The Sean McDowell Show - America's Most Controversial Religious Movement (with Thomas Kidd)

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Evangelicalism is arguably America’s most controversial religious movement. Non-evangelicals often have a variety of impressions about what “evangelical” means. But one certain association they make with evangelicals is white Republicans. Thomas Kidd draws on his expertise in American religious history to tell the story of Evangelicals today and why they still matter greatly for America and beyond. READ: Who Is an Evangelical?: The History of a Movement in Crisis by Thomas Kidd (https://a.co/d/017a4eJB) WATCH: Is Evangelicalism A Wayward Movement? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHhAWYwxbFg) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Who is an evangelical? What do non-Christians think about the evangelical movement? Is it a movement in crisis and is it a movement worth saving? These are some of the questions we're going to explore today with our guest, Dr. Thomas Kidd, Distinguished Professor of History at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and the author of an intriguing book called Who is an Evangelical? You're here visiting Biola first time, which is really cool. Right. Talking with faculty, talking with students, and we got to sneak you in before you fly out to L.A.

I've been reading this, eager to jump in, so thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so let's jump right in. Your opening line right away, number one, got my attention in the book, but number two, it made me pause and think, I don't know if I agree or not. So tell me what you mean when you say this is an introduction to what is arguably America's most controversial religious movement. Why is evangelicalism arguably the most controversial? Well, I think it's because, especially for people on the outside, evangelicals seem like they're tied up so deeply with politics. And so almost all the news coverage of evangelicals has to do with

politics. Sometimes scandal, but more often politics. And so there's a way in which I think a lot of outsiders, and even maybe some people who identify as evangelicals really have come to understand it primarily as a political movement, which being so regularly associated with politics, I think it's become caught up with our besetting political controversies. Okay, so whether or not evangelicalism really is essentially becoming a political movement, the perception and the news story from the outside is that it is, hence in the minds of many people in our culture, arguably so controversial. Is that fair? That's right. I mean, and I think, you know, we can talk a lot about whether it's fair, whether it's become distorted because of polling about evangelicals and the way that that works, but I think there's undoubtedly a perception that evangelicalism basically is a political and a Republican movement. Okay, fair enough. That's helpful.

Now, tell me why you wrote a book on evangelicals in 2019, which probably means you wrote it in 2018. Why an evangelicals, and why that time? Well, I had done a lot on the history of the evangelical movement, especially the First Great Awakening before this book, but of course when you talk about evangelicals, you're inexorably brought to the present day and what the political controversies are. And I had a lot of frustrations in 2016 and in the following years about the way that the word evangelical was being used in the media in particular, and so I thought given my background and expertise in the evangelical movement historically, that I would be someone who could bring some maybe nuance, some deeper historical understanding to what the evangelical movement

actually has been. It's tied to history of revivals in America, and it's a global movement, so understanding it as only an American political movement is very short-sighted, both historically and globally. I think 2019 was actually a good year to come out with it because it wasn't an election year. I mean, as we know, in 2024, we just sort of lose our minds collectively in an election year. 2020 did as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The roof fell off. For sure, for sure. And so in discussions, I did the book with Yale University Press, and they thought it was a good idea to maybe take a little bit of a step back. And there might be some journalists and pastors and so forth who might be interested in thinking a little more deeply about exactly the question. And the title was, well, we talk about evangelicals all the time in polling and news coverage, but who are

these people? Where did they come from? What does it actually mean to be an evangelical? And I think it did pretty well in that sense, you know, not that it was any kind of bestseller, but I think it did generate some helpful journalistic discussions about, you know, when we talk about this in polls, like, who are we actually talking about when we say evangelical? That's really helpful. Now, this is Yale University Press. As I'm reading this, I start to think, I don't think I'm the primary audience that he's reaching. Got a ton from it, loved it. It felt like this was kind of an introductory book to somebody from the outside who maybe buys the narrative that you talked about

