landmark cases returns live next february on c-span. join us to hear more stories of the people who sparked groundbreaking cases and the justices and lawyers who were

key to the supreme court's review. next, a look at the history of evangelicals in american politics from the early 19th century to present day. we'll hear about christian leader henry ward beecher, prohibition and the 18th amendment. and the u.s. supreme court abortion case roe v. wade. this is about an hour and a half. well, good evening. and welcome to bob jones university and our first of a series of three forums. evangelicals and politics. we really appreciate you being with us here this evening. if we could, let's begin our program tonight with a word of prayer. heavenly father we do thank you for the opportunity we have here to learn more about our civic responsibilities and the great nation that you have blessed us to be a part of.

we do pray for our nation. we pray for our erected leaders. we pray for president obama particularly as he leads this nation, that you might grant him a wisdom and that your sovereign hand might be directing the decisions he makes. we think of tragedies that have happened recently. attacks on the well-being and even life of many citizens. we pray you will protect a life. and i pray those of us who know you will live godly lives and influence those around us. i pray that you will do that for your glory. we pray now you would bless this discussion tonight, that we might learn something that would make us more effective citizens. amen. before i introduce this evening's pagists, i want to take a few minutes and set the context and purpose for

tonight's discussion. it's my opinion that believers or evangelicals should engage in political activities on the basis of their faith commitments. i hold this opinion for a couple of reasons. first a scripture assumes that a follower of christ will seek opportunities for influence. just one example in jeremy my jeremiah 29:7. god instructs his people who are exiled to seek the peeks or welfare of the city where i've caused you to be carried away as captives. and pray unto the lord for it because the peace or welfare thereof, may you have peace. so it's natural to influence people and welfare institutions including government because we

see that in scripture. second, evangelicals engage in political activity because faith is not simply a part of a christen's life but essential to his or her identity as a person. evangelicals see themselves in two kingdoms. we render unto caesars those things that are caesars and we seek those things which are above. but as we carry out responsibilities as citizens in this earthy kingdom, we do so in keeping our identity as followers of christ. so the am einvolvement of evan so the involvement of evangelicals in american politics as evangelicals should come as no surprise. knowing the appropriate ways to call out this influence and the ways to participate in democracy is not always straight forward. sadly, evangelicals have not always exercised this responsibility and wisdom in meekness.

sometimes we're so enamored with the political power of this world that we become, in the words of ed thomas, blinded by might. in an area where evangelicals are increasingly pressured to keep their faith to their private life and away from the public sphere, christians must understand how to carry out their physical responsibilities in meekness and wisdom. it's my hope that tonight's forum will accomplish two ends. first, i hope your understanding of how evangelicals have engaged in the american experiment of self-government will be expanded. second, i hope we'll glean lessons from the successes and even the missteps of evangelicals of the past that are instructive for our lives today. our format tonight is pretty simple. after i introduce our panelists, i'll ask them questions. and then following those questions, i'll take time to answer some of our audience. be sure to get a card from our volunteers if you've not already done that.

and maybe if you don't have one, you could put your hand up very quickly and one of our volunteers could get one. tonight we have the privilege of hearing from four respected panelists. and let me introduce each one of them to you. first of all, carl abrahams who is on your far left. i don't mean anything political by that i can assure you. first is carl abrahams. he is frequently sought by the media as an expert on religion and american culture. he's the author of two books and "selling the old time religion," 1920 to 1940, and "conservative constraints, north carolina and the new deal."

dr. abrams holds three degrees in history. a b.a. from bob jones university. an m.a. from north carolina state university. and a ph.d. from the university of maryland. in addition, he studied at the sobourne in paris, the university of north carolina chapel hill and harvard divinity school. and then dr. jim guth, who is on your far right, is the william r. kennan jr. professor of political science at furman university. he has served as fuhrman's chair as both the university and faculty of science department. and initiated the washington internship program which has sent over 1,000 fuhrman students to washington. dr. guth's recent work assesses the impact of religion on the electoral process and public policy in the clinton, bush and obama administrations. dr. guth holdings a bachelor of science from the universe of wisconsin and a ph.d. from harvard

university. and then in our center left, we have dr. tom mach, who joins our forum tonight from cedarville university, where he is the assistant vice president for academics, a professor of history, and the director of cedarville's honors program. he teaches courses in united states history and world view integration. his research area is 19th century america, especially the political history of the american civil war in the gilded age. he was selected to attend the american history seminar on the gilded age, sponsored by the gilder layerman institute of american history and the counsel of independent college, hosted by stanford university. his research also includes the role also of ohio and its politicians during the 19th century. dr. mach holdings a b.a. from cedarville university. an m.a. from cleveland state university and a ph.d. from the university of akron.

and then finally, center right, is kellen funk. he's a ph.d. candidate in american history and the porter ogden jacobist fellow at princeton university. his area of focus is 19th century american legal institutions, both practice and theory, the development of a legal profession, the reform of civil trial practice, the debates over the codification of the common law and the intersection of american law and american christianity. he recently assumed a position of law clerk for chief judge lee rosenthal at the u.s. district court for the southern district of texas. mr. funk has received legal history fellowships from yale law school, the hertz institute at the university of wisconsin law school, the american society for legal history and he's also received a legal -- religious history fellowship from the center for the study of religion at princeton university.

