Reflective history

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 25 October 2006 07:58:05

It appears that the US American Evangelical magazine Christianity Today has reached its half century & as people do with milestone numbers they are reflecting on both the past and the future.

I found this article particularly interesting as it is mainstream US evangelicalism reflecting upon its own journey from them mid 20th century onwards. I think this is actually a very important article because it is showing us how mainstream evangelicalism in America sees itself and how they do / don't see themselves in relation to certain groups and times in history. It is not somebody else giving their history to analyse or pick fault, rather this is them telling their own story - which is always to be welcomed if we are to develop a greater understanding.

The article allows us to see how mainstream evangelicals have distanced themselves from fundamentalists, whilsts acknowledging their common heritage. It also gives insight into the way that they acknowledge the place of mainstream evangelicalism in helping to maintain racism in the past, but now seems no longer to acknowledge it as an issue simply because legislation has been passed. Infact a striking feature is the confidence that evangelicalism in the US appears to have in the power of legislation to change the country overnight for better or worse. It is also an article which is in its own way progressive, acknowledging that the fuel that has set evangelicalism alight again has come through immigration.