before, isn't quite sure. Let's bring some clarity on what it's supposed to be. That's kind of the angle you're going for. Am I right about that? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think a lot of pastors did read it, I mean, just because it's a fairly short introduction to kind of the whole evangelical movement. Okay. But I would be very happy, and I know some journalists, even secular journalists, read it because this is their area, and they felt like, you know, here's again a fairly short introduction that you can just pick up and read quickly about where did evangelicals actually come from, what does the word really mean in a historical and global sense. And I think it was pretty well received. I mean, I'm one of the only authors, I think,

in recent years that got reviewed positively in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. All right, let's go. That's interesting. And I think it was, I mean, I'm not, I don't think I have an ax to grind. I'm just trying to understand, you know, where did this movement actually come from? And so what do we really mean when we're talking about these ever-elusive evangelicals? It doesn't really like you have an axe to grind, and my point wasn't that pastors shouldn't read it. My point was, especially when I interact with people outside the evangelical movement, I find so much misunderstanding about what we believe and why. This is the book I'd say, if you want a primer, start here, is the way that I think there's other value to it, but that really jumped out to me. Now, you word it this way, I want to

read it, because you said, let me see if I can get this right here. I believe something has gone terribly wrong in much of white evangelical culture, though I remain as committed as ever to historic evangelical beliefs and practices. Yeah. So given your deep concern about kind of certain movements within modern evangelical culture, why do you still remain an evangelical, and what do you mean by an evangelical? Well, the remain part is, I think, because of the Lord's faithfulness to me. I mean, that's why I remain an evangelical.

But I got saved when I was 18 years old as a college student at a public university in South Carolina. And I think in some ways, I think a lot of listeners will understand this. I also don't have the same kind of baggage that a lot of people who grew up evangelical carry about sort of evangelical youth culture, and so I got to just skip all that. I grew up in a mainline family, and so so got kind of saved out of that. And so, you know, I believe, I mean, I became a Christian because I was totally convinced and convicted that I needed forgiveness through Christ and that I could be born again. And I mean, I believed all that to the core of my soul, and I still do.

And so that's why I'm still an evangelical, and that's what I mean by evangelical in substance, is that one of the defining characteristics of evangelicalism is we're talking about born-again people. I mean, that's really arguably the defining characteristic of the movement, is that these are people who have been born again in Christ. And it sets evangelicals apart even from other kinds of Christians, whether mainline or Catholic or whatever, that don't put an emphasis on individual salvation and the salvation experience. And as an evangelical, I think incorrectly, they don't emphasize that. But

that, to me, is the essence of the movement from its beginnings. I mean, you know, biblically, I think that when Jesus was talking about, you know, you must be born again, I mean, that's kind of the beginning of the evangelical movement. But in modern form, it really begins with the First Great Awakening in the 1700s. But the laser focus of people like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John Wesley, the great leaders of the First Great Awakening was, you must be born again. And so that, to me, all around the world and throughout history is what defines the evangelical movement. It's interesting that you're in a mainline church and then came to the evangelical movement. I grew up in the evangelical movement.

My dad is an author. I've been to every conference and camp. Like, I know that, but I don't have a lot of that baggage. It just wasn't my experience. It wasn't a very fundamentalist kind of home. So some of that doesn't resonate with me at times in the same way it does with others. So sometimes I get a little defensive for the evangelical movement. I'm like, these are my people.

I didn't have that experience, right or wrong. We all see it through the experience that we have. Now, you hinted at this. What I appreciate about your book is you especially bring a historical understanding to this. That's your lane. That's your training. Tell us when evangelicalism first emerged, like when did people start to use the term, and what are some of the characteristics that defined evangelicalism

at the beginning that maybe kind of stay with us today? Yeah. So, I mean, we think about it beginning really with the First Great Awakening in the 1730s and 40s. Jonathan Edwards Church in Northampton, Massachusetts has a giant revival in 1734 and 35 that people kind of see as the kickoff to the modern evangelical movement. Of course, evangelical is a biblical word, evangelion, good news in the Greek. So it's a biblical term and was used in different languages all through church history to indicate, you know, gospel. It was often a synonym for gospel. And so even before the first great awakening, there would be people who would say, well, that was an evangelical sermon, or that's an evangelical book. It's really focused on the gospel. And so it was

