned a LOT from this book!What I found particularly well done was he early history of evangelicalism to the 1960s. Since I frequently teach using a visual timeline, I am going to try and plot some of the key parts of the history of evangelicalism in the US in a similar manner to supplement my own work.The strongest take away I have is that the divisions, power grabbing, posturing and attempts to dominate the Republican Party are based in ideology and certainly not theology. One would hope that Christian leaders seeking to impact those around them would be motivated by the Spirit. Unfortunately, that is not what jumps out as the motivating force -- it is power and control.I am an evangelical, but a progressive. I am sickened by the merger of religion and politics and frequently refer to it as an unholy matrimony. Politics, in the form of Weyrich and Viguirie came seductively knocking on the door of Falwell in the late 1970s. They were invited in for a chat and a drink, and the whore got in bed with the church and the two have been shacking up since.Until those of us who are evangelical acknowledge the problems and the cost to ourselves and to minorities and women, we will continue in a downward spiral that destroys both conservative politics and religion.This book is SO GOOD! Thank you Frances for the work and research you did to put it together. It is truly impressive and I VERY MUCH appreciate learning from your efforts.

I grew up in a Fundamentalist Evangelical home and religious community, and from "the age of accountability" I accepted the religious precepts I heard - including Biblical inerrancy and the 1940's version of Intelligent Design. But later on I stopped attending church altogether, while maintaining the strong value system I had already developed.Lately I have become curious to know what the major Evangelical and Fundamentalist religious organizations are teaching nowadays. This book gives some very detailed answers.II was rather surprised to find out about their accelerating tendency to move, from anything resembling the value system I had learned, to increasing emphasis on doctrinal details (including Biblical inerrancy and anti-Evolution) - and then more recently downplaying such details and turning toward emphasis on Political efforts, almost exclusively in two areas: AGAINST same-sex marriage and abortion.In many regions, as a result, church attendance has dropped dramatically with some notable exceptions (especially among mega-churches).