mr. funk holds a b.a. in history and an m.a. for church history from here at bju and a j.d. from yale law school. would you please welcome our panelists for tonight's discussion. [ applause ] >> we're going to begin tonight what might seem somewhat of a simple question, but i think definitions are very important. so i'm going to direct this question to kellan and ask him to define what an evangelical is and how would you define them from other religious groups. >> excuse me. thank you for inviting me. thank you for the question, and hopefully we'll have about two minutes after i've answered it to have the rest of the panel. it does seem like a simple

question, a good question to start off by defining the term we're going to be talking about for this panel and panels to come. but it is also a very cruel question for an american religious historian because historians debate rather furiously what evangelical means and who that label applies to. and part of the reason for that is the word evangelical really didn't have much meaning until the 20th century. but clearly the evangelicals of the 20th century have their roots going back further. there were movements and groups in the 18th and 19th centuries known by all sorts of names. as piitous, new lights, new divinity, new measures, as new revivalists, which had all different aims and types and

thinkings about reforms and politics. clearly there were emphasises and strands and things held in common among these groups. and so historians debate whether the term evangelicalism is appropriate for these groups. so one historian of evangelicalism named david bebenten has marked four issue of what it is and these criteria. sort of nobody agrees with. everyone disagrees over whether these are actual emphasises, whether all four go together, whether there should be more than four. precisely because everyone talks about it and argues with it, it's actually sort of a convenient benchmark to start with. so his four qualities that mark

an evangelical, the first he calls it biblaicism. a high regard for the authority and sufficiency of the bible. the second, he calls crucih-centracism, which is a fancy way of saying the cross and the atonement is really essential to evangelical identity. the third is conversion, that the emphasis that individuals ought to be choosing as conversion to the gospel, belief and obedience in the gospel. to the gospel. and the fourth category is activism. which is not just in the political sense of being politically active, although reforming oneself and ones so siciety is part of activism reto the gospel. but especially that belief and conversion ought to change a person's life and that a person ought to be active in changing their life because they have

converted and believed the gospel. so these are the four emphasis that are suggested to define an evangelical. and i should emphasize they are. and i should emphasize they are emphases. the point is not that evangelicals are the only christians who think that the bible is important. say on that first point. but these are supposed to be the things that are at the center of evangelical identity as opposed to what a lot of 19th century historians call liturgicals as opposed to evangelicals. these would be strands like catholicism, episcopalianism, and converting people the way the revivalists did and more interested in the sacramental part of the church. literally gathering around the sacraments of raising up

families in the church and not so much going out and doing the soul winning that the evangelicals are talking about. so let me sort of sketch a timeline in the 19th century to now, which let me fill in a little more of this definition and then hopefully that sets the stage for us. basically in the 19th century when i think about the involvement in politics, you find the people that historians call evangelicals, basingly on every side of every issue on every side of every play, maybe there are arguably emphases, which we'll get to, but they are sort of everywhere. those that support temperance reform and those who oppose temperance reform. there are evangelicals anti-slavery. there are evangelicals that defend the institution of slavery.

there are evangelicals that are democrats and republicans and wigs and progressives and populists and the whole litany of parties that went through the 19th century. but there are generalizations you can make. many of them run along denominational lines where baptist evangelicals along with liturgicals and catholics almost reliably vote democratic from jackson to the late 19th century democratic party. for reasons we can get into, while a lot of presbyterian e n evangelica evangelicals, some of the more respectable liturgicals at that time, the episcopaleons vote for the wig party and later are involved in the republican party after the demise of the wigs.

that's a different story from what happens in the 20th century. in the 20th century, it's no longer that you can sort of divide evangelicals along denominational lines and sort of figure out who is politically active where and who is voting for whom. after the rise of liberal theology and the fundamentalist modernist controversy, at the fundamental movement getting started, it attracts people from denominational boundaries. so that instance, the methodists founded a school to have a lot of presbyterian people on staff and a lot of baptist fundamentalists attending as students. and what happens, anyone know the school i'm talking about? what happens through the fundamentist movement is people

realize they have more in common with the fundamentalists than those in their own denomination. so a fundamentalist baptist has more in chommon than a liberal methodist in their own denomination. and what starts to happen is the same coalesces that cross denominational boundaries culturally and socially with the movements also starts to happen politically, where conservative evangelicals are together on one side of the political spectrum in a way that had not been true of evangelicals in the 19th century. this is referred to as the restructuring of american religion, which is coined and termed by bob woofnow at princeton. so briefly that leads me to one

more distinction. one difference is between the fundamental purposes of this discussion. the historian of american religion, joe marsdon, defines fundamentalist as an evan jgelil angry about something. he means it humorously, but it is a helpful definition. fundamentalists are, if you're thinking through the historical label of evangelicalism, the four emphases i mentioned, a fundamentalist basically is a subset of evangelicalism. it has this added point of militancy. that fundamentalists were especially dedicated to taking a stand for the gospel and the four indices. willing to sunder ties, institutional ties and denominational ties with the liberal theologians they felt

threatened with the emphases and also with other evangelicals not sundering ties with those liberal theologians. so the therm evangelicalism finally comes into actual history around the 1950s when it is used by people like billy graham and talking about christianity today. they were trying to distance themselves from the militancy point. sometimes people refer to this as new evangelicalism. i don't know that the title is very helpful or has any meaning because, really, evangelicalism and fundamentalism is new in the 1950s in the same way they are old in the 1950s in significant ways. what happens from that point onward, the different groups, the fundamentalists and evangelical, often make labels to make sure you know they are not the other one. even though they all share the

four emphases that i mentioned of what historically marks evangelica evangelicals. to bring this story up to today, the political media and political pollsters have no kind of patience for this nuance, right? there's no breakdown in polls for how fundamentalists vote and ev evangelicals vote and where pent coastals meet. so evangelical is often used to describe conservative, politically conservative christianity of any kind. and often that term is used interchangeably to talk about evangelica evangelicals and fundamentalists and conservative roman catholics who in the 19th century who not at all would fit the category as his torns use it, historians use it. a long and meandering way to say i have not given you a precise definition because history does not give us a precise

