American Evangelicals and the 1960s (Studies in American Thought and Culture)

In the late 1970s, the New Christian Right emerged as a formidable political force, boldly announcing itself as a unified movement representing the views of a "moral majority." But that movement did not spring fully formed from its predecessors. American Evangelicals and the 1960s refutes the thesis that evangelical politics were a purely inflammatory backlash against the cultural and political upheaval of the decade. Bringing together fresh research and innovative interpretations, this book demonstrates that evangelicals actually participated in broader American developments during "the long 1960s," that the evangelical constituency was more diverse than often noted, and that the notion of right-wing evangelical politics as a backlash was a later creation serving the interests of both Republican-conservative alliances and their critics. Evangelicalism's involvement with—rather than its reaction against—the main social movements, public policy initiatives, and cultural transformations of the 1960s proved significant in its 1970s political ascendance. Twelve essays that range thematically from the oil industry to prison ministry and from American counterculture to the Second Vatican Council depict modern evangelicalism both as a religious movement with its own internal dynamics and as one fully integrated into general American history. Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction - Evangelicals and the Sixties: Revisiting the “Backlash” - Axel R. Schafer 14 1. Back to the Future - Contemporary American Evangelicalism in Cultural and Historical Perspective - Paul S. Boyer 28 I. Talkin 'bout a Revolution? Evangelicals in 1960s Society and Culture 48 2. Prairie Fire - The New Evangelicalism and the Politics of Oil, Money, and Moral Geography - Darren Dochuk 50 3. A Revolutionary Mission - Young Evangelicals and the Language of the Sixties - Eileen Luhr 72 4. The Persistence of Antiliberalism - Evangelicals and the Race Problem - Steven P. Miller 92 5. Sex and the Evangelicals - Gender Issues, the Sexual Revolution, and Abortionin the 1960s - Daniel K. Williams 108 II. Raging Against Leviathan? - Evangelicals and the Liberal State 130 6. Attica, Watergate, and the Origin of Evangelical Prison Ministry, 1969–1975 - Kendrick Oliver 132 7. Making Lemonade from Lemon Evangelicals, the Supreme Court, and the Constitutionality of School Aid - Emma Long 150 8. The Great Society, Evangelicals, and the Public Funding of Religious Agencies - Axel R. Schafer 171 9. Tempered by the Fires of War - Vietnam and the Transformation of the Evangelical Worldview - Andrew Preston 200 III. Taking It to the Streets? New Perspectives on Evangelical Mobilization 220 10. The Evangelical Left and the Move from Personal to Social Responsibility - David R. Swartz 222 11. “The Harvest Is Ripe” - American Evangelicals in European Missions, 1950–1980 - Hans Krabbendam 242 12. “A Saga of Sacrilege” - Evangelicals Respond to the Second Vatican Council - Neil J. Young 266 Contributors 292 Index 296 In the late 1970s, the New Christian Right emerged as a formidable political force, boldly announcing itself as a unified movement representing the views of a "moral majority." But that movement did not spring fully formed from its predecessors. American Evangelicals and the 1960s refutes the thesis that evangelical politics were a purely inflammatory backlash against the cultural and political upheaval of the decade. Bringing together fresh research and innovative interpretations, this book demonstrates that evangelicals actually participated in broader American developments during "the long 1960s," that the evangelical constituency was more diverse than often noted, and that the notion of right-wing evangelical politics as a backlash was a later creation serving the interests of both Republican-conservative alliances and their critics. Evangelicalism's involvement with —rather than its reaction against —the main social movements, public policy initiatives, and cultural transformations of the 1960s proved significant in its 1970s political ascendance. Twelve essays that range thematically from the oil industry to prison ministry and from American counterculture to the Second Vatican Council depict modern evangelicalism both as a religious movement with its own internal dynamics and as one fully integrated into general American history.