12.3: Religious Resurgence in the USA - Evangelical Protestantism

Economic Decline and Cultural Changes

In the USA, a conservative Evangelical Protestant movement began to grow as women were gaining rights and society was becoming more secular.  Overall, the US economic golden age ended in the 1970s. The spike in oil prices triggered the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression, but there were other problems as well. By the 1970s, the USA and Western Europe also had to compete with Japan more and more in automobiles and electronics.  Factories in Western Europe and the USA cut back production or closed down. Unemployment shot up and some faced permanent joblessness.

For the most part, a large number of Americans experimented with different types of spiritual religious movements as the US economy was in decline. Some embraced Hinduism and Buddhism, but the right-wing evangelical Christian movement has been the most enduring.  More people gravitated toward evangelical, fundamentalist Christianity and there has been a substantial decline in established religions like the Methodist church. By 1976 34% of all Americans identified as Evangelical Christians. Many of the new evangelical churches fused with popular culture like rock and roll. Also, the evangelical church has given people in the growing center-less cities a sense of community that was lacking. Oftentimes, there were charismatic pastors, and going to church was an emotional and spiritual experience. The right-wing Evangelical Christians used new technologies and methods like television and mass mailings to gain followers. By the late 1970s hundreds of radio stations in the USA were Christian owned. Many right-wing evangelicals were critical of the changes that had taken place since the 1960s. They did not like that abortion was legal and that homosexuals now had rights. By the mid 1970s premarital sex was not seen as negative to half of all Americans.  The drug use from colleges filtered down into suburban high schools. They wanted schools to emphasize Christian ideas such as creationism. 

Divorces in the USA 1950-1980

Year	Divorces per 1000 People
1950	2.6
1955	2.3
1960	2.2
1965	2.5
1970	3.5
1975	4.9
1980	5.2

Table \(\PageIndex{1}\): Divorces in the USA (1950-1980) by Jordan Stanton is licensed CC BY and is modified from National Vital Statistics System by the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, in thie Public Domain 

Discussion Question

What accounts for this increasing divorce rate according to Evangelical Protestants?

These evangelicals argued that there was really a moral crisis in America which was the result of newer secular values. In particular, they argued that the family was in crisis as the divorce rate skyrocketed. Divorces were going up at this time, but the number one cause of divorce is financial difficulties. In most families the wife worked outside of the home out of economic necessity.  However, the right-wing evangelical media argued that the two-parent family was breaking down, because wives wanted to work. They claimed that more teenagers did drugs, because the mothers were working and could not supervise their children properly. These Evangelical conservatives argued that it was more important for the wife to stay home and raise the children than to work.  For the most part, feminists were blamed for the decline of the USA. According to this Evangelical Christians, feminists were waging a “war on the families.” The right-wing Evangelical Christians also believed that parents should teach their children abstinence and called for the government to censor TV, movies, and the radio.

This evangelical movement was also anti-government.  The national government was seen in a negative light by conservatives when the Supreme Court banned prayers in public schools and legalized abortion with Roe versus Wade.  Many conservatives also wanted to make sure the government did not provide economic assistance to families, because they believed that this assistance only made the working poor lazy.  They also worried that a larger government would diminish the power of the parents.  An issue that galvanized the Evangelical right in the 1970s was education. There has been substantial growth in evangelical schools throughout the 1900s. In this country, private schools get various tax exemptions, but the government has the power to deny these exemptions for private schools that discriminate against non-whites. Many Christian schools were formed in the south after prayers were banned in public schools and many of these schools were also set up because the public schools were becoming racially integrated.  These schools stressed fundamentalism and right-wing ideologies.  In the late 1970s, President Jimmy Carter began a government investigation of all Christian schools that had few or no racial minorities. Many Evangelical Christians then became livid with the Democrats after this.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Evil Empire Speech, Reagan Library, in the Public Domain

The Rise of Ronald Reagan and De-Industrialization 

The conservative Republicans courted these evangelicals in the 1970s. These Republicans, who wanted lower taxes and less government spending, could tap into the anti-government mentality of the evangelicals. The evangelical political movement, known as the Religious Right, organized to support political candidates that shared their views. Evangelical Republicans started to run and get elected to local, state and national office. These Christians then rallied behind Ronald Reagan who was not an Evangelical Christian but he was against abortion rights and supported prayer in schools.  Reagan also promised to maintain tax exemptions for religious schools that racially discriminated. Finally, he appealed to these Evangelical Christians, by questioning whether evolution was valid. Since 1980, The Republicans would use social issues like family values to get votes from people who are actually harmed by government cuts in things like public education and healthcare. Reagan is in figure 12.3.1 addressing the Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida. Why did Evangelical Christians find Ronald Reagan so appealing?

Ronald Reagan’s policies only weakened the US industrial base.  The wealthy received large tax breaks, but there were no incentives to invest in manufacturing. De-Industrialization accelerated even further under Democrat Bill Clinton who signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. This agreement between the USA, Mexico, and Canada eliminated trade barriers between the three countries. US manufacturers could now easily close down their factories in the USA and reopen their factories in Mexico where workers had few rights and wages remained low. The jobs that were being created in the USA tended to by lower paying service sector employment in fast food or retailers such as Walmart.

Primary Sources: Bill Clinton, Speech on Signing NAFTA (1993)

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was supported by both Republican President George W H Bush (1989-1993) and by Democratic President Bill Clinton (1993-2000). NAFTA is an agreement between the USA, Mexico, and Canada to radically reduce economic trade barriers between the three countries.

Discussion Questions

• According to President Clinton, what brought prosperity to the USA?
• How did President Clinton think NAFTA would benefit Americans?

As President, it is my duty to speak frankly to the American people about the world in which we now live. Fifty years ago, at the end of World War II, an unchallenged America was protected by the oceans and by our technological superiority and, very frankly, by the economic devastation of the people who could otherwise have been our competitors. We chose then to try to help rebuild our former enemies and to create a world of free trade supported by institutions which would facilitate it. ... As a result, jobs were created, and opportunity thrived all across the world.

But make no mistake about it: Our decision at the end of World War II to create a system of global, expanded, freer trade and the supporting institutions played a major role in creating the prosperity of the American middle class. Ours is now an era in which commerce is global and in which money, management, and technology are highly mobile.

For the last 20 years, in all the wealthy countries of the world because of changes in the global environment, because of the growth of technology, because of increasing competition-the middle class that was created and enlarged by the wise policies of expanding trade at the end of World War II has been under severe stress. Most Americans are working harder for less. They are vulnerable to the fear tactics and the averseness to change that are behind much of the opposition to NAFTA. But I want to say to my fellow Americans: When you live in a time of change, the only way to recover your security and to broaden your horizons is to adapt to the change-to embrace, to move forward .... The only way we can recover the fortunes of the middle class in this country so that people who work harder and smarter can, at least, prosper more, the only way we can pass on the American dream of the last 40 years to our children and their children for the next 40, is to adapt to the changes which are occurring.

In a fundamental sense, this debate about NAFTA is a debate about whether we will embrace these changes and create the jobs of tomorrow or try to resist these changes, hoping we can preserve the economic structures of yesterday .... I believe that NAFTA will create one million jobs in the first five years of its impact. ... NAFTA will generate these jobs by fostering an export boom to Mexico by tearing down tariff walls .... There will be no job loss.

The White House, in the Public Domain 

Review Questions  

• What brought about the rise of the Evangelical movement in the USA?
• What policies did the Christian Evangelicals support?