For the Union of Evangelical Christendom
For the Union of Evangelical Christendom

Author: Allen C. Guelzo

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2010-11-01

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 9780271042022

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American Episcopalians have long prided themselves on their love of consensus and their position as the church of American elites. They have, in the process, often forgotten that during the nineteenth century their church was racked by a divisive struggle that threatened to tear apart the very fabric of the Episcopal Church. On one side of this struggle was a powerful and aggressive Evangelical party who hoped to make the Episcopal Church into the democratic head of "the sisterhood of Evangelical Churches" in America; on the other side was the Oxford Movement, equally powerful and aggressive but committed to a range of Romantic principles which celebrated disillusion and disgust with evangelicalism and democracy alike. The resulting conflict--over theology, liturgy, and, above all, culture--led to the schism of 1873, in which many Evangelicals left the church to form the Reformed Episcopal Church. For the Union of Evangelical Christendom tells this largely forgotten story using the case of the Reformed Episcopalians to open up the ironic anatomy of American religion at the turn of the century. Today, as the Episcopal Church once again finds itself enmeshed in cultural and religious crisis, the remembrance of a similar crisis a century ago brings an eerily prophetic ring to this remarkable work of cultural and religious history.

Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America
Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America

Author: Crawford Gribben

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-02-23

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0199370249

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Over the last thirty years, conservative evangelicals have been moving to the Northwest of the United States, where they hope to resist the impact of secular modernity and to survive the breakdown of society that they anticipate. These believers have often given up on the politics of the Christian Right, adopting strategies of hibernation while developing the communities and institutions from which a new America might one day emerge. Their activity coincides with the promotion by prominent survivalist authors of a program of migration to the "American Redoubt," a region encompassing Idaho, Montana, parts of eastern Washington and Oregon, and Wyoming, as a haven in which to endure hostile social change or natural disaster and in which to build a new social order. These migration movements have independent origins, but they overlap in their influences and aspirations, working in tandem to offer a vision of the present in which Christian values must be defended as American society is rebuilt according to biblical law. This book examines the origins, evolution, and cultural reach of this little-noted migration and considers what it might tell us about the future of American evangelicalism. Drawing on Calvinist theology, the social theory of Christian Reconstruction, and libertarian politics, these believers are projecting significant soft power. Their books are promoted by leading mainstream publishers and listed as New York Times bestsellers. Their strategy is gaining momentum, making an impact in local political and economic life, while being repackaged for a wider audience in publications by a broader coalition of conservative commentators and in American mass culture. This survivalist evangelical subculture recognizes that they have lost the culture war - but another kind of conflict is beginning.