definitely known before the First Great Awakening. And even in the First Great Awakening, people weren't necessarily saying, I am an evangelical. It was more an adjective. And then when you get into the early 1800s, especially in Britain, and I don't really know why it starts to become a noun in Britain first, but you start to see capital E, evangelical. You know, he or she is an evangelical. And so that use of the word as a noun has been around for, you know, a little more than 200 years now. Okay, so interestingly enough, 2034 then, coming up in a decade, will be 300 years of the evangelical movement.

Right, right. That's fascinating. Okay, so maybe talk a little bit about what the relationship has been like with evangelicals and politics from the beginning, and maybe one issue you think they got right, and maybe an issue you don't think they got right. Yeah. Well, evangelicals have always thought that their faith had political implications. I mean, most Christians think that. Some Christians, of course, have taught that, you know, politics is kind of a dirty business and we should stay out. Some evangelicals have thought that. But in general, I would say that most evangelicals have thought that their faith had political implications in areas like moral reform. So for instance, especially in Britain, the anti-slavery movement was just

loaded with evangelical leaders, people like William Wilberforce, Leighton-Lyfe John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace, Hannah Moore, these sorts of people were really drivers behind the anti-slavery movement. Now, in America, the evangelical community was split on the slavery issue, very profoundly split. It's part of the reason why you have the Civil War, because lots of white Southern evangelicals were pro-slavery. Lots of white Northern evangelicals were anti-slavery. And so the political implications has not always been kind of unidirectional. I mean, the way people talk about it today, you would think evangelicals only kind of do one thing politically, but that's not been true in the past. And so I think a lot of times, you know, people will criticize evangelicals for being overly political,

but I think what that actually means is they don't like evangelicals' politics. I agree. And so, I mean, are we going to criticize William Weber Force for laboring for decades to stop slavery and the slave trade in Britain? No, of course not. I mean, but it's because people today agree with him and are glad that as an evangelical, he put his faith into practice because he was a member of parliament and he could exercise that kind of influence. You know, but we might look at other issues

historically, like, you know, temperance or, you know, banning the sale of alcohol. That was at least kind of short-sighted, I think most people would agree today. And of course, you know, now we have these enormous controversies about evangelicals and the Republican Party and all that. So, you know, one point I really try to emphasize is that it's pretty normal for Christians to think that their faith has political implications, and it seems normal to vote in a way that accords with the dictates of your faith and your conscience. And so what I think people are usually complaining about, about politicized evangelicals, is that they don't,

for better or worse, that they just don't agree with their politics. That's really interesting. There was just a piece about – in the New York Times about the label Christian nationalism can be for what somebody doesn't like about Christian politics as a way of dismissing it. Fair enough. Now, you mentioned some of the positives of evangelical movement politically. Abolition, even though there was mixed baggage in the United States, many evangelicals led that, pushed for that, promoted it. I do appreciate when you talk about prohibition, it's easy to look back critical, but you're like, at that time, what alcoholism was doing, people were drinking so much, it was wrecking culture, wrecking families. We should have a little bit more sympathy for those attempts, even though it was misguided in its results. I appreciate that balance that you're bringing. But you also talk about how there's kind of been a mixed relationship with

race going back to people like Jonathan Edwards and Whitefield being these great evangelical heroes we still look to today, and yet they own slaves. Like, reconciling that together is painful and difficult. What do you write about that? How do you make sense of that, and how do you think that informs the evangelical movement today? Yeah, it's a real problem in evangelical history, for sure, and I think evangelicals should just be candid about it. Whitefield in particular, he was the most famous evangelist of the First Great Awakening, both in Britain and America, and not only was a slave owner, but was the most famous evangelist of the First Great Awakening, both in Britain and America, and not only was a slave owner, but was really a pro-slavery activist. I mean, it's troubling

to see, you know, he, for instance, was arguing for it to be legalized in colonial Georgia, where it was originally banned. So that's disturbing. I mean, I really identify with Whitefield as an evangelist, and thousands and thousands of people got saved through his ministry, and yet, I mean, this is more than a blind spot, right? I mean, it's sin. And we have other examples throughout Christian history of people who are doing things in their personal lives, while their ministry even is flourishing, it's troubling. I mean, we should all be sober.