definition. but i think that's part of the starting with a panel in the past and having the panelists here to think through what the change-over time is, where those imprecisions are and why they matter to what is going on right now. so thank you again for inviting me. i look forward to hearing from the other panelists. >> as i said, what seems to be a simple question about what is defining what an evangelical is. when you look at it from the historical perspective, it is complicated. kil kil kellen invited this discussion. i think kellen suggested his answer to the question. but what -- can we point to a

time when political scientists have said evangelicals should be recognized as some sort of a political force or some sort of a political movement. anybody? >> i would just add that the definition of what kellen just laid out for us. for fundamentalists in the 1920s and '30s, they talked about believing in supernatural christianity. that very quickly got to what they really were all about, which would include what kevin just elaborated on. and one other thing that may would add, some of them, i don't agree with them, but some would add pre-millenialism would be, and there was a debate between militants being the answer or is it pre-millenialism. is that what they are all about? so there are other sort of shorthand words that were used.

and this is a very odd source to start with, but the famous democracy in america, when he came to america in the 1830s and then went back and wrote his book, one of the biggest impressions he had about america was the importance of religion that he saw in americans. and the way he elaborated on it in a very positive way was that religion, and he called it as translated, traditional religion, which suggests maybe evangelicalism, he's not using that word, obviously, about traditional religion. and it made americans less selfish. it made them more civic minded. it neutralized individualism.

it made them better citizens across the board. so for someone to come to america and recognize there is something traditional and different about american religion, maybe the 1830s is a little early, but he saw something, even if americans were not conscious of that identity. he was aware of it, apparently, for them. and when you think of what is going on politically, this is -- he was here during the jacksonian presidency. and despite that, he still saw some very positive things about religion. >> so you're adding more precisely than what kellen said, somebody who believes in the new birth specifically, contrasting with somebody of a main line christian denomination, that

that is a distinguishing characteristic of an evangelical? tom, i want to appoint the next question to you. we are going to trace this historically now through the -- tom's expertise as i mention in the introduction is -- in 19 9 century u.s. history. so how did evangelicals of the 19th century involve themselves in politics? and what were perhaps some of the significant social or political issues that were important to them, perhaps even some of the key figures that were involved? >> so there's a lot i could talk about. i want to focus on the time for dr. abrams raising, that is the 1820s, '30s and '40s. in that time we see an awakening. it only takes a moment to talk about the heat logical theological roots. there are many and it goes to our conversation about

evangelicals. some have argued about the link going back to jonathan edwards. there's compelling evidence to suggest that is correct. edwards -- there was a lot to his theology, but i know he focused on a key phrase that human beings have a natural ability but moral inability. and by that, he meant that human beings have the natural ability to do anything. they can sin, do positive things and good works, but their struggle is in their will. their motive. and only god can correct that. the reason that is significant, the influence it had not at the time, because he was addressing questions on anti-nomism, his response was after you come to know christ, after your justification, you have to live out the faith. it must be evident in how you live out your life. and he was responding to

armenism, the role in the justification process. kellen referred to one of the many news that he referenced. the new divinity includes hopkins and edmondson and a number of others. he took this a step further. this is where i see the connection to the secondary awakening. they talk about disinterested benevolence. and in it, what they suggest is that in order to really demonstrate that you understand who god is, that you have an appreciation for who he really is, you demonstrate love simply because of who he is. not because he's going to save you or prevent you from going to hell or bless you in this world. but simply because you recognize who he is. edwards would teach that love comes before faith and belief in the justification process. and in the new divinity, theologians say in your christian life then, you should do good works, but they refer to

it as disinterested benevolence. you don't do good because of the benefit to you, you do it because of demonstrating the love of god. because the benefit that somebody else received from it. and that epitomizes a great deal of the impact of the second grade awakening. there is an armenian strain to the second great awakening. more focusing on the human being in the justification process, the ability to choose, accept and believe. for many it was relieving anxiety of trying to figure out, am i part of the predestined, those chosen by god? there's a perfectionist strain out of methodism, sometimes referred to as entire sanctification. the belief that after justification you can arrive at a state of relative perfection. for the sect graond great awake, that means to improve society. and then you see millenialism,

the belief that the church is bringing in the kingdom of god. and for some of them, the belief that this nation is the chosen nation of god to help bring in the millenium. this nation being the united states, which is an interesting topic that runs through a lot of the country's history. of course, that is sort of the framework out of the second great awakening. that gets to your question which is, how do they get involved politically? they launched what is called the age of reform. sometimes referred to as the benevolent empire to take us back to disinterested benevolence. you see individuals like charles finney and his disciples very focused on things like temperatu temporance. they are going to be involved in trying to improve the american society that we live in. with a goal of bringing this to

bear, that manifested itself in things we'll talk about, temperance, prison and asylum reform, education reform, the goal is to create a better society. what i think is intriguing is coming from this time period, if you listen to him, you'll see how much they apply to our current moment. finney said this. improving society wasn't just ringing in the kingdom or benevolent works, but creating an atmosphere where the gospel could go forward. i want to emphasize that piece to much of the social and political involvement following the second great awakening. it was driven by the gospel. secondly, this one is more telling for our time period from henry towels relating to the presidency.

