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history of evangelicalism

My father didn’t need James Dobson to teach him how to be a patriarch. Focus on the Family had a different influence on him.

John Fea   |  March 13, 2023

I’ve made this point before, but I recently made it again on a WNYC (New York City’s National Public Radio station) podcast called “On the Divided Dial.” (It was repackaged and rereleased last week). I appreciate journalist Katie Thornton willingness...

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The new Billy Graham archive will open this month

John Fea   |  November 2, 2022

It looks like it will be a professional archive that will gather “the full documentary record” of Graham’s life and work. Here is Daniel Silliman at Christianity Today: When he watched Billy Graham preach, David Bruce couldn’t help but think...

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Episode 9: Howard Dean’s Bikepath Conversion

John Fea   |  June 15, 2021

The governor of Vermont gets religion Episode 9: “Howard Dean’s Bikepath Conversion” dropped last night. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above receive this narrative history podcast. Here is a teaser: Listen to Episodes 0, 1, and 2 here. If you like...

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Episode 4: The Waning of Christian America

John Fea   |  May 11, 2021

Conservative evangelicals respond to a perfect storm capable of wiping out the Christian ideals that built their great nation. Episode 4: “The Waning of Christian America” (our fifth episode) dropped last night. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above...

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“Give it up. You have Trump derangement syndrome. Start writing about something else.”

John Fea   |  November 24, 2020

I often get asked something like this: “Why do you waste your time writing about Trump’s court evangelicals?” Or angrier people say this to me: “Give it up. You have Trump derangement syndrome. Start writing about something else.” I get […]

The Author’s Corner with Wendy Raphael Roberts

Annie Thorn   |  July 27, 2020

Wendy Roberts is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Albany, SUNY. This interview is based on her new book, Awakening Verse: The Poetics of Early American Evangelicalism (Oxford University Press, 2020). JF: What led you to write Awakening Verse? WR: When...

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Walking Back Metaxas’ Tweet on Biden to Blackface Days

John Fea   |  May 28, 2020

Religion News Service asked me to write something on this. Here you go: Eric Metaxas, a Christian author, radio personality and one of the president’s most prominent court evangelicals, wants to make America great again. Earlier this week we got...

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Remembering Donald Dayton

John Fea   |  May 13, 2020

Theologian and church historian Donald W. Dayton has died. While I was a student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School pursuing an M.A. in American church history, I read a lot of Dayton. As a young evangelical, I was passionate about...

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Mark Noll on the Definition of Evangelicalism

John Fea   |  April 28, 2020

Over at Religion and Politics, Eric C. Miller talks with historian Mark Noll about the definition of evangelicalism.  Noll is the editor of a recent book on the subject (co-authored with George Marsden and David Bebbington) titled Evangelicals: Who They Have...

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How Billy Sunday Handled the 1918 Influenza Epidemic

John Fea   |  March 17, 2020

One of the first things I ever published was a journal article on evangelist Billy Sunday’s 1918 crusade in Chicago. The title played-off a line from a popular Frank Sinatra song about Chicago: “The Town That Billy Sunday Could Not...

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What’s New at the Billy Graham Center Archives?

John Fea   |  February 15, 2020

If you study American evangelicalism, you have probably made a visit to the Billy Graham Center Archives at Wheaton College.  Last year the archives lost the papers of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, but it also acquired some very interesting...

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The “Age of Fracture” and Evangelicalism

John Fea   |  January 29, 2020

In his 2011 Bancroft Prize-winning book The Age of Fracture, Princeton intellectual historian Daniel Rodgers writes: Across multiple fronts of ideational battle, from the speeches of presidents to books of social and cultural theory, conceptions of human nature that in...

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A History of the Jerks

John Fea   |  January 27, 2020

No, this is not a political post. Over at The Panorama, University of Richmond religion professor Douglas Winiarski writes about the jerks, a “fascinating spirit possession phenomenon” often associated with certain forms of evangelical Christianity.  It looks like this short...

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Darryl Hart on Boston’s Park Street Church, Evangelicalism, and the “Ghost of Harold John Ockenga”

John Fea   |  January 10, 2020

Harold John Ockenga was the pastor of Boston’s Park Street Church from 1936 to 1969. He was one of the early leaders of the neo-evangelical movement in the 1940s and 1950s.  We normally associated the rise of neo-evangelicalism with people...

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A Short History of Evangelical Fear

John Fea   |  January 7, 2020

As we have already noted, today is the release of the paperback edition of Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump.  As part of the roll-out, I am going to republish some of the piece I wrote back in the...

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The Imaginary Turn in Evangelical Scholarship

John Fea   |  January 5, 2020

Historian David Bebbington Martin Spence is Associate Professor of History at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  He is writing for us this weekend at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in New York City.  Enjoy his latest...

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Have You Visited the Billy Graham Center Archives?

John Fea   |  January 2, 2020

Last year evangelist Franklin Graham moved the papers of his father, Billy Graham, from the Billy Graham Center Archives at Wheaton College to the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina.  We commented here and here and here. Despite the...

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“Christianity Yesterday, Today, and Forever!”

John Fea   |  December 28, 2019

In 1962, the Swiss theologian Karl Barth came to George Washington University for a question and answer session with American religious leaders.  Carl F.H. Henry, the editor of Christianity Today magazine, was one of these leaders.  Here is how he described...

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Are Trump’s Evangelical Critics Elitist? The Pietist Schoolman Reflects on Evangelical Populism

John Fea   |  December 23, 2019

After Mark Galli published a Christianity Today editorial calling for the removal of Donald Trump, several pundits accused Galli of betraying the populist roots of American evangelicalism.  Galli, in other words, is an out of touch elitist. Read court evangelical Johnnie Moore’s...

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19th-Century Evangelicals on the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

John Fea   |  December 10, 2019

This morning I read chapter nine of Victor Howard’s book Religion and the Radical Republican Movement, 1860-1870.  The chapter is titled “Impeachment and the Churches” and it focuses on how Protestant churches, denominations, and clergy responded to the impeachment of Andrew...

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