Any of us who have any ministry responsibilities should be sober by this. And yet, certainly in Britain, the anti-slavery movement is inconceivable without evangelical leadership, both white and black. You know, in America, legions of evangelicals, white and black, are part of the anti-slavery movement. And so it really is, there's not reason for trashing evangelicals on that issue, but there's also no reason for triumphalism. It's just, I think, you know, you look back on history and you think, boy, people, but including us, I mean, we're so shaped by the culture that we live in and who we're around

and what kind of inputs we're getting. That makes such a huge difference on Christians about what they'll accept, you know, what they'll sort of give a pass to. But I'm so thankful for those like Wilberforce and other evangelicals who really sacrificed a lot to advance the anti-slavery cause. I appreciate that balanced perspective, and especially like, this is true, there's nothing to hide from it, let's own it, and then we can best move forward. I think that's wise. Question, you hit on this a little bit in your book, but I'd love to know, what is your take on the relationship between evangelicals and technology? Because my sense has been, we've always been very eager to use whatever technology

is at play to get out the gospel. Someone said recently, like, if Billy Graham was starting right now, he probably would use TikTok. Now, I don't want to debate whether that's true or not, but the point being there's a certain way that evangelicals look at technology. Maybe give us a historical sense of what that relationship looks like and how it continues today. Yes, you're right. I mean, evangelicals have always been on the cutting edge of new media technologies. Of course, for a long, long time, that was print. And then, you know, starting with things like the telegraph, it switches to electronic and now digital. George Whitefield, who we've already talked about, was a master of the new media

technologies of the 1740s. So one of the reasons he became so well known was that he was so skillful at using new cheap print technology of the time. And so it's fascinating when he comes to America in the late 1730s, he is looking for a media man, and he doesn't say, give me the best Christian media man. He says, give me the best media man you got, and that puts him in touch with Benjamin Franklin, who is the best media man in America, and they become lifelong business partners and then close friends, although Franklin was no evangelical, and Whitefield would witness to him and say, you know, you need to be born again, and Franklin would say, well, I'm all set. I'm fine. But that, I think, is the epitome of that kind of connection between

evangelicals. And Whitefield, you're exactly right. He would have explained it in terms of, well, the gospel matters that much, so we've got to be right on the cutting edge of whatever ways that we can reach people with the gospel. We have to avail ourselves of it. So you go down through, you know, the American Bible Society from the founding was driving changes in the production of books. I mean, they were the industry leaders in the print trade in the 1800s. The secular trade presses were following the American Bible Society's lead. So a lot of times, it's not just that evangelicals are picking up on this, but they're the pioneers. And I think Graham is a great example of that, especially through the new TV ministries that

are possible in the 1950s and 60s. And obviously, we could continue on through internet and so forth. I do think that the main caution I would advise is that, I mean, we've seen this very clearly in the past four years with COVID and so forth, is that, yes, it's a wonderful thing to offer online services in a time of pandemic and so forth, but what does technology communicate about what the normal Christian life is like? I mean, have we communicated that, for instance, not gathering in person is just the same as gathering in person. I mean, so technology is not value neutral.

I mean, it communicates—the medium is often a message in and of itself. I see that today with evangelicals jumping on whatever technology that we have to get the gospel. And you write in your book, you say there's this sense that the word won't come back void, whether it's in radio, whether it's written, whether it's on YouTube or some other fashion. That's kind of an evangelical commitment. But sometimes we launch into using technology without reflecting on how the medium itself

shapes the message. That's arguably a blind spot within evangelicalism, and I appreciate that you draw that out. Now one question I have for you, if you can maybe untangle this a little bit for me, you talk about this emphasis within evangelicalism on experiencing God, feeling God, and yet there's also this intellectual movement within evangelicalism, largely by Carl Henry, so we're pushing into later times, a couple hundred years into this. Are these two strands that overlap? Are these different segments that don't overlap in evangelicalism? Like, give me a historical sense of the feeling, experiencing God alongside the thinking Christian part of God. Is it like Jonathan Edwards who had both? How would you weave those together? I would point to Edwards as probably the most

important evangelical leader on this particular issue. I mean, when we think of Edwards, if you know anything about Edwards, he seems pretty fogey, you know? I mean, you know, he's got his wig and, you know, he's got his wig, and he's giving two-hour, extremely learned sermons and all this. But he was also preeminently a theologian of religious experience, especially conversion, and what that does to what he called the affections. And so evangelicals, I think, have always believed that we need to know the truth about God, but that the truth about God should have, should generate a response in the affections. So that when you hear the gospel, that Christ has died to save sinners, that it is an inappropriate reaction to be blasé about that,

that we should delight in that, that we should be happy about that, that we should rejoice to say, he's willing to save me. It's the most wonderful news you've ever heard, but that's an emotional response. But the truth about God is the foundation, and then the appropriate response is the effective response. But I think evangelicals probably have tended to go to the extreme of the more feeling and effective response, and that our religion sometimes is about having the right feelings, and you feel like you haven't gone to church if you don't have the right feelings. But you know, we always need to balance that with learning more and more about God and

His ways and His truth, but also enjoying and delighting in that truth. So I think that there should be a perfect balance between those two priorities, but as usual, evangelicals sometimes get off on one side or the other and mess it up. It's a very generous way of putting it, but the way you frame that is exactly what I love about evangelicalism. You've got people like Edwards giving long, learned, biblical, thoughtful, use-the-mind kind of sermons, but it should affect my affections and my emotions, and the ideal is to keep them in balance. I often feel like even our language is like, oh, you're on fire for Jesus. This is somebody who has a certain level of emotions, as opposed to good theology and obedience and right living. This is where we can get off kilter. But the ideal evangelical is

to have both of them. I love that. I think that's really, really well said. Talk a little bit about, as we move in kind of the 20th century, and this is, we could do a whole show on this, but you talk about the Scopes Trial and how there's a kind of split between fundamentalism and evangelicalism. What was so pivotal about that that shapes evangelicalism today? Yeah. For about 50 years between about the 1870s to the 1920s, fundamentalist was basically a synonym for evangelical. And the reason for that is because this was the era of rising modernist theology in elite seminaries and universities. And so if the modernists are saying, well, you can't believe the Bible, you can't take it at face value, it's not what it appears to be, the fundamentalists were saying, no, no, I mean, the Bible is completely true, completely reliable. And so we're getting back

to the fundamentals, quote unquote, of Christianity. And so that was kind of a moment in time in American, you know, conservative Christianity. The fundamentalist cohort was divided about what its priorities should be, especially about evolution. You know, evolutionary theory was becoming the standard in elite universities at that time because of Darwin's origin of species. And so the fundamentalists were generally concerned, but they didn't know quite whether it was a top-level issue or not. Yeah, there were some evangelicals who said, well, I mean, you know, in scientific details, maybe this isn't a problem. But then there were others who were like, this is a fundamentally atheistic philosophy. Like Warfield, right? He didn't seem to have a problem with it.

Yeah, Warfield, B.B. Warfield at Princeton said, you know, well, if it's not explicitly atheist, it's probably okay as science. And so there were very serious people on both sides of that issue. And then it becomes even more complicated when you start having debates about whether public schools should be allowed to teach evolution or not. Now, I mean, this is a different world culturally, right? A hundred years ago, the issue was not, you know,

would creation be allowed to be taught, but the issue is preventing evolution from being taught in public schools. And so that is definitely a debatable issue about whether Christians should be getting involved in you know trying to dictate to public schools what they can and can't teach but when William Jennings Bryan who was a multi-time Democratic Party presidential candidate and an evangelical he he sort of swept into the movement in his sort of post-politics period and said, this needs to be the center of the fundamentalist movement, is getting evolution out of the public schools. Some people are like, but you know, wait a minute, is this central to the gospel? You know, and so it all culminated, to put it in a nutshell, in 1925 in Tennessee at the Scopes trial,