men are put in nomination for the -- whether they are for virtue or no virtue, it is a small fare for most voters. it is intriguing, because evangelicals in this time period would reflect upon the character of the presidential candidate. it's a question coming up quite a bit in our current election. >> very helpful. carl, if you can move into the 20th century, again, how did evangelicals involve themselves in the earliest 20th century political scene and what were the issues or methods of political involvement we saw among evangelicals? >> i think probably the most obviously one was prohibition, getting the 18th amendment. it's almost like if you think about it rationally, it's such a

bizarre story. that you can get 3/4 of the states to stop the manufacturing sale of alcoholic beverages. but it happened by 1920 with the 18th amendment. the key part is a lot of people think, well, it is just the evangelicals, but it really wasn't. there the evangelicals, i guess, along with the anti-slavery campaign, basingly were part of the mainstream thinking of the day. and again, you sort of have to use your historical imagination and get back into the early 20th century. most americans fought alcohol and drunkenness as a problem. it wasn't just evangelicals. business people didn't like it because its effective to help with the workers, problems with

absenteeism and so forth. and the violence that came with it. if you think about things like, i think in new york city in the year 1900, there were 10,000 saloons, which we now call bars. so these were part of middle america and getting the political support to get that amendment passed. the problem came in the 1920s when you tried what was called a noble experiment to enforce it. enforcement was the problem, or they thought it was the problem. and there i think of the evangelicals and the fundamentalists lost the broad base of support, which you would need to sustain it. but there is also, and i think this is more sort of counter intuitive, something i discovered a couple years ago, that if you look at the 20s and the 30s, evangelicals slowly are

becoming the greatest supporters of american jews and not just in america but also in places like germany. and it shouldn't be that strange when you think about it because they are better informed than most americans about the plight of jews, for example, through missionaries and the periodica s periodicals, the plight of jews in germany, i think american evan yell calls are more aware of it than most americans are aware of it at the time. and sadly, some of the support is not because they are enlightened on racial views. unfortunately, many evangelicals were anti-semitic. there were a couple especially, that's dying down. what really generates a lot of the enthusiasm and support for

jews is the idea that israel has to be rebuilt. it's part of pre-millenialism. it's part of the elscatology. think about it, the prophesy that there will be an israel. and then when it is done in that timetable, christ will return. so part of the enthusiastic support for the jews is to help facilitate that timetable. so let's protect them. let's help them. and zionism is popular among evangelicals at a time when it is not generally known about or strongly supported. >> well, let's move now towards the mid-20th century. and perhaps late 20th century. and for some of us, it's a little bit interesting to be talking about that from a m

historical perspective because some of us actually lived this time period. so how did evangelicals in the mid-20th century, perhaps up to the late 20th century, thinking to the 1980s, how did evangelicals involve themselves in politics and social issues at that time, perhaps who were some of the key figures involved in that era? >> okay. well, move right along as we say over time, if you think there's a lot of discussion as kellen pointed out how to define evangelicals, among scholars, the rell ole of evangelicals in '60s and the '70s with the new christian right is subject to a great deal of disagreement. what was it or who was it and what was it that brought ev evangelicals into the political process? there is an old saying among those of us who study religion

and politics that if you have four political scientists in a room and ask them that question, there will be nine different answers on what actually did it. i'm going to give you very briefly some of the answers that scholars have suggested. unfortunately, people tend to be monocausal. they see one factor as the prime or definitive answer to why e january g evangelicals became more involved in politics, especially in the 1980schristian right organizations. this theory has a lot of support from some historians and political sciencetists and may summarize this by labeling the theory, the cold war did. that especially in the confrontation between the united states and the soviet union, the

godless communists, was something that really got conservative christians concerned about the future of the united states and the future of the world. and that period you saw the appearance of a whole series of organization, like just to name one, fred schwartz, a christian anti-communist crew said. i mention that has i used to go to the crusade meetings where i lived. and those meetings were attended by a lot of conservative christians. and there were a variety of other organizations as well. some historians kind of saw this as an extension of the mccarthy era of the early 1950s. and you see in the press today, some journalists have revived the notion that richard ho hoffstedder put forward that christians had a paranoid style and saw enemies everywhere,

especially the soviet union was very clearly an important enemy, both religiously and politically. and some people are arguing that paranoid styles appear among americans, especially among religious groups. they use that to explain the level of evangelical support that donald trump has had. now the enemy is islam or perhaps mexicans or perhaps immigrants from elsewhere. but in any case, the notion is that somehow it's defining an opponent that has really activated evangelicals over the earth, sometimes it's the enemy of israel, as carl pointed out, to how important israel was in the political thinking in the 1940s and the 1950s. and i remember in my little church in wisconsin back in the 1950s how excited everybody was with these establishments in the state of israel and how much that got -- in fact, i started

watching a program called report from the u.n. in the early 1950s because it was all this dealing with the arab/israeli crisis in one way or another. that is one theory, but that goes back to the blind scholar and the elephant. the attack on christian schools did it during the 1960s. there was proliferation in many parts of the country, not just the south, but elsewhere of christian schools. and beginning in the carter administration, the irs began to investigate many of the schools determining whether or not they were simply segregation economies is as the phrase went. and the carter administration and then later the reagan administration took steps to withdraw tax exemptions. everybody here is very familiar with that effort.

