For example, there was a time when many conservative Protestants rejected the very idea of “Christian America.” Those taught that patriarchy is essential to Christian orthodoxy would be surprised to learn of the long history of evangelical feminism.
History also disrupts simply by showing that things have not always been as they are now. This was not the Graham they knew and loved.
Billy Graham had a decidedly mixed record when it came to civil rights, was politically ambitious, promoted American militarism and tacitly condoned atrocities in Vietnam. Evangelicals are shocked, for example, to learn that the Rev. Within academic circles, some evangelical historians have produced narratives that tend to downplay the darker sides of their religious tradition.įor those who have only ever encountered whitewashed portrayals of their own past, a more complex account of evangelical history is enormously disruptive. At a popular level, pseudo-historians have played fast and loose with historical evidence to spin fanciful tales of America’s Christian origins. It’s not that evangelicals disregard history entirely, but they tend to prefer their own versions of events. However, to an unusual degree, evangelicals have remained oblivious to how their own stories map onto larger histories.
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