where there was basically this great showdown over teaching evolution in public schools. And there are obviously, you know, hugely important issues there. But Brian, he was extremely ill at the Scopes trial. He was right near death. And so he was just not at his best, and he sort of got made into a fool by Clarence Darrow, the ACLU lawyer there. And so for people who were naturally disposed to be critical of evangelicals, I think that that was an important moment where they said, oh, look at these evangelicals or these fundamentalists. They're anti-intellectual. They're hostile to learning.

They're bumpkins. They're southern bumpkins. And so this stereotype starts to set in, even though, I mean, people like Jonathan Edwards and the Princeton theologians, I mean, are as intellectually heavyweight as anybody in America. But now we're starting to operate on the level of some stereotypes in the media, and I think that that has fateful consequences for, you know, the future public perception of evangelicals. And that's really divided

between evangelicals and fundamentalists, in a sense. Isn't that really the distinction that we see now? Yeah, I mean, for that 50-year period, basically, fundamentalism and evangelicalism were synonymous, but after the Scopes trial, it comes to pass that people like Carl Henry, who you mentioned earlier, say, you know, fundamentalism has kind of become a bad word, so maybe we'll just use the word evangelical to identify ourselves. It doesn't seem like, ironically, that it doesn't seem like it has the same baggage. But there were some people who held on to the fundamentalist label, but they tended to be kind of an independent Baptist, KJV-only type of circles. And so, especially today, there are not tons of Christians who self-identify as fundamentalists.

There are many more who self-identify as evangelicals. It is interesting, the early part of the 1900s, Biola was a part of the conversation of the fundamentals. Absolutely. Scripture, return of Jesus, salvation by faith, pushing back on liberalism, but has distinctly gone a non-fundamentalist direction in the evangelical world. So you're right as you describe that. Okay, man, I have so many other questions for you that maybe we'll come back to, but let's jump into this question.

You refer to evangelicalism as the history of a movement in crisis. So a lot of your book is in your lane of just telling the history to how we got this evangelical movement today. But you also describe it as a movement that you see in crisis. Now, you and I were chatting beforehand that some of this is tied to being overly political, at least the perception of that, tied to Trump and Republicans. I have no interest, you don't either, in having that debate within the evangelical world. There's those who are never Trumpers, those who hold their nose and vote for Trump, those who are on the pro-Trump bandwagon. Right. So that's a debate for another time.

But this book is describing how evangelicals are perceived in the wider culture. Is that the crisis you're referring to? Tell us what you mean by that crisis, kind of in this moment we find ourselves. I think there are a number of ways you can look at the crisis of evangelicalism, but I think in short, it's that evangelicals are not really in control of the public perception of their movement anymore. And that has been a process that's taken at least 50 years, and we're in many ways, I think, victims of our own success, that for a long time, evangelicals have been a significant enough part of the American population that we could be treated

by outsiders as a political interest group. I mean, if we were a tiny fraction of the population, nobody would care about evangelical votes and so forth. But as, you know, as evangelicals have become maybe a quarter, 30 percent of the American population, then a lot of, you know, political consultants are going to be interested in mobilizing that group for their party. And so it's not surprising when in 1949, Billy Graham has his Los Angeles crusade, which catapults him to the national limelight. And then three years later, he becomes very active in Republican politics, even helping to convince Dwight Eisenhower to run for president on the Republican ticket.

