evangelical christianity

Billy Graham looks straight into the camera with the US Capitol building behind him.

PBS / American Experience: Billy Graham

THE TWO-HOUR PBS documentary Billy Graham ran as part of the “American Experience” series, but it could have been subtitled “An American Tragedy.”

The story Billy Graham tells is mostly one of triumph. A boy grows up on a North Carolina dairy farm, becomes the top Fuller Brush salesman in a two-state territory, then answers a call to preach. His crusades attract more than 200 million people and change hundreds of thousands of lives. However, like all the tragic heroes before him, Billy Graham had a flaw. It was neither lust nor greed, the nemeses of so many evangelists. Instead, as one of the commentators in the documentary tells us, Graham was drawn to power “like a moth to a flame.”

In the 1940s Graham led a movement that dragged evangelical Christianity out of the cultural backwoods and into the mainstream of postwar American life. Graham’s early years provide a road map of that movement as he went from ultra-sectarian Bob Jones University to Florida Bible Institute to Wheaton College. He worked as a staff preacher with Youth for Christ, then began a series of independent evangelistic crusades that started in a tent off Hollywood Boulevard in 1949 and culminated, in 1957, with a 16-week run at Madison Square Garden.

Madison Muller 1-26-2021
Trump supporters at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot hold a cross that says 'Jesus Saves'

Trump supporters carry a cross to the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021 / Madison Muller

Madison Muller is a graduate student studying social justice and investigative journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. She spoke with Sojourners' Jenna Barnett.

“I GOT TO Federal Plaza around noon, right when Trump’s speech was starting. I sat with a group called the America First Coalition. They had plugged a phone into a megaphone and were standing in a circle listening to the speech. I sat right in the middle to listen. Ten minutes in, Trump started speaking about his distrust of the media and [how they were] complicit in the ‘rigged’ election. That’s when I started getting a little bit fearful. I could see people looking at my press pass. When I said that I was a graduate student journalist, one of them said, ‘We don’t like people in grad school.’ And then they started yelling at me, ‘We hate the media! Get out of here!’

A larger group started forming in the street. I [ended up] at the front of the group when they walked to the Capitol. I saw people in bulletproof vests, people with military tactical equipment, walkie-talkies, helmets, goggles; people had batons in their backpacks. There was this acceleration toward the Capitol. I remember thinking there is just nothing that’s going to stop the momentum of this group. I was surprised by the lack of law enforcement that I saw, especially after having covered racial justice protests since May, where there’s always such a heavy police presence.

Mark I. Pinsky 6-12-2017

Image via RNS/Sarah M. Brown

King is no latecomer on this issue. His views and his deep commitment to the LGBTQ community were shaped by his gay older brother’s suicide in the 1990s, an event that shook his family.

King’s sentiments were not unique, even for straight white believers like himself. What is unique is that they came from a candidate for governor of Florida who is running as both an evangelical Christian and a progressive Democrat.

Mark Osler 5-22-2013
by Eric Austin / Flickr.com

Protestors gather during Minnesota's Senate marriage equality vote, by Eric Austin / Flickr.com

A tipping point has been reached, not only on the issue of marriage equality, but on the broader political force of bully Christianity, a pernicious brand of the faith that tells people who don't have conservative social and political views that they "aren't Christian." That model has now failed where it used to work reliably; Waterloo has been reached.

To be clear, not all of those who sought to protect traditional man-woman marriage were bullies. Many acted out of a principled and consistent sense of their own faith, and stayed away from defining the faith identity of others. I am fortunate that the same-sex marriage opponents I know best avoided that tactic and amid our disagreement never suggested that I was no longer a part of the diverse and complex body of Christians. 

Still, it is undeniable that many advocates for traditional marriage actively used the bullying tactic of asserting that there was only one "Christian" position on this issue, and that the Christian viewpoint rejected marriage equality. Unfortunately, their voices have too often been the loudest, and the ones to which the press is most attracted.  That tactic has now been exposed as something worse than unprincipled, politically: It has been shown to be ineffective in the public arena. 

Some will see this tipping point as a huge loss for Christianity, but it might instead be the faith's salvation. Bullying was always a terrible form of evangelism. 

the Web Editors 1-06-2012
Rick Santorum. Image via Wylio http://www.wylio.com/credits/Flickr/6184431370

Rick Santorum. Image via Wylio http://www.wylio.com/credits/Flickr/6184431370

Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum is a darling of the Christian right, and made a tremendous showing among evangelicals in the Iowa caucuses. But Santorum himself is a Catholic, and while many of his more socially conservative positions have endeared him to the evangelical community, they actually conflict with the teachings of his own church. The theological tensions in Santorum's record pose potential political problems for his candidacy: Can he bring Catholics into his camp despite advocating unorthodox positions? And can he maintain his reputation among conservative Christians as a principled man of religious integrity, despite taking political stances that violate the teachings of his own faith?

Santorum has often defended the role of religion in political affairs, stating that his own faith was a significant factor in his Senate career.

"The social teachings of my faith were a factor in my work as a senator," Santorum wrote in a 2007 opinion piece for the Philadelphia Enquirer, explaining his votes in favor of global AIDS relief as rooted in Christian teachings to "care for the poor."

But on two issues in particular, Santorum has broken with official Catholic doctrine to side with hardline evangelicals against accepted scientific conclusions. On several other matters, Santorum's political positions have sparked ire among Catholics concerned with social justice.

the Web Editors 10-04-2011

ev churchWhat are "the evangelicals," you ask?

Certainly not a political or ideological monolith, as recent polling and survey numbers demonstrate.

Here is a compilation of some recent statistics related to evangelicals and their political, spiritual and ideological habits.

Jeannie Choi 1-28-2011
The Pope. Budgeting. Egypt. Here's a little round up of links from around the web you may have missed this week: