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The Boundaries of Evangelical Identity

Lydia Bean

in The Politics of Evangelical Identity: Local Churches and Partisan Divides in the United States and Canada

This chapter talks about how Protestants define the boundaries of their religious subculture. Social scientists have vigorous debates about who is, and who isn't, an evangelical. In these churches, ... More

This chapter talks about how Protestants define the boundaries of their religious subculture. Social scientists have vigorous debates about who is, and who isn't, an evangelical. In these churches, there were only two kinds of Christians: born-again Christians who had made a personal decision for Christ, and nominal Christians who lacked this personal relationship with Christ. Other denominational or sectarian differences were meaningless to rank-and-file members, even though conservative Protestants once divided themselves rigidly between charismatics, Pentecostals, fundamentalists, and culture-engaging evangelicals. All four of these churches shared a sense of subcultural identity as “born-again” or evangelical Christians, which transcended the historical divisions between Baptist and Pentecostal worship and theology.Less

Religion and Power in the 1970s

Manlio Graziano

in Holy Wars and Holy Alliance: The Return of Religion to the Global Political Stage

This chapter describes the comeback of religions to the political arena in the 1970s.

Pastmodernism

Steve Redhead

in We Have Never Been Postmodern: Theory at the Speed of Light

It is possible to trace the emergence of Bob Dylan's late style to the New York Supper Club shows in the early 1990s. In the early 1990s, too, Bob Dylan was shaking off the debilitating curse of his ... More

It is possible to trace the emergence of Bob Dylan's late style to the New York Supper Club shows in the early 1990s. In the early 1990s, too, Bob Dylan was shaking off the debilitating curse of his Born Again Christian period, which dated back to the late 1970s. There is, it seems, a lost moment in this history of modernity in popular music culture: the early 1990s. This was a period where Bob Dylan finally emerged from the relative slumbers of more than two decades and prepared to haul himself back to the American, and global, marketplace. Dylan is not so much a ‘postmodern’ thief in the night, as so many critics have presented his supposed widespread and longstanding ‘plagiarism’. He is more than this. He is a seeker of the art of the ‘old, weird America’.Less

Of Dream and Snake: He Qifang, Feng Zhi, and Born-Again Lyricism

David Der-wei Wang

in The Lyrical in Epic Time: Modern Chinese Intellectuals and Artists Through the 1949 Crisis

This chapter focuses on the metamorphosis of Feng Zhi and He Qifeng, two of the most important Chinese modernist poets, during the 1940s and 1950s in terms of “born-again” lyricism. Its religious ... More

This chapter focuses on the metamorphosis of Feng Zhi and He Qifeng, two of the most important Chinese modernist poets, during the 1940s and 1950s in terms of “born-again” lyricism. Its religious implications notwithstanding, “born-again” in this context projects the poets' immanent search for self-renewal in the vein of both modernism and revolutionism. Both tended to reflect on a set of interrelated motifs: death and rebirth, selfhood and community, stagnation, and dynamism. Above all, they both wrote to probe the heuristic experience of metamorphosis that promises a higher state of existence. The chapter describes He Qifang and Feng Zhi's pilgrimage to the Maoist Promised Land in terms of the poetics and politics of “born-again” lyricism. It suggests that for all their newfound belief, Feng Zhi and He Qifeng could not resist a lyrical flight out of the set ideological trajectory. Their poetry impresses us with occasional ruptures, a reminder that the “lyrical,” above all, arises as a rhapsodic “aside,” a momentary break in the flow of routine expression.Less

Introduction: An Age, Not a Subculture

Steven P. Miller

in The Age of Evangelicalism: America's Born-Again Years

A two-part “evangelical problem” has persisted in American society. Many Americans have not acknowledged the full impact of born-again Protestantism on their society, or they have held a ... More

A two-part “evangelical problem” has persisted in American society. Many Americans have not acknowledged the full impact of born-again Protestantism on their society, or they have held a one-dimensional interpretation of it. Many self-described evangelicals, in turn, have not conceded their status as something other than an oppressed or marginalized minority. These viewpoints assume that evangelicalism is a narrow lane, either to be avoided or hogged. The way through this impasse is to widen the road, treating them as part of a larger story about how and why evangelicalism mattered in recent American history. Such was the nature of evangelicalism's impact on recent American culture and politics: It was pervasive enough that no one expression of evangelicalism could lay sole claim to it and it involved more than just avowed born-again Christians.Less

Epilogue: Born Again, Again

Steven P. Miller

in The Age of Evangelicalism: America's Born-Again Years

By 2012, the Age of Evangelicalism was winding down. It remained unclear, however, whether evangelicalism was waving or drowning in the sea of public influence. Evangelicals and evangelical observers ... More