Well, why is Billy Graham, of all people, being treated almost as a kind of political advisor? Because he represents millions and millions of Americans who could function as a voting bloc. And that's all completely understandable. I know why that happened. I in many ways don't blame Billy Graham for what he did. I mean, he said later on, especially after the fall of Richard Nixon, that he had gotten a little too deeply involved, maybe a little naive about that he might have been used by Richard Nixon. But, you know, when the president of the United States says, well, you come pray with me, I mean, what are you supposed to do? I mean,

normally you're going to say yes, and see if you can help, and have a godly influence, and I understand that. But by the time you get to the 1970s, outsiders do tend to view evangelicals more and more as a political interest group. And of course, there are groups like the Moral Majority in the late 70s who readily supply that kind of image because they are an evangelical political interest group, advocacy group. And I think that the real turning point is in the 1976 and 1980 presidential elections, because in 1976, Jimmy Carter, a self-professed evangelical who was born again, wins the presidency on Democratic ticket. And that is a year where the evangelical vote is still up for grabs. And,

you know, it's split about 50-50 nationally between white evangelicals voting for Carter and voting for Gerald Ford. That's the first year, and this is so important, that's the first year that the Gallup agency begins polling about evangelical political views. And so now you have a steady supply in the newspapers of reports about, quote, evangelicals and how they vote. And I think that is so essential to the crisis that evangelicals are in today. Then 1980, many white evangelicals, including the South, abandon Carter, go with Ronald Reagan. And that sort of secures the fusion between white evangelical voters and the Republican Party for the next 40 years, including through the Trump era. And so now

the scenario is set by which outsiders in the national media can primarily identify and associate evangelicals with politics. And that's because evangelicals had done so well, so many people had been brought into the movement, so many people had been converted in Graham's ministry and so forth, but we had gotten so large that now we can be courted as a political interest group, and the media can treat us that way, and the polling is all heading in that direction. All of a sudden, people think evangelical and they think white Republican. And you step back and you say, wait a minute, our movement is not about white Republican. I mean, it's not even exclusively American.

But in the media, you would think that that's all there is, is just white Republicans who think they're religious. A couple things are so helpful about this. Number one, that you're saying this is not just a phenomenon of the last six to eight years since Trump has been here. This goes way back to the 70s and its roots even deeper than that. And then second, there's what evangelicals really believe, and there's this perception of it. So last question, and I know you've thought about this, should we keep using the evangelical moniker, those of us who care about the core evangelical beliefs about being born again, authority of the Scriptures, importance of evangelism,

social activism, should we keep that term, or should we come up with another one? Well, I think as long as we stick tight to core evangelical convictions, I could see there come a time when we don't use the word evangelical as much or not at all. Sort of like the term fundamentalist used to be used basically as synonymous with evangelical, and then it went away. However, evangelical is a biblical word, evangelion in the Greek, good news. So we can't get away from it in that kind of basic biblical sense. I mean, it's part of our DNA as Christians. And even if we started self-identifying, I don't know, as Jesus followers or something like that instead of evangelicals, I don't think the media would pick up on that. I think they would still keep talking about evangelicals, and so this is just from my perspective, but I prefer to try to help people think through what the term evangelical has meant historically and biblically

and theologically, and that it is a fully global movement. So most evangelicals in the world certainly do not vote Republican because they're not Americans. And so if we could just remind people when we have the opportunity of just some basic facts like that. I tend to think it's fine to just keep using the word evangelical because it has that tradition. And we can't tell the media to stop using it anyway. Well, we can tell them, but whether they listen or not. Yeah, they won't listen. And so I think it's better to try to redeem it for what it is.

Fair enough. And I want to emphasize, when you say that evangelical movement is not white and Republican, you're not saying in this book how people should vote. That's not your point. You're drawing people's attention that there's a crisis in how this movement is being perceived, how much we own, how much we don't own, and how much that's true. That's a separate question, but let's understand what it means to be evangelical, where these beliefs come from,

and how we navigate evangelical beliefs wisely in the cultural moment in which we find ourselves, I think is exactly the right question. So I enjoyed your book, Who is an Evangelical? Well worth reading, and you don't have an extra grind in there. You have opinions on things, which I would expect, but it doesn't read that way at all, just as sober-minded and thoughtful as you've been in this interview. So thanks for calling out time to join us. Thanks for having me. This has been an episode of Think Biblically, conversations on faith and culture. We would love your comments and your questions.

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