and a lot of scholars argue that it was sort of the tripping point for the creation of new christian right organizations. and there is some truth to that. a lot of the christian right organizations were filled with christian school administrators and others who had some kind of stake in christian education. so a very important piece, if you will. and other scholars go in a different direction of roe v. wade in 1973. that was a motivating force for a great many evangelicals to get involved in politics. of course, evangelicals weren't the first to move on that. the catholic church reacted much faster. and with much more force, initially, but over time evangelicals did respond and respond in great numbers. and by the 1980s, of course, the

issue of abortion had become a major one, a matter of concern to a great many conservative christians and remained to the present day. another theory is kind of related to the third one. is the sexual resolution of the 1960s. that where the most important factors mobilize evangelicals. indeed in the '60s on, there's a steady increase in local organizations all over the country that deal with issues, addressing issues of controlling pornograp pornography, trying to prevent prostitution, prohibit ordinances, recognizing gay rights and more recently mobilization against same sex marriage and things like that. a lot of scholars see abortion as part of this -- the final

theory that i'll mention, is that the republican party and the late 1970s, early 1980s, or activists in the republican party saw a great potential c constituency that involved christians. they had lower voting turnout. they shared conservative and social values that could be activated by the republican politicians and that republican activists and officials, rather cynically in the minds of most of these scholars used evangelical products as cannon fodders in the electoral wars with the democrats. i think each of these theories as some truth to it. and if you look at them, the evangelicals had issues with some. there were others as well. but the basic underlying factor is not so much any of the specific questions or the

specific issues or even the specific strategy of republican politicians, which after all have to have something to work with, but rather the real sense among conservative christians that american culture has really moved away from their values. and i think this is a general feeling that underlies many of the more specific concerns, which are often determined by where you just happen to be at a particular point in time. what local issues are, which things you are most sensitive to, and in one way or another, i think the same kinds of concerns underlie some of the contemporary discontent with the way in which our national institutions are functioning. that we are really moving away from or dislocating from the historic values that evangelical christians and others have held to for a great many a year. that's a start. we'll get into it a little more later on. >> so i think that's a very

compelling overview in the time that we have. of tracing evangelical politics going back to the 19th century. jim, at the end of your answer, you suggested something along the lines of something that you have in mind for the next question, and that is, is there a common theme across these many years of evangelical participation in politics? or has it been quite diverse? has there been an ebb and flow to it depending upon the era or the issues that the nation was facing? and how does that relate to affiliation with particular political parties. is there an ebb and a flow to that? what do you think about that? is a constancy and a dominant theme in terms of evangelicals and involvement in politics and social issues? or has there been a significant amount of diversity to that?

tom? >> i agree with the doctor's comments. as he was speaking in the 19th centu century, after the second great awakening, we do see those involved in the reform movement as an opinion that the united states is a chosen nature by god to bring progress and democracy and freedom to the world. we're going to -- it's sort of the continuation of the theme of being a model for the rest of the world. that we can be a christian nation and demonstrate how a nation aught to function. and even to the point of some suggesting, i remember the great 19th century historian george bangcroft who was not an evangelical by any stretch, but portrayed american history as a movement of progress toward democracy, the great end-all of democracy and mankind. there are a lot of excellent qualities in democracy, but it was almost as if there was a

divine appointment for america to head in this direction. and i do think that there is a consistency among some evangelicals through american history of this theme. now, while i would critique it, there's a flip side to that. because there is certainly a recognition, we aught to recognize that america in the western civilization is certainly predicated upon judeo christian values. we can debate the notion of a christian nation all night. we don't need to do it, but certainly we were a country influenced by christian thought and biblical principle. and evangelicals have latched onto that. and rightly wanted to participate in the system and bring biblical principle to bear in the public square. while i might critique the messy view of america, i also believe that evangelicals driven by theology recognize, my faith aught to have a public outworking. and i have the opportunity and democracy to express biblical principle. and since it's truth, it would

be best for our nation to operate based on it. so why don't i pursue it in the public square. and i think there's been consistency there, even as the issues change and as evangelicals ebb and flow in terms of their involvement, sometimes they withdraw it. but there's been consistency with that through time. >> if you look at the data i have analyzed recently, if yo ask americans as a whole, whether or not they think the united states has some special role in the world. you don't mention god in connection with it, but whether they have some special role with the united states or if the united states is just like everybody else, and just another nation, whatever in the world of power politics or whatever the case may be. evangelicals, above all other religious groups, are still more likely to say that the united states has a special role to play in the world.

i can't, based on survey data, tell you what they think the role is being, but nevertheless, there's still that special idea that we can be a model or that we have the responsibility for what happened in our world. >> so the notion of american exceptionalism. >> is strongest among evangelicals. >> i think of ronald reagan and one of the images or phrases that he was known for was america being that shining city on a hill. that particular notion. kellen, i will turn to you among legal matters. among evangelicals today, there's a lot of focus and concern about court decisions and legal matters. could you talk to us a bit about what particular legal issues

have been important to evangelicals from a historical perspective, are there any in particular that standout to you that would demonstrate that is not unique to the day in which we live right now? >> everything. as a legal historian, it's my professional duty to say that law is everywhere. and that's particularly true in the things we have been talking about. you can't really discuss anti-slavery or prohibition or christian schools and tax policy without thinking about the legal dimensions of the legislation, the regulation and the court cases that inevitably come out of these types of reform movements. and to blend some of the answer with the previous question, as a his tor

historian, i'm entitled to look at the 19th century as a war country, they do things differently there. i'm less inclined to see the continuity others are willing to say. i think church/day relations are a place where the 19th century remains a lost world. in some ways, an undiscovered world. i think one of the most fascinating issues in church/state law coming from the 19th century that people don't really recognize today is that churches in early american history look very much like states. and you can't go through every denomination that way, so i'll focus particularly on the baptist. the baptists ran their own court system through the mechanism of having church discipline. so up until say around the 1820s in kentucky, if you were a

baptist, you would go to church on sunday. and on saturday, or every other saturday, you would then meet for the discipline session. and members would bring forth accusations. they would say, brother so-and-so cursed this week. sister so-and-so gossiped. the deacons and elders would hear the accusations and examine the accused. did you curse, brother, so-and-so? and they would get an admission. and after examining the evidence, they would levee fines paid into the support of the church. if it was a dispute between church members, they would mediate. they would reconcile the parties until the parties were ready to sit down at communion together with each other. and baptist discipline became so famous for its justice and its efficiency that even non-members instead of taking their civil suits over property and contracts to the territorial courts of the united states, would take them to the local

