Evangelicalism in America

Randall Balmer is John Phillips Professor in Religion and Chair of the Department of Religion at Dartmouth College. His book The Making of Evangelicalism - From Revivalism to Politics and Beyond is also available from Baylor University Press.

• Preface: Defining American EvangelicalismChapter 1. An Altogether Conservative Spirit: The First Amendment, Political Stability, and Evangelical VitalityChapter 2. Turning West: American Evangelicalism and the Restorationist TraditionChapter 3. Casting Aside the Ballast of History and Tradition: Protestants and the Bible in the Nineteenth CenturyChapter 4. An End to Unjust Inequality in the World: The Radical Tradition of Progressive EvangelicalismChapter 5. Thy Kingdom Come: The Argot of Apocalypticism in American CultureChapter 6. A Pentecost of Politics: Evangelicals and Public DiscourseChapter 7. A Loftier Position: American Evangelicalism and the Ideal of FemininityChapter 8. Re-create the Nation: The Religious Right and the Abortion MythChapter 9. His Own Received Him Not: Jimmy Carter, the Religious Right, and the 1980 Presidential ElectionChapter 10. Keep the Faith and Go the Distance: Promise Keepers, Feminism, and the World of SportsChapter 11. Dead Stones: The Future of American ProtestantismNotesCreditsAbout the AuthorIndex

As a self-acknowledged sympathizer with classical Evangelicalism, Balmer laments its fading into a mere shadow of its founding idealism. His choice of final essay indicates that he holds little hope for the future of a religion that uses political power as its main form of self-identity in a land founded on religious freedom. -- Steve A. Wiggins -- Reading Religion