By 2012, the Age of Evangelicalism was winding down. It remained unclear, however, whether evangelicalism was waving or drowning in the sea of public influence. Evangelicals and evangelical observers sometimes still acted like it was the Year of the Evangelical. Yet born-again Christianity now lacked the explanatory punch it had possessed in the 1970s, when old-time faith had managed to look like a new force in American politics and culture.Less

Entry of New Christian Movements in Goa

Savio Abreu

in Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames: A Sociological Study of New Christian Movements in Contemporary Goa

This chapter is a historical account of the emergence of the Pentecostal–Charismatic movements in the state of Goa. It is carried out in the revealing light of the historical encounter of the Goan ... More

This chapter is a historical account of the emergence of the Pentecostal–Charismatic movements in the state of Goa. It is carried out in the revealing light of the historical encounter of the Goan people with Portuguese colonial rule, which established and expanded Roman Catholicism in the region. It commences with the entry of the Portuguese into Goa and the subsequent Christianization of the region. Next, there is a brief narration of the history of Christianity in post-liberation Goa, in which the entry of Charismatic Christianity into Goa in its proper sociopolitical and historical context is located. This is followed by a historical exploration of the origins and growth of the world wide Pentecostal movement and the chapter at the end again focuses on the local oral history of the Pentecostal–Charismatic groups in Goa.Less

Partnering with the Divine spiritual transformation and godly love

Lee Matthew T., Poloma Margaret M., and Stephen G. Post

in The Heart of Religion: Spiritual Empowerment, Benevolence, and the Experience of God's Love

This chapter focuses on spiritual transformation and personal experiences of a loving God. Spiritual transformation usually begins in a quest for the sacred, often leading to the experience that ... More

This chapter focuses on spiritual transformation and personal experiences of a loving God. Spiritual transformation usually begins in a quest for the sacred, often leading to the experience that Protestant evangelicals have called “being born again.” Being born again is one example of the broader social psychological concept known as “primary spiritual transformation.” Spiritual transformations, often accompanied by a persistent lifelong calling, are fortified with secondary changes in pathways that people take to the sacred. The chapter explores the statistical relationship between some select variables that reflect spiritual transformations, including being born again, a sense of divine call and destiny, and an accompanying sense of existential well-being.Less

Introduction

Robert Wuthnow

in Inventing American Religion: Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation's Faith

The polling industry cranks out information about American religion and purports to chart accurate trends, but pollsters rarely discuss how the quality of polls has plummeted. The larger question to ... More

The polling industry cranks out information about American religion and purports to chart accurate trends, but pollsters rarely discuss how the quality of polls has plummeted. The larger question to be addressed is how this fascination with polling began, why it gained such attention, and what kind of “American religion” did it invent? This chapter previews the book, indicating why the story of religious polling needs to begin more than a century ago.Less

Pollsters as Pundits

Robert Wuthnow

in Inventing American Religion: Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation's Faith

This chapter covers what many observers now describe as the heyday of polling about religion. It starts in the middle 1970s and goes through the late 1990s. It tells the story of polling about Jimmy ... More

This chapter covers what many observers now describe as the heyday of polling about religion. It starts in the middle 1970s and goes through the late 1990s. It tells the story of polling about Jimmy Carter playing an important role in defining American evangelical Protestantism and making it into a much larger and potentially more powerful movement than it had been before. George Gallup Jr. was the key figure in this development. Gallup Jr. embraced evangelicalism, evangelicals trusted him, and by 1978 the Gallup Organization conducted one of the most important national polls about evangelicalism. Over the next several years, Gallup conducted major studies for the Robert Schuller Ministries, spoke at Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral, appeared on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club,” published a newsletter on religion, and provided additional information about religious television, spiritualty, the churched, and the unchurched.Less

Sex, Marriage, and Salvation

Amy Derogatis

in Saving Sex: Sexuality and Salvation in American Evangelicalism

This chapter examines the main themes in evangelical sex manuals published over the past sixty years as compared to secular sex manuals. The manuals present a uniquely Protestant approach to sex. The ... More

This chapter examines the main themes in evangelical sex manuals published over the past sixty years as compared to secular sex manuals. The manuals present a uniquely Protestant approach to sex. The most authoritative text on sexuality, the authors of these manuals claim, is the Bible. Scripture contains everything a believer needs to know about sex. Evangelical sex manual authors defend their advice as the authentic Christian approach unsullied by distorted visions of sexuality that arose from misinterpretation of Scripture or false Christian traditions (meaning Catholicism) that have erroneously emphasized celibacy or denigrated the body. The manuals are devoted to providing in detailed instructions about sexual bodies, but the authors are simultaneously committed to larger theological and social issues defining themselves against other Christian and secular approaches to sex, and witnessing that long-term sexual satisfaction is only possible when the Bible is also in the marriage.Less