baptist church to get adjudication and would even pay in fines for the support of the churches that were being run. and so in light of this, one of the leading points of evangelical baptist political theology was always the question of jurisdiction. who is best equipped and abled and competent to be enacting a given social reform or another? and a lot of evangelical -- a lot of evangelicals not baptist on the wig side were working with the benevolent societies and sending petitions to congress to get things done with congress. a lot of evangelicals were rejecting that kind of approach and saying, if you want to get social reform done, the way you do it is convert people, bring them into the church and the church processes will work their

way out into anti-slavery or various reforms that you're trying to get at. just a brief survey of why these things went away, part of it is american diversity. the diversity of evangelicals that are out there. especially when the disciples of christ come to kentucky. they are very much like baptists but don't run these discipline sessions. so if you're brother so-and-so with a cursing problem, you can go next door or sometimes in the same building and worship with the disciples of chris. and escape the discipline system. and then it's no longer a matter of evangelizing the people. and the people are converted. then you have the question of, what is the proper mechanism for getting them across social reform? that's when you see the

evangelicals turn to states or federal members of power to try to overcome these problems with exit. but i would say, that feature of the 19th centusurtury of church their own sight of governance starts to fade away over time. and it is an especially important part for the largest subgroup of evangelicals in the country, which is black or african-american evangelicals at this time who are either slaves before the civil war or freed afterwards. a lot of political engagement of the type we have been talking about was not open to them until after the civil rights revolution. the type of governance i have surveyed often was. because if you owned your own church, you had your own incorporation, very often black evangelicals who would not sue in their own name in the courts,

because they were black, could sue as a church because the church had a legal identity. so the church itself could collect on debts or enforce property rights that black christians otherwise could not even assert in the courts. or assert in the legislature or in these other political arenas. and i think that is an important part of the history of how law and governance have related to evangelical politics at the time. >> well, we have focused on the past and our next forum coming up will focus on the present. but i want to take a few minutes before we have questions from the audience to think about how this past, how this history relates to the present. so perhaps we can spend a few minutes talking about how the involvement of evangelicals today in politics, whether it be

through the legal branch, the legal realm or otherwise how involvement today perhaps differs from the past. what would evangelicals of the past be surprised about? today in terms of how evangelicals go about their civic responsibilities in the public sphere. who wants to take the first stab at that one? >> i think someone like william jennings brian would think he's in a lost century, probably. if you start looking at the profile of who is obviously a fundamentalist he wrote at the skokes trial. you start digging into his background. i think he's one of the most fascinating characters, which makes us, drives us to use the historical imagination to figure out how to be all of these things.

he was a passifist, an evangelical, he was a progressive, which for that day would be the word liberal that we use now. he was anti-imperialist. and how in his mind he could put all of those things together. my take on it is that he was probably, in terms of escotology, post-millenial. you reform the world and things get better and better. and then christ comes back after the millenium. and so you engage in all those things, or the war doesn't work with the millenium, so you have to be anti-war, alcohol doesn't work with the millenium, so you want to get that as a reform. and you do all of these things -- so i think just looking at his life is a lesson in how complex evangelicals can

be. and i think the non-evangelicals often who look at us, look at us as monolithic, but we are not. there is great variety, sometimes within the individual even. >> so you would suggest that the complexity even exists today, it may look a little different, but that would still exist today. >> yeah, today -- in the current 2016 climate even, don't expect monolistic views because they aren't there typically. >> tom? >> that's kind of why the baptist church was operating the way it did in the 19th century. to me, it reminded me how important it was as an institution. it was an institution, a church that functioned in society that was appreciated. and you see evidence of this in the 19th century heading to the

civil war era. because one of the institutions that tied this country together are the churches. as they begin to split over the institution of slavery, the ties that bind the nation together, there is good work on this topic, begin to break. and henry clay was a senator from kentucky in the time period. so if the pastors can't get together, how do you expect us politicians to get along on this issue? and it makes a significant point, clay is no evangelical. his reputation was anything but. but he makes an important point for the time period that resonated with people. and it seems to me if we were to bring evangelicals to this point in time, they would look at evangelicals today and ask, how is it that your faith, what you believe, is impacting how you're looking at these issues? first of all, why didn't the church, a major player in the conversation, in societal conversation, and second of all, how is it that what you believe

allows you to arrive at the position that you have come to with regard to whatever cliche you use? with the second great awakening, they weren't pursuing a solution to their problem, they were trying to solve them on their own as an institution. they talked about the government perspective. but they would probably react to that. but more importantly, they would ask, what is it that the bible teaches that allows you to arrive at this conclusion? i think there will be some questions. >> very interesting. >> i want to go off on something carl was suggesting. and i guess this is not something easy to do. but he used the example prohibition. and one of the things most historical literature, you'll talk about what a glories you failure that was in a sense. but if you look at the evidence of the american drink and the social and physical ills intended on that, those were

obviously targets. and i think that tells us to be careful of obvious targets. sometimes the obvious target is one not to shoot at, maybe, for a variety of reasons. another example coming again on prohibition is the only reason it was successful was because of the wide cooperation and all sorts of other folks. and sometimes evangelical problems are not including to work with other people from different backgrounds or traditions. and those things kind of, i guess, urge us to be humble about our choices of issues, our choices of allies, we aught to look at our allies and say, are these the kind of people we want to be associated with or not? those are tough questions. they are not easy questions. we often them of them as far too easy, something we can just make up our mind.

