The Age Of Ideologies: American Evangelicalism

American Evangelicalism Essay
Melissa Balthrop
Grand Canyon University: HTH-379
11-16-14

American Evangelicalism Essay The Age of Ideologies is a big part of the church history spanning from the year 1914-1989. Some of the most common ideologies that were viewed during this time were Nazism, Marxism, and Capitalism. In this essay one should be able to see how these ideologies effected the evangelical and ecumenical movements. To begin one must first understand the different ideologies of the 20th century. One of the most commonly known is Nazism. Nazism is a form of fascism which is a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce,
Communism is a type of socialism and socialism is based around the idea of the states being owner of their means of production. Communism is based upon the ideology of Marxism. Marxism criticized Christianity by claiming that it was untrue because it took the side of the wealthy oppressors (Shelley 2008). The movement that we know as communism today was started by Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov know as Lenin. Lenin believed that violence was Marxism’s ultimate weapon (Shelley 2008). The theory that came from these two men’s ideas coming together was the Marxist-Leninist theory which claimed “Christianity is an illusory reflection of the world resulting from class divisions” (Shelley 2008). Communism was about not letting society become classless because Lenin believed that religion would take away the power of government and to him that could not
Jimmy Carter’s faith because a big issue during his presidential campaign. Carter was revitalizing the Old-time religion of evangelical Christianity (Shelley 2008). This movement began the Pentecostal denomination. Even though the evangelical movement was in the media’s eyes it had little impact on the government. A man by the name of George M. Marsden compares Evangelicals in America to rootless immigrants in a new land (Shelley 2008). Marsden makes this comparison because the Evangelicals did not change with the times like the rest of America was changing. From this dormancy we see the rise of fundamentalism. This rose from the ideas of a man named Lyman Stewart. From Stewarts ideas came The Fundamentalist Fellowship led by Curtis Lee Law. This group were trying to show how the modernist were taking away from the fundamentals of the gospel. Early fundamentalist believed in these three things: “a supernatural Jesus attested by his resurrection from the dead; a trustworthy Bible, the fountain of the Christian faith; and the need of men to have ‘a new face upon life’” (Shelley 2008). After WWII we see Billy Graham who has become one of the most widely known evangelical preachers in