The American Evangelical Story By Douglas Sweeney And American Apocalypse Essay

As a “cradle Methodist,” the standards and theological tasks mentioned in Part III of the Discipline are ingrained in how I understand and apply my faith. These aspects of the United Methodist tradition have been a foundation from which I have grown during my formative years. Although I have not always been able to articulate these beliefs, I have learned the power in living them in addition to teaching them. I believe that much of the affirming, teaching, and applying of our standards and theological task that I do in my ministry is out of this same foundation that was formative to my faith. It informs how I preach, the lead Bible studies I lead, how I lead youth group, and my interactions with congregants and the community.

For almost a quarter century Billy Sunday was a household name in the United States. Between 1902 when he first made the pages of the New York Times and 1935 when the paper covered his death and memorial service in detail, people who knew anything about current events had heard of the former major league baseball player who was preaching sin and salvation to large crowds all over America. Not everyone who knew of the famous evangelist liked him. Plenty of outspoken critics spoke of his flashy style and criticized his conservative doctrines. But he had hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of loyal defenders, and they were just as loud in their praise as the critics were in their criticism.

“On a Christian Mission to the Top” by Laurie Goodstein and David Kirkpatrick deals with the controversial topic of religion, primarily the rise of evangelicals to the top of the social classes and their influence. The essay opens with a description of the differing religious groups in Brown University, originally a Protestant Christian school. After evangelicals surpassed other denominations of Christianity, the societal and political perspectives of America shifted to support Evangelism views. Goodstein and Kirkpatrick examine the attempt to sway colleges to evangelist perspectives. While I wholeheartedly encourage the freedom of religion, I do not support this attempt at mass conversion or the refusal of accepting of other cultures.

Four of the major literary forms contained in the New Testament are The Gospel, History, Epistles (Letters), and Apocalyptic literature. The Gospel was designed to tell the good news about Jesus along with his ministry, death, and resurrection. It also makes up the first four books of the New Testament, which are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. While the Letters are the most straightforward literary form in the New Testament. Which were letters written to address particular issues of the church. So when the history helped communicate the events and activities of the early church. Finally, the Apocalyptic literature was concerned with an interpretation and understanding of the end times. This was an attempt to understand what God’s role was.

While his work did not engage directly with the topic, a tinge of anti-intellectualism was fostered within the movement this book examined. In Spiritual Mobilization’s magazine, Faith and Freedom, the editor devoted an entire issue to confronting clergymen who supported the Social Gospel, a movement which he claimed was led by, “a small, unusually articulate minority who feel political power is the way to save the world. . .” If the articles of the 1930’s demonstrated a distrust of the “unusually articulate,” the embracing of religious identity and language publicly by the Eisenhower administration had created an atmosphere in the 1950's whereby the Gideons International, Inc. was actively trying to influence curriculum in U.S. schools. Traveling preachers successfully utilized marketing techniques to blend entertainment, education, and religion into a single message. Sadly, that single message forbade the kind of discourse or dissent which fosters intellectual growth. Rather, the libertarian ideologies, which had inspired the original rebellion against the Social Gospel, had come to full fruition in snuffing out dissenters and making commonplace the existence of state-sanctioned

Between 1820 and 1860, Americans constructed 40,000 new churches compared to the 10,000 they constructed in the 40 years before 1820. At the end of the revival period, ”one-third of all Americans attended church regularly.”(P.400) Many of the early revival preachers embraced Christian evangelicalism, the established groups sought to take advantage of the popular enthusiasm to build their particular denominations. Methodists and the Baptists established themselves as leading American denominations as a result of the Second Great Awakening. The two faiths had a mutual sense of affinity with regard to doctrine, but the Baptists created a radically decentralized hierarchy that empowered local ministers and individual churches.

Thousands of miles away and across the Atlantic Ocean, an “awakening” began to sweep through the colonies. Evangelists such as George Whitefield, John Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards began to hold revivals that had more of a Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian influence. They emphasized an individual’s ability

The first thing you notice upon entering the stadium styled sanctuary, is the focus on the stage; very theatrical. To the left of the stage, there is a large drop down screen for people to follow along with the lyrics when the singing has begun. Hanging behind the band on the main stage, is a “bohemian” or

The greater part of evangelical Christians are no longer in North America. The majority world has just as much if not more missionary activity than North America. The North American Church needs to form partnerships not dictatorships. Finally, Borthwick weaves throughout the book the idea that the North American Church has something to learn from the majority world Church.

Norris and Speers’ journey sent them out around the US in search for five different churches that undoubtedly worship differently but at the same time follow the universal Christian belief of the one true God. The goal of their expedition was to set out to explore the amount of politics that are found in many congregations. Out of these five distinguished churches, Norris and Speers’ focused on analyzing the congregation’s worship tactics, along with their leaders and mission of the church.

Some form of religion can be found in every country around the world. The Constitution states that there is a separation of state and church in America’s government. Legally, the United States cannot declare a national religion that every citizen would have to follow. The First Amendment right of every citizen of the United States is the ability to follow any religion without fear of persecution from the government. However, many people would still define America as a “Christian nation.” and claim America was built upon Christian values. Steven K. Green debunks this claim in his book “Inventing a Christian America”. Steven Green is Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and Affiliates Professor of History at Willamette University. At

This semester we have learned about the intermingling of politics and religion and how that powerful mixture can leave a strong impact on American civic society. In the past, few months I have visited four churches, all in my hometown of Watertown, Minnesota. Watertown is a city of about 4,000 people and about a fifty-minute drive west from the campus of the University of Minnesota. The town has four main churches; Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Trinity Lutheran Church, Peace Lutheran Church, and the Evangelical Church of Watertown. I decided to visit the first three and see how their teachings impact the politics of my hometown, state, and country.

“Heart religion” is another strong characteristic of evangelicalism. Since the reformation, when Martin Luther (1483-1546) called the sacramental system of the medieval Roman church as the “Babylonian Captivity of the Church”, protestants had the tendency to distrust tradition . But the process of the Protestantism was changing the meaning of faith from faith-expectancy to faith- doctrine. People even once attempted to verify one’s position as a Christian by accepting correct creeds . Only when the era of Evangelicalism came, personal conversion was seen as a norm for Christians, there was an outburst of desires to have powerful, transforming personal encounters with God. Religion became a personal choice based on personal experience not just

The popular film that I will be critically examining illustrates the rise of a fundamentalist Christian movement and how their religious practices have had such an immense impact of those who follow it. The documentary is called Camp Jesus and was made in 2006. The reason I chose this documentary is because it relates to the two key concepts, which is fundamentalism and nationalism. Camp Jesus is about a ministry called Kids in Ministry International and is run by Becky Fisher. “Becky Fischer is Pentecostal minister who runs the camps and has been a children's pastor for 15 years” (Spirituality and Practice, 2015).

"Hidden in plain sight in hundreds of judicial opinions is an extraordinary principle-love your neighbor as yourself. At first blush the idea of its application to our legal relations seems odd: This is a matter of morality, not legality. But the biblical command to love neighbor as self has exerted an important influence upon the decisions of American courts. While more frequently excluded from application, the love command has found expression in a wide range of cases. From criminal to civil procedure, from torts to con tracts, from employment to family disputes, neighbor-love has been a vital part of American jurisprudence."(Greenlee) This is a flawless case of the Christian narrative versus the cultural narrative within the United States. Those in the Christian narrative follow the standard of loving your neighbor as yourself, but your neighbor is every person, even a man like Matthew Poncelet in Dead Man Walking. This is where the character, Sister Helen Prejean, fights with following the principle of love how a Christian should against how culture says a Christian ought to follow it.