who we are going to work with is another easy decision to make. and they are not easy decisions. >> i didn't mean to cut you off there, kellen. jim, with your response there, you have anticipated the question that i wanted to end with before we go to the audience. and that is, what -- what lessons are there from history for evangelicals today? because my sense is, and we can point presidency among the evan ye evangelicals and the inevitability of voting or supporting the republican candidate. there have been a lot of questions about what to do in this particular presidential

election. so what lessons are there from the past and evangelicals participation in politics for today, whether it involves specifically this presidential election or the general political landscape. what lesson should we take from evangelicals and their approach in the past for today, whether that be based on missteps they have taken in the past or successes that they have taken in the past. >> what wonderful advice do you have for the audience out here? >> well, i'll start out with, as citizens, we all make choices, we have to make choices. and we have to -- evangelicals in recent years have voted republican. about 80% of white evangelicals have voted republican in the last presidential elections.

which raises the question about, are you evangelical or

the evangelical reform in the 19th century followed along the same logic, which is prohibition is likened to a slave holder. that alcohol is the slave master. it never has that capacity for choice that was talked about earlier. a rising in the second great awakening and in the theology of edward. and

and prostitution, anti-gambling measures follow along the same logi so so people often have the misimpression that the 19th century was this time when christians in america were just making the law of god the law of the land and that's just how it worked and that's what christians were doing and ought to be doing. there were quite a lot of sins that don't end up in the legislature. adultery, adultery, blasphemy and these kinds of things were regulated very highly in the colonial era, but those regulations fall off the board in the 19th century. partly because they don't have this anti-slavery logic to them. if you commit adultery, it's evidence that you have choice. you are making poor choices. you have that volition. you are not enslaved and so there doesn't need to be a politics or a law that's going to free you from anything, you just need to stop making bad choices. whereas, whereas, things like prostitution, gambling, slavery

are all sort of tied to this idea of either metaphorical slavery, there has to be some temporal power that can break those chains in order for the gospel to go out. so i guess the question is how much of that sort of logic has held on into the 20th and 21st that's that's a question i get to ask without answering it. thank you. >> we will take questions from the audience. if you can pass them to the aisles and we'll have some individuals pick them up. we'll take about 10 or 15 minutes to answer some of these questions.

we'll we'll start with this particular question and it was one that i thought might come up and that is why do you believe evangelical political groups like the moral majority and the christian coalition were so strong at one point and

social logical transition from first generation to second generation leadership. recognized leaders as particular segments of the evangelical community didn't attract other sectors of the evangelical community. jerry falwell had a lot of people on his mailing list but it never was much of an organization nationally. pat robertson attracted pent at that -- pentacostals and charismatics. since these organizations depend on the voluntary subscriptions of individuals and contributions of individuals, one of the things that many of these organizations, like organizations on the left, have to do is take relatively extreme

positions in order to raise mon money. you limit your appeal across the broader community and also you're likely to wear out your welcome even with the enthusiasts who initially support you. there are a whole variety of things like that. >> dr. goose mentioned the court case roe v. wade as the motivation for some evangelicals. could other liberal supreme court decisions be thought to

have similar effects such as prayer and bible readings, decisions in the 1960s or a similar liberal court blanket idea? why are you all looking at me? >> one of the fascinating things about the school prayer and bible reading decisions in the 1960s is that this was -- these were actually a pair of decisions that evangelicals were in fact all over the map on, and part of that just has to do with the particulars of the case. so the prayer that was struck down in the 1960 some year school prayer decision was this written out prescribed prayer in new york. so it wasn't a spontaneous from the heart prayer that teachers offered, it was the card that they read to the benevolent creator of life that wasn't

play prayed in the name of jesus. when the supreme court struck it down, carl mcintyre rejoiced and said, this was no prayer at all. get this out of the schools and we don't need to have it. the tide swiftly turned when the same sort of logic was then applied to striking down bible readings which, again, was very restricted in most schools where it was reading a passage often of the king james bible without note or comment was supposed to be how it was implemented. if any of you remember bible reading in the schools, your memory may vary on how it was actually carried out in different localities, and even there there were evangelicals who disputed about whether that did any good to read the bible without any actual interpretation or encouragement to believe it, whether that actually constituted an act of worship or not. although it tended to be that

conservative evangelicals, in this case carl mcintyre was not a fan of that decision. unlike the regent's prayer in new york, the bible is in fact the bible and the word of god so that did mobilize evangelicals i think probably more than roe v wade would. that one tended to have consequences that rolled out later down the road, but justice black, who was instrumental in these 1960s opinions, he was receiving hundreds of death threats a day from people upset about these decisions and then just also lots of critical mail from evangelicals who didn't necessarily commit death threats. but mailing anything to the supreme court is incredibly rare. they do not get mail. so to get hundreds of letters about a decision every day was just -- it was unimaginable before it happened. >> let me come at that from just a little different angle. i lived in massachusetts at the

time of the decision, and the bible read there in the public schools was the dewey version of the bible so catholics were reading their own version. and i've done some work on the public support or opposition to that, and evangelicals weren't very distinctive. main line protestants and catholics, everyone was opposed to this decision in terms of the mass public. i'm not sure how much that distinguished evangelicals from other christians at that time. i have a little bit more nuanced view in terms of how much that really got things going. >> we've got several good questions here. here's a very, very thoughtful one to make us stop and think. how essential should we view freedom of religion and freedom of speech to the vitality of american evangelicalism given that the greatest growth of christianity is occurring in

country where those freedoms are nonexistent? so maybe kellen and jim are off the hook since you all have answered questions already. either tom or carl want to dive in on that one? >> there's no question. persecution, god works in lands of persecution to prosper his church. my view on this has always been that the american church and the liberties that it has has allowed it to evangelize and share the gospel in ways that the persecuted church cannot. it's to our shame, our detriment that we have not valued the freedoms that we have in ways that have allowed the church to grow and prosper the way we see in some persecuted countries. but i think we have to be good

