Evangelicalism is a Protestant religious movement that stresses religious conversion, personal religious experience, and the Bible as God’s revelation to humanity and the only authority in matters of faith. In North America and the United Kingdom, and increasingly throughout the world, evangelicalism has worked as a renewal movement within Christianity.
The term evangelical comes from a Greek word meaning gospel. It refers generally to the New Testament, the part of the Bible that contains the Gospels. It also refers to the German theologian Martin Luther’s teachings in the 1500’s. Luther asserted that the Bible should be the sole authority in the Christian church.
In the United States, evangelicals provided support for the patriot cause during the American Revolution (1775-1783). In the 1800’s, they shaped U.S. politics and society by working for such causes as abolition, temperance (limiting alcohol consumption), education, and literacy and equal rights for women.
By the start of the 1900’s, evangelicals had begun to divide among themselves. Pentecostals, who believed in the spiritual gifts of divine physical healing and speaking in tongues (speaking in languages unknown to the speakers), emerged as a distinct group in 1901. A series of pamphlets called The Fundamentals (1910-1915) expressed extremely conservative beliefs on such matters as the Bible’s freedom from error, the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus, and the genuineness of miracles. The 1920’s saw Protestant “fundamentalists” defending these beliefs against more liberal “modernists.” Many fundamentalists left moderate churches, sometimes called the mainline churches, to form new ones.
Believing that American culture had turned against them, evangelicals retreated from public life in the early to middle 1900’s. They set about building a huge network of churches, schools, Bible camps, mission societies, radio stations and programs, and publishers. Evangelicals returned to public life in the 1970’s. Led by such preachers and activists as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, they became an important presence in American politics and society. In particular, a conservative Protestant movement called the Religious Right has won considerable influence in U.S. politics since the late 1970’s.
See also Christianity (Christianity today); Fundamentalism; Luther, Martin; Methodists; Pentecostal churches; Protestantism; Revivalism; Wesley, John; Whitefield, George; Graham, Billy.