stewards of what we have at the moment, and it's difficult for me to encourage the church to sit by and watch as freedoms dissipate and not seek to prevent that from happening because of the benefits that they do provide to us in sharing the gospel, not only here but around the world. so i get the point, absolutely. god works in all circumstances and remarkably in times of persecution, but i would pray that the american church do what it ought to be doing even in time of freedom and liberty and as that day -- as those freedoms seem to be closing in on us, with the opportunity -- i'm a big believer in the concept that in a republican system, which we have, the dictates of the scripture about the role of government in some ways apply to us. so if romans 13 suggests for example that we have a role in justice, if we have a role in our government, then there's a

certain stewardship responsibility for us to maintain what our governing documents maintain, which in this case it maintains the opportunity for us to have religious liberty. to me, it's not only a preference or a belief to whom much is given much is required but it's also a stewardship responsibility that i think scripture does give to us. >> while that's a very, very thoughtful question perhaps based upon your answer it's almost implying a false choice between the two involved there. >> i would just add probably the best answer would be a theological one, not necessarily a political one, that it's something that this generation doesn't want to hear, but there is grace in suffering and going through the experience of suffering religious persecution can be a means of grace which would allow you by god's grace

to be more fervent in your practice of religion. >> and in an evangelical world view, god's power far surpasses any human power in terms of limitations that might be artificially placed upon the gospel. >> yeah, until you look at church history and you see good examples. first century onward. >> has the philosophy of utilitarianism affected the development of evangelical political values? did the greatest good argument allow evangelicals to ignore the moral failings of candidates that they support? i think this gets into the themes of balancing priority and pragmatism. does pragmatism play a role in an evangelical's participation?

. quick comment, not a complete thought. matthew 10 refers to being wise as serpent, innocent as doves. we're talking about a political institution which is a human institution involving human beings that have fallen. there aren't going to be perfect solutions. we have to make difficult choices. sometimes that demands shrewdness. i use that word rather than compromise although honestly our political system is predicated on the notion of compromise. the challenge as christians is recognizing there are some principles upon which we are not willing to compromise and being involved in the system rather challenging for us. my grandfather used to say, moderation in everything. it's not a biblical principle, but it's -- there's some application to our political system. we have to make difficult

choices or completely remove ourselves from the system. i find that challenging with regard to biblical principles and applying that to our lives. so sometimes that means voting for individuals that we know are falling. >> i think in the history of evangelicals something remarkable happened in the '20s. a lot of evangelicals as fundamentalists were very, very anti-catholic and by the late 1930s they figured something out and the catholics figured something out. they had a common enemy, it was communism. this was before the cold war so the common denominator of anti-communism drove fundamentalists and catholics to work together people that a decade before would not speak

together. in the good of finding something that was anti-good, atheistic and that didn't seem quite as important. >> i think that has been a theme throughout history of evangelicals in christian ministry guarding the purity of the gospel but then looking for areas where there might be cooperation appropriate cooperation in societal kinds of issues. it would be somewhat easy to ends right now since we really only have two minutes left, but this is a really good question. and maybe it's a little bit of a dicey one to end on. can you comment on the term liberalism? what is religious liberalism? is it the same as political liberalism?

are the two related? you have 30 seconds. anybody want to tackle that question? >> i'll try to give an empirical answer to t. religious liberalism is, of course, a phenomena we're probably familiar with. it's deviation from traditional orthodoxy, if you will. is it related to political liberalism? it's not the same thing but is it related? yes, it is. in american politics religious liberals are more likely to be political liberals as we conventionally define those terms. now the connection is not always clear why it is a particular set -- difficult choices. it may be that they simply go together because they represent some underlying bigger phenomena of liberalism of all sorts, if

you will, but one part of the restructuring that kellen talked about before is religious orthodoxy with more liberal political decisions as conventionally defined. there are lots of people who violate those rules. those are what we call central tendenci tendencies. >> very good. anything to add? you look like you wanted to add something. >> you could have a similar conversation on conservatism. has there been a conflation of conservative policy with this? the history of evangelicalism is that there wasn't necessarily a relation between those two as we already heard with william jennings brian who had very few ideas that were conservative politically even as he was

conservative theologically. where was i going with this? >> i guess that is a question of history that moves from the 19th century into the 20th century is how did it become the way that a conservative theology would become tied to what at the time was known as the conservative politics? >> well, kellen, you get the last word this evening. would you please join me in thanking our panelists? [ applause ] >> i want to thank each one of you for being here tonight. i'd encourage you to come back october 13th here in stratton hall where our focus will be on

the present. panelists we'll have will be linda abrams a professor here at bju, charles dunn who i believe is here tonight who's a retired professor from clemson university, regent university and grove city college and danielle vincent who's a professor at herman. again, thank you for being here tonight and you are dismissed. this week until 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan 3 a civil war special featuring american history tv highlights. on monday, we're at the emerging civil war blog symposium.

including gettysburg. antitedum. the civil war seminar. ulysses s. grant. wednesday through friday we're at the gettysburg college. wednesday features. on friday we have the conference with author t.j. stein. the story and author. we talked about the women's overseas.

after the united states entered world war i. although women were prohibited from joining the regular army or navy, they found ways to contribute, often taking up jobs once performed by men, now going overseas. one group of women, however, possessed a skill much needed by the army, fighting a war required reliable communications network but more than two and a half years of war had devastated the french telephone system. general john j., commander in chief of the american expeditionary forces called upon the expertise of women telephone operators. more than 1700 women applied and just over 200 served in europe with the army. their service is documented in